Year: 2003

There are two links I’ve seen on the net in the last couple of days that fill me with terror and foreboding. And I mean this literally – lying in bed awake at three in the morning worrying about what the world will be like in five years time. Time and time again I run through the various arguments for and against a war in Iraq – and time and again I find myself unable to take a position on the events themselves. But what is increasingly obvious to me is the terrible nature of the rhetoric and reasoning emerging from some quarters of the States at the moment. For this war – if it is coming – to have any legitimacy, then these arguments need to end straight away. Any war – if it comes – must be seen to be happening for the right reasons and to be seen to be being done for the right reasons as well.

The first link was on the site that I’ve spent the last few months building at UpMyStreet. On the community part of the site there was a conversation started called Selective Memory Loss: Germany & France. In this piece an American citizen argued a case I’ve heard quite frequently recently – that because of their action in the Second World War, Europe (particularly Britain and France) owe the United States a favour and should therefore support their war against Iraq.

The horror of this argument must surely be clear to everyone? Wars must not be entered into because of pressure from other countries or debts from the past. They must surely be entered into only because the war seems to be the unpleasant responsibility of the people concerned – that not to enter into war would be itself unethical. If the French and the German people – and their leaders – genuinely believe that a conflict in Iraq is not a moral enterprise, then they have no choice but to refuse to engage in it – even to try and stop such a war happening. And if America or Britain objects to such resistance, then it is their responsibility to persuade, to convince, to make the case.

The other article is even more terrifying. A representative of the Pentagon declares France to be ‘no longer [an] ally’ of the United States. Here’s a quote from the article in question:

Perle went on to question whether the United States should ever again seek the endorsement of the U.N. Security Council on a major issue of policy, stressing that “Iraq is going to be liberated, by the United States and whoever wants to join us, whether we get the approbation of the U.N. or any other institution.”

I would think this quotation would speak for itself. Unilateral action on the basis of overwhelming superiority of power rather than a certain degree of international consensus is the very model of a dictatorship. And the idea that the most powerful country in the world essentially gets to do what it wants unchecked in the world is terrifying beyond measure. It may seem ridiculous to Americans, but I think quite a lot of Europeans are beginning to wonder what would happen if America turned its attention our way… It almost makes you pine for the Cold War…

Here’s another intriguing article from the New York Times: Ah, Those Principled Europeans. Here’s a stripped-down outline of the article in question:

• Europeans, GMOs and Smoking:
  • Europeans have to make clear when they’re selling food that contains genetically modified organisms.
  • This is a rebellion against America and high-technology.
  • This can be demonstrated still more clearly because Europeans smoke like chimneys.
  • Smoking is much more dangerous than eating genetically modified organisms, therefore they must just be doing it to spite the Americans.
• Europeans, America and Iraq:
  • Europeans are not defying the US for any of the good reasons that do exist (these reasons are not mentioned or explored).
  • Europeans are ignoring the fact that young Iraqi people want democracy and wish to escape from the rule of their dictatorial leader.
  • In fact, just like with GMOs and smoking, Europeans are just against the war because they are simply against whatever the US wants to do.
  • Because Europe wants to constrain the power of the United States they end up inevitably on the morally questionable side of Iraq.
  • This is weakness masquerading as moral superiority.

Point-by-point, then. European governments are not the people who put the issue of GM food on the international agenda. In fact many European governments – including the British government – have been traditionally in favour of genetically-modified products. It has been (in order) green activists, some parts of the media and finally the general population that brought this issue to the forefront of politics. They are the ones that campaigned the display of this kind of information. Government had very little to nothing to do with it. Anti-American sentiment has absolutely nothing to do with it.

I’ve dug around a bit and it does seem to be the case that there is more smoking in Europe than in America. But this difference doesn’t seem to be as extreme as the New York Times article suggests. The best place I found for comparative statistics (that also illustrate differences between the member states of the EU) was The World Health Organisations Tobacco Atlas from 2002. While the number of male and female smokers in Europe were generally higher than in the United States, this wasn’t uniformly the case and several key European countries had fewer smokers than the US. Particularly interesting were the maps of comparative cigarette consumption [PDF of World-wide Cigarette Consumption]. According to this measure, most European countries are in exactly the same band of smoking intensity as the US and Canada. A few are heavier smokers. A few smoke less. These hardly seem to be figures that one could use to support a systematic theory of European hypocrisy.

So i) the labelling of GMO wasn’t done because of America-bashing, but because of green activists and ii) the differences in smoking habits between the EU and the US aren’t that dramatic. What we might then go on to point out is that labelling something as a GM crop – although it might conceivably add to the cost of producing foodstuffs – is not necessarily designed to stop people buying it, just to allow consumers to make that choice for themselves. There’s an awful lot of stuff that you are required to put on food labels in the EU [EU Food Laws] – from whether a product contains nuts, through to lists of ingredients, through to basic nutritional information. It doesn’t necessarily follow that making sure products are labelled with pertinent information makes them sell any less well. Otherwise none of us would buy cheap, high-calorie foodstuffs.

The second half of the article – where the analogy is drawn between European smoking habits and their refusal to give total assent to a war with Iraq – contains some interesting statements, many of which may contain some elements of truth. Clearly – as the article states – there are good reasons for not going to war. There are always good reasons for not going to war – the most significant of which is that people have a tendency to get killed. Secondly it seems entirely likely that there are people in Iraq who wish to depose Saddam Hussein. There were lots of people who wanted to depose him during the last Gulf War, and who in fact rose up against him. And yes – it seems likely that many European countries are uncomfortable with the idea of any country acting unilaterally against another without the assent of the international community. These things are almost certainly true.

But just like with the perceived motivations for European decisions on GMOs and smoking – there are some tenuous logical bridges being built. Firstly a disagreement with unilateral action is not anti-American – it is simply that America is the one contemplating unilateral action – just as it happens to be America that supplies a good proportion of the world’s GM food and technology. Secondly, the existence of dissident groups within a country is not necessarily enough reason to suggest deposing its leader, nor is it a guarantee of support should one invade. George Bush Senior tried to persuade the Iraqi people to rise up against Saddam Hussein. He succeeded, they did. And they were left exposed when the west withdrew from the region subsequently. Whether they’d be as comfortable to rise up again isn’t entirely clear…

Finally, the logical problem comes down the statement that the Europeans are being forced into morally bankrupt pro-Iraqi positions by their selfish resistance to the American (and British) position. But in fact there are no European leaders who would stand up and defend Saddam Hussein. None. But nor are there many convinced that the proposed invasions would radically improve the situation of people across the world or the lot of the Iraqi people – who (we are reminded) are also victims in this situation. In fact it’s the polarising of the debate into “You’re either with us or against us” rhetoric from the States and from American media that is pushing Europe more steadily and defiantly in opposition. The sensation that they are being pressured to attack rather than persuaded to attack is – and should be – profoundly discomforting. For if all positions other than the one advocated by the United States come to be perceived as by dint of their opposition intrinsically immoral, then the whole world’s in a pretty bloody dangerous space…

Addendum: This article has been discussed by a wide variety of different sites from all sides of the political spectrum. I want to openly deny at this stage an allegiance with either the pro or anti-war lobbies. I have yet to fully make up my mind about the need, the expediency, the pragamatics or the morality of a potential conflict. What I have made up my mind about is that it’s too bloody serious an issue to let people sloganeer, to have individuals try and shut down necessary debate or to dismiss opposing viewpoints as the products of selfish, diseased or un-Christian degenerates. Thousands of people are likely to be killed as a result of this action – it’s immoral not to agonise over whether it’s the right decision or not.

Presented with limited commentary, two articles about the relationship between Europe and America. One from the Washington Post (Politicians With Guts) that makes the stunning suggestion that a continent of states should make decisions on international politics based upon whether or not they owe the United States a favour for helping out in a war that ended sixty years ago, while simultaneously somehow suggesting that any disagreement with American foreign politics is tantamount to setting-up death-camps:

By using the word “generosity,” they even implied that Europeans might now owe the United States a little generosity in return … Britain’s most gifted scholars sift through American writings about Europe searching for signs of derogatory “sexual imagery.” In Paris, all the talk is of oil and “imperialism” (and Jews). In Madrid, it’s oil, imperialism, past American support for Franco (and Jews).

The other article is from the New York Review of Books (Anti-Europeanism in America) which talks about the stereotypes of the European:

Europeans are wimps. They are weak, petulant, hypocritical, disunited, duplicitous, sometimes anti-Semitic and often anti-American appeasers. In a word: “Euroweenies.” Their values and their spines have dissolved in a lukewarm bath of multilateral, transnational, secular, and postmodern fudge. They spend their euros on wine, holidays, and bloated welfare states instead of on defense. Then they jeer from the sidelines while the United States does the hard and dirty business of keeping the world safe for Europeans. Americans, by contrast, are strong, principled defenders of freedom, standing tall in the patriotic service of the world’s last truly sovereign nation-state.

And gets to the crux of the issue:

Anti-Americanism and anti-Europeanism are at opposite ends of the political scale. European anti-Americanism is mainly to be found on the left, American anti-Europeanism on the right. The most outspoken American Euro-bashers are neoconservatives using the same sort of combative rhetoric they have habitually deployed against American liberals. In fact, as Jonah Goldberg himself acknowledged to me, “the Europeans” are also a stalking-horse for liberals. So, I asked him, was Bill Clinton a European? “Yes,” said Goldberg, “or at least, Clinton thinks like a European.”

Kurt Vonnegut – the writer of Slaughterhouse 5, my favourite book of all time – finally joins my rogues gallery of personal heroes. I’m not sure it’s an honour that he’d aspire to, or even accept – particularly given the company he’s going to be keeping – but he doesn’t get a choice in the matter. It’s my list. If he doesn’t like it, he can write his own damn list…

He joins a motley group consisting of Steve Jobs, Grant Morrison and Sigmund Freud – all of whom I think are aware of the sheer complexity of life and living, the difficulty of operating morally within the world, and who strive nevertheless towards some kind of positive constructive change, significant or profound insights or the building of elegant and beautiful things. These are probably the only ethics that I understand. These are probably the only beliefs that I can stand behind.

To my knowledge, none of my heroes are women and none of them are gay. This could be a failing of the world, a failing of myself or a failing of women and gay people.

Of the four, Kurt Vonnegut is clearly the most overtly politically motivated – but he stands for a form of humanism rather than for sectarian or party politics. This doesn’t mean he’s not prepared to lay into our leaders and representatives in government or big business. Quite the opposite. Here’s an extended quotation from a recent interview with him:

I myself feel that our country, for whose Constitution I fought in a just war, might as well have been invaded by Martians and body snatchers. Sometimes I wish it had been. What has happened, though, is that it has been taken over by means of the sleaziest, low-comedy, Keystone Cops-style coup d?etat imaginable. And those now in charge of the federal government are upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography, plus not-so-closeted white supremacists, aka ‘Christians,’ and plus, most frighteningly, psychopathic personalities, or ‘PPs.’

To say somebody is a PP is to make a perfectly respectable medical diagnosis, like saying he or she has appendicitis or athlete?s foot. The classic medical text on PPs is The Mask of Sanity by Dr. Hervey Cleckley. Read it! PPs are presentable, they know full well the suffering their actions may cause others, but they do not care. They cannot care because they are nuts. They have a screw loose!

And what syndrome better describes so many executives at Enron and WorldCom and on and on, who have enriched themselves while ruining their employees and investors and country, and who still feel as pure as the driven snow, no matter what anybody may say to or about them? And so many of these heartless PPs now hold big jobs in our federal government, as though they were leaders instead of sick.

What has allowed so many PPs to rise so high in corporations, and now in government, is that they are so decisive. Unlike normal people, they are never filled with doubts, for the simple reason that they cannot care what happens next. Simply can?t. Do this! Do that! Mobilize the reserves! Privatize the public schools! Attack Iraq! Cut health care! Tap everybody?s telephone! Cut taxes on the rich! Build a trillion-dollar missile shield! Fuck habeas corpus and the Sierra Club and In These Times, and kiss my ass!

The most important part of this quotation for me is the part marked with italics. As I look around me at the very vocal parties trying to make the complex moral issues surrounding an attack on Iraq seem simple and obvious, I feel repelled. There are people on every side using cheap argument and charged sloganeering to steer public opinion. There are people on “both” (as if there were only two possible approaches to any problem) sides appealling to patriotism, or to deep-seated prejudice of every kind, or appeal to people’s self-interest or on their nervousness and sense of vulnerability.

Which brings us back to heroes. We choose figureheads to represent our interests or our beliefs. We choose to give respect to people whose arguments convince us, or who have knowledge and experience that we think is important or relevant. Each of us makes miniature heroes out of our politicians when we support them, or the experts that we quote when we’re defending a position.

If I have any advice for anyone who’s reading this and still doesn’t know where to place their support in this and any other political situation – how to choose your heroes as it were – I would say this and nothing more. The people who present conflicts like this, decisions of this scale, as either / or situations entered into because there are no other options (be this in defence of war or against war – or any other debate) – these are the people who we should be suspicious of. Because they’re the ones for whom all debate has been shut down, they’re the ones who couldn’t be persuaded that their position is wrong if you had all the evidence in the world. They’re the ones who have positions that are fait accompli, that they’ll defend and fortify – bringing arguments and figures to bear individually as if they were tanks or planes, selecting whatever information suits their position at any time.

Living isn’t about anything, but much of the process of wandering through life requires us to make difficult decisions – to try and work out what the best thing to do is in difficult circumstances where there are a variety of perspectives, where no side is completely free of stigma or shame, where pragmatism tells you a different thing from your beliefs. People who would hide these decisions from you, take these decisions from you, who would treat you as children – they don’t deserve your respect, let alone your adulation. These people are not to be trusted. Do not allow yourself to be spoken to as if you were a child or an idiot by the people you chose to govern you unless you’re prepared to have them make terrible decisions in your name. Because however many heroes you might have, you don’t have to wake up and face them in the mirror in the morning.