I
deliberately left my last post ‘on top’ for a long time because it sums up
almost all the themes of this blog relating to the Orwellian nature of our tax
surveillance states, and the fallacies of both the common good and the social
contract held by statists of both Left and Tory hues: that post is a précis of
classical liberalism so I hope you might want to read.
That
said, Gaza. On Twitter this morning someone assumed I might want to join this weekend’s
protest march against the Israeli campaign in Gaza. This was my response.
Media Resources #NZ4Gaza mass actions inc Pls RT/witness! http://t.co/71re388egF @MPHoneHarawira @NZHRLA @HumAnonymous @MarkHubbard33 ty <3
— Decentralise Occupy (@endarken) July 25, 2014
@endarken Why would you assume I would a) want to be in a march, period b) that particular march?
— Mark Hubbard (@MarkHubbard33) July 25, 2014
@endarken I hate the current Israeli campaign in Gaza, but I understand it. And it's way too complicated for a march. + I take Kundera's 1/2
— Mark Hubbard (@MarkHubbard33) July 25, 2014
@endarken ... approach to protest marchers. Mobs marching with fists raised *are* the evil. Have a good one though.
— Mark Hubbard (@MarkHubbard33) July 25, 2014
To
expand: the current Israeli operation in Gaza is brutal - as war always is - and
sickening: being the next thing to a pacifist myself, I hate what is happening.
On the other hand, every Islamic neighbour of Israel is on record as wanting
to, quote, ‘obliterate’ Israel, and there are again anti-Semitic marches in
Europe where the neo-Nazi far right are strengthening out of the ruined lives
of dependence from Keynesian, big brother state economic chaos, meaning Israel
has done the simple, ruthless arithmetic and realised if it loses even the
once, there will be a holocaust of WWII scale, not the scale of Gaza. Every
Hamas rocket truly threatens the survival of an entire nation of people. And the important fact here being lost in the fog of emotion in the West, is that Hamas chooses
to keep firing its missiles, and chooses
to fire them from hospitals and schools, and unlike the Israelis does not ring
through fifteen minute warnings, nor set up field hospitals – I’ve seen the pictures
– to treat the wounded of both sides.
Because
Israel cannot afford to lose even once, the mathematics further mean meeting
force with overwhelming force. If the position is taken as many on today’s
protest march do, that the height of supposed Israeli evil is measured by the
difference in body count, well during WWII something over ten times the number
of German civilians were killed by the British bombing raids, than the reverse,
so does your algebra end you up on the British high command of that time being
evil also? Albeit, especially in one of the Israeli sniper incidents I've seen on video, there should certainly be war crimes investigations of some things that are happening in Gaza.
Are
there solutions? No. It’s religion, stupid, we’re not dealing here with an
enlightened, reasoned humanism. In the fundamentalist Islamic vacancies between
the ears of Hamas, Israel is dealing with people who have renounced their
humanity by renouncing their responsibility to think, indeed, whom decapitate,
regularly, those who do.
How
do you plan to encapsulate all that in a protest march?
As
for my tweet reference, that was to the inimitable Milas Kundera’s novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being:
When she told her French friends
about [why she would not attend a street protest against the communists], they
were amazed. "You mean you don't want to fight the occupation of your
country?" She would have liked to tell them that behind Communism,
Fascism, behind all occupations and invasions lurks a more basic, pervasive
evil and that the image of that evil was a parade of people marching by with
raised fists and shouting identical syllables in unison. But she knew she would
never be able to make them understand.
I
reckon those fundamentalist blokes in Hamas – sorry to my women readers, but no
equality to be found here – would enjoy a good fist clenching march. To paraphrase this quotation, I would further say that I lied above, there is a solution, being individualism, but the West is moving further away from me being able to make you understand that either. Which is why I say
please count me out of your marches and your boycotts of all you don’t like, it’s
complicated, and I’ve grown up.
(Oh,
and just before the conservatives who read this get all excited, no, my
position on welcoming multi-culturalism and – mutter, spit, cringe – moderate Islam,
hasn’t changed, and I hold to first principles and an open immigration policy.
That position is explained on this post. We won’t break down the unenlightened
nature of that faith below the fundamentalist level by isolating it. Wars are
best won peacefully, where possible, a mind at a time, and I love difference.)
Its politics with a religious facade as it always is. Clearly you have no understanding of how Islam works - there is no moderate Islam as the utterances of the prophet get more brutal with time and the later utterances are preferred to the earlier. Islam has no place in the west - it conflicts with the western democratic mindset by being centered on family, tribe and so on. There is no concept of a greater good and Islam is never going to respect your enlightened secularism.
ReplyDeleteThat doesn't excuse the Zionist movement for their bad behaviour but, as you note, how do you respond to a group whose stated aim is to kill you?
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