It is nevertheless surprising that such conservative obduracy survives into the present in one of Europe’s most dynamic and innovative societies. Perceptive readers might already have guessed who I am referring to here – Jeremy Corbyn, savior of the British Left and prophet for the 21st century. Mr. Corbyn represents one particular strand of the Labour Party, the strand that has ‘forgotten nothing and learned nothing’ from the history of the past 75 years. His pledges to reopen coal mines and redevelop Britain’s heavy industry betray a tragi-comic level of economic illiteracy and an apparently limitless ability to engage in wishful thinking. His foreign policy shows all the nuance that might be expected from a five year old – in his worldview, any opponent of America is deserving of sympathy and support. Substituting ‘America’ for ‘liberalism’ would have been an apt summary of Franz I’s foreign policy. As a self-professed champion for the underprivileged and oppressed, it is somewhat odd to see Mr. Corbyn denying the Kosovo genocide and holding up an endless series of justifications for Hamas, Hezbollah, Putin and a variety of other unsavoury characters who do not bother to hide their intolerance for those who do not fit neatly into their agenda. Much of his policy platforms come straight out of the 1980s – unilateral nuclear disarmament, leaving NATO (and probably the EU as well), nationalisation of key industries and punitive levels of taxation – yet Britain has changed dramatically since Mrs. Thatcher left 10 Downing Street. His intention to tackle inequality, alleviate poverty and increase social mobility is both commendable and necessary, but it is difficult to see how this can be achieved with an economic programme lifted straight out of the immediate post-war era. The dark satanic mills associated with the Industrial Revolution are no longer a feature of Britain’s landscape not because of capitalist greed or Conservative heartlessness but because of the rise of off-shore production. The coal mines of South Wales or the shipyards of Belfast would have withered away even if Mrs. Thatcher had never taken office – as Marx himself recognized, fundamental economic trends are beyond the control of individual politicians or parties. Mr. Corbyn is in truth a reactionary, one worthy of Charles X or Salazar in his sheer ignorance of modern economic realities and dogmatic refusal to evolve with the times. It is thus doubly ironic that many, though by no means all of his most fervent supporters are youthful idealists who evince a near-visceral hatred of the Conservative Party and all it stands for.

The truth is that Mr. Corbyn, like reactionaries of all stripes, has successfully tapped into a deep wellspring of fear and resentment. Fear of a changing world where index-linked pensions, lifelong employment and job security are no longer within reach of all but a privileged minority. Resentment of a global economy which has given rise to ever greater inequality, one in which material rewards are disproportionately awarded to those who are the best-connected, not those who work the hardest. The appeal of a state-socialist platform to those who feel left-out of today’s prosperity is evident – Britain under Harold Wilson was a lot grayer and far less prosperous, but arguably more equal than the Britain of Tony Blair and David Cameron. In the long run though, adopting the failed solutions of the past to tackle the problems of the present is a path towards catastrophe. Subsidies for cottage industry and absurdly high tariffs against British imports did not alleviate the agricultural depression that befell Southern Germany and Austria in the 1830s. Likewise, renationalizing the railroads, imposing punitive taxation and scrapping tuition fees cannot address the fundamental causes behind rising inequality or low wages. Contrary to popular belief, Britain cannot simply choose to seal itself off behind the Channel and ignore global economic forces, and any attempt to do will merely generate economic disruption and chaos. 19th century clerics desperately attempted to ward off the tide of liberalism through censorship and ever more strident public warnings to absolutely no avail, and their spiritual successors in today’s Twitterati can scarcely hope to perform any better. That so many people have opted for Mr. Corbyn’s agenda is a tragedy for both the Labour Party and British democracy.

There can be no doubt that the European centre-left is deeply in trouble – to put it bluntly, it has failed to come up with meaningful answers to the major issues of our time and practical solutions to a seemingly endless series of crises. The Labour Party lost the last election by an unexpectedly large margin because its policies failed to inspire its working-class base, yet came across as too radical for wavering voters in the middle, many of whom had once supported the Liberal Democrats. Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper and Liz Kendall have all come up with plausible programmes for the party to adopt in the next five years ahead, programmes that should appeal to different demographic groups who defected from Labour in this election. Alone of all the candidates in this leadership election, Mr. Corbyn has opted for the politics of protest. That alone is a large part of his appeal – many of his youthful supporters have little stomach for the compromises which form an inevitable part of governing. Yet those who most fervently desire a party purged of Blairites and ‘Tory-lites’ are rarely those who are the worst-off in this country. Many of them are in fact members of powerful public sector unions which have tried their best to derail the government’s ambitious and genuinely radical reforms. In a country which has always been rather less egalitarian than most of its continental counterparts, it is heartening to see the proportion of state-school pupils applying to and entering top universities increase every year since 2010. State schools in Britain, long a source of despair for parents and experts alike, are being revamped through decentralization and greater accountability. As uncomfortable as that might be for entrenched public sector employees, this cannot but benefit their pupils and the country as a whole.

Democracies function best when the government is effectively brought to account for its actions and policies. The Conservatives are not perfect, and David Cameron has made mistakes in the past, some of which he has to his credit admitted in public. When one party abdicates that role in favour of armchair criticism and ideological purity, it commits a grave disservice to the public as a whole, one that will not and should not be readily forgiven. Portraying the Prime Minister as some ungodly mixture of Enoch Powell, Louis Philippe and Metternich might be great fun, but is hardly what the British public wants or needs. Labour has made this mistake once before – it owes it to the country not to repeat it a second time.

“One of the most horrible features of war is that all the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.” ~ George Orwell

If the members of the Britani Brigade Bangladeshi Bad Boys had read Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia, it did not show. Orwell’s memoir-cum-political-diary describes in detail the hardships of life as a volunteer soldier: that at least has not changed, no matter the rumours of a ‘5 star jihad’. In the decades since the Spanish Civil War, the horrors of battle have remained, and the monstrous evil of fascism has simply been replaced by the monstrous evil of religious fundamentalism.

The Spanish Civil War is perhaps the last great example of a large volunteer army in conflict. The International Brigades, volunteers organised by Comintern, fought at first to defend the weak Republican coalition of democrats, socialists and anarchists, and then to assert control over it for the USSR. On the other side, the ideological clash of extreme left and right drew in volunteers from Italy, Germany, and fascist organisations (including the Irish Brigade under former IRA Chief of Staff Eoin O’Duffy). In the end, the volunteer forces proved enthusiastic but underwhelming, hampered by a lack of training and the heavier armaments of regular forces.

Yet the ISIS’s propaganda machine has not needed to work too hard to convince the world of the danger posed by volunteer soldiers. ‘The Beetles’ – four vicious ISIS militants who got their monikers from their British accents – Nasser Muthana and Reyaad Khan from Cardiff, star in a recruiting video aimed at the West: these are the idealised volunteer soldiers which ISIS needs to fill headlines and glamorise the conflict.

Much as Orwell notes, the sort of people who are shouting about the wonders of the war tend to be those who are not on the front lines. Volunteers like Muthana or the ‘Beetles’ are useful not so much for their combat ability as for the publicity they generate. The images we are getting now increasingly show that ISIS, with cadres drawn from war-torn regions across the world, simply no longer needs inexperienced volunteers from relatively pampered backgrounds in Western countries.

The tales of returning Jihadis have often portrayed the same sort of mundane reality. Camp life is tough, with 10pm curfews and few modern amenities that we are accustomed to in the West– one French jihadi complained that his iPod was broken and that he wanted to return home. Another volunteer, a man from Kalyan, close to Mumbai, complained that rather than being put on the front lines or even being anywhere near the fighting, he spent his time scrubbing toilets.

Unlike the Spanish Civil War, jihadists in Iraq and Syria do not face a shortage of willing recruits. As they overrun border checkpoints and relentlessly erode state authority, experienced guerrillas from across the Islamic world have arrived to take part in this new Jihad. These are experienced veterans of conflicts, with a track record of being prepared to kill or die for their beliefs. In contrast, the volunteers are from a diverse range of backgrounds, many of them unsuited to combat: the average shop assistant probably hasn’t had much call to use a rifle. They have little to no training, no proven commitment to the cause, and there is no dearth of more skilled fighters on offer at present: in this situation, it’s hardly surprising that most civilian volunteers in ISIS are relegated to backroom duties.

The reasoning of volunteers seems to have varied from true ideological passion, through the misguided desire for greater street credibility in their local communities, to trying to force a marriage (as seems to have been the case for the Nawaz brothers). Finding that they’re unwanted unless they’re photogenic, and facing the possibility of death from enemy forces or even rival jihadis, it is not surprising that many have come back to the West. It seems that the majority of those who have returned home have not come to spread their beliefs, but because of the fear of being killed in fighting, or became disillusioned when the promised luxuries and glory were not to be found.

The position of these one-time jihadis is precarious. On the one hand, there is perhaps something to be said for using them as an example, putting off others from following their path by showing just how unglamorous the reality of warfare is. The more dangerous jihadis are likely to have joined the fighting and be actively engaged in combat – their influx is more probable after the war ends. Indeed, the question of the aftermath of this brutal conflict brings up a rather different issue: the return of well-trained radicals who have been tested by war and have shown their readiness to commit acts of incredible violence. That seems quite a different issue from those who were driven, whether by pride, youth, or any other reason, to join ISIS, but were not willing to remain with that group for long. If we can use them to demonstrate how unpleasant the realities of life within ISIS really is, we could at least hope to curb further volunteering.

On the other hand, as former jihadis, they have become politically toxic for any government to attempt to help. These are people who willingly left their homes, jobs, and families to join an organisation which actively encourages the beheadings of unarmed prisoners and the sexual abuse of girls and women. Western foreign policy towards the Arab World has often been questionable at best, but that doesn’t justify ISIS’s actions in anyway, nor the volunteers’ attempts to join this organisation. It is easy to bleat about forgiveness, but the volunteers don’t live in a hermetically-sealed word: they were certainly aware of the indiscriminate violence perpetrated by Islamic State, and were willing to support it.

These volunteers and failed jihadis will continue to return home so long as the war goes on – or at least until the tide of war turns against ISIS. Then, perhaps, the need for manpower will outweigh their current restrictions, and we will see the shop assistant’s on the front lines. Until, then, however, we need to find a way to deal with these radicalised volunteers which recognises the scope of the problems posed by ISIS and prevents more radicalised youth from following in their footsteps.

In March 2013, I was traveling in South Africa for research purposes during Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW). IAW is an international—though de-centralised and locally organised—annual movement that arranges a series of events and campaigns, largely on university campuses across the globe. The aim, to quote the website (http://apartheidweek.org/), is  “to raise awareness about Israel’s policies towards the Palestinians and to build the support for the growing Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign.” Events include seminars with established academics, talks from Palestinian refugees, discussions between NGOs and political representatives, and more participatory and symbolic demonstrations.

Although IAW claims that it uses the term “apartheid” in its strict legal definition, there is clearly a tactical and historical underpinning to the deployment of this term, especially in the context of international solidarity and the methods of resistance such as boycott that IAW promotes. The international grassroots movement in the latter half of the twentieth century against the apartheid regime of South Africa was fundamental in (though certainly only one dimension of) the dismantling of that racist government (http://www.aamarchives.org/). Clearly, IAW seeks to invoke comparative parallels between the resistance to South African apartheid and its own project in order to gain political and historical weight—a quotation from Naomi Klein in IAW’s promotional video is emblematic of this comparativism (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peWqnYLyv7M): what is needed to end Israel’s ongoing occupation of Palestine, she claims, is the “kind of global movement that put an end to apartheid in South Africa”. Though there can be no doubt that the use of such an historically loaded and, quite rightly, demonised term helps generate international attention, within the current mainstream-media discourse around Palestine/Israel it does this as much through its controversiality as it does its comparative accuracy. Indeed, the recent outcry that flew up around US Secretary of State John Kerry’s reported use of the term in April 2014 to describe not what Israel is, but what it might become in the future, is demonstrative of the tensions associated with the term apartheid (http://972mag.com/call-it-colonialism-call-it-occupation-just-dont-call-it-apartheid/90537/). It’s no surprise that Kerry has had to publicly withdraw, and apologise for (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/29/john-kerry-apologises-israel-apartheid-remarks), the comment.

Flyers stuck to the statue of Cecil Rhodes at Cape Town University

The politics of this historical comparison were emphasised, for me, simply by walking through Wits University in Johannesburg, once the archetypal apartheid city, and still an economically segregated urban centre cut through with borders and barriers. The IAW campaigners there had set up, alongside a powerful photo exhibition of scenes from occupied Palestine, a large “wall” outside the campus’s food court. This had then been covered in anti-Israeli graffiti, including denotations of the apartheid-nature of that state. The intention was, of course, to invoke the Wall that now winds its way through the West Bank, a structure that has been transformed into the symbolic epitome of Israeli apartheid by various NGOs and human rights campaigns, as well as in a number of cultural representations, from Eran Riklis’s excellent film, Lemon Tree (2008), to the British novelist William Sutcliffe’s latest offering, The Wall (2013). Interestingly enough, and as Israeli architect Eyal Weizman—whose book Hollow Land provides a thorough analysis of the political underpinnings of Israeli architecture—points out, the Wall is the one thing that South Africa never implemented. Though, of course, urban planning and spatial distribution was central to maintaining South Africa’s apartheid policies, it was never quite so literally, and symbolically, consolidated in one architectural structure. This is largely due to white South Africa’s reliance on black labour, a socioeconomic dynamic demanding a more nuanced architectural regime that both separated races whilst also allowing certain people to pass through those same boundaries with systematic, if tightly monitored, regularity.

Given the geographical and historical immediacy of South Africa’s own apartheid government, the impact of IAW’s Wits campaign was striking. Nevertheless, towards the end of Wits’s IAW I picked up that week’s edition of the student paper to see on the front page a photograph of the fake “wall” that had been occupying the campus for the preceding days. In an inversion of the graffiti resistance to the Wall that has become so poignant in the West Bank, the IAW’s temporary structure had been “vandalised”. The anti-Israeli graffiti previously scrawled across the “wall” had been scribbled over with new graffiti that accused those who had erected it of “anti-semitism”. Unfortunately, the coverage and discussion of Israel’s occupation of Palestine that IAW had intended to generate had been swamped by the politics of the historical comparison embedded within its title.

An Apartheid cartoon by Carlos Latuff, provoking the historical comparison between South African and Israeli apartheid

Historically, and as Illan Pappe, Israeli historian, argues in his most famous book, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (2006), Israel has been concerned with the dispossession and evacuation of Palestinians from their territories. In distinct contrast to South Africa, Israel never intended to retain the occupied population within its borders. This policy of driving out the indigenous inhabitants of the land does not require the nuanced legal apparatus of apartheid, specifically designed to funnel and circulate two racial populations within the same territory whilst also keeping them separate. Instead, Israel’s legal policies have sought primarily to expel the Palestinians from its geographical terrain and prevent them from returning, a policy manifesting physically and obviously in the Wall, as well as the strict and complex system of checkpoints restricting movement between Israel and Palestinian enclaves.

However, this has started to change. The Israeli government’s recent intensification of colonial settlement and its plans to annex unilaterally Area C (about 40% of the West Bank that, since the Oslo Peace Talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders in 1993, has been under full Israeli control) raises a fundamental paradox. Whilst increasing Israeli territory, by its very nature settler colonialism also increases the Palestinian demographic within the state of Israel, thus potentially endangering the rigid systems of expulsion that have dominated Israeli policy since the nation’s inception in 1948. The grim logic of Israel’s recent territorial expansion is the emergence of a new legal infrastructure to regulate, segregate and control this increasing demographic. It is for this reason that since 2009 the Israeli government has begun instituting laws that resemble the legal apparatus of South African apartheid more than ever before. From the Nakba Law of 2009 that prohibits the commemoration of Israel’s day of independence as a tragic historical event, to the 2011 amendment to the Citizenship Law of 1952 that makes it possible to legally define support for the Palestinian struggle as a terrorist act, Palestinians within Israel are increasingly ostracised, oppressed, and spatially and culturally removed to the margins of its society where they live as second-class citizens. Though when IAW started in 2005 there was, perhaps, a political more than descriptive choice underpinning the use of the word “apartheid”, it would appear that in recent years the campaign has, in fact, come to be increasingly justified in its historically comparative connotations.

Nevertheless, regardless of these legal and historical nuances, using the term “apartheid” to describe the Israeli occupation, especially on an international stage, will inevitably be divisive. Whether it is legally accurate or not, the concern of this writer is that the rhetorical dimension of this label might alienate those who are interested in questioning and interrogating the nature of Israeli governance and expansion but that view the implicit historical comparison embedded within it to be extreme and hyperbolic. As readers who have attended public seminars and talks on the Palestine/Israel conflict will know, comments and questions can quickly become shrill and ideologically inflected speech-making rather than a healthily interrogative pursuit of a fuller understanding of the illegality of Israeli occupation and expansion. The worry is that, by framing these important interventions beneath such a provocative, even if increasingly accurate, political title, IAW might alienate those who are undecided about the conflict and obscure the imperative political issues at the heart of its campaign.

Figures for the number of deaths and civilian causalities fail to capture the much broader and wide-ranging implications of drone warfare in Pakistan. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism tells us, as of today: a total of 381 drone strikes has caused anywhere between 2,412 and 3,701 deaths; including between 416-951 civilians and 168-200
 children. Sure, it gives us a picture of the destruction caused by drone warfare in Pakistan, but unfortunately physical trauma is only one aspect of modern warfare. Popular analysis of drone warfare has consistently overlooked the psychological impact of drone strikes: that of the widespread mental health problems that have impacted the lives of residents in North Waziristan and beyond.

The Inadequacy Of Surveys

Surveys so far have failed to account for the psychologically affected victims of drone strikes. Some charities, such as the UK-based Reprieve, have made valiant and laudable efforts to document drone deaths and their study, “Living Under Drones” does go some way in detailing the plight of locals. However, very few other substantive studies exist that attempt to determine the number of those suffering from mental health problems in the aftermath of drone warfare. The closest we have come to capturing the underlying psychological repercussions comes from observations made by Dr. Mukhtar-ul-Haq, Head of the Psychiatry Department at Peshawar’s Lady Reading Hospital, who notes that the “rate of depression is really high in Waziristan.”

In an effort to better understand the issue, I spent the summer of 2013 conducting research in collaboration with a government run mental health clinic in Islamabad. The hospital, like others in the city has seen a recent influx in the number of psychologically affected victims of drone strikes and I approached a number of these hospitals to interview patients. There I spoke with some fifty patients suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and insomnia amongst other illnesses. The conversations I had with the victims and their families were incredibly revealing and the narratives and stories they shared with me showed what is truly at stake.

Troubled Tales: “Worse Than Death”

 “Worse than death” was how one of the first victims I interviewed described the situation. Asif, a father of three and native of Miran Shah (a town in North Waziristan), reported being perpetually scared of drone strikes and spoke of a “murky, saddening and constant” fear of death. He said “my family and I lived in anticipation of death for many years before we decided to move to Pindi; its not home but its better than death.” Especially after his eldest son’s death in a 2010 attack, his three sons, four-year-old daughter and wife had suffered bouts of emotional trauma and anxiety, which often manifest themselves in headaches and insomnia. The problems Asif and many other patients spoke of are not rare occurrences nor should they be seen as unexpected. The drone conflict inculcates a wartime atmosphere in the tribal regions of Pakistan. Sometimes drones have often defied international humanitarian laws adopted under Geneva Conventions by repeatedly targeting civilian gatherings and first responders rushing to help the wounded. As such, the mental health problems we see in North Waziristan are similar to those observed in other areas around the world that have suffered from prolonged wars; such as during the protracted Iraq/ Iran war and the Israel-Palestine conflict.

My supervising officer, a consultant psychiatrist and Head of the Department of Mental Health explained this as an outcome of “helplessness” and “unpredictability” brought about by drones. He notes that the symptoms are comparable with the psychological trauma resulting from torture, with “uncontrollability” a common trait.

Moreover, the psychological effects, at least in part, are symptomatic of a dramatic shift in life styles brought by the fear of drones and a constant state of war. Families have pulled their children out of school and people avoid otherwise common activities like shopping and farming. As one my interviewees, Amer, put it “when more people are together, they have a chance to kill more in one strike. Knowing this, how can I send my fifteen-year-old to play football with other kids?” Taylor Owen, the research director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University, describes this behavior as characteristic of “anticipatory anxiety” – a psychological phenomenon that causes people to worry constantly about their immediate future.

This transformation in lifestyle is perhaps even more dramatic for those who have chosen, though unwillingly, to abandon their ancestral homes and seek a safer environment elsewhere. Migrants, like Sheroz (an office assistant at the hospital) suffer from problems of adjustment and what may be comparable to a “culture shock.” Central Punjab and the tribal areas have little in common and although officially tied by a common national language and sworn allegiance to the same flag, the two areas offer very different socio-cultural customs. Sheroz explains how he has been unable to send his daughters to school and how he has struggled to adapt to this “artificial and too-fast-for-its-own-good lifestyle” in this big city. With an unmistakable longing and sorrow in his voice, he revealed how his wife struggled for two years to get used to the new city and new life, before finally being admitted to a local hospital as another psychiatric patient.

US Army Drone via Wired

Socio-Economic Effects

It should then come as no surprise that the socioeconomic effects, though undocumented till now, are undoubtedly vast and penetrating. However, it must be conceded here that the region was underprivileged and underdeveloped to begin with. Other than some efforts by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s (Pakistan’s 9^th Prime Minister) that included the establishment of the FATA Development Corporation (FATADC) in the 1970s and the subsequent expansion of educational institutions and federal jobs in the area, the economic development of the tribal areas has often been overlooked. According to most reports, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas though home to almost 2.4% of the population constitute less than 1.5% of the economy.

Although the region was already neglected economically, the recent safety and security situation, a product of militancy and drone warfare, has made development even less likely. Note for example that the mining of commercially viable reserves of marble, copper, limestone and coal in the region, which could have brought ample economic resources and business to the area, has had to be halted. Similarly, NGOs whose involvement is vital in the reconstruction and provision of basic social and health services, have been largely restricted and their activity curtailed, because locals now see them, as Ijaz Khan, an International Relations Professor at University of Peshawar, put it “as foreign agents promoting Western and U.S agendas.”

This is perhaps because people are often unable to appreciate the distinction between the US government that sponsors drone strikes, and international NGOs that simply aim to rectify the damage. This, at least, seemed to be the impression I gathered in my interviews, where foreign elements were often dismissed as either American or not American. The link here seems to be this: drone warfare inspires hatred and distrust of foreign actors that can impact on the ability of NGOs. This, coupled with a reduced viability of successful business operations, means a diminished chance for economic success. While I concede that we need much more information to be able to confidently determine this proposed link to economic detriment, it should be evident that drone warfare has damaged the local economy in more ways than one.

Similarly, the fate of those who migrate has been a story of continual economic struggle. It was easy to conclude from my interviews that a majority of those who have moved to central Punjab have either struggled to find adequate jobs or fulfil theirs roles; if they have even been able to find one. Almost 30 of my 50 patients had taken to one of Pakistan’s lowest paying and highly unreliable day-to-day job: that of Mazdoori (construction work). If the Mazdoor is able to find a contractor in the morning, the wage could be anything between 75 cents to 3 dollars a day; barely means for subsistence.

Further Radicalization 

The American attitude of “we’ve got this, guys” is in part based on this obliviousness: a failure to note how the psychological damage may play out. It seems that the State Department is yet to acknowledge the radicalizing effects of drones, as air strikes still continue in Pakistan, While this radicalization comes in all shapes and sizes, instigated by various channels, emotional or otherwise, I invite the reader to consider two simple, but very likely scenarios that go some way to highlight the dynamics under discussion.

In the first scenario the wounded and psychologically affected take the death of their brothers and fathers as sanctioned by God. They pack their belongings and migrate out of their ancestral land; a difficult but widely practiced option. These are the people I documented.

The second option involves family members developing a thirst for revenge so that they seek avenues and agencies that facilitate violence against the enemy. Not that unlikely given that the tribal culture in North Waziristan, while discouraging violence, does allow for revenge. Active recruitment by the Taliban and the potential for drones to aid this recruitment makes radicalization even more likely.

Conclusion

 Admittedly, it is not easy, in any sense, to sufficiently document a phenomenon as broad as the damage caused by drones. True. But, if you just nodded at the last sentence, take a minute to notice the irony: if we cannot capture, explain or attain a better idea of this vast and diverse damage caused by drones, then how we can really expect to “understand” the issue under question? Isn’t our figure-centric knowledge only a trivial recognition of the vast repercussions of the conflict? And perhaps most importantly, how can we inspire and mobilize popular dissent for drones when the real significance of the issue has remained and remains hidden?

Note: All names in this article have been changed to keep anonymous the identity of those interviewed.

This process begins in literature, which reflects the social mores of the time in which it emerges. In an article written for the Asia Times, the journalist David P. Goldman traces the history of the modern novel back to Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther of 1774, about a young man inspired by the likes of Rousseau to live his life in search of a meaningful identity. His efforts to achieve this – through a passionate love affair – fail, and the novel ends with his suicide.

Perhaps most notable about Werther is that it signified a definitive break in the European literary tradition. Where novels had once sought to show society as it was, as a complex tableau abounding with competing individuals and ideas, novels such as Werther concerned themselves with the search for durable personal meaning.

One need not look far to see how this process has influenced contemporary cinema and literature. Fewer novels attempt to link an individual destiny with the flow of History than in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They tend to focus on the personal, on a character’s everyday victories and setbacks, set in a static world sheltered from the violence of historical motion. One of the most fascinating elements of such quests is that this meaning proves cruelly elusive, the problem being that meaning does not come within but from without, based in the ways in which our lives intersect with the lives of those around us.

Salman Rushdie, author of ‘Midnight’s Children’. Photo by futureshape via Flickr.

It is by situating meaning in broader social processes that Salman Rushdie joins the personal and the political in his novel Midnight’s Children. His epic story revolves primarily around the life of Saleem Sinai. Born at the stroke of midnight at the exact moment India gained its independence from British rule, Saleem’s life will remain inexorably tied to the major historical events of his time. Each action he undertakes will be reflected in the violent twists and turns of his nation’s turbulent history.

Saleem recounts how he became telepathically connected to the other 1,000 “midnight’s children”, all of whom possess amazing supernatural powers as a recompense – or curse – for having been born in the glorious moment of India’s liberation. Their thoughts keep him awake at night, and it is not long before they begin engaging each other in heated debates over their purpose with regard to their country’s future. As a consequence of their unflagging presence in his mind, Saleem does not – and cannot – separate his personal sense of identity from his role as a member of Indian society. His identity is evident: tied to India’s destiny by accident of birth, Saleem is fated – like the rest of “midnight’s children” – to “forsake privacy and be sucked into the annihilating whirlpool of the multitudes”.

Burdened as he is by destiny, Saleem does not allow himself to be deterred from accomplishing the closest thing he has to a duty: the completion of his memoir, an exhaustive history of the newly independent India in which he features as the drama’s protagonist. Saleem believes that this work resembles a religious text in its assumptions and scope. “What’s real and what’s true are not necessarily the same,” he warns his reader.Truth, like a nation’s value or a religion’s sanctity, depends on faith. Saleem argues that his version of the events of twentieth-century Indian history is true because he believes in them. As such, they acquire a distinct moral quality, in that Saleem, like all human beings is a biased observer.

Saleem, the son of a poor couple has his identity secretly switched at birth so that he grows up in a middle class Muslim household. With such a background, he comes to embody the diversity of India, and as such can never accept the arguments of those who wish to partition the subcontinent, whether by religion, culture, or ethnic group.

Saleem truly believes in the India he was born into, and implores the other “midnight’s children” to use their shared experience as the basis for a new culture united in the name of equality and tolerance, unburdened by the prejudices of class and ethnicity. Yes, this is idealistic, especially for one living in a country whose history bears the imprint of a rigid caste hierarchy. This, however, does not mean that such a vision is unworthy of their efforts. It means that their success depends on their ability to see themselves as part of a history in the process of unfolding.

History is in perpetual motion, and the context into which we are born creates the conditions necessary for thought and action. The past remains important not simply because it holds lessons for the future, but because it reveals new opportunities for innovation; the possibility of meaning for the midnight’s children begins with the night of their birth. A new India will depend on their capacity for unity in the face of great uncertainty.

We should not lament our past. We must accept it as we live it and use it to determine our future. We can write our histories as we have lived them and pursue the truth embedded within our historical context for something greater than self-knowledge: a means of transcending the differences that pit humans against one another.

Henry Morton Stanley, who was an explorer of central Africa and claimed the Congo for the Belgian king, was considered an influence for Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Photo by Smithsonian Institution via Flickr.

It is almost impossible to discuss European imperialism without making at least a passing reference to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. As a historical novel, it provides the perfect summary for the psychological, political, and historical ramifications of imperialism. Nothing conjures up more temptation than encounters with the far away and unfamiliar. But discussion of exoticism is seldom unaccompanied by meditations on moral corruption. And what is Heart of Darkness if not a meditation on this corruption?

The plot revolves around the destiny of a certain Kurtz, an ivory trader and commander of an African trading post, who uses his charisma and the superiority of European technology to reign over the native peoples as a demigod. A sort of colonial Faustus, Kurtz has succumbed to the temptations of tyranny. It is not for this that the other traders hope for his downfall, but because of the wealth he has accumulated as a result of his despotism. In this sense, Kurtz is but the reflection of the seedy underbelly of imperialism, the logical extreme of the white man’s burden: he is an embarrassment.

Well-intentioned conquests

This is the essence of what came to be known as the “New Imperialism” of the late 19^th century, a movement characterised by lofty ideological crusades that never amounted to much more than the reductive social Darwinism they were founded on.

This New Imperialism distinguished itself from previous periods of colonisation as a period in which overseas territories were partitioned by nation-states, not simply for economic reasons, but for deeply political ones. If the European nations were busy carving the African and Asian continents up, it was not simply in hopes of acquiring raw materials, but to protect their interests while achieving national glory through conquest.

But preserving the fruits of conquest often meant taking up arms against a region’s indigenous population. Uprisings against imperial rule were put down violently and remorselessly with ruthless efficiency, everywhere from French Algeria to German Namibia.

In light of this heightened potential for atrocity, it was necessary for those at the forefront of imperialistic endeavors to concoct lofty justifications for the actions they were committing. One of the most enduring of New Imperialism’s rationalisations was the concept of humanitarianism, by which uncivilised people could be brought to appreciate and enjoy the fruits of Western civilisation.

Evangelisation was a manifestation of this, whereby Christian missionaries would attempt to save the souls of indigenous peoples by converting them to Christianity, sometimes by force. The violence was not simply physical. An important component of missionary work was to convince native peoples that Christians, and by association, Westerners were inherently superior, both morally and intellectually.

Another well-known facet of this imperialism was the idea of the “white man’s burden”, a term first coined by Rudyard Kipling in his eponymous poem written for Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. Today, there are two different interpretations of Kipling’s poem. One is the explicitly racist view that whites have a duty to rule over and educate those of other races and ethnic groups until those peoples are capable of taking responsibility for themselves. The other interpretation is equally insulting and paternalistic, but this time, more subtle in its racism. According to this interpretation, Kipling only meant to say that the rich have a responsibility to ameliorate the plight of the poor, even if they must do so by force. Reading these two points of view side by side, one finds it difficult to understand where they diverge.

It is not surprising then, that Western imperialism would intertwine itself with Social Darwinism, a theory that stipulates that in any conflict between nations or peoples, only the fittest can survive. Social Darwinism had grown into a serious intellectual movement during late 19^th century. Thinkers who subscribed to its tenets sought to apply evolutionary theory to politics and sociology, with results ranging from radical laissez-faire capitalism and eugenics to pseudo-scientific skull measurements meant to demonstrate the superiority of one race over another.

With the dawn of a new Imperialism, Social Darwinism found a new avenue in which to express itself, wherein the superior Europeans could exploit lesser peoples. It was for this reason Westerners, with the exception of certain Christian missionaries, never made any substantial attempts to integrate themselves into their host culture.

The conquerors approach: conquest of paradise, prologue to genocide or both? Photo by National Maritime Museum.

This is the process that Sven Lindqvist describes in his 1992 travel book and history of colonial genocide Exterminate All the Brutes. The book takes its title from a comment made by Conrad’s Kurtz, written in the margin of Kurtz’s report to the International Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs. The allusion to Kurtz is apt, but not simply because of what Kurtz represents for students of Africa’s colonial history.

Lindqvist’s thesis is daring precisely because it seeks to link the abuses visited upon Africans, with those imposed on Europeans by other Europeans. Social Darwinism was the dark side of the New Imperialism, the tragic repercussion of paternalistic humanitarianism embodied by Kurtz in Heart of Darkness. Little did these Europeans know that this deadly combination of utopianism and scientific racism would soon rear its head in the heart of Europe, as the Shoah.

And just as Kurtz became the scapegoat for the atrocities committed in the name of Western civilisation, Germany would be singled out as the sole source of an evil that had begun its work long before 1939. Lebensraum, or “living space” – the Nazi Party’s policy of territorial expansion in the name of the Aryan Race – was part of the imperialist tradition.

Like the Americans who annexed western North America or the Belgians who took the Congo, Hitler’s express intention in invading the rest of Europe was not to murder its native populations. Rather, the slaughter of Jews and Slavs was, like the slaughter of Africans by the imperial powers, a “practical way of reducing the consumption of food and making way for future German settlement”.

This similarity, along with the widespread collaboration of their own citizens with the occupying German forces, is of course very difficult for former imperial – and current neo-imperial – powers to digest. Germany remains ingrained in the Western consciousness as the single bearer of the terrible guilt of European racism, an explosive diversion that serves to veil Western hypocrisy in a cloak of self-righteous moralising.

A neo-colonial mentality

Such crimes remain relevant to the 21^st century.  In his book Confessions of an Economic Hitman, John Perkins reveals the details of his career as one of many economic consultants who worked to convince the leaders of developing nations to accept gargantuan loans that would leave them indebted to the United States, thereby ensuring that those countries would comply to American political demands with unquestioning loyalty. Today such activities continue under the auspices of well-paid economic and political “experts” who advocate policies that enrich a small number of elites in developing countries while keeping many others around the world in poverty.

Once again these crimes are carried out in the name of “development” and “democratisation”. They are the products of a colonial mentality that depends on a sense of superiority legitimising brutal interventions. As we see in Lindqvist’s book, it is not enough to reassure oneself by condemning the most egregious expressions of imperialistic domination. Instead, we should seek to link violence – physical and psychological – to the assumptions proffered by the status quo. This is more than another exercise in postcolonial analysis. It is a prerequisite for the fostering of a world in which the words justice and equality are more than insipid mantras, but elements of political policy.

Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko. Photo by chavezcandanga via Flickr.

“I have some joke for you. A newspaper called Freedom of Speech was opened in Belarus. Its editor’s A.G. Lukashenko.” Dzianis Kuchynski is a student at European Humanities University (EHU), which moved from Belarusian capital, Minsk, to Vilnus in neighbouring Lithuania in 2004. He is Belarusian, but has had to cross the border in pursuit of a liberal arts education. The laughter that comes with his joke isn’t jolly, but tinged with bitterness. Then again, there’s little reason for cheeriness. Come this summer, Belarus would have been presided over by Alexander Lukashenko for nineteen years. There is little cause for celebration at EHU.

Many of Belarus’ neighbors have run to the European Union in search of capitalism, democracy and liberalism, but Lukashenko’s government has never sought to align itself with Brussels. Instead, it has chosen to head in another direction, with Minsk signing a Union State treaty with Moscow in 1997, detailing mutual commitments to entrenched social and economic ties between Belarus and Russia.

While Lukashenko bolstered his power with three elections (consecutively condemned by the international community for electoral fraud), markers of thriving civil liberties – such as competition in the press market and an education syllabus that allows deviations from Government demands – were stifled, just as their emergence seemed hopeful. Journalists also felt the force of Lukashenko’s iron grip over public information and debate in Belarus.

EHU opened in Minsk in 1992 as a liberal arts, not-for-profit centre for higher education. Securing foreign investment, and incorporating into its name the continent that EHU felt itself to be newly aligned with, the university was seen by many as an opportunity for a centre of free speech to thrive in Belarus, modeled after the universities in countries such such as Norway and Germany.

Trouble for EHU began in 2000, claimed its provost and founder Anatoli Mikhailov in an interview with the BBC’s Crossing Continents. Although support for Lukashenko was significant in 1994, by the general election in 2000, the President received next to no votes in the Minsk district around EHU. Mikhailov said that he was subsequently “invited for a chat” with the Education Minister, and was told to “choose anyone else to run the university” but himself. His forced resignation preceded the university’s closure in 2004 – with Mikhailov recounting that the Government “needed the premises”. According to Mihailov, President Lukashenko claimed personal responsibility for the closure, apparently saying, “This university was going to educate an elite to bring Belarus to the West… we do not need this university.”

Nastassia Yaromenka is at EHU too, and like Dzianis, she has known nothing but Lukashenko’s Belarus. Unike Dzianis though, she makes no joke about her situation. “I remember returning home late at night after ballet performance, tired, sleepy, and I was approached by policemen because they “found me strange” – no other reason. I simply was slowly walking, maybe slower than I was supposed to.” Nastassia pointed this out to highlight the inherent suspicion with which the regime views students. According to Dzianis, a sarcastic protest held last year, organized on Russian Facebook-equivalent VK, where participants congregated in town squares and slow-clapped the Lukashenko regime, has exacerbated tensions between police and students.

Both Nastassia and Dzianis were keen to stress that they were not political activists. These student experiences are not extremes, but part of a wider problem.

A lack of freedom of speech, self-regulation and plurality put Belarus 157th out of 179 countries on the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) 2013 Press Freedoms Index, sandwiched between Azerbaijan and Egypt. Lukashenko, according to the RSF, stifles journalists to a larger extent than in Zimbabwe or Afghanistan, with independent press workers “remain(ing) at great risk whilst carrying out their duty of keeping the public informed.” Heather Blake is the chief of Reporters Without Borders UK, and also an Associate to the Changing Character of War Programme at Pembroke College, Oxford University. According to her, Belarus “is not North Korea, but you do have people trying to speak. (There is) a government stifling the voice of a population, and violating press freedoms is a sign of other violations.”

Lukashenko and his regime ignore or deny accusations that Belarus is run by a demagogue. The woman this writer spoke to at the Belarusian Telegraph Agency, a state media regulating company, suddenly lost her fluent English when press freedoms were mentioned – she suggested emailing instead to talk about the right to free speech. Consequently, this writer’s email never received a reply. The London embassy simply ignored any requests for comment.

Then again, this is a regime that is tired of justifying itself to the world. RSF’s Blake pointed out that “the UN… particularly Britain, are working as a collective voice along with NGOs to speak out against the problems” in Belarus, but noted also that individual states that take press freedoms seriously need to be joined by those that have more economic influence, like Russia. Moscow is notoriously difficult for other countries to pressure on anything related to authoritarian government – the Kremlin simply shrugged off accusations of its own electoral fraud in 2012 – and Russia’s deep political and economic ties with Belarus only serve to further stifle any opportunities for a relaxation of authoritarianism. Nonetheless, Blake hopes that “the attention currently on human rights violations can only mean more international pressure to respect civil liberties.”

Yet international pressure can have but a limited effect. The reality in Minsk is that opposition parties are disparate and have little support, partly because of the perceived conflicting policies which they advocate, a perception not least due to Lukashenko, who distorts opposition policies and attempts to arrest their proponents for ”hooliganism”. For example, Natalia Radzina, the editor of the Charter97 opposition website, had to flee the country to avoid a probable jail sentence.

Nastassia bemoans her education in Belarus. She tells how she “never heard a single positive word of support or understanding. We heard only complaints about our ignorance toward their rules and warnings about their power to influence the fact of our graduation.” She laments her nation’s future. “Most people don’t realise that they are oppressed, because they have never seen another way of life. I have a younger brother and sister, 8 and 9 years old, and I see how school kills their personalities. The government is raising slaves.”

The Belarusian state has made Minsk an inhospitable city for universities that do not tow the party line. Journalists flee abroad to avoid arrest. Children are not inspired in classrooms, and any attempt to break with convention is not seen as creative or innovative, but as deviant.

This year, Lukashenko’s smiling face appeared on Russia Today. Like Dzianis, Lukashenko had a “joke” to offer. “I say to journalists, alright, I have quite an autocratic style. Could you please try and see the good reasons for my system? I say to them, you’re very lucky to meet Europe’s last dictator.” Let us hope he’s right about the last three words.

The red city of Bologna, Italy. Photo by Curious Expeditions via Flickr.

Parallel universes have always fascinated me. They exist all around us, as the potential for another world, another possible future. On a cold March evening I stumble across yet another one at a bar in central Bologna. There is not enough room inside so we sit outside with a group of local students. They begin to tell stories about their parents’ lives, and soon some of the older regulars begin to elbow their way into the conversation. The focus quickly shifts from stories of harmless pranks to epic decade-long political dramas. Bologna – I am told – is the “Red City”, the centre of Italy’s leftist student movement. How much of this is true, I cannot be sure, but their account is convincing.

Bologna’s Piazza di Porta Ravegnana: once the centre of an upheaval. Photo by bibliothequedetoulouse via Flickr.

One young man begins to tell me the story of Francesco Lorusso, who was only 25 years old when he was shot dead in the midst of a student demonstration in 1977. The two days following his death were marked by violent clashes between students and Italian security forces, featuring Molotov cocktail assaults by the former and tank blockades by the latter.

Another student interrupts this story to tell me about one of his professors. The professor in question claims to have been a member of a radical leftist “brotherhood” in his twenties. They shared everything; money, clothes, food, even lovers. “What does he think of all that now?” I ask, careful not to show any hint of wistfulness. “He’s put it all behind him,” the student says regretfully. “He knows why things went wrong, that failure was inevitable. Still,” adds the student almost immediately, “you know he wishes he was still in those times; he gets that look in his eyes like he’s still back there facing the cops with stones in his hands.”

The world in which these ideals of unity and liberation were possible never ends. It persists invisibly, parallel to our present, in monuments and stories dedicated to fallen heroes and defeated monsters, as well as our own imaginations.

Walking back to a friend’s apartment later that night I make a brief stop under one of Bologna’s ubiquitous porticos to leaf through my copy of Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being. In the first few pages Kundera asks his reader to reflect on Friedrich Nietzsche’s concept of eternal return, in which the universe and everything in it is finite. Consequently, every moment of our lives has already occurred, and will occur again ad infinitum. It is in this manner that our lives, or being, acquire weight. Kundera comes to take an opposing stance: that each person has only one life to live and will only live it once. In this way our lives possesses a fundamental “lightness”, and only by accepting the absurdity of life can we begin to approach happiness.

Convinced as I am by Kundera’s contention that every moment is unique and experienced only once, the night’s conversations make me wonder if there might not be another kind of heaviness, one that does not render all our endeavours absurd and meaningless. This question spurs me to reread another book: Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle. Dick’s novel imagines a world in which the Axis powers have won World War II: the Nazis control the East Coast of America, while the Japanese occupy the West. In the neutral territory between these two regions lives a reclusive writer whose latest work describes a completely different world in which the Allies have won the war. Late in the book, it is revealed that this may in fact be the true reality, and that the Axis-dominated world is nothing but a fiction. This revelation is doubly disruptive, first because it means that the novel’s characters have lived their lives in accordance with a delusion, and second because they must contend with the moral implications of conforming to such a fiction. Only when the better world, the world without Nazi or Japanese occupation, is determined to be real, are they forced to grapple with their responsibility in accepting the conditions of fascist domination.

Dick’s novel suggests to us how events can possess an infinite potential. In this vein I would argue that while each event may occur only once, rather than recurring eternally, there remain parallel universes for every moment. There are worlds beyond ours in which our better instincts are applied more fruitfully and others where they are reduced to ashes. We must not take this to mean that we should resurrect now-defunct twentieth-century ideologies that once enticed young people with promises of worldwide liberation and equality. It simply means that we must remain conscious of the historical, political, and philosophical meaning with which our surroundings are will forever be imbued.

No more war: Colombian immigrants take to the streets in Madrid to protest violence. Photo by kozumel via Flickr.

There is reason for hope. For the first time in a decade, the Marxist organisation FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and the Colombian government have come together in Oslo, Norway for formal peace negotiations.

Since the conflict began in 1964, FARC has been an organisation of terrorism, displacement, kidnapping, drug trafficking, and forced recruitment. Yet peace may not be all that it’s cracked up to be. Many Colombians wonder whether successful negotiations will actually stop the violence, how former combatants will be received back into society, and if all FARC forces could indeed be demobilized.

After decades of violence, the Colombian people will have to be ready to receive former combatants back into society. So the most important question remains: will we be able to forgive?

The Errors of the Past

This time, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said the country would not “repeat the errors of the past”. The negotiations would have to lead to the resolution of the conflict. I am old enough to remember the most recent “error”. In 1998, then-President Andrés Pastrana ceded an area the size of Switzerland as neutral ground for negotiations. The talks made no tangible progress, eventually breaking down in 2002, and the FARC took over the territory. After this failure, we became cynical. I was born into a country at war and I didn’t hold out much hope for seeing it resolved in my lifetime.

Following this, current President Santos’ predecessor, Alvaro Uribe, decreased the FARC’s numbers from their peak of 20,000 in 2002 to the present-day 9,000. Uribe’s questionable methods became a worldwide human rights discussion. The fanaticism with which the Colombian people amended the constitution in order to re-elect him made me uneasy. Nonetheless, many chose to overlook his potential paramilitary ties in exchange for the glimpse of a future without the daily fear of violence.

Yet in spite of the FARC’s decline, both in their number and in the death of their most ruthless leaders, reaching a peace agreement will prove to be a monumental task. “People must realize that there is no hope of peace except on the [already set] limited agenda,” said Malcolm Deas, a retired Professor of Colombian Politics at the University of Oxford. The “limited agenda” for the Oslo negotiations was agreed upon earlier this year in Cuba: land reforms, the future of FARC rebels, a permanent end to hostilities, reparations and justice for victims of the conflict, and how to decrease the traffic of illicit drugs.

Yet FARC spokesman Ivan Marquez made a provocative opening statement at the current Oslo talks. He reiterated demands for the nationalisation of natural resource industries and the overturning of free-trade agreements. The most outrageous claim, though, was the denial of the FARC’s involvement in any human rights violations such as kidnapping, murder and bombings.

The speech, although upsetting, was also predictable. The Economist Intelligence Unit noted that the remarks were “a strategy to show strength at the bargaining table,” and forecasted that the negotiations convey some “risks to political stability, and that it is unlikely that a complete end to the conflict will be achieved”. In reality, no one on the ground is expecting a complete end to the conflict, just a beginning to the end.

What would peace look like?

Demobilisation, even if things go well, is a slow and tricky process. We went through it with the paramilitary forces during the Uribe government, after which many of them went back to their violent pasts. “Experience shows that demobilizations can increase crime,” Professor Deas said. Moreover, the country’s root problems persist: poverty, no access to education, and one of the highest rates of economic inequality in the world.

“There is a limit to the extent that the needs of the demobilized can be privileged,” said Deas. “And the fact, much ignored by those who insist on seeing the FARC as an agrarian movement, [is] that most [guerrilleros] probably don’t want to be campesinos [farmers].”

According to a Human Rights Watch report, approximately 20% to 30% of those recruited are minors, most of who are forced to join the FARC. Balancing how well we treat the leaders of the movement with as those who were forced into it is the possible key to achieving and maintaining peace.

But can I picture a former FARC rebel being accepted into one of the country’s few universities? Leaving his or her profitable drug business? Competing against my privileged friends for jobs in Bogota?  My honest answer is no. I don’t see why they would be treated any differently than the many other uneducated, unskilled campesinos they have displaced.

But as Colombians, we need to try. Forgiveness is the essential measure we must undertake post-negotiations as our main contribution to the success of this peace process. We, who have been enduring bombs and threats for most, if not all, of our lives, will need to be forgiving in order not to marginalize former rebels so they do not feel the need to take up arms again.

“They say, ‘What if Timochenko [the main FARC leader] gets elected to Congress?’” said ex-President Pastrana to the New York Times. “I hope he gets elected to Congress. If we are not willing to forgive, the peace process is going to be a failure.”

In the end, the FARC need to be heard in the political process. They need to have their voice represented in the Senate and the ability to participate in political discourse so they know that there is an alternative to violence. For that to happen, we, as citizens, must be willing to let the pains of the past go. After civil war, civility needs to come from both sides.

Navigating the Separation Barrier: A stark physical reminder of a divided country. Photo by Shoshana via Flickr.

“French is a language you learn out of interest. Italian, too. Arabic? No. There’s something more to that. I ask you again, why are you learning Arabic?”

This is a snippet of an approximately 40-minute conversation I had with El-Al security personnel at Luton airport, trying to board a flight to Tel Aviv. This summer I ended up in the rather unusual position of studying Arabic in Israel. Having come to the realisation that the number of people my Classics degree enabled me to talk to was limited to a handful of dons and cardinals, I decided to switch to a joint honours, Classics with Oriental Studies, that would see me starting Arabic in Michaelmas of this year. As preparation, I resolved to do a summer course. The Hebrew University was highly recommended to me, and had the advantage of being in a country that was safer and more stable than the other recommended schools in Syria and Egypt. Little did I suspect that I would not only gain an education in Arabic grammar, but also insight into why the Israel-Palestine conflict is such an intractable problem.

My conversation with El-Al security was only my first taste of the deep-seated distrust that pervades Israeli-Palestinian relations. When I checked-in at the accommodation provided, I met a full-time student who, upon learning that I was studying Arabic, remarked, “Great language, shit people. You have to be careful around here, you will see him [any Arab] in the street”. It turned out that this harsh view was based on a superficial knowledge of the Palestinians. My new acquaintance had spoken only to a handful of Arabic-speaking students at the Hebrew University, and said he did his best to stay away from them. At least this student did have some minimal knowledge of Palestinians studying at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Contact with Palestinians who had not accepted Israeli citizenship was virtually non-existent.

Containing Conflict

An obstacle to communication between Israelis and Palestinians is what the Israelis describe as the “security fence” and what the Palestinians call the “racial segregation wall”. This barrier between the two communities was erected in 2003 in an effort to stop terrorist attacks during the second Intifada. It is an undeniable fact that the wall has been highly successful in protecting Israeli citizens. Suicide bombings, which killed 293 Israelis between 2000 and 2003, have now become a rarity. The majority of Israelis I talked to were thankful for the barrier; although a few lamented that it was necessary to build it in the first place.

Though the barrier may have increased security, it has had the side effect of making attempts to bridge the divide between the two communities more difficult. I spoke to one Palestinian cab driver, Akhil, who told me he had Jewish friends, but was now unable to visit them because of the separation barrier that runs through Jerusalem and around the West Bank. It is possible for Palestinians to cross the barrier, but only with the proper permits. The same holds true for Jewish-Israelis, but permits are much harder to come by. Akhil was denied a permit as he had been falsely accused by a fellow Palestinian of throwing rocks at the IDF (Israeli Defence Force), and had served a prison sentence as a result. The restriction of passage from Palestine to Israel clearly fosters distrust.

But perhaps the most serious barrier to peace is that this distrust between Israelis and Palestinians is being indoctrinated into the next generation. The first talk given to arriving summer course students at the Hebrew University concerned safety. The central message was to avoid any Palestinian or Muslim areas: Do not go into the Muslim quarter of the old city. Do not use the Arab buses. Under no circumstances do you cross the wall. After the talk, the majority of students were terrified and, as a result, none of the Jewish students agreed to accompany a few friends and me in visiting Bethlehem or Ramallah. Rather, Jewish students went out of their way to avoid meeting Palestinians. One of the guided tours the University offered was entitled “Diversity in Jerusalem”, which featured on its itinerary a visit to a Muslim Youth Centre in the heart of the Old City. Of all the tours offered, this was the least subscribed to. Although a highly informative trip, it simply was not taken advantage of by the majority of students.

The distrust I encountered among Israelis was also evident on the Palestinian side. The Palestinians I talked to in Bethlehem and Ramallah were as reluctant as the Israelis to interact with their neighbours. Whilst playing a game of impromptu football with some Arab-Israeli youths, I asked one of them whether they ever play against Jewish Israelis. The answer was an emphatic “No!” and it was made clear to me in no uncertain terms that they never wanted to play with Jewish Israelis. Although Jewish and Arab districts were situated side-by-side, the inhabitants were entirely segregated from each other.

Building Bridges

My summer visit to Israel made it clear to me not only how intractable the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is, but also how it permeates the daily lives of ordinary Israelis and Palestinians. The lack of dialogue at the government level about how to solve the Israeli-Palestinian issue is mirrored in the absence of dialogue amongst the people. Their fear of interaction means that both sides’ understanding of one another is based on stereotypes and misinformation. This all-pervasive distrust deepens the political issues that exist between the two communities and makes them even harder to resolve. And yet the impression I received was that the majority of people on both sides want a peaceful solution. They just don’t understand, or even know, that the other side wants that, too.

A first step towards achieving this goal would be to think of ways of building bridges between the two communities in order to dispel the harmful stereotypical views each side has of the other. This is by no means an easy task, but a beginning could be made simply by talking to people on both sides. And this is where students from abroad can play a role – not by taking sides, but by going over to Israel or Palestine and talking to both Israelis and Palestinians. In doing so, we may become small but important links between these two troubled communities.