Gaza Fundraiser at Mono, Glasgow on Thursday 19th March 2009
I haven’t really mentioned the crisis in Gaza on this site which is, I suppose, somewhat unusual, when you consider my general lack of inhibition when it comes to wading into massive arguments. It’s a difficult one, I suppose, in part because it’s just so fucking obvious.
Israel, by its alliances and by its supporters, seems to have been adopted as a de facto Western nation. Imagine if, erm, say the Republic of Ireland adopted the Israel approach to dealing with Northern Ireland. Maybe that’s the wrong analogy, because Palestine is of course an independent country – albeit one with apparently no right not to have the living shit bombed out of its civillian population on the slightest pretext every six months or so. Maybe it would be closer to Germany razing Copenhagen to the ground every year. But then, Denmark is our friend too. How about if, say, Serbia decided to annihilate a small neighbouring country like, erm, Bosnia for example, and to declare an all-out war on the civillian population of that country. What would we do if Serbia did that, I wonder?
And don’t get me started on the attack on Lebanon. Breathtakingly barbaric, and the act of a rogue nation which knows that having its crazy friend leering over its shoulder makes it absolutely immune to any kind of accountability for its actions.
The other really frustrating part of the argument is the ‘in favour of terrorism response’ anyone who disagrees tends to come up with when you express this opinion. It’s like the Iraq war, when you voiced a dissenting opinion, being asked why you were on the terrorists’ side – a complete non-sequitur, albeit one which tended to arise in the States far more than the rest of the world. Here the equivalent seems to be that in criticising Israel you are somehow condoning the Palestinian acts of terrorism, as if they didn’t also have to be stopped. No, of course not, but if attacking the civillian population is bad, then it’s bad for everyone. It’s not okay for you because you are adamant that they started it.
Anyhow, to help alleviate the suffering caused by recent acts of Israeli terrorism in Gaza, Tom Snowball from Rags & Feathers is organising a fundraiser at Mono in Glasgow tomorrow night. The lineup is superb: Sparrow & the Workshop, Punch & the Apostles, The John Langan Band, Mike & Solveig and Tom himself will be playing, and I urge you to go along and support the cause. Who knows, you might just have an enjoyable evening at the same time.
Punch & the Apostles – The Engineers of Salammbo
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Sparrow & the Workshop – Devil Song
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And yes, that’s a picture of a man carrying a dead child. It’s actually quite serious. Cough up.
What’s most depressing is the hopeless inevitablity of it all.
As long as vast numbers of people continue to build their entire existence on a series of fairy stories, and to then pursue that existence with such bloody-minded fervour, then we can’t expect any degree of rationality to flourish in these arguments.
These are extremists we’re dealing with. Fundamentalists.
Okay, not everyone who gets caught up in the situation will hold extreme views. The man and child in the picture were probably just regular folks stumbling their way through life like any of us, trying to make ends meet, loving their friends and family, and worrying more about where the next few pennies are coming from rather than pondering the influence of a divine presence in their lives. If they did practice any religious traditions, it was probably more from lifelong habit than cold dead-eyed belief.
Nevertheless, the most fervent fundamentalists do exist, in great enough numbers and in influential enough positions, to destabilise an entire region and cause bloodshed on such – forgive me – biblical proportions.
And I don’t see what we can do about that.
Fundamentalists simply don’t look at life the same way as we do, they’re not interested in compromising and making friends. They will continue to fight, kill and destroy until the day arrives that they’ve wiped every last individual who doesn’t share precisely the same point of view as them from the face of the planet.
They won’t negotiate. As soon as negotations begin with the leadership of a fundamentalist movement, many of the followers will simply denounce those leaders, form a new order, and break away to continue the fight. Look at recent events in Northern Ireland as evidence of this.
And when those fundamentalist beliefs are built on centuries of misinterpretation and mistranslation of stories – fiction presented as fact – then there’s simply no tangible solid ground on which to build any sort of meaningful negotiation anyway. For proof of that we just need to look at Comedy Ben’s latest meaningful contribution to the advance of human existence.
I do wholeheartedly support and encourage events like this which raise awareness, and hopefully ease the suffering of some innocent people caught in the middle of a problem bigger than they are. Anything that does that will always be a good thing in my eyes.
I just find it depressing that nothing’s going to change on a larger scale, and that we’ve got a good few centuries of this to come yet.
only takes a handful of people to fuck the world….it surprising how easily we can all succumb to the perceived authority of some random individual who may come across as totally rational, compassionate and intelligent who once in a while just goes ‘Say hello to my little friend’ then blows the shite out of something they don’t like…..funny bunch us humans.
It sometimes only takes a handful of people to fuck with the fuckers too, tho. And no, I’m not espousing any sort of “hero” ideology about history here. However, social change happens on a gradual level most of the time, and that can and often does occur when a handful of people generate a consensus of opinion and spread it around. Look at our changing moral regime, our embrace of difference and increasingly, a wider tolerance toward all that used to frankly, freak the fuck out of us as a society. Forty years ago we could not imagine the society we live in, and I’m not talking technology here, but social attitudes.
That kind of change occurred because a handful of people helped make it happen. Largely through education, sometimes though legislation, and often in the streets – politically. So, no, I’m not looking at our political future with despair. It’s people like Tom Snowball who are carriers of that change.
your little ray of sunshine today,
Tart, xoxo
oh and yay, you, Matthew! It is quite a controversial topic, and few dare tread on it. I’m glad you did, and I quite agree xoxo
likewise…..
But, Tart, that’s not what we’re dealing with here.
We’re not dealing with people who are going to “see the error of their ways”.
Religious fundamentalists abhor those who fail to share the strictest iterpretation of their belief set, and believe that such people should be destroyed.
They’re not wake up one morning and suddenly go, “You know, all that religon and divinity stuff, it’s all bollocks isn’t it? Let’s go to the pub.”
but one day they will die, Dylan
and people aren’t born with fundamentalism imprinted on their psych….it’s learnt!
and i’m not just talking about the perceived guerilla terrorist types when i use the term fundamentalism, it also applies to the purveyors of state terrorism.
Of course, and that’s ultimately my point.
I just think we’re mistaken if we’re expecting that day to arrive any time soon.
I propose we simply set the region to up-tempo jitterbug music & let them dance it out a la West Bank Story
A cross between West Side Story and the dance off in Starsky & Hutch.
Darn tootin’
well Dylan, my point was not that they would change their minds. I quite agree with you that Fundamentalism is a hopeless case!
It’s the rest of society that increasingly refuses to tolerate it. THATS the social change that has an impact. We no longer tolerate child labor in the US or UK and it was common practice for generations. No one thought ill of it save a few bleeding hearts and mothers. Now, it’s abhorrent to us.
Fundamentalism and the horrors it provokes will be contained. It is already being contained more and more by “just” societies and “democratic” regimes like us. I will always have hope, sorry.
*quotation marks inserted only for the sake that I’m a socialist and a contrarian
Hmm, I am tempted to disagree slightly. I am not convinced, although I don’t know enough about the psychology one way or another, that fundamentalists are simply lost causes.
A little bit more autonomy, a little less intrusion, and who knows, I am sure a lot of it could be mitigated. That said, this is the official Easy Liberal Answer. Sometimes people just have to suck it up and realise that all of life isn’t simply going to go their way, of course.
But still, the idea that fundamentalists of either stripe cannot be dealt with at all strikes me as dubious. Maybe not in a head-on, pre-bomb negotiation sort of a way perhaps, but there must be plenty of ways to ameliorate that kind of hysterical fervour.
Well, Tart.
I hope you’re right. And I think you will turn out to be right.
Eventually.
Hmm, I would have thought that as the worldview Tart is talking about spreads, then those opposed to it will become increasingly shrill. Even within the United States the Christian fundies are getting more and more hysterical, never mind the Islamic variety.
It may die out eventually, perhaps, who knows, but I doubt it’ll do so without a bit of a kick first.
Yes, but:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2009-03-09-american-religion-ARIS_N.htm
Can you say “generational shift”?
Well I wasn’t saying that they were getting more numerous. More that as they become increasingly rare and marginalised they may well become more shrill. If it’s the death throes of a dying world view then I will be very happy, but it doesn’t mean they’ll go quietly.
And this kind of thing isn’t all about fundamentalism, it’s also about habituation and forgiveness. If someone identified with a particular group blows up your best friend then it is very difficult not to hate them and not to seek revenge. That’s why the Northern Ireland attacks were so depressing – because that cycle appeared to have been broken for the time being, and it doesn’t take much to spiral back down.
This is also what I meant, and I think what Tom meant, about fundamentalism being, if not curable, then at least something we can tackle. A lot of people engaged in what you might think of as fundamentalist actions are not necessarily fundies themselves. They might be, but they might also be caught up in a peer group which pushes them further than they might otherwise go, or they might be caught up in a cycle of revenge with another group. Not all fundies are real fundies, I wouldn’t have thought.
yeah
And is either variety scarier than the other?
Does it actually matter to draw that distinction?
Yes, because if you dilute the peer group or disperse it or isolate the main agitators or give the others an alternate means of finding whatever support or friendship that they get from that peer group then you could easily reduce the number of people you have to deal with on a criminal level.
I think you’re trying to apply a rationality to their midset that doesn’t exist.
Remember when your mum would tell you off for – whatever – throwing stones say. And you’d say “But little Johnny told me to do it” and your mum would say “If little Johnny told you to walk off a cliff would you do it?”.
These are people who would reply “Yes.”
i don’t think that all of them would say yes…..
Matthew is right, and i would add it is part of a coping mechanism to survive their day-to-day life.
I recall reading somewhere that in the 1970s and early 1980s Yasser Arafat was confronted with the challenge of trying to make his more “extreme” PLO brethren–who had been encouraged to use violence for years and years–give up their violent ways and become engaged in a more political approach. He succeeded (creating the modern Fatah movement) in part by pulling strings to get these men married, knowing that once they had wives and kids they would feel they had something to lose and be less inclined to take risks.
Speaking of fundamentalists: am I right in thinking no one has yet mentioned Ireland? Especially now, what with the recent resurgence of news reports on very recent ‘Real’ IRA killings. This has been going on for quite some time, regardless of the Peace Process / Power Sharing blanket press coverage. It’s just been sidelined/dampened to spin the positive. I’m guessing there was a brief moment when whoever makes these singular/collective decisions thought: they’ll get bored & go away & so the RIRA weren’t altogether taken too seriously. Different story now, eh?
I don’t even begin to imagine I know enough about The Troubles to warrant any meaningful discussion, but what I do know is, on the basis of the last 40years, religion can definitely be used as a catch-all ‘excuse’ (for the want of a better word) thinly disguising the real intent: power/control.
Martin McGuinness is a perfect example of this – sure, there’ll obviously have been / remains a strong underbelly of religious animosity (fuelled by territorial pissing on a major league scale*), but the politics is where it was really at. There he is, all in charge & quick to condemn the recent ‘murders’ (new times, new language) in a show of solidarity that will ruffle fundamentalists’ feathers but keep the politicians agog & cement his position of (ahem) power.
Thank God for Gerry Adams, eh?, skirting around the issue & seemingly refusing to condemn the killings. Without him this would have just remained a worthless cock measuring contest with the ghost of Ian Paisley shouting ‘we know where you piss’.
*clearly I’m being simplistic & glib here, but you get the point
I think NI was brought up once or twice. I didn’t realise it had been consistently bubbling under for so long.
I don’t think you can really blame religion for this kind of thing. People will just find another excuse, be it nationalism, racism, blue-socksism, whatever the fuck it it. Religions a handy tag, both for the fundies and for the people watching in horror, but I am not entirely convinced about how massive a role the specific ideology in question plays a role. It’s important to have an ideology of course, but I am not sure it matters which one.
The Religious aspect, I would wager, in NI’s case is simply (a) a way of justifying all the chest beating in public, (b)an identification which the ‘ordinary’ folk on either side of the ‘divide’ can grasp without feeling like they have any part in any violent reaction.
Again, it’s used/abused as a vehicle to get the guns to the front line.
Hi,
I just saw this thread the other day, thanks a lot Matthew for the write up and the support. Belated thanks to everyone who came to Mono on March 19th. On the night we made £746 to the Gaza Appeal.
x
tom