Sunday, August 05, 2007

Sunday Food for Thought: Belligerent Benevolence

So, I was reading yet another article about the outrage sparked by the Iraqi government taking a summer break - this one in The Independent by Rupert Cornwell who takes a look at "work-obsessed Americans": Out of America: Holidays are for wimps (and the President) - and the phrase that popped into my mind about this whole affair was "belligerent benevolence".

Cornwell writes:

In a sense, the tide of criticism (complete with a stern "Do not go on vacation" instruction from George W Bush in person) is part of the new orthodoxy about Iraq here [in Washington]. This holds that the mess is all Iraq's fault. The US has done its part, selflessly kicking out Saddam Hussein and sacrificing blood and treasure to give Iraqis the chance to fashion a lasting democracy, but they haven't taken it. Instead the parliament squabbles and feuds, unwilling to pass vital legislation to reduce sectarian discrimination, share oil revenues and so on.

But indignation about those lazy do-nothings in Baghdad also reflected a different and ancient American reality. Something in the culture, the character or maybe the water makes the country deem a decent holiday an offence against God and all his works. As a recent study has it, the US is "the No-Vacation Nation".

He goes on to compare different nations' paid vacation policies and practices but the larger point is really about how too many Americans still buy into this myth that in every department they are "the greatest nation on earth". Emma Goldman summed up that attitude succinctly:

Patriotism ... is a superstition artificially created and maintained through a network of lies and falsehoods; a superstition that robs man of his self-respect and dignity, and increases his arrogance and conceit.

And while the current administration is the height of that type of arrogance, US history shows that both major parties have pushed the same type of patriotism that places their country above all others. And by doing so, America feels entitled when it gives something of itself to others - even when they do it without being asked ie. see: war, Iraq.

It's classic martyr syndrome behaviour and all of this feigned outrage over the Iraqi politicians taking a break is definitely symbolic of the bigger disease: belligerent benevolence.

Why would I call an illegal war benevolent? Because that's exactly how those who support see it every time they claim that it's about "spreading democracy" or "making the lives of Iraqis better". They really believe that military interventionism is an expression of "compassionate conservatism".

As Smedley Butler wrote in 1933:

I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.

I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.

No one in the world gets something from America for nothing. Every "gift" is fraught with conditions and expectations that whoever they show their generosity to will in turn become eternally grateful in that they will become quasi-American. What an incredibly boring world it would be if that came to pass.

As Uzodinma Iweala recently wrote in a Washington Post editorial titled, Stop Trying To 'Save' Africa: ... (Too late.)

Such campaigns, however well intentioned, promote the stereotype of Africa as a black hole of disease and death. News reports constantly focus on the continent's corrupt leaders, warlords, "tribal" conflicts, child laborers, and women disfigured by abuse and genital mutilation. These descriptions run under headlines like "Can Bono Save Africa?" or "Will Brangelina Save Africa?" The relationship between the West and Africa is no longer based on openly racist beliefs, but such articles are reminiscent of reports from the heyday of European colonialism, when missionaries were sent to Africa to introduce us to education, Jesus Christ and "civilization."

Sound familiar?

There is no African, myself included, who does not appreciate the help of the wider world, but we do question whether aid is genuine or given in the spirit of affirming one's cultural superiority. My mood is dampened every time I attend a benefit whose host runs through a litany of African disasters before presenting a (usually) wealthy, white person, who often proceeds to list the things he or she has done for the poor, starving Africans. Every time a well-meaning college student speaks of villagers dancing because they were so grateful for her help, I cringe. Every time a Hollywood director shoots a film about Africa that features a Western protagonist, I shake my head -- because Africans, real people though we may be, are used as props in the West's fantasy of itself. And not only do such depictions tend to ignore the West's prominent role in creating many of the unfortunate situations on the continent, they also ignore the incredible work Africans have done and continue to do to fix those problems.

Why do the media frequently refer to African countries as having been "granted independence from their colonial masters," as opposed to having fought and shed blood for their freedom?

Because the west's benevolent empire building cloaked in the pc-sounding name "nation building" in order to rape cultures of their identity and resources has become the only way it can sustain itself. The people affected are simply "collateral damage" who must remain marginalized in order to stop any sort of revolt on a mass scale because that might cause the empire to collapse.

The problem is, however, that every colonial empire eventually collapses under its own weight.

This belligerence, this impatience with the Iraqi government - which just isn't getting the oil privatization law passed quickly enough for the war profiteers to walk off with their spoils - is just the latest example of the type of belligerent benevolence that drives every empire.

The "ungratefuls" will be made to pay - somehow - just as they already are in Iraq with a lack of water, electricity, proper sewage and basic human needs. They are being punished and that punishment is a war crime - just as the invasion of their country was to begin with. How dare any American demand compliance by a government it created in the midst of a hell that it engineered?

The next time America wants to be benevolent, it might just try giving to the Red Cross/Red Crescent and leave it at that. The rest of the world would certainly be much better off if it did.
 

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