There was an article in The Age (by Gerald Henderson, a pundit from
the right-wing "think-tank" here) the other day which said that those
who protested against the war were self-hating privileged rich kids.
I thought about this. It is on par which those who say that Jews who
criticise Sharon are self-hating anti-Semites. I don't understand
this: to protest what one deeply believes is wrong seems to me as
much a result of self-love, in that, like that woman Orwell
describes, looking up at him as he sat in a train, a human being
_knows_ deeply and instinctively that things can and should be
better, that people deserve better. To articulate that belief seems
to come from deep reserves of love: both self love, which gives the
belief, and love for humankind, which provides the trigger.
I substituted "educated" and "informed" for "privileged" and
Henderson's argument made a strange kind of sense. There is a
general sneering attitude here towards those who might be called
intellectuals elsewhere: to think is to be a wanker, meaning that
such a person believes that she is "better than" the rest of the hoi
polloi. But all one is doing is asking questions.
I have no doubt that educated and informed people can be for the war.
I have just not read one single moral argument for the war that made
any sense to me, and I am convinced the argument for it is based on
irrational assumptions: unless of course one accepts the violent
logic of empire building, which is something else. There is no
reason why educated people cannot be irrational as well.
Re: Private Lynch. My son came home from school the other day with
the free newspaper in his hand, incensed. Private Lynch was all over
the front page; she is clearly being celebrated everywhere and no
doubt does not need a poem. Now, I do not dispute that it must be an
enormous relief for her family that she has been rescued from such
danger, and hooray for Pt Lynch. But Josh's fury was to do with an
accompanying picture of an Iraqi man mourning fifteen dead members
of his family as he bent over a coffin containing three dead
children. "Why," said Josh, "is this on page five? Fifteen people
were KILLED!"
I'd also recommend another reading of the Iliad. Is Achilles really
a heroic figure as he sulks in his tent by the sea, or as he
mutilates Hector's corpse? I don't think so. The Iliad seems to me
about the waste and futility and tragedy of war. And those are the
poems which have lasted: who reads those endless poems about the
glory of the British Empire any more, except maybe curious historians?
As for the Imam: I am a bit tired of my objections to this war being
shifted to a support for ideologies which I clearly do not support,
this simplistic polarisation. I think the Imam and Mr Bush are not
so far apart in their ideologies, and it is also quite clear the
extremists - the right wing hawks in the White House and the Bin
Ladens - need each other.
Best
A
--
Alison Croggon
Editor
Masthead Online
http://au.geocities.com/masthead_2/
Home page
http://www.users.bigpond.com/acroggon/
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