The spirit of resistance
By Pepe Escobar
As southern Lebanon is turned into a wasteland mirroring the Gaza gulag, Washington neo-cons may stridently celebrate the contours of a final solution for the Hamas-Hezbollah “problem”. Or should they?
Israel’s feverish military machine at least conveys the impression it knows exactly what it’s doing - with its made-in-the-USA bombs destroying not just military but civilian targets. But this does not mean Israel is winning its war against Hezbollah.
What Israel wants
In March, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert promised that he would officially announce Israel’s “new” and in theory “final” borders before 2010. Olmert has committed his government to finish the wall separating Israel from Palestine. Israel will then retreat inside its wall. There was never any intent by Olmert to deal with the duly elected government of Palestine led by Hamas.
As far as Lebanon is concerned, Israel wants nothing less than a permanent buffer zone on its northern flank. And if Lebanon turns into an Iraq, even better - although the Lebanese have learned the hard way about sectarianism and won’t “Iraqify” their own country. Beirut will be rebuilt - again, and again the Hariri clan (with its dodgy deals with the US and the Saudis) will plunge Lebanon in further debt purgatory with regard to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, as the clan did in the previous reconstruction process.
There’s also the all-important matter of the waters of the Litani River in southern Lebanon. Israel might as well prepare the terrain now for the eventual annexation of the Litani.
Beyond Lebanon, Israel is mostly interested also in Syria. The motive: the all-important pipeline route from Kirkuk, in Iraqi Kurdistan, to Haifa. Enter Israel as a major player in Pipelineistan.
So Israel wants to grab water (and territory) from Palestine, water (and territory) from Lebanon and oil from Iraq. This all has to do with the inevitable - the 21st-century energy wars.
This is how we do it
Gerald Steinberg, professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University, says that “of all of Israel’s wars since 1948, this was the one for which Israel was most prepared”. Since 2000, in fact, when Hezbollah forced Israel out of occupied southern Lebanon.
As the San Francisco Chronicle reported, already in 2005 the Israelis circulated a “Three Week War” plan - as it unfolds now, almost to the letter - around selected Washington think-tanks and Bush administration officials. The plan was disclosed by an anonymous Israeli army officer equipped with a PowerPoint presentation.
In this war plan, the first week would be dedicated to destroy Hezbollah’s long-range missiles, bomb its command-and-control centers, and bomb transportation and communication routes. That has already happened, at least in theory; but although southern Lebanon has been turned into a new Grozny, Hezbollah seems never to extinguish its stockpile of 12,000 rockets.
The second week would concentrate on attacks on individual sites of rocket launchers and weapons caches. Instead, we have seen the continuation of non-stop, indiscriminate attacks. Ground forces would enter the war in the third week - that’s where we are now - but only to attack targets discovered during reconnaissance missions (these are ongoing). This plan did not call for a ground invasion and occupation of southern Lebanon. There’s not much to occupy anyway - it’s all been turned to rubble.
Only the foolish or the misinformed may doubt that this war is also a Pentagon war. As their mutual interest is obvious - Hezbollah must be destroyed - the only detail to be established is who wagged the other’s tail first. According to the US-Israel axis’ plan, cutting off Hezbollah from Lebanese society would lead to a vulnerable Syria extricating itself from a close relationship with Iran. That’s pure wishful thinking, because what Syria wants back is the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights - and that’s anathema for Olmert and the Likudniks.
A Vietcong master class
Some, but still only a few, Israelis - sometimes in the columns of the daily newspaper Ha’aretz - are beginning to notice that this carnage will lead nowhere. There are no more than 5,000 Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon. Hezbollah the political party - heavily involved in health, education and social services - is what really matters for Lebanese. It’s absurd to pretend to destroy a movement with such popular support as Hezbollah. Secular democrats may not empathize with the movement, but any serious Middle East observer cannot question its legitimacy.
It’s as if the Israeli military machine were betting on the elimination of the Shi’ites from Lebanon (they’re the majority of the population already) without facing any consequences. Israelis have reasons to believe it’s doable. The mainstream US and European media work as nothing but press offices of Israel’s Foreign Ministry.
A ceasefire remains “premature” (the whole world is for it, except the US, Britain and Israel). The House of Saud - supported by the US-Israel axis - has de facto encouraged a Sunni-Shi’ite war in the wider Middle East (that fear of the Shi’ite crescent again). It may take time, but the Arab street - and radical Islam - will renew efforts to try to hang the rulers of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Kuwait from lampposts sooner rather than later. Fawaz Trabulsi, a professor at the American University in Beirut, said, “Now you risk producing something worse than Hezbollah, maybe al-Qaeda No 2.”
Meanwhile, Hezbollah’s asymmetrical war effort is absorbing everything thrown at it. Resistance is fueled by a mix of beggar’s banquet anger, creative military solutions and Shi’ite martyr spirit. Hezbollah fighters are using olive-green uniforms to confuse the Israelis. According to Jane’s Weekly, Hezbollah has done a perfect Vietcong - its fighters operating in a network of underground reinforced bunkers and command posts near the Lebanese-Israeli border almost unassailable by Israel Defense Force bombs.
The practical result is that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is ever more popular all over the Arab street. Kind of like the new, 21st-century Saladin. Hezbollah’s moral and political cache could not but rise among peoples and movements worldwide who keep being bombed to oblivion but never had a chance to bomb back.
For Hezbollah - as well as for Hamas - “winning” means not being disarmed and/or exterminated, the avowed goal of the State of Israel. Apart from Mao Zedong in China and Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam, Hezbollah may have also learned a lesson or two from the battlefields of Chechnya - as it configures itself, like the Chechens, as one of the only guerrilla groups in the world capable of facing an extremely powerful state army.
In Iraq, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani was forced to issue a fatwa denouncing the Israeli assault. This means that Sistani knows very well Iraqi Shi’ites may be on the verge of turning all their anger against - who else - the occupying Anglo-American axis.
The fatwa may not be enough to appease them. Israel’s rampage has even unified Baghdad’s parliament; Sunnis, Shi’ites and Kurds took a unanimous vote condemning Israel and calling for a ceasefire. Fiery nationalist Muqtada al-Sadr, whose rising influence rivals Sistani’s in US President George W Bush’s “democratic” Iraq, hinted what may happen when he said at his Friday sermon in Kufa, “I will continue defending my Shi’ite and Sunni brothers, and I tell them that if we unite, we will defeat Israel without the use of weapons.”
As if the few thousand Sunni Arab guerrillas bogging down the mightiest army in history were not enough, Muqtada’s…
Stan:
Peggy posted this at another thread, but I am also putting it here, since it is so appropos. I agree with everything this author says, except that this will lead to an attack on Iran. The US cannot afford this kind of attack so long as they are in Iraq; and Iran is now gradually moving under the protective custody of China and Russia. Still a very important and thought-proviking analysis. Thanks Peggy:
Here is a thing from Counterpunch that I think may be relevant, just because it supports my suggestion that the ground guerrillas are better at tactics and strategy than the big bombers.
Why Israel is Losing
By ASHRAF ISMA’IL
The world is witnessing what could be a critical turning point in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Israel is now engaged in a war that could permanently undermine the efficacy of its much-vaunted military apparatus.
Ironically, there are several reasons for believing that Israel’s destruction of southern Lebanon and southern Beirut will weaken its bargaining position relative to its adversaries, and will strengthen its adversaries’ hands.
First, Israel has no clearly defined tactical or strategic objective, and so the Israeli offensive fails the first test of military logic: there is no way that Israel’s actions can improve its position relative to Hamas or Hizballah, much less Syria or Iran.
The logic of power politics also implies that a no-win situation for Israel is a definite loss, because Israel is the stronger party and thus has the most to lose. In an asymmetric war, the stronger party always has the most to lose, in terms of reputation and in terms of its ability to project its will through the instruments of force.
The lack of any clearly defined objective is a major miscalculation by Israel and its American patron.
Second, Israel cannot eliminate Hizballah, since Hizballah is a grassroots organization that represents a plurality of Lebanese society. Neither can Hamas be eliminated for the same reason. By targeting Hizballah however, Israel is strengthening Hizballah’s hand against its domestic rivals, such as the Maronite Christians, because any open Christian opposition makes them look like traitors and Israeli collaborators.
Consequently, while Hizballah will obviously pay a short-term tactical cost that is very high, in the long run, this conflict demonstrates that it is Hizballah, and not the Lebanese government, that has the most power in Lebanon.
The Shia represent an estimated 35-40 per cent of Lebanese society, while Lebanese Christians are thought to constitute no more than 25-30per cent of the entire population. Furthermore, the Shia community’s fertility rate is thought to be far higher than that of the other religious components within Lebanon.
Thus, the current confessional division of power in Lebanon, which grants Christians a political position that goes far beyond their minority status, is ultimately unsustainable, which means that the Maronite Christians will lose even more power, and the Shia and Hizballah will inevitably gain more power.
Third, Israel’s failure to achieve anything at all greatly enhances Syria’s influence over Lebanon and its bargaining position relative to the U.S. and Israel itself. No solution in Lebanon can exclude Syria, and so now the U.S. and Israelis need Syria’s approval, which certainly weakens both the U.S. and Israel.
And even Israel’s accusations against Iran, although largely baseless, greatly enhance Iran’s prestige in the region, and may bring about exactly what the Israelis are trying to prevent. While the Arab states look like traitors, Iran looks like a champion of the most celebrated of all Muslim causes.
Fourth, Bush’s impotence is a clear demonstration that America has lost a great deal of global power over the last three years. If Bush cannot control Iran, Syria, Hamas, Hizballah, or Israel, then what real power does the world’s “hyper-power” possess? America’s inability to influence any of the actors that are relevant to the current crisis is yet more evidence that America’s foreign policy is a form of global suicide.
Fifth, the age of great power warfare has been replaced by a world in which great powers must live and compete with non-state actors who possess considerable military capabilities. William Lind calls this transformation “4th generation warfare.â€
Consequently, the age of Bismarckian warfare, or what William Lind refers to as “3rd generation warfare,†is effectively over. “Bismarckian warfare†is a term that describes large-scale wars fought by large-scale armies, which require national systems of military conscription, a significant population base, and enormous military budgets.
Bismarckian warfare seems to have become ineffective in the Arab-Israeli context, because Israel no longer poses the threat that it once did to the Arab regimes, and the Arab regimes much prefer Israel to the rising non-state actors growing within their own borders.
William Lind has also argued that non-state actors such as Hamas and Hizballah can checkmate the Israelis as long as these Muslim parties never formally assume power. If Muslim parties were to assume the power of states, then they would immediately become targets for traditional Bismarckian warfare. However, as long as Muslim movements retain theirnon-state identity, they are strategically unconquerable.
Sixth, we must more carefully study the reasons why Bismarckian warfare is no longer effective.
The global diffusion of the news outlets is obviously important for understanding why Bismarckian warfare has become so ineffective. For instance, Hizballah has its own media network, and can draw upon the global satellite network to get its message out, and can also use the global media to take advantage of Israel’s targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure.
Further, the competition between Arab and Muslim satellite channels is also important, because each station wants to demonstrate its sincerity by spreading news that is not only critical of Israel and the U.S., but ultimately undermines people’s trust in the Arab regimes and thereby lends legitimacy to non-state actors.
And although the American media largely supports Israel, the information about the Americans stranded in Lebanon limits Israel’s freedom of action, and makes Israel look like it cares nothing for the lives of American citizens.
At an even deeper level, the rate and density of global information transfer, and lack of any centralized control over the global distribution of information, is causing the fabric of space and time to contract, and so Israel’s crimes can much more quickly create a global backlash.
Time and space, as we experience them, are contracting because the global diffusion of technical and scientific knowledge is permitting events in one part of the world to increasingly influence events in other parts of the world, and events that once took years or even decades to unfold can now occur within mere months or weeks.
As a consequence, the disenfranchised peoples of the world are developing the ability to affect the lives of the more privileged members of humanity, which means that anything that Israel does to the Palestinians or Lebanese will have effects upon Israel that are more direct and more negative than ever before, and that further, these effects will occur in an accelerated time scale.
Thus, as it becomes self evident that Israeli military power is no longer as effective as it once was, this will surely accelerate the flow of Jewish settlers out of Israel. Information regarding emigration of Jews out of Israel is a closely guarded secret, but using Israeli government statistics, we can infer that immigration to Israel has rapidly declined over the last several years, and that Israel may even be experiencing a net outflow of Jewish migrants. According to the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, the number of Jewish immigrants to Israel declined to 21,000 in 2004, which is a 15-year low. In 2005, the number of immigrants rose slightly to 23,000, which is still dramatically lower than the 60,000 that immigrated in 2000. Furthermore, Israel became a net exporter of its citizens in 2003, when9,000 more Israelis left the country than entered, and in the first two months of 2004, this figure rose to 13,000.
The global micro-diffusion of military technology is also critical, and so military innovation and its global diffusion will only strengthen grassroots rebellions and allow them to more effectively resist the instruments of Bismarckian control, as well as the depredations of the military hippopotami that are the ultimate guarantors of statism and statist regimes.
For all of these reasons, Israeli attempts to impose terms on Lebanon, or to redraw the political map of Lebanon, or even to impose a NATO force upon Southern Lebanon, are not militarily feasible nor politically achievable, and if attempted, will prove ultimately unsustainable.
As will soon be demonstrated by events on the ground, Israel will not be able to destroy or even disarm Hizballah. Neither will Hamas, Hizballah, Lebanon, or Syria permit Israel or America to dictate terms to them. Consequently, if Israel lingers too long in Southern Lebanon, its presence will be paid for at such a high cost, that it will be forced to withdraw in ignominy, as it has so many times in the past.
In the end however, Israel’s loss of power will make it even more dangerous, because the more threatened the Israelis feel, the more likely they will launch destructive wars against the Palestinians and Israel’s other adversaries.
Finally, the same can be said of the U.S., with respect to its loss of global power. Instead of becoming more careful with its use of force, the erosion of America’s global dominance will likely make the U.S. government more aggressive, as it attempts to re-assert its former position relative to its adversaries and competitors.
And it is precisely because America and Israel are losing influence over global events, that an American attack upon Iran in 2007 becomes more likely.
God help us all.
Ashraf Isma’il is an academic whose interests range from international relations, international economics and international finance, to global history and mathematical models of geo-strategy.
25 July 2006, 7:21 amtochigi:
Here’s the link to the original article posted by Peggy:
Counterpunch
(I wish I could be as confident as Stan that the US will not do something crazy vis-a-vis Iran. But, maybe Stan knows that the US generals will not allow such a scenario to happen…)
25 July 2006, 9:56 amTimothy R. Anderson:
Uh, the two things that spring into my mind are the lines of people waiting to buy gasoline here in the U.S.A. . I don’t know when or even if
that will occur ; my crystal ball has been over-rubbed already. I mention waiting because that’s where the typical American would put his / her foot
down. At that point, if ever it happens, people
would recognize that this borrowed money warring and this similar-to-slaves ” all volunteer ” military servicemembers scapegoating is a gigantic smokescreen. A smokescreen for the major governments of the world who FAILED to protect their citizens in Oklahoma City, in Africa, in the Middle East, in India, in New YOrk City ( fewer than two months from now — President Cheneybush
will likely make a small mention of the 5 year anniversary ) , in Afghanistan, in Spain, in Bali, in England , and in Iraq .
Governments have FAILED .
Now, where was I ? oh, yeah, the second thing,
which is Sistani. There’s a man of Iraq ( in ? ) called Sistani , who, due to his elderly-
ness, is likely to pass away before 2013 .
Could be any time . He is a very, very
admired and honored man. When he goes the non-Saddam glue that is ” holding ” ” together ”
the country of Iraq is gone.
Which sucks. What does not suuuck is Dahr Jamail’s reporting . I recommend it to everyone
http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com
Thanks for reading. And Stan, thanks for all of your efforts. Timothy R. Anderson
http://www.warisaracket.org My position is at # 102
25 July 2006, 2:26 pmpeggy:
Thanks, Stan, for re-posting the Counterpunch article, and acknowledging my being on some kind of right track in posting it. Escobar’s article is even more strongly on that track. Yay!
I dearly hope you are right that the US will not attack Iran because the US cannot afford it. However, Bush and his folks, as well as the Israeli government, have been acting with increasing irrationality. So, just because they can’t afford it doesn’t mean they won’t try it. It may be insane of me to suggest this, but perhaps we can place some hope, just at this time, in the US Army generals who understand that the war in Iraq isn’t working, and than an attack on Iran will make things even worse for the US military. Maybe they will just say no to their commander-in-chief. Wouldn’t that be something? A long shot, and maybe disastrous in the long run, but still …
25 July 2006, 7:26 pmMichael:
I couldn’t agree more with the author’s assertion that this is a proxy war going on between Israel and Lebanon. When you put together the SF Chronicle article along with Saturday’s NY Times article about munitions being speed rushed to Israel it seems everyone that is everyone was in on this thing from the beginning. That’s why we’re not going to see any call for an immediate cease-fire. I was talking to Mike Malloy on his radio show last night about this and with a heavy heart he agreed. I also put up a good-sized post on my blog about it as well. I feel these are dangerous times and we’ll be lucky to live thru them.
25 July 2006, 11:26 pmpeggy:
I noticed a strange thing in the article by Isma’il. he says,
“William Lind has also argued that non-state actors such as Hamas and Hizballah can checkmate the Israelis as long as these Muslim parties never formally assume power. If Muslim parties were to assume the power of states, then they would immediately become targets for traditional Bismarckian warfare.”
But Hizballah already *is* the target of Bismarckian warfare. And Hamas already *has* assumed the power of the Palestinian state. I guess William Lind must have written more than a few years ago.
It seems that the left-leaning mainstream press is becoming openly sympathetic to Hisballah/Hezbollah (which is correct?)
26 July 2006, 12:10 amSee for instance this: http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/world/15120640.htm
mayaxenia:
People in my household have been reading Stan’s blog for a while but we are too busy to post. But thank “God” for blogs, because most of the liberal media is unreadable.
The linguistic question is ultimately moot, because
26 July 2006, 2:29 pm“hizbullah” is the Arabic, (”hizb(u)” meaning “party”) and “hezbollah” is the Persian (so-called Farsi) pronunciation.
Doyle Saylor:
I would gather from how the expected invasion of Lebannon is going that some sort of definite limit has been found for heavy technology fire power that is failing to win the war quickly. One sees the same thing in Iraq in regard to the U.S. military technology.
Also Stan I saw your comment about being out of the left in two years if it doesn’t find a path to represent women. One of the basic threats to any organization is what the military offer in the example of Lebannon where the attack is against the civilian infrastructure. How does any organization of women face that threat?
I first ask what you would want to see if an organization came along that truly was what I think both you and I want, how it would deal with the military power option?
For myself, I’ve thought that really takes new thinking. The bolshevik left was based on a military model in many ways. I would say it seems probable to me that the left can’t address women because of the organizational structure has some sort of male mechanism that blocks female power.
Here is a link to my favorite theorist, Martha Nussbaum discussing McKinnon’s newest book on International law: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060731/nussbaum
Where McKinnon is addressing say ‘Terrorism’ on the lack of defining women in the concept of terror. Nussbaum points to this. The book title is “Are Women Human?”.
Quoting directly from Nussbaum in the article:
26 July 2006, 4:49 pmMacKinnon addresses critics who doubt that “theory” provides anything useful for marginalized people. Some are uncomprehending men, for whom calling something “only a theory” is a way of devaluing it in contrast to (their view of) “reality.” Some are women, who see theory as a male tool and would urge feminists to eschew it. Feminism needs theory, argues MacKinnon, because theory shows the world in a new way, using method to make it “accessible to understanding and change.” Theory is not an enemy but a necessary ally of the “reality of women’s lives,” because that reality is frequently invisible until theory brings its salient features into prominence.
thanks,
Doyle Saylor
peggy:
Doyle,
Thanks for your post. Imo, it might fit better under another topic than this one, but that is okay.
You say something that I do not understand:
“One of the basic threats to any organization is what the military offer in the example of Lebanon where the attack is against the civilian infrastructure. How does any organization of women face that threat?”
Do you mean, how *could* any organization of women face that threat? Or do you mean, “is there any organization of women who is facing that threat?” In answer to the first, I would ask in return, “How and why could they (we) *not* face that threat?” In answer to the second, I would bet my life that there are organizations of women in Lebanon right now facing that exact threat. But I believe your question must have meant something other than my two interpretations of it. Can you clarify?
I have read Nussbaum’s article that you recommended, and on the whole, I think it is fine, including the paragraph that you quoted. I don’t get why you picked out that particular paragraph for citation
There is only one sentence in Nussbaum’s four-page article that I would disagree with. She says:
“[The state] is a unit that expresses the human choice to live together under laws of one’s own choosing.”
I disagree because, first, few people can choose the State in which they must live. Most people have to live in the State where they were born. And I disagree because, second, a very large number of people cannot choose the laws under which they are forced to live, and often those laws discriminate severely against large sections of people who must live under those laws’ jurisdiction, in particular women, and not uncommonly, whole ethnic groups.
Both Nussbaum and McKinnon desire a state in which the law does not discriminate against women. Such a state would obviously not have to be a state comprising only women, and I don’t think either Nussbaum or McKinnon is suggesting such a thing.
But the fact is, McKinnon has found it very difficult to change the law of the United States - regarding, in particular, domestic terror - so as to be as fair to women as it is to men. Thus, Nussbaum charges that “MacKinnon sometimes comes quite close to saying that the modern state is a sexist relic that has had its day.”
Modern states do not work because, among other reasons, they severely oppress certain categories of their citizenry, who did nothing to deserve this oppression. Perhaps it is in the nature of the State do so.
And that is why organizations such as Hezbollah have arisen! To fight for the rights of certain categories of people who are violently and severely oppressed by existing states.
Hezbollah is both a non-state actor, and a trans-state organization. It has arisen to meet not only the needs the state is mandated to meet but cannot adequately provide for (such as hospitals and schools), but to meet the needs the state cannot by its nature meet.
And there are other non-state actors who are doing the same thing.
I am not saying that at the end of the day, these non-state organizations will turn out to bring any more or better justice than state-actors do. Some of them, however, are at least trying.
And what was the other thing? Oh yes, theory. Theory is good. Theory is fun. There are all kinds of theories. New ones come up everyday. That’s cool.
Marxism is a theory, that Stan has shown can be modified to good effect, without betrayal to the spirit of it. Leftism is not a theory. If Stan chooses to leave the left, I guess he will choose not to publish in certain places anymore. That’s fine with me, as long as he lets us know where we can find what and where he is writing when that time comes.
I saw this cartoon.
27 July 2006, 12:04 amMan speaking to another man at a cocktail party:
“Oh! You’re a terrorist! Thank god. For a minute, I thought you said you were a theorist.”
Doyle Saylor:
Peggy writes;
Can you clarify?
Doyle;
What I think any significant organization that really addresses gender inequality would have to face significant military style repression. The left in the past responded by using military style organization to counter the repression.
To advocate and I do that patriarchy be over turned we would need to ask how in a practical way that can happen. That’s a wide open question. In other words I presume that communist style organization needs to be examined from the point of view of gender inequality.
There is in Iraq a small very predominantly female army of “Marxist” Iranians. There are all sorts of female organizations in the world. All worth studying because the nature of the struggle against patriarchy is quite a distinct sort of struggle. But to be honest I don’t think there is a ’successful’ model of liberation to offer women as an option as yet.
Peggy writes;
Marxism is a theory, that Stan has shown can be modified to good effect, without betrayal to the spirit of it. Leftism is not a theory. If Stan chooses to leave the left, I guess he will choose not to publish in certain places anymore. That’s fine with me, as long as he lets us know where we can find what and where he is writing when that time comes.
Doyle;
Well Marxism is about class and fundamentally gets at the problem of how economic organization oppresses people. So I would think leaving the left means abandoning that insight. I don’t see how anyone could and expect to really change patriarchy.
On the other hand Socialists and Socialist parties also had a sense of class where the organization was unable to ’see’ women, or offer women more than good reforms. In China for example there is a distinct public and private sphere. Of course communists have been against individualism which militates against private sphere, but McKinnon’s thought resonates with the artificial division. That is where the nub is for Patriarchal structure in the private sphere.
I agree with your point about McKinnon and Nussbaum’s focus on the law. Nussbaum opened my mind to the implications of emotion as embodied in the law. But still both of them represent a reformist view rather than a more radical reformation. The state does represent a way to marginalize some groups. That process of marginalization I think is deeply related to what happens to women. So that though a group is made distinct say in a racist way, the same sort of process of marginalization makes women second class as well. Therefore a realistic attack on one ought to work as well in the other. I would say then one can tie together racism and sexism in one systemic response.
I agree Peggy my comments are tangental to what Stan brought up. However, if we look at resistence then I hope we see where terror and guerilla war are shaped by a gender based understanding. By that I mean we would face similar choices and have a responsibility to offer some chance of success despite repression of a military sort. And I think Stan’s comment about leaving the left is actually a very healthy way to get at the Resistence question. We must abandon that which does not really work for whatever alternative that does. But we must do something.
27 July 2006, 11:30 amthanks,
Doyle Saylor
peggy:
By the by, here is an interesting development. The Sri Lankan Air Force has commenced bombing LTTE positions in Eastern Sri Lanka. There has been a formal cease fire between the LTTE and the Goverment of Sri Lankan Government since 2002. But it the ceasefire has been violated multiple times and hundreds of people, mostly civilians, have been killed this year in the east and north of the country. Usually people are killed by “unknown gunmen,” or bombs explode that nobody knows, or can prove, who set them.
However, everybody knows, when bombs are dropped from Sri Lankan Air Force planes, who dropped them, and that is the Sri Lankan Air Force. The SLAF, of course, cannot and does not attempt to hide the fact that they are the ones who violated the ceasefire, this time. Therefore, as of today, the war in Sri Lanka is again officially on.
The reason I post this news here is that the Sri Lankan Air Force uses Israeli Kfir jets to do its bombing raids. It has been using Kfir jets since the 1990’s. Therefore, the Israeli government is a friend of the Sri Lankan Government. And I cannot help but wonder if Israel’s illegal bombing of Lebanon has encouraged the Sri Lankan Air Force in its illegal bombing of Tamil territories.
29 July 2006, 7:48 pmDeAnander:
I think that “bad behaviour” increases when anyone gets away with it; this is probably common knowledge among cops and explains some (not all) of their control-freak edginess in crowd situations. There’s certainly some
“fairness” mechanism in the human brain/heart that gets itchy when it sees someone else getting away with prohibited behaviour; one response is to intervene to stop the rule-breaker, the other is to start breaking the rules oneself — hey, if he can do it then I can do it. I have a feeling that orgies of war crime can get started in this way — when one guy starts shooting ad lib at civilians, and no one stops him, any others who feel like it think Why Not and get in on the act. And then their behaviour becomes the norm (and they are scary dudes) and those who object may feel too afraid to intervene…
On the more positive side, defiance to oppression works the same way: it takes one or two bellwethers to scale a barricade or sit down in nonviolent protest — and if the moment is right and no dire consequences immediately ensue, then others will see and emulate. Contagious behaviour is a strange and very human thing. — in this we’re very pack-like or herd-like, for all our pretensions to individualism.
So lawlessness — a disrespect for the conventions or rules of a polity — seems to escalate by emulation, and I don’t think this is any different on the larger scale. With the US’ public and explicit contempt for international law and human rights over the last decade has come a general decline in “behaviour standards” for governments worldwide, a kind of “make hay while the sun shines” attitude to repression of dissent, invasion of disputed territories, use of proscribed weapons and tactics, etc. When the cat’s away (the rules are suspended) the mice will play. I think any fifth-grade teacher or camp counselor would recognise the dynamic.
In management-speak it’s called “institutional culture” — the web of spoken and unspoken rules and conventions that determine the behavioural standards of an organisation. When it become corrupted or lax, the rot is felt at every level from the boardroom down… of course, no one gets to be a superpower without violating all the laws of common humanity in the first place, so the whole topic is kind of self-referentially doomed. What I wish I understood better is the impetus to reform, to restrain power and correct the behaviour of institutions. Where does it come from, what saves us from a descent into Mafia rule, warlordism, etc — does anything save us from this entropic process? is it inevitable? is it reversible? If there’s a countermechanism we’d better get it working, the sooner the better…
30 July 2006, 3:36 pmpeggy:
De - Here is a passage that responds to your post above, and resonates with much else that has appeared on Feral Scholar. In a way, it is old news, but I think it bears repeating in the context of current Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Palestine. It is from “Speech, Silence, and the Making of Partition Violence in Mewat” by Shail Mayaram, in Subaltern Studies IX: Writings on South Asian History and Society. Edited by Shahid Amin and Dipesh Chakrabarty. Delhi: Oxford University Press. 1996. Pages 197-198.
“From the perspective of the victim, a distinction has been drawn between consensual and non-consensual forms of violence. Contemporary ethnic violence can be seen as a form of non-consensual violence. As it is grounded in the absence of consent of the victim, it requires other sources of legitimation and the creation of a moral ideology. This ideology, firstly, constitutes the self (victimizer) as the victim. That is, violence is represented as counter-violence, in reaction to initial aggression and/or necessary for suvival. It thereby becomes an act of reason and the moral becomes the rational. Secondly, what has been described as the objectification of the subject takes place with regard to the constitution of otherness. All aspects of subjectivity and history are obliterated in the totalizing construction. Thirdly, a notion of the social good, is articulated so that violence becomes a moral act and the only alternative to the victory of evil. Experiential violence is thereby concealed by an alternative narrative and conceptual structure. Lifton describes this process as ‘psychic numbing’.”
I would add that this process is not necessarily always circular and self-reproducing. The process can be, and is, disrupted by the revelation of the experience of violence, through speech and images, in such a way that the alternative narrative and the psychic numbing that go with it are both shattered.
30 July 2006, 7:36 pmDoyle Saylor:
De writes;
If there’s a countermechanism we’d better get it working, the sooner the better…
Doyle;
What you are describing is not so much herd behavior as the architecture of emotions. So we feel connected to one and the other then that ‘whole’ is expressed as a single unified structure. It’s not a mystery that we ‘feel’ those things, it is a mystery to build upon that.
Functionally it is clear most feeling is directed to another human face. So we know the structure of the connection process is there. It’s like saying Peggy is bound to sixteen faces. Ten are strong bonds and six are weak. The rest of human faces are no bond or repulsive.
The nodes or faces are a place where we exchange information mostly via language while untilizing the bonding mechanism to stabilize the exchange of knowledge. To say this is what matters is like saying what I know I will do. What I don’t know I won’t do until I know what to do.
What is missing from socialists practice is a good well known way to express emotional attachments that is not completely face based.
8 August 2006, 3:11 pmthanks,
Doyle