Around the World

2003-03-13 - 7:24 a.m.

I'm listening to the most fascinating show on CBC Radio Morning in Toronto. In anticipation of the Security Council's cote on war with Iraq tomorrow, they've gathered people together from Toronto who come from each of the countries represented on the council, sort of a Mock Parliament/Council, and they're letting each country's representative talk about their home nation's perspective on the vote.

This is what I've been waiting for, a chance to hear perspectives beyond the US vs Europe conflict. Every nation in the world has its own perspective, its own self-serving desires, and its own idealisms, and it's important for me to hear some of that, whether or not I agree with their stances.

For instance...France and Germany are at a point where they may be hoping to form the base of an alternative to the US power structure. They might benefit from controlling the interests of the E.U., especially in a world of anti-American sentiment. France and Germany, by seperating themselves from the US, have given the world a different perspective, they've given the world a choice. What this could mean is that even if the US remains the largest world power, France and Germany may have set themselves as the -second- best world power, which isn't anything to sneeze at.

But also consider...World War II is still in living memory. There are people who spent their childhoods playing in the ruins of Europe. There are people in Asia and South America who have spent their entire lives living through war. Syria is the only country with a border next to Iraq, the country that will have to deal most directly with any consequences, both expected and unexpected, of war. It's difficult for anyone who's lived with war to vote for more war.

Consider Pakistan, a country that relies on the US to help it overcome many of its economic and social problems, but also one that can't afford to enrage the other Muslem nations that border it: they are absolutely unable to make a decision that will be good for them, except, perhaps, abstention.

There are so many undercurrents to this issue, beyond whether or not "Saddam is Bad." Listening to this show is helping me to understand the depth of the consequences, even if only on a superficial level. It's helping me to see how wide this world really is.

But the thing I keep coming back to is what someone said earlier, that choosing war is choosing defeat: it means that we have admitted that we are unable to communicate with each other. War means that we've given up on our best natures and embraced, or at least given in to, some of our worst.

And someone else wanted people to remember that the people who benefit from war almost never have to suffer the worst consequences. War hurts the sick, the oppressed, the poor, never the powerful and rich. War hurts children, the aged, women, the ill, the disenfranchised, the beleagered, the unlucky, it hurts soldiers, artists, doctors and merchants, it hurts families, and social programs. It hurts the hungry and thirsty, the handicapped, the uneducated...

And I will never understand why losing thousands of people to an attack can justify killing thousands more people in another attack.

Maybe we should just sit George Bush down and force him to watch 24 hours of M*A*S*H, the series.

Cheers,

The Magus

previous - next