Where is the Lincoln Brigade?
03.19.2003Although war w/ Iraq is now inevitable, there are self-congratulatory reports from anti-war protesters that they are "waging peace" - an unprecedented event in world history. To some extent, this is true and they should be congratulated. That hundreds of thousands of people around the world are openly debating the morality of war is remarkable. I applaud that. But.
Why did it take the Iraq issue to get all those people to march in the street? Protesters make valid arguments, to be sure. War is horrible. That violence is still a tool of politics only demonstrates that we aren't as evolved as we think. But why Iraq?
I ask this because many of the anti-war movement now celebrate the emergence of a broad social movement to wage peace. They oppose human rights abuses and dictatorship - accusations thrown at Bush. Now, I don't like Bush much either. But why now?
Why didn't the same hundreds of thousands of people march against Hussein all these twelve years? Isn't he a brutal dictator? OK, let's skip Iraq. Why not Kosovo? Bosnia? Rwanda? Tibet? Congo? Burma? North Korea? Zaire? Why do we march asking for an impeachment of Bush, but not of Kim Il Jung or Mugabe. Why don't we march in such large numbers for those other causes? Consider Latin America. Why do we still protest the School of the Americas, but not Venezuela's Chávez or Peru's Fujimori?
This is why I'm skeptical of the anti-war movement. Because I have to ask myself: Why now? Why selective protesting?
I support this war - despite Bush - for the same reasons the anti-war movement opposes it. I hope that we're entering a future where brutal dictatorships - the Husseins and the Mugabes - are no longer tolerated. It may come to war. But the left isn't averse to war, not the left I grew up respecting. During the Spanish Civil war, the left didn't protest in the streets - it went to Spain and fought. Where's that left now?
Posted by Miguel at 04:24 PM
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