Meditations (Politics) - From Martin LeFevre in California
Freedom and Entanglement
The pictures of joyous Iraqis voting in their first election after American forces deposed the tyrant Saddam Hussein
were heartwarming and heart wrenching. How painfully they contrast with the Conduit-in-Chief’s State of the Union
address, built on the fundamental lie that ''our nation is an active force for good in the world.''
During Bush’s speech, there was a moment of historic symbolism when the two main human props literally became entangled.
A female Iraqi voter sitting next to Laura Bush, and the mother of a Marine killed in Iraq sitting behind her, turned
and hugged each other on cue. The mother of the Marine was holding her son’s dog tags, and they became hooked on the
sleeve of the Iraqi woman.
Suddenly the set-up, sentimental moment (Bush was tearing up on the podium) turned poignantly real. It almost looked as
if the mother was giving the dog tags to the Iraqi woman, which would have been something significant. But she wasn’t.
The media reported the embrace as a ‘wonderful, spontaneous moment.’
My mind goes back a few days to the scene of a withered old man in his tattered best, being carried a mile to the
polling station by family members, and of a young man with a leg blown off by a car bomb, who said he would have crawled
to the voting booth if necessary. Not even the unseemly gloating by the right wing press in the United States, and
President Bush’s restrained reprise of his “Mission Accomplished” act, could erase the emotional truth embodied in the
Iraqi elections.
During his State of the Union address, Bush echoed my thoughts exactly when he said, “they are trying to destroy the
hopes of the Iraqis, expressed in free elections.” But the ‘they’ is the U.S. The American military in Iraq no longer
speaks of “winning hearts and minds,” but baldly defines their mission as “co-opting the Iraqi people” with dollars and
propaganda.
The insurgents are right about the sham and show of democracy, but their violent and barbaric means of opposing the
occupation by blowing up civilians, or beheading people collaborating with the Americans, leaves the Iraqis no choice
but to retain the US military. A suicide bomber is a desperate coward no matter what the cause. Beheading is beyond the
pale of human civilization.
On Sunday we were wrenchingly reminded of the people this war was supposedly waged for -- the Shiites, Kurds, and Sunnis
of Iraq. They are flesh and blood human beings, whose long suppressed aspirations and basic desires for dignity and
self-expression emerged, with aching pathos, from beneath the violent stage.
Are we to now believe, from this confirmation of human spirit and courage, that the war was justified, and that the Bush
policies have been vindicated? Or is this yet another example of how war, an inherent evil, can produce beneficial
byproducts?
The arrival of new medicines and technologies, disgorged with the piles of entrails from the womb of war, does not mean,
a posteriori, that the filthy beast has been virtuously conceived. And yet that is the blatant and subliminal message
the world is receiving from Washington.
Some French are showing they remember a thing or two about collaboration. The deputy editor of Le Figaro said after the
election: “Suddenly we have a whole different perspective, and it can only benefit George W. Bush. He has been proven
right.”
An Egyptian citizen retained his senses, saying, “The march of democracy is fine. But inordinate military actions, and
all that bloodshed, is really alarming.”
The dictionary defines democracy as a government by the people. Do the people rule in the United States? Americans are a
willingly and even willfully ignorant populace, kept fat and happy with endless junk food and toys of consumerism,
voting a narrow selection of candidates, culled from an even narrower range of philosophical and ideological choices.
Not without reason therefore, the Bushites are banking on the bought and paid for Iraqi people (with blood and money)
buying into the global economy and opening the spigots to the largest oil reserves in the world. That’s what they mean
by democracy and freedom.
The world witnessed the spirit of the long-suffering Iraqi people rise up in an unexpected display of self-expression,
desire for self-determination, and hope for the future. Does that suddenly vindicate this ‘war of choice?’ No, the ends
do not justify the means, but the means determine the ends.
An Iraqi voter bristled at being asked his religious identification, replying, “yes I am a Shiite, but I am an Iraqi
before I am anything.” Is he moving in the right direction, away from religious extremism, or the wrong one, toward
national pride?
Power, war, and propaganda will continue to be the basic mode, means, and currency of human political life until enough
people say, ‘Yes I am an American (or whatever), but I am a human being before I am anything.’
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- Martin LeFevre is a contemplative, and non-academic religious and political philosopher. He has been publishing in
North America, Latin America, Africa, and Europe (and now New Zealand) for 20 years. Email: martinlefevre@sbcglobal.net. The author welcomes comments.