If I hear George W Bush say "we’re making the world safe from terror" one more time, I’m going to throw up! Twenty odd months after illegally invading a sovereign nation, bombing Afghanistan and Iraq to pieces, killing who knows how many innocent citizens, what right does he, Blair or Howard have to say, "we’re making the world a better place?"
We are at a crossroad this Christmas. As a society and as individuals we are entering into a period of time in which technology, politics, law, morality and wealth all collide, collapse and engulf each other. The battle lines have been drawn and it is going to be a tough fight. We have to ask ourselves, "When I’ve left this battle, what legacy will I leave for those who follow?"
Why do we get out of bed each day? Why do we procreate and love our children? Why do we attempt to earn enough to better our status in the economic realm? Why do we join clubs, societies and teams? Why do we strive to understand and shape the world around us into our own ‘image’? Why do we exist at all?
Since the beginning of history, in our quest for understanding, the human species has tried to manipulate it’s environment in order to shape it into something it can grasp. Something not ephemeral but something real and tangible. To that end we have gotten out of bed and gone to toil in fields, factories or offices. We have found some expression of love and made children we hope one day will inherit the world we are trying to recreate. We have tried to better our economic or whatever status token system we live under – nowadays that’s called striving to climb "the ladder of opportunity". We have participated in joint, volunteer endeavours with colleagues, neighbours and friends. We have died asking ourselves, "what did this all mean?"
Who was it that said, "peace is a messy business"? We are, supposedly, entering into the season of peace and goodwill. A time where we stop for a moment and reflect on the year past and try and define our hopes and aspirations for the year hence. For some this year, this quiet time will be like a dry sponge soaking up their souls and draining them of emotion. They are the ones who will, this Christmas, not be able to share a future with their loved ones.
As a species we have advanced to the point, technologically, where we can shoot missiles hundreds of miles and never have to witness the rendering of a human bodies to atomised pieces. Technological advances also allow us to sew up the holes in bodies where limbs used to attach. We have evolved politically to the point where we have abdicated personal responsibility for the direction our society takes and the collective decisions it makes to hand picked individuals who will only represent the party ideology they adhere to. These same ideological adherents then find themselves locked into a system that exists for its own protection and therefore ensures that it controls the ability to sanction those who dissent from it’s goals. These laws are promulgated in the name of ‘morality’ or ‘values’ or ‘the Australian way of life’ when in reality they are nothing of the sort. The ability to carry out these reactionary programs is supported by the sweat of our brows as they claw from us taxes, charges, fees, levies and tolls.
No longer do we clearly see the end of private power and the beginning of public responsibility. The Bakhtiyari family were "extracted" from their "home" by privately paid, female storm troopers from "Global Solutions Limited" the local arm of a multinational company. With walkie talkies and collapsible packing boxes under their arms, in a "carefully planned and carried out with military precision" raid these state sponsored terrorists rounded up and corralled the family, minus dad who has been "detained" in Baxter, and forcibly took them back into custody. We’re told that "the children were prevented from collecting their belongings. Strangers did that later." I ask you, what terror were they protected from? And in my country!
My country has become infected with a virus that is spreading virulence unknown and unseen in previous times. We are being betrayed by ourselves and have accepted a collective self-delusion so grand it threatens to swallow us whole. In my country, as I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s, I heard about the great vastness of the land. I was told, "get a trade son and you’ll work till you retire". I was able to travel with school friends who were Greek, Dutch, Italian, Lebanese and German without fear or consideration of race. Sure, we Protestants hated the Catholics, but we knew they were going to hell anyway. And I think it was the day I realised the absurdity of this particular ideology that I began to reflect on the real world around me.
Catholic, ‘Asian’, Afghan, Muslim. It doesn’t matter what the label is we use to classify the individual or their group, all of us carry baggage that prevents us from totally being able to ‘connect’ with the stranger. It is this baggage that causes us to fear what might occur if "they" took over. That is the real terror of the Old World. In our New World, this one being shaped, in part, by us is one in which there is no effort being made to unpack the baggage but, in fact, to stuff much more baggage into the bag! The same technologies used by rescue workers to coordinate a search is used to rip a family from the security of their suburban house. The politics of loathing concoct the orders to carry out the abysmal act. The legal fallacies of "we will decide who comes to this country and the conditions under which they come" are used in an attempt to justify the unjustifiable. At the same time a mother's worst fears are being realised, the act is being justified by using the moral argument that the ‘mother’ was not coping. The fact that her husband remains locked up behind razor wire and her mental stress are never correlated in the corporate media. Finally, this act is enabled by a rapacious corporation more concerned about shareholder value than human rights.
So I ask you, has the last 20 or so months made the world safe from terror? I don’t think so. In fact, I argue that since September 2001, the major goal of the political powers in Australia and even more so in the US, has been to make us feel even more unsafe. As we sit comfortably in our homes this Christmas, should the thought cross our minds, feel a little sorry for the Bakhtyari family. The sad thing is most of us won’t want to spend even a second trying to understand the terror they have endured. Rather, I suggest that most "fair minded Australians", if the popular media is to believed, will think that they brought all this on themselves and the government is only doing its job by "protecting" us from people like "them". The problem with this mindset is that it will lead our society, inevitably, to render all of us "them" at some stage.
I find it ironic that after all the history of the human race that precedes us, we are entering a time in which, for all our technology, laws, politics, moral philosophy and ability to create wealth, we will, collectively, spend this Christmas in a far more fearful and timid state than I can remember. So I ask you, for whom are we making the world safe from terror? Certainly not the children of Afghanistan, Iraq, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Niger, Sudan, Palestine (on both sides) or, so it seems, the children who play on backyard swings in suburbs and towns in Australia.
This Christmas and in the New Year we face a potential reality that is more harsh, more extreme and more isolating than any previous time we have known. Or we can create a much better reality. One in which justice, fairness, creativity and love prevail. If, in our endeavours we willingly work for the first, why is we are not willing to work even harder for the second? Both are possibilities and the first, at this time, seems likely to prevail. However, if you, like me, are not content with blindly accepting the status quo and are feeling the rub of those baggage straps digging into your shoulders, then could I suggest you join in the great struggle to overthrow our fears and terrors.
Finally, in offering you my Season’s Greetings could I suggest that, for one meal this festive season, you set one extra place at your table. That empty place can be your symbol of unity with all those families who this year, for the first time, will spend Christmas without a loved one. You can read into that act any symbolism you want. Whether its for those killed by US bombs in far off lands, or soldiers killed by resistance fighters, in car accidents in your town, drug overdoses in the back streets of the city or death by old age surrounded by family and friends, it’s not important. The point is to remember that death comes to us all eventually. It’s really about what we do in life that is important and it is those deeds that will be our legacy.