(Lahore, Pakistan)
Lahore is a beautiful city boasting an exotic mix of impressive monuments, exquisite street food, modern media companies and traditional festivals. It would be a tourist paradise were it not for the problems that still beset this jewel. The city was torn apart during Partition, and soon afterwards riots between Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus further damaged both the physical infrastructure and everyday life. It was the objective of an attack by the Indian army in 1965, and its position close to the new border has never let it rest. Today Lahore figures prominently in the conflict against between the West and its enemies.
On March 3rd a group of gunmen opened fire on a bus carrying the Sri Lankan cricket team, killing six people (five policemen and a driver) and injuring nine more. Comparisons were quickly made to the violence at the Munich Olympics in 1972, when members of Palestinian group “Black September” kidnapped and later killed eleven member of the Israeli Olympic team.
However, the Olympics are widely regarded as an event which brings nations together in a sporting festival which still observes the accepted ethics of competition and morals of human co-existence. The irony of the Lahore attack is that it was committed against a team engaged in a “sporting” activity which was used as an unsubtle truncheon in the English class war and more importantly as a weapon in the colonial domination of a post-abolition British Empire.
Many people have likened sport to war – not least when the situation in question involves English football supporters – and there are obvious parallels between armies and teams, flags and team colours, trophies and conquests and primitive tribal belligerence and football crowds. Some would even point to a direct connection between the gentlemanly rules of engagement and the gentlemanly rules of a sport. Whatever the extent of the similarities, it was only a question of time before the already blurred boundaries between these two “sporting” activities were shot to pieces.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Marching out of time
(Helmand Province, Afghanistan)
The Helmand province of southern Afghanistan is mainly a desert, although the Helmand River provides extensive irrigation for agriculture. The main crop is poppies, and this region produces nearly half of all of the world’s supply of opium. It has also been the epicentre of intense fighting between first American, and then British occupying forces and the Taleban.
Last Saturday it was announced that another British soldier had died in Helmand, bringing the total British casualties in the eight-year war in Afghanistan to a round figure of 150. In Iraq the British army has lost closer to 200 soldiers. To those who share the petty-minded, flag-waving mentality prevalent in a tiny nation with a disproportionate ego, these people are heroes, and are always labelled as such by the British press.
This hero-worship reached its hysterical zenith last December when Sky 1 screened an awards ceremony which had apparently been dreamt up by Prince Charles and sponsored by The Sun newspaper. The ceremony was criticised by readers of others newspapers as being a cynical attempt on the part of The Sun to increase its circulation and by veterans’ associations as a glossing over of the real issues for survivors.
A DROP IN THE OCEAN
Despite the criticism, the programme was a success among that alarmingly large sector of the British population that still believes that if you take a gun and invade a foreign country and kill civilians in order to take control of natural resources you are a conquering hero. Prince Charles himself declared:
...as I speak many members of our Armed Forces are far away from their families, working in austere, challenging and often dangerous environments.
It appears to be as lost on him as it is on the rest of the warmongers that they would not have to be working in such conditions if they had not gone to a foreign country with a gun etc. To put it simply, people have a choice. The people who enlist in the army do so voluntarily and in full knowledge of the consequences – at some point they will have to kill somebody. And perhaps at some point they will have to die.
Let us not forget that this is not some humanitarian force which arms itself for self-protection while undertaking aid projects in areas in need of a more permanent infrastructure. Their losses are a drop in the ocean – or indeed a grain of sand in the desert – compared to the hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths they have caused in Iraq and Afghanistan. The numbers vary wildly depending on the source, with some organisations quoting as many as one million civilian deaths, but everybody agrees that the figure is at the very least 100,000.
WHITE FEATHERS
Many countries have seen great empires rise and fall on the back of military conquest and plunder, but most modern people would accept that these are feats that have not only been consigned to the history books but should also never be repeated. The British army may be a collection of heroes to some British people, but – from Cromwell’s crimes in Ireland through the phosphorous fire-bombing of Dresden to the fuel-air bombing of Iraq – to the Argentines, Afghans, Germans, Irish, Indians and Iraqis they are no more than war criminals.
The British government will continue to use its army as an imperialist battering ram for as long as such actions continue to receive support from a large proportion of the British population, and awards ceremonies such as the “Millies” will only fuel that support. It is time for the silent millions who do not support British involvement in wars to stand up not only in the occasional – albeit impressive – street protest, but also on a daily basis.
There needs to be a recognised symbol for those who are brave enough to show their disdain for the army in public. Perhaps an appropriate gesture would be to serve a white feather with pints of beer to those who have enlisted or those who have encouraged others to do so, as a symbol of peace and of the cowardice of those who would seek to bully countries into submission using guns and bombs.
The Helmand province of southern Afghanistan is mainly a desert, although the Helmand River provides extensive irrigation for agriculture. The main crop is poppies, and this region produces nearly half of all of the world’s supply of opium. It has also been the epicentre of intense fighting between first American, and then British occupying forces and the Taleban.
Last Saturday it was announced that another British soldier had died in Helmand, bringing the total British casualties in the eight-year war in Afghanistan to a round figure of 150. In Iraq the British army has lost closer to 200 soldiers. To those who share the petty-minded, flag-waving mentality prevalent in a tiny nation with a disproportionate ego, these people are heroes, and are always labelled as such by the British press.
This hero-worship reached its hysterical zenith last December when Sky 1 screened an awards ceremony which had apparently been dreamt up by Prince Charles and sponsored by The Sun newspaper. The ceremony was criticised by readers of others newspapers as being a cynical attempt on the part of The Sun to increase its circulation and by veterans’ associations as a glossing over of the real issues for survivors.
A DROP IN THE OCEAN
Despite the criticism, the programme was a success among that alarmingly large sector of the British population that still believes that if you take a gun and invade a foreign country and kill civilians in order to take control of natural resources you are a conquering hero. Prince Charles himself declared:
...as I speak many members of our Armed Forces are far away from their families, working in austere, challenging and often dangerous environments.
It appears to be as lost on him as it is on the rest of the warmongers that they would not have to be working in such conditions if they had not gone to a foreign country with a gun etc. To put it simply, people have a choice. The people who enlist in the army do so voluntarily and in full knowledge of the consequences – at some point they will have to kill somebody. And perhaps at some point they will have to die.
Let us not forget that this is not some humanitarian force which arms itself for self-protection while undertaking aid projects in areas in need of a more permanent infrastructure. Their losses are a drop in the ocean – or indeed a grain of sand in the desert – compared to the hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths they have caused in Iraq and Afghanistan. The numbers vary wildly depending on the source, with some organisations quoting as many as one million civilian deaths, but everybody agrees that the figure is at the very least 100,000.
WHITE FEATHERS
Many countries have seen great empires rise and fall on the back of military conquest and plunder, but most modern people would accept that these are feats that have not only been consigned to the history books but should also never be repeated. The British army may be a collection of heroes to some British people, but – from Cromwell’s crimes in Ireland through the phosphorous fire-bombing of Dresden to the fuel-air bombing of Iraq – to the Argentines, Afghans, Germans, Irish, Indians and Iraqis they are no more than war criminals.
The British government will continue to use its army as an imperialist battering ram for as long as such actions continue to receive support from a large proportion of the British population, and awards ceremonies such as the “Millies” will only fuel that support. It is time for the silent millions who do not support British involvement in wars to stand up not only in the occasional – albeit impressive – street protest, but also on a daily basis.
There needs to be a recognised symbol for those who are brave enough to show their disdain for the army in public. Perhaps an appropriate gesture would be to serve a white feather with pints of beer to those who have enlisted or those who have encouraged others to do so, as a symbol of peace and of the cowardice of those who would seek to bully countries into submission using guns and bombs.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)