Top down, Bottom up
In case someone has not yet come in contact with the number one polemic over here in Europe, here’s what I am talking about: Mohammed Cartoons. And for that matter a nice page that maybe helps to follow the line of thought I am about to point out: Mohammed Pictures throughout History.
As a believing, practising and rather conservative orientated Catholic, I am faced with several conflictual emotions and thoughts concerning this whole issue. What are the facts ? These cartoons were published by a Danish newspaper in September. Why are we having the downfall of this journalistic disaster (cartoons are not journalism) only now ? The same month the Hamas – a terrorist network and political unit whose first purpose still is the destruction of Israel – wins Palestinian elections ? The same month where the West is played into Cold-War games again by an unyielding Iran ?
The list could go on and on.
And what if all the indignation the Muslim world is feeling now, is the same that all Catholic or Christians felt and feel when Beneton had one of their geniuses design a PR gag using Christian symbols and scenes ? Any believing Christian (or Jew) had to learn to live with this kind of half hidden critic, sarcasm etc. in the modern world. You deal with it, you have to accept it, you can voice your anger against it and use all the possibilities a modern society and state gives you to ‘not accept’ it. But ask your governement to a) give the responsible the sack b) have all copies burnt or c) make a law against picturing religious symbols, persons or else ? That is not how our western world works wether we like it or not. It’s the downside of having a democracy, of having separated powers, of having the absolute freedom of speech and opinion, of having the liberty of movement and action. It lets you be as intolerant as you can be as a Catholic towards anybody else. But it also gives the liberty to any atheistic journalist to voice their jokes about religion in general and about the Islam in this special case. And even if I don’t like it, even if I think that there is a line… (showing Mohammed as a terrorist is like depicting Jesus as an 11th century crusader) … that there has to be a line somewhere, we’ll all have to accept this liberty. Every right and every freedom has a downside, a bad turnout for somebody else. It’s one of the most basic lessons of western civilisation. And one the Arab, Muslim and Eastern world and any unfree goverened population has to learn. They better learn it fast, or they will get quickly manipulated into a fifth column within the Western states.
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The makings of a hero
This story somehow runs deeper than you’d expect…
Is it really just a question of ‘desertion is a crime’ ? Or is there more to it than meets the eye ? It could be just the reactions in this context that made me jump, since the topic has been brought up a while ago already. Yeah… I guess it’s the harsh ‘what he did was wrong, so no pity’ conclusion that bothered me.
Apart from the fact that it’s a simple non-sequitur error to state that XYZ did ABC, which is a crime, so he has forfeited the right to ask for sympathy or pity from his fellow humans.
There’s something shameful in the above situation and I can’t quite put my finger on it yet.
No matter what reasons the GI or any other GI in any other situation had or has to decide that desertion is better than anything he thinks awaits him in the near future, no matter how elaborate the rational reasoning might be (since the Vietnam war ‘psychological problems’ is a good way to make a cowardly decision noble in retrospective and earn your oppositions respect, even if they don’t approve what you did), it doesn’t make a desertion right. Let’s take the example of the textbook Vietnam GI, already full of doubts when shipped into the Theatre. He keeps his doubt, thinking that it’ll protect him from any atrocity, helps him to stay the human being he was before ever getting there. One day he can’t stand it and just wanders off. Desertion. In our post-Vietnam times, I am quite sure he would be considered a noble spirit that followed his doubts on the military and the cause. The crime suddenly becomes less terrible to us (the military officials wont agree). And why is that ? It’s circumstance.
But, why should this case be any better than the one GI who doesn’t have a noble reason. Only weariness, fear, alcohol, drugs maybe and desperation ?
Apart from the fact that nobody can with full authority state that somebody got what they deserved, how inhuman can you be to throw such a judgement around ? I am talking about inhuman as ‘not according to first human reactions’ such as pity, sympathy, shock… Is it the Christian talking in me or the Philosopher ? I have no idea… I tend to think both. Hard to tell.
But as a Philosopher defining what a hero is, and how the word is used, falls smack into my field. In the beginning of reasoning (Greek Academy) a hero was somebody who partook in the Universal Idea of ‘bravery’, most often it was linked with toughness, absence of fear, physical and psychological strength… and nobility. Somehow the notion of ‘hero’ is always linked with the just cause. The term of hero applied to a Nazi soldier somehow doesn’t fit, does it ?
But since political correctness has stripped all discourse of the terms ‘good’, ‘evil’ or ‘just war’, we’ve come more and more to a diverse stance towards a hero. A hero can be someone fighting for his rights without thought for his personal well being, it can be a soldier perhaps, or a fire-fighter rescuing somebody else at the expense of his own health. But let’s say that we’ve all settled for a circumstantial attribution of the term. A war veteran will most often reply that the heroes are the ones that didn’t leave the battlefield alive, and that nobody is just a hero because of some mystical calling he had. It’s circumstantial. You’re thrown into a situation where you’re challenged beyond your capabilities. Beyond your own possibilities. The ones that decide quickly enough, hard enough or clement enough and live up to the task or the situation get to be heroes.
John Mann who in a trench behind the little Dutch village of Son threw himself onto a grenade in order to save his squad was no doubt a hero. He sacrificed himself for his comrades. One dead is better than 6. All for liberty and the just cause.
And what about the ones that cannot make that decision ? What about the ones that cannot bear the responsibility of their own choices ? Deserters and Cowards ? Why are we so quick to judge them ? Again, a crime is a crime and no matter what reasoning is behind it, it stays a crime. I’m talking about the human judgement.
Isn’t it just more simpler to speak a quick judgement on someone who reminds us of our own doubts and deficiencies ? That someone could have been us… anywhere, any time ? Not having been in the situation, how can we be sure that we would have lived up to the task ? The argument is gratious, I know. But still, it’s a valuable one. It’s this argument that makes us different from an ‘inhuman’ dictatorship who doesn’t accept human weakness.
Accepting somebody else’s weakness makes us truly human. In the simply act of sympathy or pity in this problem, we remind ourselves of our own fears and doubts and our own limitations.
It doesn’t make a deserter a saint. But sitting in a warm room with a nice cup of tea, it’s the only reasoning that can be considered truly ‘human’… and being a simple philosopher and no soldier, the only one I’ll follow.
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If World War II Was An RTS?
Ever asked yourself what if World War Two had been an online Real Time Strategy game…?
ROFL
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What is ‘inhuman’?
My mind was tickled by this post over at WildBillGuarnere.com: Post about ‘The Downfall’
Of course, generally speaking everything tickles my mind… professional deformation I guess. But this part of the post got me interested in a more particular way (I hope Antonius Lucretius doesn’t mind me quoting it here):
“…It always struck me as odd and quite hypocritical to qualify as “inhuman” the horrors committed specifically by the species “homo sapiens sapiens”.
Extermination camps were “inhuman”?
I’ve never heard of elephants doing that, or tigers..
Only humans. (…)
However hard you try you’ll never be able to kick Adolf Hitler out of the human race. He was one of us.
And that is what’s scary. And that is why we must remain careful.”
Now, there lies an interesting question here: why do we qualify utterly disturbing things such as the murder of several million Jews or the Mother killing 8 of her babies by burying them alive within the span of 10 years, as ‘inhuman’?
Antonius L. – in the above quote – reads the ‘everyday’ expression of ‘inhuman’ as ‘not human’. The first thing that springs to mind as being ‘not human’ would be ‘animal’. And there of course he is quite right to state that the expression doesn’t make any sense since such ferocious behaviour (to be qualified with the adjective of ‘inhuman’) can rarely be observed in the animal world. Nevertheless: ‘not human’ does not immediately equal ‘animal’. ‘Not human’ – from a categorical point of view – means just that: not pertaining to the human species. The expression does not in any way imply a marker that would lead to the category of ‘animal. And if it would, the marker would be rather pointless, since the species ‘human’ is contained in the genus ‘animal’ (cf. primary word sense ‘animated’ or ‘having a soul’).
It is true however that common semantics and language has imposed this relation between the qualification ‘inhuman’ and it being ‘animal’. This doesn’t make it more correct from a philosophical point of view, be it language, logical or metaphysical philosophy.
But that’s not really the point I will be trying to make here. The historical view on ‘how come’ does not help us with the ‘why’ in this matter.
Why do we qualify the horrors committed by the Nazi Regime for example, as being ‘inhuman’?
I’ll try to keep this argument as simple as possible… well, simplicity is a philosopher’s main goal if he or she is trying to do earnest work and not steam off a whole load of fancy words without meaning. To keep it simple I’ll go back to the historical stance for a moment. Traditionally speaking the one attribute that distinguisishes mankind or the human species from other animated species is (according to the theories you’re reading or following) consciousness, rational thinking, language, reason and judgement.
[Traditionally because some of this has been and will have to be further revised by current research on the rationality of apes, practical problem solving of birds etc. But since I am by no means a specialist in this field I will not go into this here.]
If rationality is the main difference between human beings and animals for example, the difference between the two adjectives ‘human’ and ‘inhuman’ can be summarized by the simple fact that humans think in a more or less ordered manner. (Meaning that the thought is not only triggered by environmental instincts.) Not only can a human being think about what he is doing or going to do, but he can also start to qualify and quantify his actions and possible consequences of these actions. Something that has yet not been observed in animals where the trial and error attitude is far more frequent. This is what you would call the ‘meta-level’.
This is only half an answer, but plainly put: we can think about ourselves and our actions. We have consideration and judgement.
The other half of a possible answer to the above stated question would be as follows. If we put aside the quarrel about free will, and simply state in a pragmatic way that it appears that we have a free will to choose between two courses of actions, then this ‘free will’ should ultimately be used in combination with our consideration and our ability to rational thought.
An SS officer who gets an order to kill 40 children that do not fit into a concentration camp for labour, is presented with a choice on several levels. On a general level he can choose between a human way and an inhuman way: think about his actions and thus choose the ‘human way’ or ignore any personal judgement or thought and blast away.
This is where morality chimes in. Recent research has lead to believe that the inner dialogue of rational thought about personal actions is the birth of any moral judgement or consideration. Let’s keep it simple and take this for granted like generations of thinkers (since Aristotle in fact) have.
Then the difference between ‘human’ and ‘inhuman’ is the simple fact of choice based on moral judgement, which will not be a choice at all after the moral consideration has taken place of course. No moral judgement – however twisted the mindset may be – will point towards shooting 40 children.
In short: qualifying the horrors committed by human beings as being ‘inhuman’ simply means not to follow the disposition of the human species to thought, consideration and moral judgement.
This is where the second part of Antonius’ quote comes in: “However hard you try you’ll never be able to kick Adolf Hitler out of the human race. He was one of us. And that is what’s scary. And that is why we must remain careful.”
True, but what’s more scary is how simple it is not to follow rational thought or judgement against better knowledge. So, the path to follow is not just to be careful, but also to continuously reflect our choices and judge them.
Only by retaining the lessons of History and reflecting them, can we ever hope to not repeat them.
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Srebrenica – 10 years later
These days, ten years ago the world saw – or more likely turned its eyes on – one of the most brutal genocide massacres and war crime since the Second World War. Srebrenica.
Almost exactly 10 years ago Serbian Troops entered the UN protected city of Srebrenica after the Dutch UN Commander and troops were at first refused any support by the French General Command at Sarajevo, then granted the support, but to pull out and leave the city to the Serbs. Until today the number of victims is unknown. Only 2000 have been identified, 610 bodies are buried. Every month new mass graves are unearthed while the responsible – Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic – are still free and living in Serbia today, partly being protected by the ever changing leadership of the Serb Republic.
610… Buried in a memorial site ready to receive 10’000 missing, right beside the former UN barracks. 10’000 (?) killed in what was supposed to be a UN protected zone (declared a ‘safe zone’ by the UN in 1993). Thousands thrown into the earth like animals. No right to live. No right to rest in peace.
I remember those days 10 years ago quite clearly. I remember how the world looked away and how I could not believe it. Retrospectively I guess that this was the moment when I had lost my political innocence and the primeval faith in higher authorities and names as mighty as the ‘United Nations’, the ‘NATO’, ‘Security Council’ and the ‘UNHCR’… It’s when I felt the terrible force of History repeating itself no matter how much is done to prevent it. It’s when I understood that if you lack the lobby to be helped, you will not be helped. And it’s when I saw that all the enthusiasm and idealism people have around you does not mean that they act upon it.
In Switzerland people remained unimpressed. My memory was that they couldn’t have cared any less whether in some God forsaken place some former Soviet subjects killed themselves. And I remember the articles and letters I wrote at that time. The tears I had shed because I couldn’t believe that we – the free world – would stand by again and again and see the horror happening without saying a word, without doing anything.
Of course, in the years that followed everyone was quick to condemn this, to offer their support, to help and welcome the refugees into their countries. I supposed it’s the easier thing to do. Easier than exceeding a UN mandate that was humanitarian. Easier than to step up to protect civilians from a war that was one of the – still unspoken of – most barbaric war crimes to be committed since Nazi Germany. At the time of the great generation, when our grandparents stepped up to help Europe they didn’t have the means to prevent the genocide of Hitler’s ideology. 10 years ago, the world had the means to prevent it, to act upon it. And still nothing was done. If there is no will… there is politics.
I wonder if people remember where they were ten years ago when it happened. If they even remember assisting this chapter of the past by tuning into their news networks or if it was just a normal day or week for them, filled with all kinds of atrocities all over the world.
I have never forgotten Srebrenica. Every time I heard the name I am filled with horror. With my still childlike revolt that now simply has become a reality like so many others. The sad truth is that the Serbs didn’t play by the rules the UN had set up. Neither do the terrorists we’re fighting now…
What follows is the story of one survivor:
Safet Malagic – now living in Switzerland with his wife and sons – was one of them. Together with the other men – and his seven brothers – he marched from Srebrenica to Tuzla. Hunted by the Serbs on foot and tank, after a night of sheer horror, he was at the verge of killing himself to finally end it. The next morning they bordered upon a ridge and a bullet his a 15 year old just in front of him. The father of the boy started to shout: “The Serbs have killed my SON… my son…” took Safets gun from him and shot himself on the spot. That’s when Safet and his brothers knew that they couldn’t go on like this. They decided that the youngest two and the oldest two were to surrender to the Serbs and that since they never were in the Army they would probably be spared.
Safet Malagic never saw his brothers again.
Links:
US Department of State – Press briefing from 5/9/1995, regarding the Air strikes and the Lack of Compliance by Bosnian Serbs with UN/NATO Conditions.
Srebrenica Time line
Press Clippings of 11/7/1995
The Commemoration I
The Commemoration II
The Commemoration III and some open words
The Commemoration IV
Comment of the Banner of Liberty
Srebrenica – A Cry from the Grave
Genercide Watch
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Women in WWII: GB
After 60 years the sacrifice of the women at the Homefront are finally acknowledged.
Women’s courage in Second World War commemorated
Memorial to war women unveiled
Tracing the last WWII heroines
‘I did what I was asked to do’
Go to WildBillGuarnere.com for further discussion and reports about this or the Victory Commemoration that took place the same week as the terror attacks in London
(Relevant Boards: War at the Homefront or WWII Commemorations)
http://www.victorythanks.org.uk/
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