Political Post

JL has posted on the inacceptable human cost of the conflict in Lebanon right now. I think it was a great idea of her. Although I hate posting about politics and I even almost dislike all politicized people. I have something to say.

JL was right to point out that civilians were dieing, all of them innocent. Indeed, in the last 7 days, 240 Lebanese people were killed. 850 wounded, 1/2 million lost their homes. Lebanon, where the civil war stopped in 1990 and which has rebuilt itself very quickly into a very lively and touristic country, has lost all the infrastructure it has built in the 15 years since the end of it's war. Just like defense minister of Israel Ameer Peretz said "We will take Lebanon 20 years backwards". I wonder if he is proud that has been achieved.

Wars are part of human history. There will always be wars. This is why it is important to have war ethics. This is not a contradiction in terms, wars should follow certain rules. Not harming civilians is one of them. In fact the Geneva convention says civilians should not even be made uncomfortable, let alone be harmed. Another principle is proportionality.

Proportionality : Well the word is clear. I don't need to explain it. What is happening today in Lebanon violates this idea. The Lebanese attack was against a military facility. 2 soldiers were taken prisoner. 2 **soldiers**. The response was the above mentioned damage to **civilians**.

As Spain, Norway and France have pointed out, this is a disproportionate answer.

The point I wish to make is this. Why is the world tolerating this? Big countries, in my understanding, are supposed to fairly police the world in order to keep things better. This brings me to my main point. We are all racists!

Yes we are. The west has never looked fairly on Arabic countries. It's first contact with them was the crusades. In that time crusaders and the mass of Europeans said that if you kill an infidel you go to heaven. Then, in the 19th century, came orientalism. Orientalism formed most of our modern views of Arabic countries. Orientalism was an industry of cliches. It is to orientalism that we owe wonderful expressions such as "sand monkey, Camel jockey, etc...". I would like to say so much more about this racist trend. Not enough place here.

Today the world is watching as people die. Whenever someone calls for a cease fire, everyone tells him to shut up. Bush has said 3 times in 3 days he is against a cease fire. However, a cease fire is a human necessity. This means one thing. We do not care Lebanese people are dieing. To us, they are Arabs and so they are human dust. Our enlightenment values do not apply to them. I think we as citizens of advances countries should face this bravely and not run away from it. We have come to the point where we do not care when people die.

Personal note:
I have 2 Lebanese friends here, they work in the same building as me, but in different disciplines. They are Vera (girl) and Maher (boy). They are both stuck in France. They can not call their family since phone lines are cut. In short they do not know if there parents, brothers and sisters, etc. are dead or alive and with the Israeli air force doing up to 50 raids on the same city in one day. Who knows. I don't. Maybe you don't need to call your family, you just get a special feeling when they die. Then you have a depression and that's the end of your active life. It's a shame. You were talented but you were born on the wrong side of the fence. And oh, an asshole who works with Maher was making fun of him the other day, like whoops your country c'est le bordel right now. C'est le bordel = It's a brothel. It means a mess in French. How nice. I am telling you we do not give a fuck, they are not human.

Whenever I say we, we=our society. I honestly think this is a fact. Our whole society is like this, our whole culture right now.


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