Me gustó mucho este artículo sobre Madman Hussein, la situación en Irak y la locura colectiva que reina en muchos países:
We Americans consistently underestimate the deep hatreds that divide people. Our political system is designed to wrestle peacefully with the divisions of race, class, ethnicity, religion and competing ideological or geographical interests, and has generally worked as intended -- the Civil War being the one glaring exception. Generations have struggled to live up to ideals of tolerance and diversity. When we look out at the world, we tend to see millions longing to get past the blood feuds, to be, in short, more like us. George Bush and the neocon intellectuals who led us into Iraq are just the latest in a long line of evangelical Americanists. No matter how many times history slaps us in the face, the dream persists.
Nine years ago, in the epilogue to "Black Hawk Down," I quoted an unnamed State Department official (he was Michael Sheehan, ambassador for counter-terrorism) as follows: "The idea used to be that terrible countries were terrible because good, decent, innocent people were being oppressed by evil, thuggish leaders. Somalia changed that. Here you have a country where just about everybody is caught up in the fighting. You stop an old lady on the street and ask her if she wants peace, and she will say, 'Yes, of course, I pray for it daily.' All the things you would expect her to say. Then ask her if she would be willing for her clan to share power with another to have that peace, and she'll say, 'With those murderers and thieves? I'd die first.' People in these countries . . . don't want peace. They want victory. They want power. Men, women, old, and young.
Muy interesante. Un poco relacionado a lo que decía ayer en este post.
ReplyDeleteA mí me da la sensación de que hay muchísima gente entre el público general que no entiende que la violencia en Irak se da principalmente entre diferentes facciones o etnias del propio país. Mucha gente, entre ellos demasiados periodistas que contribuyen a diseminar esa impresión, considera que está dirigida principalmente contra las fuerzas de EEUU.
Me parece que el autor tiene mucha razón cuando dice esto:
Any nation is, at heart, an idea. Once people started organizing themselves in groups larger than their own blood lines, they had to invent reasons for considering themselves part of something bigger -- tribes, city states, feudal kingdoms, nations, empires. Language, customs, religion, ideology and geographic proximity have all served. The idea of a state that accepts as equal citizens people from all corners of the globe, a nation founded on abstract principles, is a relative newcomer.
No pasa por el idioma, ni la cultura ni la religión, que sin duda son importantes. Creo que el vínculo principal es el deseo de pertenencia a algo que es más grande que la suma de las partes. Yo lo veo claramente en la situación de Québec dentro de Canadá.
En fin, interesante.