On the cyclical nature of hatred and violence
One of the most powerful speeches I’ve ever heard was given by the late, great Tony Benn to parliament in ‘98 against the bombing of Iraq. He begins his declamation by talking about his experiences throughout the blitz in the 1940’s, using his trademark skills of oratory to present the great horrors witnessed on the streets of London.
“It was terrifying!” he proclaims, his voice echoing throughout the Commons, no doubt finding his fellow MP’s agreeing in remembrance of such horrific events. “Aren’t Arabs terrified!? Aren’t Iraqi’s terrified!? Don’t Arab and Iraqi women weep when their children die?!” he continues, “What fools we are, to live in a generation of which war is a computer game for our children, and just an interesting little Channel 4 News item.”
Benn’s powerful words fell on deaf ears that day, as the United Kingdom voted in favour of the bombing campaign, code named Operation Desert Fox. The significance of the sentiment behind Tony’s speech, the moral nature of his comparisons between foreign peoples, too often becomes forgotten to us as we sit shielded from the savagery of war. A great ability of intelligent humanity, something which separates us from primal barbarism, is our capacity to empathise. And at the forefront of great tragedies lies a distinct lack of empathy. When we, as a species, forget how to put ourselves in others shoes, when we forget that pain and fear is not exclusive to any demographic, or those ‘similar’ to just ourselves, we return to barbarism. Hate and violence are organically cyclical, and it occurs within the absence of empathy. It’s reactionary, feeding off impulses of anger, caused by a sense or evidence of provocation or hostility. If you feed it by reacting with anger rather than love, the cycle continues. The only viable way of ending this cycle is responding with cooperation, love and tolerance in the face of fear and hostility. In the words of Martin Luther King Jr,
‘Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.’
It is an unfortunate truth that we often do not care for those whom we have never met, or do not share an island with. In our complex Anthropocene in which great swathes of land are split and divided under control of glorified tribes, we find a sense of spiritual and empathetic disconnect accompanying the geopolitical divisions and grand physical distances. How naive we are to think the fears felt in London or New York are not reciprocated by those in Baghdad or Aleppo. But of course, suspicion and distrust (symptoms of hate; potential precursors to violence) even breeds within our own communities. This is the concept of the ‘other’; this ever-present homogenised body of people, shifting its identity depending on perspective, adapting to whichever prejudices and generalisations comprise its character. Unlike you and I, who deserve respect, moral treatment, and no misrepresentation, the ‘other’ gets no such treatment. This is the process of dehumanisation; of perceiving people as not deserving of our sympathy. Dehumanisation is necessary to mentally legitimise inhumane actions. We must be vigilant against of this tendency to other-ise if we desire a world of justice and basic morality.
This cycle can be found most evidently in Western foreign policy, especially the sledgehammer approach of intervention favoured by the US industrial-military complex and it’s complicit hawks in congress. Many of the reprehensible extremists who now fight for the Taliban were once war orphans. Children’s whose lives had been decimated by the mass violence between Arabs and some of the west. When we drop our bombs and proclaim liberation, when we topple rulers in the name of democracy, the very people we are acting to protect tragically die at our hands. Children witness their mothers and fathers obliterated by bomb shells, and in the midst of their unthinkable grief and fear, opportunist terrorists open their arms and teach them to hate, corrupting their souls beyond repair. Regime change is euphemistic in the way in which it makes the violent toppling of a foreign government sound more palatable. But the realities of such a power move are far harder to sugar-coat; even if the motivations are moral, the vacuum left in the absence of organised government, not to mention the necessary violence used as a means to achieve the deposition, leave us with more problems to overcome in our noble goal to simply coexist. I cannot claim to be an expert in foreign policy, or know enough about past or current conflicts to make a detailed judgement of how to respond; regime change and military action is necessary in some situations. But I believe this general, philosophical notion about the cyclical, reactionary nature of human hatred and violence can help contribute to preventing the proliferation of it. After all, the War on Terror has produced more terrorists. So lets stop the glorification of warfare, that blends a vengeful blood lust with nationalistic pride from military prowess, as found in those American Republicans who’s version of ‘freedom’ appears to be the violent death of brown men at the hands of sophisticated weaponry. No-one should take joy in death; not even if the victims are abhorrent murdering lunatics, as to do so only brings us to down to their level of immorality. You can take comfort in the prevention of them committing more harm to innocent people, but do not glorify the death of a human – it would have been better if we could avoid this eventuality.
As I write this piece, there was another fatal shooting on the news. The Munich shooting, occurring within the cities’ shopping mall, whereupon at least 8 people were murdered by terrorists. Like clockwork, the universal response to such an attack followed the motions of all before it: the media with its talking heads first told us what happened, then who it was and why, finally how we could avoid such a thing happening again. Often, most attempts to postulate on the reason or the causes of such events result in disagreement, with some narratives ‘otherising’ and vilifying swathes of society and exacerbating the issue. Others approach it with nuance, detailing the contributing geopolitical and societal factors. The former argument is far more destructive than the latter, with such a hypothesis being dangerous in two ways. It isn’t supported by rational evidence, instead manipulating popular sentiment and stereotypes, subsequently lowering the quality of debate to levels of ad hominem attacks, preventing us from having rational discussions as a society. And it appeals to the irrational impulses of the reptilian brain; preying on natural fear and our urge to protect and defend ourselves, resulting in distrust and division. These consequences perpetuate the cycle of violence and debate by prohibiting our ability to communicate and simultaneously feeding the spectre of hatred towards fellow man. Sometimes it’s difficult not to awake every morning to the news, and fear that our world is tearing apart at the seams. Of course, by the very definition of news, these events aren’t part of everyday life on planet earth; at least not for those with the luxury of basic comfort and security present in 21st century living. But like the inevitable ebb and flow of the tide, we’ve become accustomed to these horrors as if war and mass murder are natural and constant. I don’t accept this premise, and the trajectory of civilisation suggests otherwise; we live in the safest time in human history today, violence is decreasing, new generations are more accepting. And I have confidence in aiming for a world where such immoralities are eradicated. The nuanced response is necessary and responsible, yet perhaps we should do more to ingrain this basic truth in us all. That hate breeds hate, and love fuels love, and we need to act in a way, both as nations and as individuals, that adheres to this golden rule.
