David Vs Goliath

The situation in the Middle East has worsened considerably since my column of last week. Israel has now gone one step further in its mad response to the capturing (the Israelis and the international media have deemed it “kidnapping”) of a soldier by Palestinians.

Two more soldiers were captured (I say capture because we are talking of one group of armed combatants seizing an enemy combatant; the international press uses the word kidnapping to evoke certain emotional responses as if the person was a civilian), this time by Hezbollah forces based in Lebanon and the Israeli response has been to bomb the daylights out of Lebanon.

The bombing has been indiscriminate with targets being a civilian airport, roads, bridges and housing communities. Many civilians including children and women have been killed in these attacks and yet the international community has been slow to respond. In fact President Bush has said it’s all Hezbollah’s fault. They should not have “kidnapped” two Israeli soldiers nor should they have fired rockets into Israel, he claims. Bush does not think that the world will know the real chronology of the events, with the Hezbollah actions coming after Israel attacked Gaza in a virtual attempt at genocide. Bush says Israel has the “right of response, to defend itself,” but does this not apply equally to Hezbollah as it seeks to defend the Palestinians in Gaza from Israel’s murderous attacks? But this is Israel we are talking about — the country which the US has propped up politically, economically, diplomatically and militarily for decades.

It is the Israel which the US assisted in amassing nuclear weapons even as the US goes after Iran’s jugular for daring to obtain some nuclear capability. It is the Israel that can do virtually no wrong in the eyes of the US because of the immense power and influence that Jews exert in the US, through the media in particular; and because of the emotions of “guilt” that the Holocaust still evokes.

Now, there is no doubt that the Holocaust was a massive crime against humanity and those responsible for it held fully accountable for their actions. But the Holocaust is not the only crime against humanity.

Before it came slavery and the genocide of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. But there is not, and has never been, the same sense of “guilt” over those crimes. Even today the issue of reparations is rejected by the US as it was at the UN Conference against Racism held in 2001. So the US will not treat the victims of slavery or the indigenous people of the Americas like they treat the Jews.

The latter will be favoured as they are being now by the US President, as he turns a blind eye to the clear violations of international norms by Israel. But I suppose that is to be expected as he himself, together with Tony Blair, violated international norms when they invaded Iraq and created the conditions for violence and death of civilians that exceed by far that which occurred under Saddam. Bush and the Israelis are really bedfellows whose ideas and actions are so simplistic that they are in fact leading to more and more global insecurity and the fueling of terrorism. We are far from seeing the end of this chapter in history as the events of the last month are sure to result in a state of war and considerable violence for quite some time.

In the circumstances we must again ask — why in heaven’s name did Mr Manning visit Israel? The country needs to know! This is not something that can be taken lightly. In fact by his visiting Israel, he sent a signal that Trinidad and Tobago and Israel are allies.

Now, if I use the argument that the friend of my enemy is also my enemy, what does this make us, not only to the Palestinians, Hamas, Hizbollah but also to al-Qaeda and all the organisations that adhere to a type of religious fundamentalism that see glory in acts of terrorism?

What, for example, does this mean to the security of our oil and gas industry especially since the primary market for our products is the US — a most definite ally of Israel and therefore enemy to the religious right? The Prime Minister needs to give us answers.

Shifting gears to the local scene I would really have wished to frankly comment on the state of our institutions given the events of the last few days, and of Friday night in particular. But this is not possible given the fact that there are so many legal matters before the courts.

Even if one could say something about one aspect of the issue, one could run afoul of another aspect which is also before the courts. And so I will keep my remarks to the very general.

I have made the point on numerous occasions but will do so again. What we have is a crisis of the post-independence state. It is a crisis of integrity of all the institutions of state — from Parliament to the Executive (Cabinet) to the Judiciary to the Police.

It is a crisis of legitimacy and confidence in all of the above. It is a crisis of accountability and transparency and above all it is a crisis of trust — trust that these institutions really seek and serve the interests of all citizens.

The fact is that they never have, and increasingly citizens are recognising this. The response has often been couched in ethnic terms “black people can’t get justice,” “Indians are discriminated against” — and this ethnic interpretation is being used and manipulated by political forces for their own personal and partisan ends.

Those who are loudest in condemnation of “discrimination” are really not that concerned about justice, they really wish to advance their own agenda. Check their records and see if they have consistently stood up for social justice on all issues and you will see what I mean. One lawyer who made his reputation as a fighter for human rights, for example, had no qualms about representing an employer in a case against exploited workers.

The challenge is therefore for us to rise above the narrow confines of ethnicity that have blinkered our view. For the logic of ethnicity means that once one replaces the African with an Indian, as we replaced the European with an African, we (that is our ethnic group) shall get justice. And of course, for some of those who today cry out loudest, if the UNC gets back in power all that has to be done to end discrimination is to put Indians where Africans were and all will be solved. Nothing can be further from the truth.

The problem is not the ethnicity of the office holder, but the nature of the system and secondly the philosophical position of the office holder. And all the race talk is in fact causing us to lose sight of this essential fact, the result being that the system remains intact much to the pleasure of those who are served by it. The issue that we should be debating is not “Sharma is a so and so” or “Manning is a so and so,” but “the system is a so and so.”

If we were to do this then we would recognise what is wrong with the system and why, and what has to be changed and how. Space does not permit me to offer some answers to these questions in this column, though through the years I have been tackling them head on.

Suffice it to say, therefore, that the present “crisis” is also an opportunity, but it is a moment of dangerous opportunity for the outcome could be either positive (leading to a more democratic, just and equal society) or negative (leading to a repressive state and/or one fractured forever by ethnic conflict).