These comments are prompted by Philip Madsen's posting (below) but take
issue with views which Philip didn't express but to which they are relevant
and which are frequently heard. They suggest a context in which to look at
the comparison Philip invited beween Nazi invaders/occupiers who shot
civilians to terrorise the population on order to discourage resistance to
invasion/occupation and the NATO raids against Serbia.
Pacifists and warriors share some peculiar insensitivities.
Both proclaim that all use of armed force is morally the same. They are
unconcerned whether the purpose is to impose rule on an unwilling population
of a territory, colony, nation of collection of nations or to resist it.
They are unconcerned about whether it is directed only at combatants (like
sinking the troopship General Belgrano), or at combatants and their
infrastructure with not always successful care to avoid non-combatants, or
at everything that moves (as in the Russians' campaign in Chechnya) or
specifically and exclusively at non-combatants (part of IRA strategies and
strategies of some other anti-democratic organisations and governments like
that of Russia). They are unconcerned about whether the combatants are
liberators or overlords. Pacifists undiscriminatingly resent the combatants,
warriors undiscriminatingly honour them.
There is an in between subset of pacifists/warriors which holds that it
matters whether resort to arms is by governments or by non-government
organisations. The pacifist wing of these would for example hold only state
crimes come in the ambit of offences against human rights which should be
punished, and the warrior wing holds that only state crimes deserve impunity.
All these advocacies are a retreat from pursuit of justice. Justice and the
right of peoples to self-determination are low on the totem pole both for
pacifists (less important than peace) and warriors (less important than
winning).
Both pacifists and warriors give equal respect to the firefighter and the
arsonist. To pacifists and warriors alike the aggressive hordes who poured
over Europe and Asia to annex territory in the 1940s and suppress local
populations should be accorded the same respect as those who gave all in
order to resist and defeat them.
I believe both pacifists and warriors have a dangerously cockeyed view of
the world, and that if either had prevailed in the last two millennia and
especially the 1940s then there would be no such thing as democracy or human
rights, only obsequiousness and bullying. If our species still existed at all.
What does all this have to do with the Javanese empire and East Timor? It
allows a context in which to look at the events which is based on justice
and morality and the rights of people to run their own territory if they
wish to do so, not on geopolitics and on ideology whether pro-armed-action
or anti-armed-action. It casts aside the "c'est la guerre" shrug. In this
context, anyone who takes part in an armed invasion to annex a territory or
to keep it annexed, anyone who in the service of such a goal (or any goal
for that matter) would deliberately hammer nails into the head of a young
prisoner, anyone who would protectively close ranks with such mongrels right
up to and including Abdurrahman Wahid, is human garbage at best and not to
be compared in any way with Australian soldiers who are in Timor to prevent
crime, not commit it. Our foreign policy must be based on decency, not on
"constructive engagement" in service of pacifist ideology or the greed of
the likes of Rupert Murdoch.
Dion Giles
Fremantle, Western Australia
------------------
Previous correspondence:
>From Philip Madsen:
Don, You mentioned the Nazis. Remember how in France they lined up 10
townspeople women
and kids, and shot them every day till the resistance stopped.
Was that worse than bonbing civilians and their homes till the resistance of
Serbia
capitulated? Or any other miliatary mission by the worlds "leaders" in this
modern
world. Kill the women and kids to get at the men. Called "modern morality" I
really
wonder if our miliatary would be any different in this modern environment?
philip Madsen.
Dion Giles wrote:
> Indo President Wahid has told the people of Aceh that anyone raising the
> national flag of Aceh will be shot.
>
> The ending of boycotts and restoration of normal relations with the pariah
> state of Indonesia has obviously come far too soon.
>
> Here is the ABC item reporting Wahid's threats (it wrongly called resistance
> fighters "separatists" -- a colonial overlord's propaganda term which even
> Nazi Germany didn't use in describing the resistance ion occupied territory).
>
> -------
> Aceh separatists mark anniversary of struggle
>
> Separatists in Indonesia's troubled province of Aceh are to mark the
> anniversary of their arms struggle today, vowing to push Jakarta to hold a
> referendum on independence as in East Timor.
>
> Leaders of the Free Aceh Movement have called on people not to raise their
> separatist flag for fear of provoking a miilitary crackdown.
>
> The Indonesian armed forces has warned anyone raising the flag could be shot.
>
> Indonesia's President, Abdurrahman Wahid, says that repressive measures will
> be taken if the country's prize terroritorial integrity is challenged by
> Aceh separatists.
>
> The guerilla commanders of the Free Aceh Movement will however go ahead with
> flag raising ceremonies in their mountain strongholds.
>
> They claim 90 per cent support from the people of Aceh after an often brutal
> decade long campaign against them by the Indonesian military.
>
> They are demanding a referendum on independence, similar to the one held in
> East Timor. The Indonesian Government may agree to a ballot, but only
> offering greater territorial autonomy.
> ------------------
>
> Dion Giles
> Fremantle, Western Australia
>
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