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 Posted by aron on March 19 2008 (Wednesday) : 12:12 AMSometimes I feel that most people relate to political conflicts like some sort of baseball competition. If you are on "our" team, you are a "good" team. If you are on the other side, you are a "bad" team. Perhaps I am genetically defective - I never was a fan of any particular sports team. Part of me can understand fandom (my kids call me an Apple fanboy). But to take a sports fan approach to politics just seems totally insane to me. Yet reading the news over the past few days, makes me feel like this sports metaphor has been carried to some surreal extreme. Suppose you read the following in the newspaper: Palestinian protestors went on a rampage in the West Bank and started attacking Jewish settlers. The Israeli army surrounded the protestors and gave them a deadline to turn themselves in. Palestinian supporters around the world protested in sympathy, and circulated pictures of Palestinians whom they claim were brutally murdered by Israeli soldiers. "How long do Palestinians have to put up with Jews stealing our land? They have already taken more than 80% and soon there will be nothing left for us. Our culture is being destroyed and our land is being stolen!' said one Palestinian spokesperson. Israel has sealed of the area where the fighting is taking place and is heavily censoring press reports coming out of the region. John McCain, the US presidential candidate has called on Israel to open up the area for international inspection and to exercise restraint in quelling the protests. The French foreign minister is calling on the EU to organize a boycott of Israel. An Israeli spokesperson responded by saying; "Any country would act the same to protect its citizens. Israel is acting with uncommon restraint in the face of these violent provocations and attacks on its citizens." While I ripped the above almost verbatim from today's newspaper, I made a slight though significant change. I encoded the above, switching "Israel/Jews" for "China/Chinese," "West bank" for "Tibet" and "Palestinians" for "Tibetans." Of course, John McCain would never make such a statement about Israel's actions in the occupied territories, and the French foreign minister would never say the EU should boycott Israel, no matter what right-wingers might have to say about the evil French. I have no doubt, that most people reading the above have a very different emotional reaction to the content, based on just changing the "teams." In the US for the most part, Israel is the good team, China is the bad team. The Tibetans are the good team, the Palestinians are the bad team. Coverage of these conflicts in the media are slanted based on this fandom, and reactions by political leaders and the man in the street are as well. In parallel to the riots in Tibet, there are riots by Serbs in Kosovo, being quelled by force by the UN and Nato. The Serbs are of course the bad team, and the Kosovars are the good team, despite the fact that Kosovo independence violates international law. So Western leaders are condemning Serbian "extremists" for stirring up "nationalist sentiments" in northern Kosovo, while in the same breath sympathizing with Tibetans fighting "Chinese oppression". I can, from a clinically detached perspective, understand the intensity of human emotions that lead the actors in these conflicts to kill each other. One side takes something from the other, finding all kinds of justifications for the act. The other side resists. Resistance is seen as an act of violence and is responded to with violence. The cycle begins. For those who are right there in the middle of the conflict, the violence of the other side makes them want to explode, literally and figuratively. Vengeance and a sense of personal grievance are potent human emotions. Whatever the original justification and counter-justification, these get lost in a litany of grievance and counter-grievance. I am not taking a stance of "moral relativism." I can find far more justification in the Jewish return to our homeland as opposed to the Chinese takeover of Tibet. But the ends don't justify the means. My first paragraph above accurately describes what is happening to the Palestinians, as much as it does the Tibetans. So even if Jews had good intentions and the Chinese had bad intentions, why should the Palestinians have to suffer more than the Tibetans? Why should they have welcomed a Jewish invasion any more than the Tibetans did a Chinese invasion? If I can at least rationally explain violent conflict on the ground, what I can't understand, what drives me really nuts, are the fans on the sidelines cheering on "their" team. When I walk in Union Square and I see protestors and counter protestors carrying signs about Israel and Palestine, my mind reels. Who are these people living comfortably here in New York, waving signs as if this was a battle of the Yankees versus the Red Sox? How simple minded is the press coverage of these complex conflicts or the 30 second sound bites of politicians around the world. How can people ignore the very human agony on every side of violent conflict, justifying the violence and brutality of "their" team, while condemning the same acts of the other team? Violence against civilians is never justified (am I repeating myself here?). Tibetan mobs have no right to attack Chinese civilians anymore than Palestinian "martyrs" have the right to kill Israeli civilians. The Chinese army has no right to brutally attack Tibetans anymore than the Israeli army has to attack Palestinians or Nato to attack Kosovo Serbs. Every side has a narrative which justifies violence against the other side, but they all stink. Unfortunately, whatever the initial injustice might be, the clock can't be turned back. As I've noted many times on this blog, nationalism is right up there with fundamentalism in my list of least favorite human cultural artifacts. Tibetan or Palestinian nationalism is not the proper response to Chinese or Israeli land grabs. There is an appropriate response both for people involved in the conflict, and those of us around the world who are not directly involved. The response is to demand equal human rights and human dignity for all people. Serbs and Kosovars, Jews and Arabs, Tibetans and Chinese all deserve to lead a life of dignity, free of violence and fear. Instead of holding up signs rooting for "our" team, instead of meaningless sound bites doing the same, we all need to recognize that we are one team, the human family. We all need to hold up one sign saying: "Recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world." [For those who find my title reference obscure, it refers to one of my favorite musicals, starring my childhood anti-hero).] < The Big Lie regarding the "success of the Surge." | How to Justify Murder >
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  Cost of the War in Iraq
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"Entre los individuos, como entre las naciones, el respeto al derecho ajeno es la paz -- Among individuals, as among nations, respect for the rights of others is peace" -Benito Juárez
"It isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it." -Eleanor Roosevelt "Let them call me a rebel and welcome. I feel no concern from it. But should I suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul" -Thomas Paine | |
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There is No Team, Like the Best Team, Which is Our Team
