Why Afghanistan is Our Problem and Jack Layton Has a Point
Like an animal that soils its nest, Western Culture has never learned social hygiene. The problems that we in the West face in the world today are of our own creation. We have never been tolerant of the other, as Jews, Gypsies, blacks and indigenous people know, and so the other must move elsewhere or adjust. That is largely how Israel has come into being in our time. As these words flow out, I can hear the arguments that the Coalition of the Offended will echo back, comparing our record to others, but be careful of your facts, because we have never measured up. Moslem culture, as found in its large urban capitals throughout history, was demonstrably more tolerant and cosmopolitan than Christian culture was. When the Turks first took Constantinople, Jews fleeing persecution in Christian lands swarmed to the welcoming city, and even before that, the Moors of the Iberian Peninsula more than tolerated their minorities. Chinese children have been taught from time immemorial the stories of tolerance through the legends of the Monkey King, and the indigenous peoples of the Americas initially fed and clothed the first Europeans to arrive, only shunning them when they discovered how dirty and diseased they were. Even if one accepts the arguments of the Offended who will cite intolerance in Moslem culture today, it is too easy an answer, because in many ways, they are in reaction. Our actions and colonial adventures have contributed to their current behaviour.
It is not only in ethnic matters, though, that we hurt ourselves. Our intolerance of the needy among us, our indifference to our environment and our heritage of entitlement send ripples out through the world that come back to wash over us, while our unimaginative response is to make war on terrorists on drugs. We have the capacity to reduce our need for petroleum to a point where our purchasing power could be used to positive influence, choosing to buy from countries who invest the proceeds in the betterment of their citizens, but instead our appetite swallows all available supply. We declare war on the misguided drug victims of our society, forcing them to buy illegally, and then we attack the farmers in Afghanistan who are supplying the illicit market that we created.
Should Jack Layton sincerely wish to make a difference with his policy of withdrawing from Afghanistan, he should reach out, not to the Taliban, but to the farmers who are producing over 90% of the worlds opium poppies. In order to do so, though, he would have to make the bold move of legalizing Government administered heroin and start treating drug users as patients instead of criminals. The rest of us can make a difference by drastically reducing our fuel consumption. Even the Taliban, who, like the Hezbollah, are not simply terrorists, but community groups who use drastic and violent means in the course of enfranchising their members, receive help from the very people who satisfy our huge appetite for oil.
We are theoretically in control of these things, but our self-centred sense of entitlement has us endorsing a civil policy that dumps the needy into the hands of the criminal communities while we smugly drive around in cars and SUVs bragging about our anti-theft devices. Today we protect ourselves from street gangs, but what happens when they discover God, or Allah? What happens when they become righteous? How long will it be before terrorists, begin to enfranchise the children of the needy in our cities? How long will it take for us to recognise our hubris and to clean up our own act?
Posted at 16:08 on October 01, 2006