'Our Oldest Ally'

15/11/2015

A very ordinary autumnal Friday evening in Paris was unseasonally bright almost balmy but otherwise it was typically Parisian, the streets busied themselves as people finished their weekly toil and strolled off to find a glass in their local cafe, a plate in their favourite restaurant, a seat in their concert hall, or to chant their way to the national stadium as Les Bleus took on the 'old foe' Germany. For as anyone who has been to Paris will know this is a place and space that enjoys, understands and lives Liberté. Moreover, because historically, culturally and politically this city stubbornly defies other ways of being it continues to offer a unique form of Fraternité.

Suddenly 'these best of times became the worst of times' as this majestic 'City of Light' darkened. The ensuing carnage defies words, at least 129 people are dead and hundreds injured. One of the first to respond to this murderous outrage was President Obama who spoke with genuine humanity and humility - I paraphrase - 'as France has been there for the United States so the United States would be there for France', as it struggles to deal with this gross violation of civic society. France is 'our oldest ally'. The closest these two nations will get to Égalité. Yet whatever the level of friendship and understanding that these two nations share the key issue that continues to nag away at all of us is the growing recognition that this unremitting cycle and circle of violence can only be broken if we confront and diffuse this 'war' without continuing to resort to more violence, destruction and isolation.

The main fuel of this dystopian process is fear. This is not a new understanding since Franklin D Roosevelt's inaugural observation that 'the only thing we have to fear is fear itself' became a modern day truism. Fear after all has become recently an emotion that seems far more powerful than hope. Yet our continuing eagerness to intervene in other nation's disputes, to adopt a moral crusades without any real understanding of what to do next, to remove leaders that do not conform to our understanding of life has left vacuums in societies that have been filled largely by forces and ideas that fail to understand humanity, who fail to understand hope. What struck me as I listened to the latest Democrat TV debate last night was the inability of Saunders, O'Malley and Clinton to articulate a policy or a plan that did not involve more intervention or more insulation.

Aung San Suu Kyi the Burmese political reformer observed recently that the true definition of freedom is to be found when fear has been eradicated. It was clear last night that this condition is nowhere to be found. Since there is no real answer to this practical and existential crisis when our would be leaders are too frightened to speak their minds and too frightened to think differently. The French mother being told in a Paris hospital that her young son died at Bataclan wished they had - an absolute personal tragedy. Yet our politician's will review this event alongside Madrid, Mumbai, and Charlie Hebdo and come just see it regardless of tragedy and humanity, as just another piece of grim statistics.

This condition is truly scary...

Je Suis Paris

KK

6 Comments

Gert Buelens

15/11/2015 06:03:13 am

I agree very much with your observations, Ken. I would like to add something to your point about 'moral crusades without any real understanding of what to do next, to remove leaders that do not conform to our understanding of life" and that have left 'vacuums in societies that have been filled largely by forces and ideas that fail to understand humanity'. It has unfortunately been a constant in US foreign policy, ever since Roosevelt met Abd-al Aziz on the warship returning the US President from the Yalta conference, that the US should regard Saudi Arabia as its most reliable ally in the region: 'Westerners looked at the Kingdom and their gaze was taken by the wealth; by the apparent modernization; by the professed leadership of the Islamic world. They chose to presume that the Kingdom was bending to the imperatives of modern life -- and that the management of Sunni Islam would bend the Kingdom, too, to modern life.' (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alastair-crooke/isis-wahhabism-saudi-arabia_b_5717157.html). As Patrick Cockburn similarly wrote in the London Review of Books a few weeks ago, the US failure to handle the IS situation 'is political as much as military: it needs partners on the ground who are fighting IS, but its choice is limited because those actually engaged in combat with the Sunni jihadis are largely Shia – Iran itself, the Syrian army, Hizbullah, the Shia militias in Iraq – and the US can’t offer them full military co-operation because that would alienate the Sunni states, the bedrock of America’s power in the region. As a result the US can only use its air force in support of the Kurds. The US faces the same dilemma in Iraq and Syria today as it did after 9/11 when George Bush declared the war on terror. It was known then that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis, Osama bin Laden was a Saudi and the money for the operation came from Saudi donors. But the US didn’t want to pursue al-Qaida at the expense of its relations with the Sunni states, so it muted criticism of Saudi Arabia and invaded Iraq; similarly, it never confronted Pakistan over its support for the Taliban, ensuring that the movement was able to regroup after losing power in 2001.' So when President Obama expresses his solidarity with the French victims of the latest IS-inspired violence, I find him to be rather too much of a politician and too little of a leader. If he were a true example of the latter, he would recognize that the approach his and previous administrations have taken to the region plays a very important role in the terrible events that are ongoing in the region and increasingly outside of it.

Prof K Kennard

15/11/2015 06:52:58 am

Thank you for your reply Gert. To affirm, Obama is unfortunately an analyst not a statesman. In other words, his understanding is drawn via the the risks, threats, and advantages he sees on the geopolitical chess board. What we desperately need now is leadership not kind words and percentages. However, an analyst's world is constructed through an understanding of power that has little real space for the real place the majority of us live in. Consequently, the US relationship with Saudi Arabia continues largely unchallenged although it is an affront to all our Western values yet, we continue to sell them cheaply for reasons of economic expediency, regional politics and international power plays, this apparently is more important than what we stand and often fight for. Moreover, if we continue to say we are right because we have the might then there is no hope for any of us. Our ideas are our identity, our values are our reason for being. the alternative is hellish. Osama bin Laden once noted that as long as the US think I'm the threat then we will win, since the real opposition comes from my ideas not me. For us to stop this violent process we need leaders who understand this.

KK

Stéphanie Verbrugghe

15/11/2015 06:36:34 am

The Paris attacks will become another statistic, that is true - but if there would exist a list with all terroristic attacks, it would be bolded, or marked with a star, or otherwise denoted, just like the attacks on Charlie Hebdo and Madrid would. The almost daily attacks in the Middle East would not. Thursday, one day before the terrible attacks in Paris, two bombs killed over forty people in Lebanon. It was hardly even mentioned in the news.

This unbalanced attention is understandable. Paris is close. Paris is familiar. We can identify with the victims in a way we cannot with people in another culture, in another situation. It could be us, the sentiment goes. We could have been in their place. No matter how much we would like to think otherwise, even the places we deem safe, appear not to be safe after all.

The other, horrible side of this however, is that we can barely keep up with the attacks within the Near and Middle East. Nearly daily, news reaches us of a bombing somewhere in this faraway countries, the size of the articles about them depending on the number of deaths, but mostly confined to the latter pages in the papers, or even to a mere two-sentences-counting mention. They truly have become statistics, barely read and even less mourned in the West.

Let there be no misunderstanding. I do not try to dismiss the human cost in Paris. I do not wish to downplay the grief the terrorists caused, the pain and fear they have brought, the shock. The attacks are a terrible tragedy, and they can in no sense be condoned or glossed over.

I do however, wish to draw attention the danger uneven media coverage brings. The image of a battle emerges, and a battle it may be, but the understanding of the opponents is skewed. Us and them becomes the West versus the (Near and Middle) East, the christian (or secularized) world against the muslims, 'natives' versus 'immigrants'. It seems to escape the notions of many that the main victims of IS and other terrorist groups in the Near and Middle East, are muslims. Many immigrants, after the attacks seen as even a bigger threat than they were before, try to escape exactly this violence. Do not let an aggressive minority polarize us.

Yes, we are Paris today - but we are human too. Do not let terrorists make us fear our neighbors.

Prof K Kennard

15/11/2015 07:02:53 am

I find little that I can disagree with Stephanie, our judgements/emotions are so often culturally specific. I was minded of lecture I gave just after 9/11 and I happened to mention that more people had died that day through lack of fresh water in Africa than had perished in the Twin Towers. One of the audience stood up and demanded I apologise, I asked why, and he said how can you equate people in Africa to the citizens of New York - I did not need to say anything in reply he had just said it for me.

KK

R Crevits

15/11/2015 08:39:25 am

Friday's events are politically opportune for war hawks on both sides of the Atlantic. Right-wing anti-immigration platforms in Europe see them as proof of the insurmountable disconnect between Western and Middle Eastern civilisation. The Syrian refugee passport found at one of the bomb sites might well prove somewhat of a godsend for them.

In America, the more militant of presidential candidates like Cruz and Rubio may find more support with the crowd, as the now dormant yearning for vigilantism in the wake of 9/11 is given new life by the Paris attacks.

Prof K Kennard

15/11/2015 11:48:06 pm

Dear Rens, Thank you for your observations. My best guess is that these events will give the Right Wing in France (Le Pen), Netherlands (Geert Wilders) and of course, here in Belgium(De Wever) impetus to push for the removal of the EU open border agreement. The developing Brussels connection with the Paris attacks is tailor made for this position. Especially, as one of the other attackers came from Syria via Greece as a 'refugee'. The impact on Europe if this action was agreed would be profound politically, psychologically and economically - a sense that the European project has failed - we can see numerous EU nations already taking unilateral action over border security. From a personal perspective I'm also a little worried how much strength the Paris attacks will give to the British exit of the EU. I think we will hear little from the US besides the usual rhetoric because of the up and coming election as both sides hedge their bets - this is very unhelpful. In Europe we will continue to strike IS at arms length, this will destroy much but will only go to strengthen their dystopian beliefs. While domestically Europe will get even closer to pulling up the drawbridge creating more desperation for the excluded. The inevitability of this circle of growing violence and intense introspection with no one willing or able to break the loop is the ultimate recipe for societal breakdown - ask the Syrians.

KK

'Our Oldest Ally'

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