For Whom the Bell Tolls
No man is an island13, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if promontory14 were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee15.
When John Donne said this, it was beautiful. It was true in a deeply philosophical sense, but not in any practical way. In Donne's time, the death of a monarch in China had no more effect on Europe than of a clod being washed off the Irish coast. In Hemingway's time, it was becoming less philosophical and starting to be a practical concern. People could have ideas that would mobilize large groups of people whose reach could extend to affecting the daily lives of people living far away. What happenned in Japan, or Germany certainly did affect America in a completely practical way. At that time, it took a whole country's will to affect things far away, but the power of the individual has only increased since Hemingway's time.
Now, we care deeply about what twenty people living in Hamburg think, or ten people in Toronto, or six in Mandrid, or four in London, for completely straight-forward reasons. The reach of individuals, in terms of being able to know about what others are thinking, to let others know what we are thinking, and to, using very few resources, affect others' lives concretely, is with us. This is not just about terrorism, it is also about hate for many other
reasons, when people use venom and threats to shout others down over their taste in computer programming, that is a direct concern to us too. The central problem of the muslim world is that some feel that it is acceptable to use violence against those we disagree with, and value piety and submission to authority above the free expression of opinions. But muslims have by no means, any sort of monopoly on intolerance, or attempts to limit free dissent.
It is safe to say that every country has a history of ethnic cleansing, or genocide. Genocide had no name in past centuries, because it was taken for granted, and even applauded when we did not grant fully human rights to the outside group. From the Trojans, Carthaginians, Catholics and Protestants in England, protestants in France (1600-1700), the jews in Spain (1500's), Russia (1800's), and the rest of Europe (early 1900's), the Palestinians in Israel (1948), muslims in Bosnia (1990's) , the natives or North America (1600-1900.), the armenians, ukranians, Tutsi, Hutu, the list is literally endless. Efforts can be more or less organized, more or less successful, but the theme of getting a perceived rival group out of the way, in a thoroughly pre-meditated and coldly calculated fashion, is one so common in history as to be banal.
In the 21st century, we have come to a new perception. We now have antibiotics, and aircraft, and atom bombs. Antibiotics, as a stand in for medicine, has allowed for the population of the planet to increase without bound, but not necessarily with wealth. Aircraft mean that people from anywhere can get to anywhere else, and make their opinions, or actions, speak for themselves. Atom bombs symbolize our ability to eradicate ourselves entirely. If not this group today, then some other pair of groups tomorrow, and anyone on earth can be the innocent by-standers.
Or are we innocent? Are we innocent in Darfur, Morocco, Iraq, or Rwanda? If we know, in the past we had the excuse that it was very far away. Now the western world has decided that the clock stops here, that national borders are to be frozen forever because war is no longer a contained, competitive behavior. Now we are telling the world: History stops here, "Never again." It is a laudable sentiment, a fine sentiment. An end to war/conflict/ethnic cleansing has, for a very long time, been a moral or philosophical stand. But it is no longer that alone. It is now a practical imperative.
How do we convince Palestinians, that, yes, they have been disposessed of their homes and villages fifty years ago, and that it is time for them to let go. How do we explain that while Germany spent billions on reparations to the Jews over the past fifty years, there has been as yet, no settling of accounts for what the Jews have done to the Palestinians. Shia, Sunni, Hutu, Tutsi. Much blood has been shed, now is the time to stop and reset the clock. The new world must be one of tolerance and not hegemony between groups, of realization that we are all part of the human species, of a shared history, and not a fractured mosaic of grievances which can never be reconciled. There is no way to achieve justice for all past wrongs, only to seek a means of avoiding new ones.
If this is an imperative, what can be done? If, on the first day of the genocide in Rwanda, a reporter had said to the UN, "This is a genocide, a million people will perish unless substantial forces are brought to bear." I sincerely doubt that it would have made the slightest difference. The genocide took place over about 100 days, or three months. The military build-up to the invasion of Kosovo took firm evidence of what happened in Bosnia.... In three months, even given incontrovertible evidence, I suspect the U.N. would not have had time to mobilize forces and deploy them in Rwanda. Fundamentally, when genocide starts, we have already failed.
In 1930's Germany, there was a decade of vilification of jews prior to the institution of the final solution. In Rwanda, similarly, there were several years of vilification of the Tutsi minority on RTLM (Radio Rwanda). In Arab media today, there is disturbing mythology. It is clear that groups need to stop writing their own history. If groups make their history from shards of memories of groups' victories and pain, then future generations are condemned to carry on the ancient grievances.
In the West, we have freedom of speech, but also hate laws. There is a razor's edge between the two. We need to permit vehement criticism of anything and everything. There can be no group or topic beyond scrutiny. There is a difference between advocating that a group act differently, and advocating it's destruction. It is the same line between saying someone is wrong, and someone should be violently assaulted. This is the same line discussed thoroughly in "Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime", the line between dissent and sedition.
What has become clear in the last few years is that we need to insist that all speech, throughout the world, stay on the right side of that line. We need to be listening for the
next RTLM, the next holocaust denial convention in Tehran, and call them on it. We need to be on guard for intolerance, and engage it with the same vigor we would engage
actual genocide. It is too late for the first victims when we engage only after a genocide has started. It is far more expensive to engage it only with troops.
People armed with truth and credibility, as established by some sort of international consensual process, and a common international historical curriculum. They have to be critical of all, respect all, and play no favorites. Get us to the point where, within a few generations, there will be a common body of history for all of humanity. Be listening, so that when hate shows up, it can be addressed immediately with reason and evidence. Be everywhere, to stop hate speech when it first comes up, so that a troop or group deployment is not needed.
Such a network would also challenge would-be hegemonists, since their own population would be confronted with the international view of things. Israelis might see more of what arabs see on television. Arabs would see more of what israelis see. Americans would see more of al-Jazeera, rather than only when bin laden slips them a tape. When someone says that nothing bad ever happened to Armenians, documentaries with evidence around the issue would be presented. If such an information organization were operating properly, it would only need a few dozen staff per continent, with networks of stringers. In other words, far cheaper than a Peace-keeping intervention. Sure, figuring out how to present "the world view" about the Israel/Palestine problem will be a challenge, but where better to work it out, than before transmitting propaganda on both sides and sharpening polarization?
While a network would help with nations going insane, countries have to worry about their own people going insane as well. School shootings, going postal... bombings.
While this is most transparently and immediately about terrorism inspired by hate of various kinds, it can deal with even more important topics. The more likely, less dramatic, means of our self-destruction is the internal combustion engine. If China decides that global warming is a western plot to keep them from attaining levels of wealth common in western countries, we are all, well, toast.
In China, freedom of speech is completely sub-ordinate to the preservation of order, in official doctrine. In practice, this makes it sub-ordinate to whatever the government says should be limited. In Iran, the taboo is the revolution itself, and the primacy of Islam in civil matters. In almost the entire middle east, there are similar taboo subjects related to anything overly critical of the current regime. One of the basic acts of a non-democratic regime is to muzzle the press. A UN network for Russia or China would run the stories that the national media cannot run. Information is a challenge to all non-democracies.
The reality is that John Donne's words are now plainly practical. Any man's death diminishes me, because his nephew might decide to blow himself up near my office tommorrow. Natural, traditional human culture is based on ingroup/outgroup violence. Natural human society is no longer a luxury we can afford. Such groups must be recognized, on an objective, empirical scale, as sick, and requiring care, much like anti-biotics are . This is a terribly difficult process (what is this objective, empirical scale to evaluate tribal stories, where a tribe could be the serbs, the Russians, the Americans?) but without it, the ignorant & violent can bring all of us to destruction. Therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.
When John Donne said this, it was beautiful. It was true in a deeply philosophical sense, but not in any practical way. In Donne's time, the death of a monarch in China had no more effect on Europe than of a clod being washed off the Irish coast. In Hemingway's time, it was becoming less philosophical and starting to be a practical concern. People could have ideas that would mobilize large groups of people whose reach could extend to affecting the daily lives of people living far away. What happenned in Japan, or Germany certainly did affect America in a completely practical way. At that time, it took a whole country's will to affect things far away, but the power of the individual has only increased since Hemingway's time.
Now, we care deeply about what twenty people living in Hamburg think, or ten people in Toronto, or six in Mandrid, or four in London, for completely straight-forward reasons. The reach of individuals, in terms of being able to know about what others are thinking, to let others know what we are thinking, and to, using very few resources, affect others' lives concretely, is with us. This is not just about terrorism, it is also about hate for many other
reasons, when people use venom and threats to shout others down over their taste in computer programming, that is a direct concern to us too. The central problem of the muslim world is that some feel that it is acceptable to use violence against those we disagree with, and value piety and submission to authority above the free expression of opinions. But muslims have by no means, any sort of monopoly on intolerance, or attempts to limit free dissent.
It is safe to say that every country has a history of ethnic cleansing, or genocide. Genocide had no name in past centuries, because it was taken for granted, and even applauded when we did not grant fully human rights to the outside group. From the Trojans, Carthaginians, Catholics and Protestants in England, protestants in France (1600-1700), the jews in Spain (1500's), Russia (1800's), and the rest of Europe (early 1900's), the Palestinians in Israel (1948), muslims in Bosnia (1990's) , the natives or North America (1600-1900.), the armenians, ukranians, Tutsi, Hutu, the list is literally endless. Efforts can be more or less organized, more or less successful, but the theme of getting a perceived rival group out of the way, in a thoroughly pre-meditated and coldly calculated fashion, is one so common in history as to be banal.
In the 21st century, we have come to a new perception. We now have antibiotics, and aircraft, and atom bombs. Antibiotics, as a stand in for medicine, has allowed for the population of the planet to increase without bound, but not necessarily with wealth. Aircraft mean that people from anywhere can get to anywhere else, and make their opinions, or actions, speak for themselves. Atom bombs symbolize our ability to eradicate ourselves entirely. If not this group today, then some other pair of groups tomorrow, and anyone on earth can be the innocent by-standers.
Or are we innocent? Are we innocent in Darfur, Morocco, Iraq, or Rwanda? If we know, in the past we had the excuse that it was very far away. Now the western world has decided that the clock stops here, that national borders are to be frozen forever because war is no longer a contained, competitive behavior. Now we are telling the world: History stops here, "Never again." It is a laudable sentiment, a fine sentiment. An end to war/conflict/ethnic cleansing has, for a very long time, been a moral or philosophical stand. But it is no longer that alone. It is now a practical imperative.
How do we convince Palestinians, that, yes, they have been disposessed of their homes and villages fifty years ago, and that it is time for them to let go. How do we explain that while Germany spent billions on reparations to the Jews over the past fifty years, there has been as yet, no settling of accounts for what the Jews have done to the Palestinians. Shia, Sunni, Hutu, Tutsi. Much blood has been shed, now is the time to stop and reset the clock. The new world must be one of tolerance and not hegemony between groups, of realization that we are all part of the human species, of a shared history, and not a fractured mosaic of grievances which can never be reconciled. There is no way to achieve justice for all past wrongs, only to seek a means of avoiding new ones.
If this is an imperative, what can be done? If, on the first day of the genocide in Rwanda, a reporter had said to the UN, "This is a genocide, a million people will perish unless substantial forces are brought to bear." I sincerely doubt that it would have made the slightest difference. The genocide took place over about 100 days, or three months. The military build-up to the invasion of Kosovo took firm evidence of what happened in Bosnia.... In three months, even given incontrovertible evidence, I suspect the U.N. would not have had time to mobilize forces and deploy them in Rwanda. Fundamentally, when genocide starts, we have already failed.
In 1930's Germany, there was a decade of vilification of jews prior to the institution of the final solution. In Rwanda, similarly, there were several years of vilification of the Tutsi minority on RTLM (Radio Rwanda). In Arab media today, there is disturbing mythology. It is clear that groups need to stop writing their own history. If groups make their history from shards of memories of groups' victories and pain, then future generations are condemned to carry on the ancient grievances.
In the West, we have freedom of speech, but also hate laws. There is a razor's edge between the two. We need to permit vehement criticism of anything and everything. There can be no group or topic beyond scrutiny. There is a difference between advocating that a group act differently, and advocating it's destruction. It is the same line between saying someone is wrong, and someone should be violently assaulted. This is the same line discussed thoroughly in "Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime", the line between dissent and sedition.
What has become clear in the last few years is that we need to insist that all speech, throughout the world, stay on the right side of that line. We need to be listening for the
next RTLM, the next holocaust denial convention in Tehran, and call them on it. We need to be on guard for intolerance, and engage it with the same vigor we would engage
actual genocide. It is too late for the first victims when we engage only after a genocide has started. It is far more expensive to engage it only with troops.
People armed with truth and credibility, as established by some sort of international consensual process, and a common international historical curriculum. They have to be critical of all, respect all, and play no favorites. Get us to the point where, within a few generations, there will be a common body of history for all of humanity. Be listening, so that when hate shows up, it can be addressed immediately with reason and evidence. Be everywhere, to stop hate speech when it first comes up, so that a troop or group deployment is not needed.
Such a network would also challenge would-be hegemonists, since their own population would be confronted with the international view of things. Israelis might see more of what arabs see on television. Arabs would see more of what israelis see. Americans would see more of al-Jazeera, rather than only when bin laden slips them a tape. When someone says that nothing bad ever happened to Armenians, documentaries with evidence around the issue would be presented. If such an information organization were operating properly, it would only need a few dozen staff per continent, with networks of stringers. In other words, far cheaper than a Peace-keeping intervention. Sure, figuring out how to present "the world view" about the Israel/Palestine problem will be a challenge, but where better to work it out, than before transmitting propaganda on both sides and sharpening polarization?
While a network would help with nations going insane, countries have to worry about their own people going insane as well. School shootings, going postal... bombings.
While this is most transparently and immediately about terrorism inspired by hate of various kinds, it can deal with even more important topics. The more likely, less dramatic, means of our self-destruction is the internal combustion engine. If China decides that global warming is a western plot to keep them from attaining levels of wealth common in western countries, we are all, well, toast.
In China, freedom of speech is completely sub-ordinate to the preservation of order, in official doctrine. In practice, this makes it sub-ordinate to whatever the government says should be limited. In Iran, the taboo is the revolution itself, and the primacy of Islam in civil matters. In almost the entire middle east, there are similar taboo subjects related to anything overly critical of the current regime. One of the basic acts of a non-democratic regime is to muzzle the press. A UN network for Russia or China would run the stories that the national media cannot run. Information is a challenge to all non-democracies.
The reality is that John Donne's words are now plainly practical. Any man's death diminishes me, because his nephew might decide to blow himself up near my office tommorrow. Natural, traditional human culture is based on ingroup/outgroup violence. Natural human society is no longer a luxury we can afford. Such groups must be recognized, on an objective, empirical scale, as sick, and requiring care, much like anti-biotics are . This is a terribly difficult process (what is this objective, empirical scale to evaluate tribal stories, where a tribe could be the serbs, the Russians, the Americans?) but without it, the ignorant & violent can bring all of us to destruction. Therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.
- http://www.amazon.com/Perilous-Times-Wartime-Sedition-Terrorism/dp/0393058808 Perilous Times, Geoffrey B. Stone. fascinating account of the evolution of U.S. judicial thinking about freedom of speech, in particular when tested during wartime.
- http://www.state.gov/www/global/human_rights/kosovoii/homepage.html -- Ethnic Cleansing in Kosovo.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Mary_%28person%29
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Huguenots_under_Louis_XV
- The End of Days, Erna Paris... Jews in Spain at the end of the reconquest and during the inquisition.
- Shake Hands with the Devil, Roméo Dallaire.
- http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/indepth/ -- tactical UN broadcasting.
- http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/army/mipb/1996-4/villen.htm -- tactical UN intelligence
posted by philobyte at 8:44 AM
<< Home