War and...
Bleak is the word that rattles around my skull most. Bleak is the word, bleak is the world. Everywhere we look there is conflict, the ravages of greed, the abuse of power. Over the past few years, my social media—that is to say, my main contact with others around the world—has filled up with expressions of hopelessness, dismay, and even a sense of insanity. How can we continue despite? How am I expected to fulfil the basic tasks required of me to survive despite? Why aren’t we stopping despite? I have filled up with these same feelings, these same questions, but then, I have been filled with them since I was a child.
I am thinking of Russia and Ukraine, of course. I am thinking of Palestine. I am thinking of how to be Arab and Muslim in this world is to have seen your people and your lands routinely trampled upon, bombed into ruin, bombed into mass graves, on the basis of lies, on the basis of exaggerations, on the basis of a constant demonisation and the racist conflation of many peoples, many lands, many histories, cultures and beliefs, into one ugliness. It is to have seen people around you continue, despite. Go to work, despite. Shrug and say, it’s bad, but what can we do? We have bills to pay. We didn’t vote for this, they say, even when they did. And of course the reality is that our needs do not suddenly disappear when devastations occur elsewhere.
We are conditioned to accept those devastations, and that elsewhere, however, so long as it’s in the right place. The Middle Eastern and North African region is the West’s designated war zone, its particular elsewhere. When we hear news of atrocities, whether enacted by the US and its allies, or by local forces, it is filtered through this perception that these things, these acts, these horrors, belong to that enormous part of the world. Have been made to belong to it. And this is partly why Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine has been so shocking, so immediately all-consuming to those of us observing from a distance—it’s the fact that it’s occurring outside the designated war zone where any country can act with impunity (as Israel has demonstrated ad nauseam), and the fact that the consequences of this invasion could spill out into the West, the geopolitical alliance which brings war to so many countries, but only ever calls itself “peaceful” and “free”. It is as depressingly selfish as that. Little of the coverage we’re seeing now is motivated by love for Ukraine or its people.
I’m not writing this to point out American or Western hypocrisy when spouting crap about international law or sovereignty, I’m thinking more about that sense of despair, of lunacy, and helplessness with which I am so familiar. The past decade has made increasingly clear the trap that is the democratic system we live in. As I wrote in my previous post here:
“It’s hard to confront the fact that our governments, for all that we are supposedly citizens of democratic nations, routinely enact evil policies, whether we desire it or not. Even a functional representative democracy is not inherently good; likewise, no legal system is inherently just, though these words are often deemed synonymous. We have been conditioned to abdicate our agency to an increasingly unhinged and entitled upper class of politicians who have abandoned even the pretence of integrity.”
This is the tension beneath the despair and helplessness: the key action we’ve been given to express our will—voting in elections—is not working. There is a massive and growing disconnect between governments and their populations. Every war over the past two decades has been protested against massively. Black Lives Matter and climate change rallies held all over the world numbered in the millions. And yet, still our nations go to war, systemic racism has gone unchecked, and governments are still resisting moving away from fossil fuels. Why is it that the most popular movements in the world are described as “radical”, “extreme”, etc., while violent and bigoted tyrants who despise democracy are described as “populists” and “strongmen”?
It’s easy to feel insane when there’s an obvious disconnect between what’s happening and what’s being said. It’s easy to feel insane when repeatedly told that we are citizens of a democracy, a society that values equality and justice, and yet it’s clear that we are held hostage by a small number of politicians and corporations who routinely defy the most popular desires we express, and it’s clear the government ignores inequalities and injustices whenever it suits. Without repercussions. What’s the worst that happens to political parties when they fail to do what’s promised, when they lie, or draft discriminatory laws, or send our soldiers to war? Their party might “lose” the election, but they stay in parliament as “opposition”, employed on fabulous incomes with incredible perks.
On Twitter the other day I asked, why isn’t there a bigger global de-armament movement? Why do we accept that huge amounts of our money is poured into weapon development and procurement? Why aren’t we shutting down these weapon factories? Why do soldiers accept the orders given to them to invade other countries? Choosing to defend, I can understand, but going to another land to kill for your empire? It doesn’t make sense to me, nor will it ever.
We can’t fix the problems in society using traditional methods. It’s not going to happen at the ballot box. We need soldiers to lay down their arms when asked to invade other nations. Cops, too. We need everyone to resist because this absurd capitalist system and the powers that be within it are killing us all. I know this sounds tremendously naive, but we need the solidarity we’ve seen in action, we need the massive protests that have become the norm, not as a symbolic gesture, but taken further to cause this horrific machine to grind to a halt. We need the Russian people to stop Putin, the same way we need Israelis to stop their government’s apartheid, because no one else is going to do it.
We need a global movement that is resolutely anti-war, and that has justice and equality at its heart. There are enough resources on this planet for everyone, there is in fact an abundance; there is no reason whatsoever for anyone to go hungry or homeless, to not have education or access to medical care. We all know this, and we persist in allowing this monstrous, wasteful, civilisation-threatening system to continue. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—societal transformation is coming whether we want it or not. The risk, the violence of that, it’s inevitable. The “peaceful democracies” we live in will brutalise those of us who protest, who try to enact change. The only question is whether the transformation that comes is for the better or worse, and so far, it’s looking like the latter.
Bleak is the word, bleak is the world. This is what’s rattling around my mind lately. How very much I wish it was easy instead of hard to convince another human to never pick up a gun, or drop a bomb.
My prayers are with the Ukrainian people, and with Russian protestors, and everyone that acts in solidarity with ending war, wherever it rears its hideous head.
May Allah have mercy on us all.