Yet another war has broken out in the Middle East, as seven absolute monarchies and a military dictatorship formed a coalition to bomb their regional neighbour Yemen, ostensibly for failing to adhere to the democratic process. I posted the news along with a ‘haha’ note about the irony of it, before taking it down after realizing just how crass the mockery sounds. Smugness is easy when one can enjoy the safety afforded to the residents of one of the world’s most stable countries. But as soon as I scrolled past the post again, I realized how incredibly callous it would seem to me to come across a similar musing regarding my own country of birth, where a year-old civil conflict has ravaged the city that I grew up in. For a moment, I felt the utter horror of Yemeni civilians at becoming another pawn in the game played by the regional powers; the utter despair of those already made refugees and now bombed by outside forces for good measure; the tragedy of poor and vulnerable populations being squeezed into a proxy-war driven by strong sectarian overtones.
Most people in the west no longer understand the dread of war. North American space in particular has simply been isolated from the wholesale slaughters of the twentieth century. Although both the Aboriginal and African-American populations have often found themselves outside of that stability, most people nonetheless have a hard time imagining what it’s like to live with the constant sense of insecurity because your state is unable, or worse – unwilling - to offer the basic modicum of protection to its citizens. Perhaps being so removed from the actual battlegrounds is one of the reasons why it is so easy for politicians to convince the North American public to pay for yet another outrageously expensive war – even when such actions go directly against the public’s interest.
Americans were told to support the invasion of Iraq by both the liberal and conservative mainstream media – and most did, despite the fact that not only the general public, but most policy makers in the Bush administration knew next to nothing about Iraq, or the geopolitics of the wider region. The few journalists affiliated with mainstream media organizations who spoke forcefully against the invasion, such as MSNBC’s Phil Donahue, were promptly sacked. The war took place. Those invested in the military-industrial complex made billions. The rest of the country went broke, while Iraq became engulfed in sectarian violence that gave birth to the current rounds of regional ethnic cleansing. Similarly, Canadians – many of whom would have difficulties finding Syria on a map – are being told by our government that our involvement in the Iraq/Syria conflict will surely be beneficial to the prospects for its eventual resolution. Of course, there is very little evidence that such boundless optimism is in any way justified. But it will surely help Canada’s defense contracts, considering that our biggest weapons sale deal to date has been with the KSA.
It’s the similar story every time. Over the last year, I have watched vocal American and Canadian support for the violent regime change in Ukraine. In a development that surprised nobody who was paying attention, this led to a wider conflict the consequences of which are now inerasable, regardless of what the eventual resolution will be. For the first six months that followed the demonstrations in Kiev, barely a word was spoken in much of the mainstream western media against the fact that a government elected by the eastern side of the country was overthrown by those in the centre-west.
The regime change was done under the cheerleading auspices of prominent representatives of the US and the EU, who eagerly shook hands with far-right radicals now afforded important roles in the new government. Millions of internet warriors whose newly acquired knowledge of Ukraine was limited to the colours of its flag promptly changed their Facebook profile pictures to blue and yellow. Russia, who has long warned of the geopolitical consequences of Ukraine`s drift towards NATO, did not wait to capitalize on the mess, annexing the Crimea and providing support for those fighting on ‘their’ side, thus ensuring that the country plunges into a civil war. But, of course, Ukrainian nationals themselves eagerly divided along partisan lines, full of newly surfaced, yet long nurtured hatreds for their co-nationals on each of the opposite ends of the country. And another proxy-war, fraught with the possibilities of extremely destructive geopolitical consequences, was born.
The fact is that in the end, it is easy to convince any people about the necessity of conflict. The art of propaganda has been mastered by those who aspire to rule for thousands of years, and it isn`t difficult to create the initial push. But as the conflict progresses, it takes on a life of its own, the life of the mob that has the potential to devour the puppet masters along with any sense of normalcy for everyone else. Sometimes it is a quick process, as in Ukraine. Other times it is slow, like Pakistan`s gradual descent into communal violence that has been heavily stoked by various parties since the 1970s. The general public seldom pauses to think of `what`s next` while those who shape public opinion are often clueless idealists or shameless provocateurs, working directly against the interests of regular people.
In the 60s and 70s, parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan that are now virtually off-limits to any non-locals due to the inherent dangers of travelling through these territories, were part of what was known in the west as the `hippie trail.’ Bare-armed westerners could safely drive across these places, and count on the legendary hospitality of the local populations should anything go wrong. The very idea is laughable now, as Pakistan`s own remaining religious minorities are living under the constant threat of violence, cowering under the possibility of an accusation of blasphemy that can come from any ill-wisher.
There is a saying in Russian, an analogous version of which exists in many other languages, and literally translates to `Breaking is not building`. What that means, of course, is that destruction is a much easier and faster process than creation. A year and a half ago, the Russians and Ukrainians in my hometown of Donetsk seldom thought of each other as all that different. Sixty years ago, the fact that Pakistan’s founder came from a Shia background mattered to very few. But in the ‘right’ circumstances, co-nationals, neighbours, friends and total strangers can be turned on each other easily enough.
Perhaps as fewer and fewer veterans remain, the Ukrainians are losing those who can remind them of horrors of the last big war that decimated Europe. Perhaps the horrors of partition are, likewise, fading in the collective memory of Pakistanis, so many of whom seem to be willing to keep dousing the flames of sectarianism with oil, to the point of providing a ‘religiously pure’ army to satisfy the needs of Saudi Arabia, which has put a lot of money and effort into fanning those very flames. Reconstructing the needlessly destroyed infrastructure that is the result of every bombing or suicide attack is nothing compared to rebuilding any sense of a national unity between people who have militarily allied themselves with opposing sides. Countries that are especially prone to providing the stage for proxy-wars fought by other powers should be especially mindful of this reality. And the rest of us need to meditate on the fact that massive fires are started by a few stray sparks that might initially appear inconsequential.