Not again. Please!

Oh dear, Oh dearie me! Here we go again. More interference in another country; more mayhem; more misery; more deaths; more displaced people; more refugees. And for what? Pray tell! Pray explain!

Syria!

We are, once more, hearing the rattle of sabres. We are, once more, hearing the “Ka Ching” sound from the armament industries around the world as they work out how much money they will make from a possible (probable?) foreign engagement in the internal affairs of the Syrians.

While I will admit that the Assad regime may be not to my liking or, as is evident, to that of the “West”, so what! It is certainly apparent that poison gas was used by someone in Syria (and this is not the first time such an atrocity has been committed in the Middle East) but I do not believe that it is up to anyone else except the Syrians to sort out Syria’s problems. Any intervention in Syria raised the spectre of imponderable and unintended consequences.

Just remember the – I am sure – unintended consequences of granting part of the land of Palestine to Israel. The results of which are still being played out – some sixty thousand dead and counting.

Just remember the – I am sure – unintended consequences of the intervention in Vietnam and the shocking effects of Agent Orange on the population, which is still being played out. This was poison on a grand scale.

Just remember the – I am sure – unintended consequences of the intervention in Iraq and the chaos that resulted and which has yet to play out. At least one hundred and sixty thousand dead, and counting.

Leave Syria alone. Let the Syrian’s work through their problems – I repeat their problems – and learn to accept whatever result eventuates, good, bad or indifferent. They started it, let them finish it. The Syrians are an intelligent and capable people. They have had problems going back thousands of years and they have sorted themselves out – one way or another. They have survived as has the rest of the world – no matter who governs Syria.

Provide humanitarian aid when it is requested by anyone. Certainly! But not arms or armed intervention no matter who requests it.

LEAVE SYRIA ALONE, IT IS NOT OUR PROBLEM.

Syria – don’t add fuel to the fire!

It is a very dangerous course of action to try a pick a winner in a war zone. Particularly in a civil war and even more dangerous when to opposing sides are divided by religious beliefs.

I am not a Syrian, I have never knowingly met a Syrian – nor am I a Muslim. I strongly believe that no person, group or country that is neither Muslim nor Syrian should interfere in Syria. Bashar al-Assad may not be a very nice person – but look at who his father was and look at what his father did to the Syrian people many years ago. He killed thousands. So his son, the current Syrian president, has not had a particularly good role model to emulate.

The Syrians started this “war” two years ago (Amended Feb 22, 2018:- actually started March 15, 2011, so now seven years ago) and while I am appalled at the violence and the escalation into neighbouring countries I strongly disagree with any attempt to “support” any of the warring parties by supplying them with weapons. The Russians are wrong; the EU is wrong and the Americans are wrong in offering support to either side – in other words trying to pick a winner. (Added Feb 22, 2018:- Also  don't forget the religious side of this war Shia - the Alawite ruling minority and Shia majority in Iran vs the Sunni majority opposition allied to the Turks and others in the region).

Picking winners in a civil conflict never works. The Russians and the Western Coalition tried it in Afghanistan; the French and the Americans (and allies) tried it in Vietnam; the Americans and their allies tried it in Iraq and there are many other examples to draw on (Palestine?) – history is littered with such attempts - all failed or are failing. The Americans themselves should know better than to interfere in someone else’s civil war – each side resisted interference from the French and/or British in their various "home grown" conflicts hundreds of years ago.

Now the Russians are ramping up their supply of weapons to Syria. This will inevitably be matched by the “West” and by Israel. To what end? Such actions will just add fuel to the fire. This Syrian civil conflict – as in all such conflicts - has its origins in injustice (Palestine?). And injustice can never resolved by violence. Violence just creates more injustice, as we have already witnessed, this in turn will promote more violence to “redress” the additional injustices and so a vortex of violence and injustice will ensue. No one benefits – except arms dealers and weapons manufacturers and suppliers.

By all means provide humanitarian aid to the millions of Syrian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey and to support these countries in their efforts to assist the refugees  - this is  fair and just. But not to supply weapons.

Violence is the last resort of the morally bankrupt.   

Injustice and conflict never end – why?

Injustice will never end because there will always be people who consider themselves better than others, or different, or they will somehow justify their actions by believing they have a special need that no one else could conceivably have. Possibly more pervasive is the “belief” that a particular gender, skin colour or religious persuasion gives a “right” to persecute or denigrate those not of that gender, that skin colour or not of that religious persuasion.

This type of “injustice” happens everywhere. Take for example Israel’s flouting international law and ignoring United Nations requests for them to stop their annexation of Palestine, by stealth, with their continued building of new Jewish settlements in occupied lands. (I choose to mention Israel as their apparently intractable difference with the Palestinians affects us all and Israel is a topical issue in Australia at the moment vide “Prisoner X” and the apparent injustice of this incident).

The differences (at least in the Middle East), and the injustice, appear to stem from a strict adherence, by their followers, to the required observances written in two books – the Old Testament - the Jewish Torah, and the Koran – the book of Islam, and to the sacredness or otherwise of the land now claimed by both Israelis and the Palestinians.   

If the situation was reversed I am sure that Israelis would defend by every means at their disposal their “right” to claim what "should" be theirs. But they deny the Palestinians that very “right”.

There are always two sides to every story, as the saying goes, and the Palestinians are not blameless in this. They apparently object to a Jewish presence in their “homeland”. All this may be relevant and true but it is important to go behind the need (if that is the correct word) for injustice, whomsoever the perpetrator and wherever it takes place.

All humans are diminished – the human family is diminished - by injustice. In this regard it seems almost impossible for humans generally to accept the fact that we need each other; that we cannot live in total isolation; that our “needs”, our desires and wishes are much the same as those of everyone else.

In other words we need to observe the “Golden Rule” - to treat others as we would like to be treated. ALL religions, ALL moral teachings and ethical concepts have the “Golden Rule” as the cornerstone and principle for ALL effective human relationships.

For those who believe in the importance of “differences” this may be an unpleasant idea and difficult to accept. It is important, however, for them to realise that theirs is an intellectual resistance to Nature which seems to demand that mankind include others in their schemes lest their selfish desires lead to general chaos and destruction. But even with Nature’s inner demand and all the centuries of ethical and moral teachings it is patently evident that mankind (to paraphrase Jung) “has only very imperfectly learned that it is in his own interest to consider his neighbour and that it is impossible for him to ignore the needs of the body social of which he is a part”.

It is necessary to remember that conflict (more often than not the result of some injustice) can never be resolved at the level at which was created – at that level there can only be winners and losers – not reconciliation. Resolution and reconciliation needs a greater understanding of human nature and a higher level of awareness and education.

Resorting to laws, rules and regulations or ancient texts (however sacred) with the same mindset that held at the onset of the conflict (or the injustice) will not resolve anything.

Written on the gravestone of Paul Robeson (African American singer April 9, 1898 – Jan 26, 1976): “The artist must elect to fight for freedom or slavery. I have made my choice. I had no alternative.”

This is why without real education for all (not just “book learning”) we face the rather depressing idea that injustice will never end.

Israel - Stolen goods bring no prosperity.

I am not quite sure where I first read the phrase, “Stolen goods bring no prosperity”, but it rings true. Just think of any individual, business or government that has deprived anyone of what was rightfully theirs; just think about those who have fraudulently or unjustly used or taken advantage of someone’s intellectual property; think about those who make a living by avoiding or evading government regulations.

What brought this phrase to my mind has been the ratcheting up of the Israeli/Gaza impasse which has been bubbling away since 1947. I strongly disagree with anyone who advocates violence as a solution to any problem. Violence begets violence. People who feel aggrieved should avoid conflict at all costs – no one wins a war. Oh yes! Battles may be “won”; “victors” may assume sovereignty over land and peoples; trade may follow the “gun” but at what human cost? Violence is the last resort of the morally bankrupt.

After the end of the Second World War the dispossessed Jews and those who had survived the appalling treatment meted out by the Nazis with the infamous “final solution” known to history as the Holocaust were “given” what is now Israel. This is a historic fact and I am in no position to argue the merits or demerits of this “gift” by the sympathetic Allies who had defeated Germany. What I can say with certainty however is that the Palestinians who were living in the Palestine/Israel area and who had been living there since Biblical times were now (in 1947) dispossessed of the land (and in many cases their possessions as well) to make way for the “new” nation of Israel. Many of these dispossessed Palestinians ended up in Gaza. It is my understanding that no compensation was ever paid or reparation ever made.

This injustice rankles. They were never asked; they never gave “permission” for the land to be expropriated. Injustice is never forgotten; injustice is burned into the soul – just ask the Jews! The Jews have been treated very badly by all peoples – from ancient Babylonia to modern day Christians and Muslims. They have been fighting and striving for millennia for Judea, their “home land” – what they consider their Holy Land, their God given right. Why should the Palestinians, dispossessed by the Israelis feel any differently about their “home land”; their Holy Land, part of which is now Israel?

The fact is that the ultimate source of land is beyond human ingenuity; we may surmise how land was formed aeons ago – but no one can create a single grain of sand. Land just “is” – therefore by default land belongs to no one; land, Holy or otherwise, belongs to everyone. We humans are merely the temporary caretakers.

The Israelis, if they want peace and stability, will, ultimately, have to share the land they occupy with the original inhabitants – the Palestinians. This land was in effect “stolen” from the Palestinians in 1947, and until the Israeli recognize this and accept sharing as a future reality the phrase that opens this post - “stolen goods bring no prosperity” – will haunt the Israelis and torment the Palestinians.

War and violence will never, ever, solve the problems caused by injustice.