War taught me several lessons on tolerance

I find “Christ and the Soldier” by Siegfried Sassoon a gripping tale of war and carnage. The poem was written after the Battle of the Somme and is a conversation between a soldier and Christ which ends:

"Lord Jesus, ain't you got no more to say?"

Bowed hung that head below the crown of thorns. The soldier shifted, and picked up his pack, and slung his gun, and stumbled on his way.

"O God," he groaned, “why ever was I born?”

I was born in Afghanistan in 1981 and lived my early childhood in Kabul under Soviet occupation; I survived the brutal guerrilla war against the Soviets, I lost friends and family to Mujaheedin War of Kabul, I kept my spirit through the Taliban reign of tyranny and I braved journeys to escape to Europe. I know what it is like to be on the other side of the European border, the large governments united to keep the little man at bay. I believe there are lessons to be learned from wars to strengthen tolerance and foster shared values.

I am now a British Citizen and live in Brighton. I watch in astonishment racist, xenophobic, anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiments taking root in most of Europe. In some countries they are translated in to legislation and far right parties are part of governing coalitions. Even if they aren’t in power, the far right influences political and social policies in the EU; recent examples are Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands. For years the EU manipulated social policies under the guise of “European Values” to remodel nationalism. In this climate, identitarian and ethnic agendas were strengthened to bolster “self-pride”. We live in a society of intolerance and darkness and fail to understand the complexities of past wars and contemporary challenges, doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past and blunder our way in to modern conflicts.

I have learned a few things about conflict and intolerance from personal encounters and its history in Europe, which I will attempt to summarise here. First is the fallibility and weakness of humans: people despair when faced with tough choices and under threat, and when we despair we commit depraved acts. In order to engage with people, we ought to see behind their shortcomings so we understand their point of view. The second is the false belief in the superiority of European culture or nations: other people are not malign or evil and what we recognise as a nation or group is often an artificial construct. Third is the power of lies.  Anyone with some political awareness must have seen how misinformation has shaped our societies recently. Finally, and most importantly, is the fragility of our peaceful existence. My world has crumbled on several occasions and no one saw it coming. We lost our home and lives the third time in a flash, and as unexpectedly as the first time; we were astounded by the power and speed of the storm that swept comforts from under our feet and blew our dreams away. We are all responsible for sustaining peace and tolerance by creating positive stories about our collective identity and confronting false myths. I will be exploring each of the points in subsequent posts. 

Centre Left is losing vision in the West

On 1st of March BBC broadcasted the 17 edition of Storyville 2014-2015 titled The Great European Disaster Movie. The program was created by Bill Emmott and Annalisa Piras, two liberals whose centre left politics are known in previous programs such as Coma and their work in The Economist.

The program discusses the threat from the rise of the anti-establishment parties in Europe and the producers express their interest in highlighting the dangers of the movement and the real possibility of disintegration of the EU.

They argue for the European project in order to create a supranational institution that can project power in the world by emphasizing on collective security at 01:03:00 Philppe Legrain Author of European spring comments that “Europe is not a postmodern Lalaland, we have real security threats and need to cooperate much more in order to guarantee our security.” Security is a very common reason given by the centre-left to justify intervention in other countries and advocate EU expansion. This expansionist vision in itself is a manifestation of the Neo-European quasi imperialism. The EU and its member states use military and economic tools to undermine or influence sovereign states in the periphery of the EU. I believe this is a departure from the traditional left approach that emphasized on collaboration and dialogue to resolve conflicts and security challenges. 

The Program continues with 01:03:40 Radek Sikorski, Former foreign minister of Poland who commented, “We have security challenges and actually civilisational challenges all around Europe, from Mali to … Syria to … Caucasus...”

This Huntington style approach is fundamentally flawed since it attributes traits qualities that are actually determined by context. There are no civilisational challenges, people do not live in distinct blocks of civilisation but are simply responding to their predicament in order to survive. People in Muslim countries are living under regimes that rule by fear. In these circumstances, most people share the conspiracy mongering and political passivity that has been cultivated for hundreds of years. This is intermittently marked by populist outrage in the form of revolution that in turn is suppressed and reinforces the view that political oppression is the only answer for stability.

People whether they are Protestant, Buddhist, Orthodox, Jewish or Muslim have multiple authentic selves. In some circumstances, one set of identities manifests itself, but when those circumstances change, other equally authentic identities and desires get activated. Its wrong to perceive people as enemies because they have a different religion, this again is contrary to traditional left views which emphasised on solidarity and equality.

The most troubling of all is at 51:40:00 the scene on the plane where a man tells his daughter that the beard he holds belongs to Conchita Wurst, he continues  “when some homophobic Russians try to kick her out of the euro vision song content, the whole of Europe was outraged so they deliberately voted for her so she won.” This is racial profiling; this line of reasoning portrays Russians as homophobic that need to be confronted by the superior Europeans.

Understanding people of particular nation, religion, colour, race and gender by a set of attributes is lazy and backward.  Any of these attributes are important, but underneath cultural differences there are universal aspirations for dignity and respect. Each of us is like every person on earth; in some ways, each of us is like the members of our culture and group; and, in some ways, each of us is unique. This is where programs like this waltz on the margins of legality. The Hate Crime Act sets out to protect people from hostility and prejudice based on a personal character.  Although the program appends the word “some” to stop it from outright statement of hatred, as far as racial social discourse is concerned comments of this nature has detrimental impact on public perception of minority group.

The Elites have become so invested in their projects and discourse that they cannot gain a perspective on the wider issues.  Their rhetoric has sunk into racism in order to further their ideological aims. The EU expansion has degenerated from a tool for furthering European values and objectives to a policy on its own right.  Instead of addressing the democratic deficit created by the EU and mass immigration from the poor to rich countries, the elites have been too busy brewing tension with Russia in a ploy to divert attention. This is not an isolated view but signified by the popularity of anti establishment parties in the far right and left. 

Its ironic that the progressive politics of creating the European Union to facilitated regional integration is also the main reason for the rise of anti political movement whose main ethos is nationalism quite often bordering xenophobia.  

What should the EU learn from the situation in Ukraine

Ukraine is another example of EU failure resulting from expansionist policies. As the situation in Kiev increasingly resembles a civil war the EU has failed to take an effective stance. Not only does Russia have a greater stake in Ukraine, it also has more potential for wielding influence. That's not just the 15 billion dollars that Putin has now promised. With its - failed - association agreement, the EU seems to have overlooked this. Russia's partnership with Ukraine is of decisive importance for its geopolitical position in Europe. Russia has legitimate interests in Ukraine that can't be ignored. So it's high time to bury the completely anachronistic conflict between Brussels and Moscow about whose zone of influence Ukraine lies in. The EU must come to an understanding with Russia. By working together, they can perhaps bring their influence to bear in Kiev.

I have always felt that the task the EU has set itself to is too complex to be handled by an organisation. The integration of nation states into a common legal and economic block with citizen rights as the aim of governance is not something anyone has got anything reasonable against. It’s the politics and organisational processes that I object against. The EU has turned into an expansionist institution very similar to imperial powers, as they always do, the EU too has lost discretion and effectiveness. let me highlight what I mean by expansionism, after the fall of communism the EU expanded to the east and south. the accession process was the single most important engine for change in those countries. But once the member state has joined the European Union, The EU has no instrument to see whether the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary still command respect. In some cases it does not; less than three months after joining the EU Croatia created laws to protect alleged war criminals who committed atrocities during the Balkan wars from extradition. And new member states across Central Europe continue to draw fire for segregation and violent attacks against minorities. Amnesty International reported more than 120 beatings, shootings and stabbings over the past four years. When the Croatian soccer player Josip Simunic celebrated his team's victory over Iceland in 2013 with a nationalist slogan from the country's World War II pro-Nazi puppet regime, thousands of fans roared in approval. Hungary hasn't made sufficient progress towards a sustainable correction of its excessive deficit and worsened the situation by making changes to central bank, data protection and judiciary. the new central bank law puts the bank's independence at risk by allowing the president to install a new deputy governor. In none of these circumstances the EU was able to enact sanctions against the member state and it seems to an onlooker that the EU is only effective until members join the club and the club is unable or unwilling to take action against the members while very keen to add new members.