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.  

Is the far right in Europe a matter of concern?

The European response to the financial crisis has produced a conglomerate of far right parties across Europe that makes the Tea Party look like a benign movement. The far right has wielded great power over European society and is on the way to rise, the example of which is the far-right Front National victory in the local by-elections in the town of Brignoles in southern France. The European Parliamentary elections is set to take place in May 2014 and you don't have to be a genius to expect a big boost for the right-wing populism.

The far right parties such as the FPÖ in Austria, UKIP in the UK, Golden Dome in Greece, FN in France and also to a certain extent 'Alternative für Deutschland' can reach behind their traditional base of disenfranchised white groups into traditionally labour and conservative working and middle class. The reason is that they have become more flexible, overcome a certain cultural guilelessness, and is making use of modern media and methods. While parties in the centre lack clear ideology and appeal to the general public.

The implementation of far right programmes in any Euro zone country will bring about a collapse in the value of the currency, a huge increase in the debt burden and higher import prices. At the same time stopping immigration would destroy numerous industries and services. In order to be effective, both policies presuppose sealing off borders, which would immediately lead to a higher rate of departures, an end to exports, a rise in the cost of living and an explosion in unemployment levels. The repercussion from the economic shock will push these countries toward further national socialism and undermine democracy.

There are two things that can change the far right momentum, the first is the political centre through heroic leadership should bring daring reforms that would cut the budget deficit, stimulate the economy and over the long term cut the national debt to restore market confidence in the financial management of the state. None of this is happening and on the contrary a less responsible fiscal policy under the auspices of national socialism is implement in Europe, link. The second point is directly linked to the first, the political centre can only hash out the lethargy of the far right in a thoroughgoing debate if they do not resort to the strategies common to them. They must forswear deals with the far right, or trying to outbid it with populist gestures. This would merely legitimise the far right. They must be honest about the challenges facing Europe, and the need to embrace globalisation. Their failure to do so is one of the reasons there is so little faith in their leadership.

The ailing of Europe is the policy of accommodation, a perennial reliance solely on innate moderation. There is no virtue in moderation, virtue is in robustness of ideas. The mainstream parties in order to maintain the status quo through moderation has maintained an unsustainable welfare state, a dogmatic idea of European Union, dysfunctional immigration policy and unwillingness to bring radical changes to the declining institutions of the state. Unless they bring key changes in these areas the far right will not be stopped.