My View From This Part of France
Viewing the world from the perspective provided in this French outpost, the past ten days played out like a television rerun — nothing new or creative, bold or game-changing; everything quite predictable and tried and, false.
Facebook provided a forum for me, like many others, and when one “friend” saluted the ratcheting up of the bombing of Syria, I could not help but ask “what do you call repeating the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome?”
Maybe I am wrong about the latter, and western world powers seek no change but only the maintenance of the status quo and their continued control of the world.
The people of France who wonder why family members and friends died 13/11 need to turn-off the TV, think for themselves, and formulate an independent worldview that reveals the answer is not Daesh but their own government.
In a news essay reposted on Facebook during the week, the author asks why is it no terrorism occurs in Switzerland, in Tanzania or in Costa Rica?
Terrorism occurs only in the nations whose armed forces have terrorized the world. There is a cause-and-effect, the proverbial chicken comes home to roost.
Many, from journalists to military personnel themselves, have noted you cannot roam the world trying to effect regime change and your continued dominance by killing innocent people with drones and massive bombing and not have their children or other family members seek revenge.
The moment from the week’s TV rerun that sticks with me the most is President Francois Hollande strolling, cameras on rolling tripods preceding him and uniformed troops with cutlasses drawn standing at attention on either side, into Elysee Palace to address the nation the day after the attacks in and around Paris.
It was so pompous, arrogant, grandiose — and predictable. And such chest-beating revealed what was to be said would be only more of the same hubris.
Hollande said France — which is already bombing IS targets in Syria and Iraq as part of the U.S.-led coalition, and has troops fighting militants in Africa — “will be merciless toward the barbarians of Islamic State group.” — NewsReports
That same day, a witness to the shooting at the Bataclan music club had this to say:
There were shots everywhere, in waves. I lay down on the floor. I saw at least two shooters, but I heard others talk. They cried, ‘It’s Hollande’s fault.’ I heard one of the shooters shout, ‘Allahu Akbar,’” Sylvain told The Associated Press.
These news nuggets are sufficient for independent analysis in formulating one’s reasoned understanding of events, and not merely eating and regurgitating mainstream media broadcasts or publications.
Like Hollande’s remark, I read a major media column declaring us, or the west, civilized, and Daesh cast as barbarians who cut off people’s heads and rape women. Such an assessment reflects myopia, and living in denial.
It begs us to think that having people live with drones overhead terrorizing whole villages all day, every day; and striking without notice at targets with innocent men, women and children as collateral damage is not barbarism. It requires us to think that blowing people’s heads off with bombs and missiles triggered from distant aircraft or military bunkers is cleaner, or less barbaric, than cutting off a head with a sword.
And, like the music-club witness said he heard a gunman say, “It’s Hollande’s fault.” A September poll revealed 70 percent of French people opposed their nation joining in the western coalition bombing Syria. Hollande, at the urging of the United States and United Kingdom, acted against the will of his people. (Of course, the US decision to bomb was a political calculation in response to Republican hawks demanding more be done to combat Daesh — with crazy GOP presidential candidates calling for “boots on the ground” and yet another major war.)
But the actions of established world leaders are not so far removed from the rhetoric of those Republican wannabes. They avoid the racism for the most part — despite the fact calling others “barbarians” for engaging in less violence than your own nation commits is being racist — but engage in the same bravado and small-mindedness.
There is never introspection, never humility. Never the decision to seek peace rather than perpetuate war. We have been conditioned that war is inevitable, that it is actually a good thing which provides us freedom and protects “our way of life.”
Thus we are complicit, never mind that the concepts of freedom, democracy and “good life” being sold to us are mere illusional for most if not 99 percent of the population.
War is evil. War is barbarism. War is terrorism. War is hell. There is nothing good, holy, liberating or democratic about war.
We forget because we do not live during war or even the threat of war — it is only an export that we view on television news for entertainment.
There is nothing grown-up or intelligent about war. It is what we learn not in school but the schoolyard, when a boy hits us and we hit back harder and harder. Except in war big kids with small minds are using guns, bombs and all sorts of lethal apparati.
War is like slavery in a way. No one ever wants to own up to the mistakes, dialogue to reach peace and understanding, and make reparations or compensation for past aggressions or barbarism — and slavery was that and the barbarians the same nations now waging wars.
I doubt Haitians or the diaspora throughout the Americas opted for the French Tricolore on their Facebook profile picture during the week, given the history of slavery in that island-state and France forcing it to pay compensation to it for the economic loss caused by its end.
Slavery once sustained the capitalist economy; now war does That is why we keep seeing these reruns, once or twice a year, on TV. You cannot make money off peace, so it is bombs away to destroy faraway places so your or your friend’s corporation can reap billions in rebuilding. Terrorist attacks like 13/11 become just an acceptable part of the process — collateral damage.
There is a 1970s song by a Chicago R&B group, The Chi-Lites, titled “There Will Never Be Any Peace (Until God is at The Conference Table).
The image conveyed in that song — God at the conference table, is not one of some Holy Ghost or religious figure. World powers might well say God is already there, because they have acted as such in parceling out control of planet among themselves for centuries and now seek to maintain that vice-grip against growing resistance to ensure a supply of natural resources for their gluttonous industrial and technological engines.
What that song conjures for me is God being a representative body reflecting all the world’s peoples — every nation — coming together in dialogue and arbitration to pursue democracy by cutting the umbilical cord of colonialism and allowing for home rule and democracy everywhere.
From the perspective here in this French colonial outpost — which has “autonomy” on domestic matters but defers to France on international involvements, one asks why does Europe and North America have to continue playing God, or is it the Devil, all over the world? Where is morality in that reality?
One wonders how great the world would be if people had been left alone. If Europe had stayed at home rather than through advanced technology put to violent use, alcohol, disease and the Bible, plundered and essentially raped and bastardized most of the planet — with North America assuming a similar path of hegemony — although Canada largely limited its barbarism to the indigenous Inuits.
One looks around the world, and sees the dominance of Christianity — and how it has been tainted by the barbarism of the Crusades, genocide of Native Americans, and use as a vanguard for slavery, war and colonization of virtually the whole planet.
One sees Islam — and how it was corrupted by slavery, like all religions (all man-made) there is the subjugation of women, and sectarian violence.
With Hinduism, one is confounded with the evil of the caste system and violent division with Muslims and other faiths. Even in Buddhism, you have monks turning to violence against minority groups in Myanmar and across southern Asia.
The world can learn a moral path to peace best from the non-monotheistic religions of indigenous people who rejected conversion by European and American missionaries, or Islamist, Buddhists etc.
Occasionally one hears or reads about a group of people or tribe who have had little or no contact with the outside world, and how they dwell in peace and harmony for it. What a wonderful world that must be — even without TV, cars and so-called modern conveniences.
In the world that we do know and read about, an indigenous people from whom we can learn the most about peace, harmony and democracy is the Native Americans. Essential to that culture is the pow-wow, in which adversaries gather to dialogue and agree to a peaceful resolution. That is what the world needs now.
Rather than stoic western leaders foolishly maintaining “we do not talk to the enemy” or “we do not negotiate with terrorists,” dialogue is precisely what is needed.
“Why do they hate us,” westerners are known to ask, in denial of a crystal-clear world reality.
It is clear that governments only serve the interest of corporations under a fascist world order in which war is essential and peace and democracy only pretense.
If people are serious about peace and freedom, they must act outside of governments and be their own leaders.
What a beautiful world it could be if people from all corners of Earth came together and charted a course for peace that provided freedom, democracy and socio-economic equality for all the planet’s citizens.
There will never be peace until control of the world is taken out of the hands of governments with the largest military and instead placed in the hands of its people. That is the true meaning of democracy — with it being more than just a word. Until that happens, or starts to happen, go get popcorn and enjoy TV reruns of events like those of last week.