I usually post pictures — because I believe in the visual beauty of this world, in nature and in people — but today I feel like using words to share a less pretty ‘visual’. This is about Irag, Syria and the ISIL. And also about the US and Australia. There is a lot of talk at the moment about western intervention in Iraq and Syria. Western media, led by statements from politicians and officers in the US and Australia, are presenting this intervention as a battle of good against evil, of civilisation against terrorism. Images from Irag and Syria are being described as ‘shocking’ and ‘barbaric’. Everyone is appalled and surprised. Except, of course, anyone who has seen these events unfold times and times again in the past. What we are seeing is not shocking but sadly familiar. We are presented again with the story of the ‘good’ man fighting the ‘evil’ man. The story of the honourable man protecting the innocent and fighting for his ideals, values, and rights, fighting for freedom and justice. In this story, the ‘other’ man, the ‘barbaric’ man, is always the terrorist, always the one who attacks. The problem with this story is that it lacks fixed characters. Its heroes and villains are interchangeable, depending on which language the story is being told or heard. Militants in Iraq and Syria perceive the West as ‘evil’ and ‘unjust’, with no genuine ideals and values, and as an intruder, a hypocrite who is after its own interests in the region. This brings us at a point where both sides justify their approach in exactly the same doctrine. Ideals are at the heart of the beholder. So who is right? Who is ‘good’ and who is ‘evil’? There can never be an answer to this. There can never be justice in this kind of a story. It is a vicious cycle with no resolution. I have no illusions that such a cycle can be stopped — not in our time. It is deeply ingrained in the relationships we have built with one another, and the rules of power that have shaped these relationships. It saddens me to know this and see it unfold once again. It saddens me to know that more men will die in fighting. It saddens me even more to know that more women and children will die with them. I can’t help but think about what can be done to change this. And in thinking about it, I can’t help but feel that women, at both ends of the ‘battle’, are the silent victims of this story. That they are dragged, again and again, into the violence of this story by having to give their own lives or suffer the deaths of their sons and husbands. I don’t know whether this is acceptable to women — the way justice is defined in a man’s world. I wonder if the world would be different if women had more power to define justice. I wonder if the world would be different if women, at both ends of the ‘battle’, had more power. Even though this is not an original proposition and has been voiced many times in the past, it remains some kind of a taboo. Both men and women can be deeply uncomfortable with it. I believe this unease is a good start — it means we might be on to something. Or not. But I hate to think that in a thousand years people will be studying our era (if it remains interesting) wondering why we wasted so many human lives in recycling the same stories, and wondering why women were not systematically involved in the roles and responsibilities of power.
Posted on: Wed, 10 Sep 2014 07:54:42 +0000
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