ROBERT FISK - The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East

Chronicling the last half-century of history in one of the world’s most volatile and complex regions is no small task. This is particularly true when the author is Robert Fisk – one of the most highly acclaimed yet divisive journalists around – and the region is the Middle East – a political quagmire t the best of times. The gravity of this task is immediately evident in The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East as it spans over a thousand pages and covers events as diverse as the Armenian genocide and the Algerian civil wars, as well as such seminal events as the Iran-Iraq War and the two Gulf Wars.

Anyone looking for a conventional, text-book-style history, however, should perhaps look elsewhere. Relying on first-hand sources and his own wealth of experience, Fisk imparts a deep and nuanced understanding of a Middle East where, having spent the majority of his life living and working, he has come to understand that (on a national/diplomatic level at least) there are no ‘good guys’. However, without any clear referencing to provide the appearance – and, on this subject more than an other, it is only ever an appearance – of objective truth, Fisk’s work at times demands a level of trust in his own judgement and motives which can leave the reader feeling somewhat vulnerable.

That said, The Great War for Civilisation does give a massively detailed and highly personal account of some of the most important events and issues of our time, from a perspective it can be almost impossible to get elsewhere. Fisk’s writing is always extremely thorough but, at the same time, incredibly eloquent. In fact, the author’s mastery of language is such that the reader could at times be excused for thinking they are reading a great literary work, such is the descriptive and symbolic power of Fisk’s writing. This, however, is always short-lived, as Fisk’s trademark passion, honesty and, some would say, cynicism are always lurking, ready to bring you back down to earth with a painful, often heart-wrenching, bump.

At his best, Fisk toys with you, playing on your preconceptions, your partisanship and your powers of empathy. At one moment, Fisk brings you to believe fervourously in the evil of one group and, thus, to side unquestioningly with the victimised other; only to then – and here we are talking a matter of sentences rather than chapters – challenge the very foundations of what you have some to believe as the truth, by demonstrating how profoundly flawed your new heroes are. Thus, by pointing your attentions in one direction, then another, and another, and then back again; and by whipping you into a state of near frenzy at every turn, Fisk not only bamboozles you with a dazzling described array of pain and injustice, but also holds up a mirror, in which even the most conscious, careful and critically minded of us can hopefully come to see, and become eminently aware of, our own gullibility and willingness to be led.

Ultimately, the book does read as a catalogue of western failure, ignorance and exploitation. While no one is spared the sharpness of Fisk’s tongue or the fire of his fingertips, it is the US and Britain in particular whose morality emerges tattered, torn and burn to a singe, if it emerges at all. It is for this that Fisk has become a much maligned figure in many circles. Undoubtedly, Fisk lays the blame disproportionately at the feet of Western actors. When their dictators lie, they use a Western manner of lying; when they are brutal, they are utilising Western means of brutality; when they are corrupt, they are following the Western method of corruption. While the evidence given to support such suggestions is indeed compelling – the Iran-Iraq War and the actions of the FIS in Algeria are perfect examples – it does not pin the blame exclusively on the West. Rather, it proves that for every assault on humanity by a Middle Easter demagogue, there is a history of similar abuses – equally worthy of our indignation – by western democracies to pull from beneath us any moral high-ground upon which we are tempted to stand.

The book, however, should not be misconstrued as another bible of ‘white-guilt’. In pointing to the ways in which we are, albeit only partly, accountable for their problems, Fisk is not trying to absolve Arab leaders and peoples of their guilt (his own unpopularity with Middle Eastern leaders can attest to that). Instead, Fisk is providing the missing story in our narrative about the Middle East, and the missing link in our public understanding of how one of the richest regions of the world in terms of history, culture and natural resources, has become one of the poorest. The Great War for Civilisation is written for a western audience, designed to tell us a few home truths; to show how our power is misused and how our very presence has a provocative and inhibiting influence.

Thus, for those unfamiliar with Fisk’s writing, it may be worth doing some background reading of his articles in The Independent newspaper; for his wry humour and unrelenting criticism of all parties involved in the region (particularly the West) make his work a somewhat acquired taste. However, for anyone familiar with his writing, or anyone considering a career in journalism, The Great War for Civilisation is an essential read. Fisk’s vast experience, coupled with his unerring ability to see through the rhetoric of public figures and be concerned only with the underlying human cost of war makes his testimony all the more damning on a political level, yet all the more inspiring on a personal and journalistic one.

twitter iran and the west

First, can I ask you to forgive whatever irony you may find in the fact that these aimless half-sketched ideas, these tepid and juvenile ramblings make their way to you the way they do (i.e.via a blog); for it is this type of development – or the omnipresent phenomenon commonly refered to as “new media” – which has captured my attention. More, it is the way we as a society use these tools that interests me.

Being part of a generation that has grown up, with the internet, I have been party to both the theoretical debates and the practical presence of this “new media”. While social networking sites, amateur broadcasting channels and cyber-industry have become an unavoidable feature of my everyday life, so to have I been exposed to the academic world’s idealistic prophesies about the potential of the internet to make the world a smaller, flatter and, therefore, safer place… supposedly. The globalisation of ideas, uncensored international dialogues, the proliferation of human rights, an end to all borders. It was, of course, the insatiable growth of media (both new and old) which brought down communism in Eastern Europe. So the likes of myspace, youtube or twitter too will bring down the last remaining dictatorships and the few enduring beacons of oppression. Or so the argument goes.

After all, how can nations like Iran or Saudi Arabia, Burma or China, maintain their grasp on the minds of a people who are only a the flick of a switch and the touch of a button away from viewing the glowing images of our freedom? (or at very least a firewall message that reaffirms the notion that there is more to the world than their leaders will allow them to see). Well, it’s simple. This utopian idea of – sorry there’s no better way to put it – a globalised world, free from tyranny and oppression because of the simple fact that every human being knows their rights, relies on one major thing... our ability – and by us, I mean the West – to set that shining example of how to use the freedoms endowed by our governments and our technology.

But instead, and I don’t wish to be flippant here, if a Saudi woman finds her way onto google, yahoo or youtube (and lets make no mistake here, a Saudi woman being allowed near a computer would be a triumph for freedom and democracy) and looks for what her sisters in the west are doing with those unalienable rights they’ve been endowed with, it seems there’s probably a 1% chance (and I’m being generous here) she’ll see Hillary Clinton or Angela Merkel addressing foreign diplomats wearing a powersuit and a 99% chance they’ll see Paris Hilton undressing the camera with her eyes wearing next to nothing at all.

So, as we add a new band’s fanpage to our myspace and sign up for MC Hammer or Elijah Wood’s tweets, we fail to uphold our end of the bargain. But, fortunately, that’s not where this ends, because –and maybe this is an innate part of being from a developing (or regressing) country and living under dictatorship – some people can take the initiative. Because, while Britain bemoans the corruption of its politicians in near silence – as the daily headlines about excessive expenses claims and falsified tax exemptions is barely audible above the chatter of modern life – it is left to a country like Iran to show us the capability of the mediums that we – with such noble intentions – created, and it is left to Iran to realise the potential of the mediums which are imbued from/by our ivory towers with such grand ideas and aims.

Yes, it appears as though the people of a country we so often malign for being backward-looking, religiously fundamentalist and socially regressive, have taken a step ahead of us when it comes to utilising these modern luxuries for something constructive. the dichotomy couldn’t be clearer; while Iranian protesters used Twitter to arrange their protests against last week’s rigged elections and youtube to broadcast footage from streets where foreign journalists were banned (and were actually obeying the ban) we were lost in the humdrum and chatter of everyday life. Meanwhile, Habitat were on a little consumerism crusade of their own – trying to steal an extra few customers for their summer catalogue from the leagues of pro-democracy protesters and, in doing so, scoring a few more points for those who say the West is loosing (or has lost) it’s course.

God is dead! And Nature Too!

[John Isaacs' "Thinking About It" 2002]

For those with the environment on the brain, it would be a tremendous understatement to say that Timothy Morton's ideas are worth investigating. Watch his recent, brief speeches here and here.

To unjustly summarize, he argues that traditional environmental thinking is inadequate for confronting our environmental crises. He criticizes--and rightly so--the usual hippy, Gaian, holistic thinking that pervades the eco scene. James Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis can be summarized as follows:

The Earth, James Lovelock proposes, behaves as if it were a superorganism, made up from all the living things and from their material environment.

This is an intriguing and beautiful hypothesis (I do have a special reverence for Deadheads and Big Sur), and although there is some truth in the-whole-is-greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts thinking, we are left with devalued individual parts, e.g. particular human and non-human animals, plants, and abiotic systems. As one of these particular devalued parts, I think it's important to find a place for individual value. After all, each part within the whole is a whole itself. Or, obversely, each whole is also a part.
Here, Morton's ecological ideas tend toward an intimate, reductionist approach. Moreover, his central theme is the rejection of the idea of a so-called 'Nature' altogether. This is no idealist metaphysical rejection of the outside world. It is a rejection of 'Nature' as a thing-over-there, an object at a distance, that 'purple mountain's majesty.' This is what we usually mean when we refer to 'Nature.' Take, for instance, a 2008 survey by Joanne Vining, et al. in The Human Ecology Review. A typical respondent, breifly describing what is meant by 'Nature':

Trees, Animals, grasslands, wetlands, mountains. Never touched or altered by humans.

Look at the rest of the survey. It's full of this. I would have responded exactly the same way. (The results of the survey reveal that, paradoxically, most people consider themselves to be part of Nature, yet consistently characterize Nature as something specifically non-human). Now, Morton is quick to remind us that he is not arguing against the importance of wetlands or suggesting that we should 'Drill Baby Drill!' Rather, he is unearthing (pun?) some of the fundamental attitudes that inhibit real ecological action.
Certainly, his critiques make real progress in the development of ecological thought. I'm currently reading his book, Ecology Without Nature, and I, being the authority on such things, recommend it highly.
Morton closes his article "Ecologocentrism," (SubStance. 37.3 (2008): 73-96.) with this:

In our age of ecological panic, what we are losing is precisely this sense of "nature" or "the environment" as an enveloping, nonhuman and/or non-sentient "world." This world provided a background to our foreground, offering meaningfulness precisely in its opacity . . . (23)

If nature gave meaning in its opacity, what meaning are we left with when we discover it to be transparent? Indeed, when we discover ourselves to be transparent?

Inside/Outside

I stood on the outside and watched the ants go inside through cracks on the outside so I went inside (outside of the outside) and grabbed from inside the spray-can with roaches on the outside and then left the inside and sprayed their hard skeleton outsides and when I breathed it inside I coughed hard to get it outside, dead brittle thousand things outside, plastic ferns on the inside, and ants there too, besides.

Stars and Stripes in Dover

The United States has a curious policy of censorship governing the arrival of coffins at Dover Air Force Base. The coffins, carrying the casualties of war, arrive at the base in Deleware, wrapped in American flags, before being escorted home. Since 1991, all press coverage of their arrival has been officially banned.

Proponents of the ban argue that it protects the privacy of soldiers' families. But the ban, as the New York Times notes, was effected not out of concern for these families, but for political reasons:

In 1989, the TV networks showed a split screen of President George H. W. Bush in jocular banter with reporters on one side while on the other, the first American casualties from Panama were returning to Dover. A veteran himself, Mr. Bush was deeply embarrassed at the juxtaposition and asked the networks to warn the White House when they intended to use split screens again. They declined. At the next opportunity, in February 1991, during the first gulf war, the Pentagon banned photos of returning coffins.

However, without images of coffins arriving in Dover, public opinion still turned against the Iraq war, while remaining strongly in favor of adding 17,000 more troops to the war in Afghanistan before fall. It seems that whether the coffins arrive in secret or not has little to do with public support for a war. But keeping them secret is shameful. If these soldiers are dying for causes that American citizens support, their deaths should not be covered up. With some provisions for a family's discretion, media coverage should be allowed; it can be conducted respectfully, without a papparazzi-like importunity.

UPDATE:

That was much easier than expected.

Rhetoric of Dangerous Proportions

Disproportionate.

It’s a word used to describe Israel’s consistent use of overwhelming and inappropriate force against its enemies – be they Hamas to the South, Fatah to the East, or Hezbollah to the North. It’s a buzz word in a conflict which has had more than its fair share of worn and tired phrases. It’s also a war crime according to the 1977 Geneva Protocol (which Israel still refuses to sign). It’s a word that’s become so common, so ubiquitous, so omnipotent over recent weeks, months and even years that you barely even notice it now.

But we should have noticed this past Sunday. Ears should have pricked across the capitals of Europe, all around the marble lobbies of Washington and throughout the headquarters of the UN, as that word left the lips of none other than the Ehud Olmert. Sure, I doubt it’s the first time he’s used the word in public, but I’m fairly confident it’s the first time he’s used it in this context, and with such ominous connotations too. For this time, the word “disproportionate” was not uttered as part of a unrepentant rebuttal of Israel’s critics, its was not followed by list of inane excuses for the lopsided casualty statistics, it was not pronounced with the usual distaste, not accompanied by the usual inferences of victimization. No, this time the word “disproportionate” was a threat.

Let’s put it in context. Israel recently announced a unilateral cease-fire – closely followed by Hamas – after a 22 day siege of the Gaza Strip which, in attempting to weaken the ‘terrorist’ organisation, caused the deaths of over 1,300 Palestinians (412 of whom were children and 110 of whom were women). After a tense couple of weeks of ‘peace’ – which have seen sporadic attacks by both sides – Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister emerged from a cabinet meeting – attended by his two potential successors in the coming election – to state that “We[the Israeli government]’ve said that if there is rocket fire against the south of the country, there will be a severe and disproportionate Israeli response to the fire on the citizens of Israel and its security forces”. How very reassuring.

Of course, the fact that their Prime Minister still needs to address concerns over the threat of Hamas rockets should demonstrate to the Israeli people that a military “response” akin to the one on which they recently embarked – no matter how “severe and disproportionate” – will not put an end to their countries problems with Gaza. Israel has spent the last 30 years flirting with occupation in Gaza, with the only noticeable change being the resolutely violent stance of Hamas replacing the more conciliatory stance of Fatah in 2006. Meanwhile, it goes without saying that Gazans will be aware of the danger of this precedent in Israeli rhetoric. The inhabitants of that overcrowded and profoundly impoverished stretch of land need only look around them – be it at the rubble of their houses and schools or at the graves of their neighbours or loved ones – to know how serious a threat they are facing.

However, we also have cause for concern. Despite the seemingly endless criticism, calls for “restraint” and expressions of “concern” by our leaders during the recent siege, Israel still has the temerity to appropriate the word “disproportionate” – a term used by the likes of the Jimmy Carter, Nicolas Sarkozy and Ban Ki Moon to condemn the inappropriateness of Israel’s actions in Gaza – as a threat. Words, it seems, have had little effect. Our disapproval has been neutralized, even normalized, in Israeli rhetoric. “Disproportionate” aggression is no more a crime, it seems, than it is a tactical deterent to Israel’s enemies, and a punishment for those unfortunate enough to be stuck in the refugee camps of Gaza under an oppressive Hamas regime. So, once again, our leaders stay silent as Israel takes another step, nudges the boundary a little further, away from international legality, and we add one more point to that seemingly endless list of ways we’ve failed the Palestinian people.

Benjamin Lawrence

You there, mate?