This article from the Guardian about the way September 11 has given Americans an opening to exclusively claim victimhood is well worth the read.
It reminds me of an incident which happened about 6 months ago. I was overhearing a reasonably loud conversation between an Briton (of indeterminate provenance) and a Canadian whose parents were jews in Eastern Europe during the Second World War.
The Canadian was explaining the situation with the Native Peoples in Canada (which is analogous to Maori in New Zealand except, due to being a smaller proportion of the population, it is harder for them to make progress). The Canadian was firmly of the opinion that the indiginous population should stop any attempts to claim recompense for their unjust treatment over the last 200 years. He comment was that his ancestors had been much harder done by, so why should the indigenous population grizzle?
Which suggests that you should set up a scale of victimhood and only the 'best' 10 get access to justice?
I was also watching yesterday BBC news coverage of Tony Blair and the incumbent Iraqi Prime Minister giving a joint press conference as part of their currect talks. Blair was attempting to move the debate away from whether or not starting a conflict to remove Saddam Hussien was correct (I would have called it in Invasion, but I don't have a speach writer), and towards how the global community can address the current problems besetting Iraq. He painted all the current violence as being part of a fight between "evil" Global Terrorism and "freedom". Well, my understanding was that a fair number of the terrorists wouldn't be having anything to do with violence if they didn't have an occupying foreign force in their country.
Unfortunately, Blair and Bush have created an environment where religious terrorists, nationalists and the trained nastiness of Saddam Hussien's administration can find common cause. Nothing like a common enemy.
BnB can't fix it by adding more troops, neither of them has even close to the funds to run a totalitarian state that far from their borders. The British should know from experience how difficult it is to do anything positive with nationalistic terrorists by using an army.
So, you can't beat them with weapons, so you have to find other methods. Blair suggested helping the Iraqis to help themselves, which sure sounds like a start to me. But how the hell to you convince a country full of people to support ideals such as freedom, justice and constructive materialism when they have stopped listening to you? When was the last time a victim listened to the advice of an aggressor?
If the Western approach really is better, surely we can prove it by the way we act in the world? Surely we should be known for our good works in the world? After all, we've got a *huge* proportion of the world's wealth. What different situation would we be facing now if the coallition of the willing had spent their billions on generosity to the Arab world? What if cooperation with Westeners almost always resulted in better material wellbeing and a more positive view of humanity? What if western tourists spoke a smattering of Arabic and had some awareness of the Koran? What if we put our values where our mouths are and actually displayed the better parts of our culture and the religion which has had such a massive influence on it?
If Iraq is going to pull itself together, it will need massive tollerance between the three main cultural groups, and I don't think we're doing a crash hot job of modeling that right now. And, having created a situation in which that conflict must be addressed, I don't think that is good enough.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
The title of this post comes from the comment in the Guardian article that Le Monde's heading for their September coverage was "We're all Americans now". I wonder how that compares with their coverage of the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior.
Posted by carla at September 21, 2004 06:36 AM