The World Cup of... War?
So this weekend I saw people driving around with flags fluttering out of sun roofs or windows of their cars. Nope, not the World Cup being celebrated still.
The flags were of Israel and Lebanon. One each -- the Israeli flag out of the window, the Lebanon flag, on a pole, held out the sun roof. Both in Yorkville.
Now I guess we cheer for one side or another in wars: "Night raid, dawn raid, rah rah rah. Hit 'em with rocket fire, draw the UN's ire!"
And here I was not figuring out that the daily body count on the news was actually the score.
Sigh.
The flags were of Israel and Lebanon. One each -- the Israeli flag out of the window, the Lebanon flag, on a pole, held out the sun roof. Both in Yorkville.
Now I guess we cheer for one side or another in wars: "Night raid, dawn raid, rah rah rah. Hit 'em with rocket fire, draw the UN's ire!"
And here I was not figuring out that the daily body count on the news was actually the score.
Sigh.
posted by Heipel at
7:38 PM
5 Comments:
There was a protest here in Edinburgh this weekend about all this. It's hard to know now which particular war the "Stop the War Coalition" is trying to end.
I saw one demonstration -- a group of mother-types saying to stop the illegal wars, bring our children home, stop killing other people's children -- and I thought, "Yeah, okay, I get that." And they were talking about putting pressure on the government to achieve this, which seems the reasonable way to go about this (assuming for a moment that we do actually live in a democracy).
But the occasion also attracted that other faction, the "support the Palestinian rebellion" types. That one bothers me, because Palestine's hands aren't exactly clean in all this, either. They're two warlike groups of people, and supporting one side in a protracted and dirty conflict isn't inherently good just because they're the underdog. Our 'support' is exactly what's created this situation.
I agree with many, that Israel is way out of line here, and that they're artificially powerful because of American support. But there's something about the Palestinian pet cause that makes me uncomfortable, when people march and hang flags and talk about it over coffee a lot. I got into a fight with someone in Toronto about this once, who protested against the Toronto Women's Bookshop because of some buttons or another to do with this. Buttons. I think the real-live Palestinians are a bit busy to be concerned about which team -- I mean, country -- we support with buttons.
War protests make sense to me, no matter how history or human nature may make them futile.
However, "war protests" -- geographically and Politically removed from the violence (e.g. where the war ain't) involving one side forwarding their 'cause or their particular level of hard-done-by-ness are in fact lobbying for one side over the other, not a cry against war itself.
Those 'the other side is the wrong doer here" makes some sense if I'm in Lebanon at the moment or in Israel (or Palestinian territory to bring that now nearly forgotten for the moment conflict into focus). This a bit more than hair splitting, I realize, since once can from a distance decide to support one side over the other, but in doing so one is in fact cheering for that side to use war to its advantage -- and that's not exactly anti-war; it's a "I hope war works for my guys" approach.
Waving any single flag at a war protest renders the event anything but a protest against war and really makes it about root, root rootin' for the home team -- for which there may be good 'cause, but at which point, again, it's not war we're protesting, it's that the violence ain't working for MY side.
I have a button that says "anus" from a wee shop on Yonge Street.
"I hope war works for my guys." Bingo.
I'm cheering for your anus -- since one asshole or another is going to win.
I was talking about this to Bert the other day. The thing that bugs my shit is the non-thinkingness of it all. What I mean - aside from the completely valid points you guys make - is that most people don't even think it through to the level those protesters have. In the sense that most people who are on the righ-ish end of the political spectrum are just pro-Isreal, and those to their left come down on the side of our arab brethren.
The insanity of that point of view makes my head wobble. I mean how does Isreal have anything to do with 'conservative' politics? What is the relationship between Isreal and unfettered free market economics, personal responsibility, small government and low taxes? What then does Palestine have to do with government legislativer reform and adjustment to free market economics, liberal social policies and so on?
The conflation of these - or rather the idea that signing on to a party or ideology gets you a fully formed, already thought out opinion not just on the things that that idealogy speaks to, but on everything else too - is just daft.
Heipel: your comment regarding war protests ceasing to be such as soon as you are cheering for a side is spot on.
Hame: I like your idea of the grannies lobbying the government. That make some sense and goes back to that landmartian thing of "don't complain to anyone who can't do somehting about it" idea.
For me personally I think the reason that most protests are bullshit and have been for nearly 40 years has to do with something very important. Nobody protesting today has anything to offer beyond protest. I have not heard anybody leading a protest (anti war, anti poverty, anti racism) offer a single idea of any vision other than "No more of whatever I don't like". Think of the very few times in our history when non-violent movements worked (Ghandi, King Jr. etc.) they worked because they had someone who could express something that called people forward and made them think, beleive and act. (the same reasons that violent movements work too actually but that's another point entirely).
Frankly offering "no more war" as a solution for war is naive to the point of demonstrating mental illness when considering human history. And before anyone suggests that I should tell you what that visionary leader should offer... well I'm not fucking Ghandi or Martin Luther King Jr.
There's a restaurant near my house called "Ghandi's", and every time I pass it, I think, "Isn't he famous for hunger striking? Didn't he drink his own urine? Pass!"
Back on topic: Yeah, the vision thing. I would get so excited if an actual statesman/-person came forward in my time -- not some middle manager arguing about this point of policy or that, but someone advancing a positive idea of who we could be, along with a plan for realising that possibility.
I know it's idealistic. I know that while JFK managed to align everyone on the dream of going to the moon he was probably arranging the murder of his movie star girlfriend. But something on that scale.
I guess it goes back to Bert's Buffett/Gates post: It's good to see a few successful, prominent individuals being better leaders and human beings than they're required to be by the free market.
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