Consciousness, Literature and the Arts

Archive

Volume 4 Number 3, December 2003

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Regrets

by

Merle Borg

I was too young to be blamed for our blunder into Vietnam, but I own this one. Like most Americans, I was in favor of kicking Iraq out of Kuwait and for going after Osama Bin Laden. In the past week however, I have ended a forty-year membership in the Republican Party, I have taken part in my first anti-war rally, and for the first time this gray haired old man finds himself filled with dull anger, shame, and disillusionment. This one happened on my watch; my country, my party, my generation in power... and I don't know if I'm angrier at these institutions, or at my silence while watching it happen.

Superior technology is a wonderful thing, but it changes things. Ever since stone and wood were first fashioned into spears, superior technology has translated into superior weaponry. Boundaries change. Nations rise and fall; but the real change happens inside. Technical superiority somehow translates into moral and intellectual superiority and justifies the use of power for any end. "Shock and Awe" bombing is the result of this Imperial reasoning. In Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness", Kurtz went to Africa carrying the light of European civilization and ended up looting ivory and penciling his famous summation "Exterminate all the brutes."

Morality aside, the world can no longer afford this kind of thinking. Any country or group of dissidents today can create weapons of terror. The technology and the information are available, and none of it can be put back in the bottle. Bombing terrorism instead of addressing the underlying reasons for hatred merely spreads it. For every person killed, two terrorists are created, and to do this bombing without United Nations support weakens and will possibly destroy our last best chance of dealing with this new reality.

The world breathed a sigh of relief when the cold war ended, and another when common markets and free trade agreements were hammered out, but win easy, win hard, or scramble on to rooftops and catch the last helicopter out... this planet will soon be a meaner and more dangerous place. The proud Muslim and Arab peoples now have split-screen humiliation pumped at them every evening... Israeli tanks in Palestine and U.S. tanks in Iraq.

The soldiers in the Middle East have my condolence. Bush has his crusade. Hussein may get his martyrdom. I have my regrets... and the children of this world have my heartfelt apology.