The friend I mentioned in my previous post--the Army Ranger who spoke at my university--sent me Tom Friedman's March 30th op-ed this morning. It dovetails with my friend's frustration that Americans seem to care more about building the future of Afghanistan and Iraq than may Afghans and Iraqis do.
The article focuses on the way that Karzai has been snubbing the United States and hindering the development of his country, but it also calls out the Israelis and the Palestinians. Friedman suggests a rule: "Never want it more than they do."
Unfortunately, I've found that being a peacemaker almost always requires violating that rule. It's the nature of the beast. The entire reason conflicting parties turn to third parties is because they are so entrenched in misunderstanding, bitterness, and extremism that they can't solve their own problems. It's tremendously discouraging for those who do care about peace. One of my favorite passages in the New Testament is in Luke 19, when Jesus weeps over Jerusalem and says, "If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace--but now it is hidden from your eyes." It is the anguished prayer of the peacebuilder who finds himself despised and rejected, and it is as relevant today as it was 2000 years ago.
I play only a small role in peacebuilding, which mostly consists of participating in classroom debates or discussing politics over tea or a beer. Even that humble role is exhausting. I spend so much time trying to humanize Arabs and Muslims and explain them to Americans, only to have my Arab friends turn around and say terrible anti-Semitic things or deny the Holocaust. I try and humanize Israelis and explain to my Arab friends the reasons that they live in so much fear, and are so frightened of a shaky peace process that they believe will undermine their security. Next thing I know, the Israeli government is announcing settlement expansions and throwing the peace process to the wind, or even announcing that yes, it did in fact harvest organs from dead Palestinians without consent.
These are just the extreme examples. Mostly, the stubbornness in conflicts is more subtle. Both sides see the worst in the other, are blind to their own faults, and are too proud to compromise. They like to cast blame, want third parties to vindicate their side, and are more interested in being proven right than in solving problems. That's the human environment in which peacebuilders work, and unfortunately, that's the environment the United States government frequently finds itself in (by the way, we're not immune from these faults ourselves).
Every once in a while, though, there is a breakthrough... and I suppose that makes the long, hard, thankless battle worth it. A lot of Jordanians don't realize it (and are actively working to undermine it), but their peace treaty with Israel is a small miracle that has brought innumerable benefits. I can't imagine how frustrating George Mitchell's job is right now, but then again, he has the satisfaction of knowing that he helped solve the seemingly intractable conflict in North Ireland. As for myself, I enjoy the small victories that I have found, like slowly changing the way my classmates view the United States--or how my American colleagues view Arabs and Muslims. One of my most satisfying experiences in Jordan was helping a Jordanian friend and his American wife through a rocky family conflict rooted in deep cultural misunderstanding and miscommunication.
Never want it more than they do? I suppose it's a good rule, and there are a lot of times are government needs to play hardball--especially with actors like Karzai. At the same time, thank God that some people DO want peace that badly and are willing to strive for it. If it weren't for them, the world would be a much darker place.
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If you want to read some real anti-semitism, try looking at what Winston Churchill wrote before he sold out.
If that doesn't knock you unconscious, try reading Congressman Lindbergh.
The USA will fail because the USA's warfighters are taught to respect Israel more than the USA.
"The USA will fail because the USA's warfighters are taught to respect Israel more than the USA."
I hear sentiments like this on a regular basis from some of my Jordanian colleagues, and they are absolutely not true. Yes, loyalty to Israel generally runs strong within the US population and the US military, but it's empty hyperbole to say that US warfighters are more loyal to Israel than the US. Furthermore, the widespread support for Israel is not "taught" by the establishment--it is the result of many different cultural, religious, and historical factors.
Jesus was likely beyond ego. Think of him as the Western Buddha. The Romans killed him because what he had to say threatened their perceived collective reality. Egoic men killed a man who had no ego, but they didn't kill the Truth he embodied did they? Same for Socrates, MLK, Gandhi. You can silence the man, but you can't silence the Truth, the Reality of what he speaks.
It's difficult to argue with a man when his mind's made up. You might have to try a different tack by going beyond the mind into the spiritual. Try being the Peace you desire. There is a phenomenon in India called atman darshan, holy souls. They put out a field of peace and love that alters people's state of consciousness. In other words, love and peace are contagious emotions just like anger and hate. In the Middle East, the equivalent of Indian atman darshans would be Sufi mystics, and the Sufis have suffered their own persecutions by their own people. You might try to find one of those mystics in Jordan if they exist. It might be an interesting experience as well as discourse.
We are forcing our perspective upon the Afghans in a sense. They welcomed it initially, but I believe that Afghanistan languished due to Iraq. Money and people we could have used to fix infrastructure and society in Afghanistan were wasted on Iraq. In the meantime, the Taliban have regrouped and recovered.
I don't know if we will fail the Afghans. It depends upon whether we are fighting against the real enemy, doesn't it? We are losing the war on drugs because we are not addressing the problem in American society. We fight the cartels overseas and destroy their crops, yet the costs of production and distribution of illicit drugs have gone down. Prohibition laws seldom work, yet we stubbornly stick to this "war" despite the evidence that we are losing since the cartels grow rich enough to threaten nation states and American prisons overflow with drug addicts and pushers. Do we really know what we are doing in Afghanistan, or are we deluded? If we are doing the correct action, then our actions will be rewarded by reality. If we are wasting our efforts, then we'll know soon enough, won't we? Reality will tell us despite what any one says or believes.
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