Iraq,
The Unavoidable Global Trauma
By Pablo Ouziel
20 August, 2007
Countercurrents.org
Many decades ago in Mein Kampf
Adolf Hitler stated the following; "I believe today that my conduct
is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator." By now
we have all had a chance to evaluate the consequences of that "will".
In 2003 an article by the Israeli newspaper Ha¹aretz, quoted a
Palestinian leader claiming Bush said to him; ³God told me to strike
at
Al-Qaeda. And I struck them. And then he instructed me to strike at
Saddam, which I did. And now I am determined to solve the problem in
the Middle East.²
Studies conducted over the last few decades in regards to the impact
of National Socialism on ordinary life in Germany during and after that
period have catalogued a serious of civilian attitudes such as keeping
silent, looking over one's shoulder and feeling frightened, and have
moved on to evaluate the aftermath of such attitudes and the results
of accepting such extreme violence perpetrated on others. A lot of these
studies have shown collective signs of guilt, depression and even collective
post-traumatic stress disorder.
Added to these personal repercussions as passive supporters of the atrocities,
if we look further into the outcomes of the Second World War, we can
see how German people were often viewed with contempt because they were
blamed for Nazi crimes. Germans visiting abroad, particularly in the
1950s and 1960s, received insults from locals, and from foreigners who
may have had their families or friends live through or perish in the
atrocities. Even today, in Europe and worldwide Germans are sometimes
stigmatized by elderly people who experienced the atrocities committed
by Nazi Germans during World War II.
So while as westerners we count the number of "our" soldiers
wounded or dead as a measurement of success or failure in this immoral
war, we tend to ignore the fact that all those Iraqis dead, injured
or displaced are having a long-term impact on our everyday life. If
we wait for our governments to decide when the killing has gone on long
enough, I cannot help but wonder whether in the not so distant future,
we as westerners will be facing a moral trial and the subjugate trauma
attached to it. Just like the one faced by 'innocent' civilian Germans
who once upon a time, opted to allow Hitler to flourish.
On August 10th 2007 the non-profit group Just Foreign Policy, claimed
the number of Iraqis killed as a result of the US invasion stands at
a shocking and sobering 1,000,985. On July 30th 2007 a report released
by Oxfam and the NGO Coordination Committee in Iraq said that around
8 million Iraqis are in urgent need of water, sanitation, food and shelter,
and said that more than 2 million people - mostly women and children
- have been displaced within Iraq and have no reliable income, while
another 2 million Iraqis have fled the country as refugees, mostly to
neighbouring Syria and Jordan.
Although this traumatic event is confined to a particular country and
region, its effects and implications are of such magnitude that they
rank among those cultural phenomena that Max Weber, the German political
economist and sociologist, once referred to as being of ³universal
significance and validity.²
If we are not courageous enough to stand up for other human beings and
the carnage infringed upon them by western imperialist foreign policy,
maybe we can research our recent history and reflect on the consequences
of such actions on "us" and "our" children. Maybe
then although from a purely selfish perspective, this collective acceptance
of genocide will be reversed and once again we can resume the path of
peaceful democratic existence. If that is not the case, I guess we are
bound to the description the French philosopher Voltaire gave of our
collective apathy, when he said, ³no snowflake in an avalanche
ever feels responsible."
If that is our choice, just like humanity paid once the price for the
"will" of the Almighty Creator through the actions of Hitler,
we are once again bound to pay the price for the "will" of
God through the actions of Bush.
Pablo Ouziel is an activist and a free lance writer
based in Spain. His work has appeared in many progressive media including
Znet, Palestine Chronicle, Thomas Paine¹s Corner and Atlantic Free
Press.
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