Back in the heady days of 2013, when the discussions
about bombing Syria in the name of truth, justice and the American way first
rolled around, I got into discussion about the need to bomb. I, myself, was
opposed to the bombing, but was open to the idea of humanitarian intervention.
The other person was opposed to humanitarian intervention, and taking in
refugees, but felt that bombing was necessary in order to punish Assad for the
use of chemical weapons.
When I pointed out that the likely outcome of this was
just blasting a couple of places, killing a few people who were likely not
involved in producing or using the chemical weapons, followed by a return to
everyone being slaughtered with conventional weapons, he basically admitted he was fine with that. The point was to demonstrate to Assad, and the world, that we would
not allow the barbarity of chemical weapons; merely the barbarity of guns,
bombs, barrel-bombs and all manner of other horrors.
It strikes me that the current debate runs on the same
track--there’s very little discussion of actual interventions that would make
the situation better, plans on how to resolve the conflict and just generally stop
the fighting. The imperative is all in the bombing and the appearing to do
something.
This joins up with a sense I’ve had since the Iraq War
went pear-shaped. It’s sometimes muttered that the Iraq War made intervention a
dirty word and that’s why nobody can authorize boots on the ground anymore. This
is true to an extent, but I think it misses the reason why somewhat. What the
Iraq War exposed, like with Vietnam, was that it’s very difficult to achieve a ‘win’
in these kinds of situations. This is where the bombing comes in: it’s flashy,
simple and, more to the point, makes it easy to declare ‘mission accomplished’.
The odd thing about nationalism is that we all, to a
certain degree, live vicariously, through other’s achievements, or failures,
and feel it at an emotional level, purely by dint of having been born on, or
to, people from a particular hunk of rock. This is true of football and is also
true of war. People, it seems, take great pride in victories in warfare, just
as much as they feel angry about defeats, even when it’s very far away and
doesn’t directly impact on them.
The imperative to bomb is linked to this. The
politicians and their PR people (the media) want to have the vicarious pleasure
of a ‘win’, but don’t want to risk the vicarious disappointment of a ‘loss’.
This is, in a gendered sense, quite a male way to look at the world: seeing it
as a competition, a test of strength and courage, where talk is for faint
hearted weak-willed saps (the women), and all those other culturally
conditioned ideas. This is, I think, infecting the discourse and not in a good
way: as far as I can see there’s virtually no discussion about what we could actually
do to help the situation in Syria (help refugees, make it easier for people to
flee the violence, negotiate with Assad), in favour of chest thumping and
stentorian declarations of our righteousness and, less explicitly, manliness;
with anyone who opposes it denounced as traitors or pacifists (used in the
pejorative sense).
I don’t have the answer on what to do in Syria and I’m
not telling people how they should feel about it, particularly Syrians. I’m an
idiot, miles away from the conflict, bashing out some ramblings.
But, from a UK perspective, I’m finding the way the discourse
has been infected with the need to proclaim our strength and triumph, to
virtual exclusion of almost any other kind of potential discussion, quite
disturbing. Like I said, I’m not opposed to intervention even now: but it needs
to be something that’s thought over, planned out, discussed and clearly set out
what we’re going to do to help and how this is going to achieve our target. Not
have an attitude where we’re so convinced of our rectitude, expertise and superior
knowledge that we can just rush in and solve everything without having to have
any plan worked out.
The latter is, culturally speaking, a very male mind-set
to problem solving. And it’s a highly damaging one.