ISIS

Politics & The World

There is not much that we can be certain about. One thing though seems pretty certain to me: that we live in troubled times. Not because us Westerners face any true hardships, but because it appears to me that these days many decisions need to be taken that will deeply affect generations to come. Proponents of historical path dependency will interject that this is always true. Maybe so.

Anyhow, we now face many great challenges: climate change, a situation in the Middle East and beyond where state failure is the norm, unprecedented migration, and terrorism – to name just a few. How we handle these challenges will be decisive for how we will live in the centuries to come. Liberal democracy claims to be the pinnacle of political systems, yet so far its response to the challenges mentioned above is anything but effective or even remotely close to well deliberated.

During the last weeks I made some experiences that have led to deep frustration with how our politicians behave.

A week ago Friday and Saturday some close friends and I walked the streets of Brussels in complete disbelief. Police and military personnel everywhere – everywhere! Armed to the teeth! In front of Brussels Centraal stood a military vehicle that looked like something from Jurassic Park. Sirens. Flashing blue lights. A drunk guy ran past us at some point screaming: “C’est la guerre! C’est la guerre!” (“This is war!”). While we were strolling through the comparatively empty streets of Brussels, we were making jokes about all of it. Maybe that was our way of handling it. But a day later, it really hit me. What is going on? State of emergency had always been an abstract concept to me.

Then, last Thursday, in Berlin, I was watching the news in which German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen was being interviewed. She was asked whether Germany was now at war. The decision to deploy German troops to support the pseudo coalition fighting ISIS in Syria had just been made. Von der Leyen replied that this was not war since it is not two states that are fighting each other – let that sink in.

So here is the German Minister of Defence claiming that there is not a war going on against ISIS or at least that the German support does not constitute an act of war. Either she has never heard of Mary Kaldor’s concept of “new wars” or she is knowingly lying to the public, both of which would be equally scandalous.

Friday, as I was boarding my flight to Frankfurt my anger at the current situation turned into plain, numbing shock. My mom, standing beside me asked the man in front of us if they maybe knew each other since his face seemed familiar to her. He said that he was a member of the Bundestag, the German parliament, and that she might know him from TV. They exchanged a few words and then he turned to me. So, we started talking. I present to you the end of our conversation.

Yannic: “So what’s it like at the Bundestag at the moment? High alert?”
MP: “No, everything’s normal.”
Y.: “Oh ok. I was in Brussels last weekend.”
MP: “Shit was hitting the fan there.”
Y.: “Yeah, it was crazy. I have never seen anything like it. [I elaborated on my experience, see above]
MP: “It truly is crazy what is going on. [pause] And every day new ones are coming. We need to shut the border now!”
Y.: “And then what? The refugees will be stuck at the border.”
MP: “Good. That’s the pictures that should be going out to the world. The message must be: don’t come.”

No more words were spoken between us. My mom and I exchanged glances of disbelief. I will not name the MP, but I will say that he was a member of the CHRISTIAN Democrats.

So why am I telling you all of this? For me the following became clear:

  1. We are in a state of emergency – in many respects.
  2. There are leading politicians who are either uneducated in their main fields of activity, deliberately deceptive, or both.
  3. There are parliamentarians who seem to be ignorant of the fact that the Paris attacks were conducted by EU nationals, not refugees and that these refugees are fleeing the very same terror that has now reached EU soil. Or even worse, they are aware of this, but still choose to conflate the terrorism and migration discourses for reasons of political opportunism.
  4. My faith in democracy is deeply shaken by all of this. Who are we electing? Do we need a more elitist government? Isn’t it the time for experts, technocrats?

Troubled times indeed. And troubled times produce troubled minds. Let me know what you think about my observations. How are you experiencing our democratic systems these days? Isn’t it time for radical change?

 

Image by Patrick Willemark, taken from flickr

 

Politics & The World

I will not add the French flag filter on Facebook to my profile picture. I am not putting a picture of the Eiffel tower with the hashtag #prayforparis. I will not write condolensces to the victims, will not endorse the public outrage with the events that took place in Paris. Before you condemn me about being apathic about these events, I would invite you to read further as to see exactly the reasons why I take this stance.

It doesn’t mean that I am not shocked by those events or that I don’t care about what happened. I just find it hypocritical that people add the French flag filter on their profile pictures and think that in this way, they are showing solidarity. Can someone explain to me just how is this solidarity?

Or is something else the reason for this social network phenomenon?

Being the guy that I am, I had to find out just why some of my friends changed their profile pictures to endorse the French flag filter. Most common answer was, of course, because what happened in France was shocking and terrifying.

I had a question for them at that point, and would like to ask you, our dear readers and followers the same thing:

Did you know tat militants and suicide bombers from ISIS performed a very similar attack in Lebanon two days before the Paris massacre? Did you know that at least 40 people were killed in Beirut, over 200 were wounded?

Did you know that on the 3rd of April 2015, 147 people were killed in the Garissa University assault in Kenya? Al-Shabab militants stormed the University, killed two security guards and then started shooting and indiscriminately killing students.

Where was Facebook on these occasions? Why wasn’t there an option to filter the Lebanon or Kenya flag on our profile pictures? And although I hate being vague, I have to in order to ask the following: Are the French lives worth more than the ones in Kenya or Lebanon?

Where was the Facebook community on these occasions? Why weren’t there hashtags #prayforkenya or #prayforlebanon? How were these attacks any different from the one in Paris? How were they not as shocking or not as terrifying as the one in Paris?

Or is it our hypocrisy that we only feel solidarity towards things that happen in Europe or USA,  in these so-called lullabies of civilisation?

Another thing I would like to point out. A really fair argument was brought up by one of the Republican party president candidates of the USA. The person in question is of course, Donald Trump, who said:

 

‘People are getting their heads chopped off. They’re being drowned. Right now it’s far worse than ever [than it was] under Saddam Hussein or Gaddafi,’ […]

‘I mean, look what happened. Libya is a catastrophe. Libya is a disaster. Iraq is a disaster. Syria is a disaster. The whole Middle East. It all blew up around Hillary Clinton and around Obama. It blew up.’

 

Needless to say, I realize the fact that he is trying to blame the Middle East situation on the Democrats and Obama, because he is actively trying to rack up the votes. But, he wasn’t wrong.

ISIS was created after the war in Iraq. Now it is spread and active in other countries as well, namely Libya and Syria. As we all know, the war in Iraq has proven to us time and time again that it was a mistake. After overthrowing Saddam Hussein, Iraq hasn’t been transformed into a democratic community. Things have even deteriorated.

The West forces led by USA and UK were adamant, a country led by the dictator Hussein is evil and should be disposed off. Little that they know, after the disposal of Hussein, a far greater and more vicious evil was born.

Isn’t it a bit weird and even ironic that France and Europe are now trying to fight ISIS? After all, they are one of the parties that helped them, not much different than the USA (ironically enough) helped Al-Qaeda in the Soviet-Afghan war in the 1980’s.

Let me answer that for you. It is not weird. It is not even ironic. It’s just.. karma. The only problem is, it is not the politicians who are paying for their past sins. The people who died are paying for the sins of their politicians. Innocent lives were lost. Where is the justice in that? Why isn’t there a public outcry for this?

I would like to be clear again: I do not urge you not to change your profile picture and endorse the French flag filter. On the contrary, if you really feel the need to do so, then please do. But if you really feel solidarity, don’t let it stop there. Don’t get swept in this social network frenzy because ‘it looks good’ or because ‘it will generate likes’.

Try and understand that we live in a world that is involved with war every single day. Thousands of lives are lost every year due to military struggles. Let it be known that you care about each and every one of them, not just the ones that come with a social-network agenda behind them.

Let those lives be worth more than a hashtag. Let those lives be worth more than a filtered profile picture.

Image by Christiaan Triebert, taken from Flickr.