This simple 3½ minute video This Land is Mine is a superb explanation and demonstration of who started the fighting in Israel, who is right and who is wrong.
This video should be put out instead of the news one day.
If I was working with children, I’d use it as the key part of a discussion.
I struggle to understand how criminal damage and attacking people’s history is peace-making.
I’ve just had a post through on the Networking for Peace mailing list: “Germany : Tear This Down – Eliminate Colonialism Now” which links to a site called TearThisDown.com (active link not provided on purpose). It provides a map of street names, monuments, stations and other public items named after people they disapprove of and demanding ‘TEAR DOWN THIS SHIT‘. They call for such monuments to be damaged, destroyed and have graffiti applied.
They clearly don’t care that people live in the areas where they intend to conduct criminal damage nor about the fear (and additional damage) it will create.
They clearly have not thought about social cohesion and how this kind of hate crime – which is what it is – creates divisions that will last far longer than the short-term fun and publicity they seek. This is not resolving differences, it is creating conflict.
This is a few people wanting to cause social upheaval and using it to raise mobs to go out and cause damage without consideration for knock-on effects and consequences is not making the world a better place. It is teaching people that anti-social behaviour is a good thing and that despising other sections of society and blaming them for acts that happened before they were born is progress.
It is just some people, fuelled by hate, creating power for themselves at the expense of others and getting other people to do their dirty work for them.
It’s just Kristallnacht in reverse.
I fail to see how this is appropriate as a “Networking for Peace” activity.
I know papers and articles have been written about the history of conscientious objection to military taxation, or war tax resistance. I keep promising myself I will read them sometime. Having done so I would have been able to better respond to a Facebook post from the USA’s National War Tax resistance Coordinating Committee (NWTRCC). This arrogant attitude of the Americans that they were the first or only people on Earth is tiresome. The post was:
#DIDYOUKNOW the #Indigenous Algonquin People are the earliest known #war tax resisters. In 1637 they refused to pay #taxes put on by the Dutch #colonizers to help improve the local colonial fort — War Resisters League War Resisters League // #heros #mondaymotivation #resist #endwar #peace
I find it hard to accept they were the first in the world.
They are probably the earliest in North America since Europeans arrived. I’ll bet there were South American people who objected to Spanish taxation prior to that. And probably people who objected to taxation by the Incas or Aztecs that funded their expansionism.
In England, the Magna Carta came about because of war tax resistance in the 1200s.
But I should think there are examples from Roman Empire times if not earlier. Expecting conquered people to pay for the armies that suppress them or that are passing through is a very old trick.
Even Sun-Tzu in Art of War says long campaigns fail because they result in losing people’s support, typically when military taxation reaches about 70%, and he was a historian writing about events from before his time of 2½ thousand years ago.
But it made me reflect on this in today’s context. Using terminology from English law, military taxation is ‘demanding money with menaces’.
Lynn Roulstone at the Open University raised the questions “What do we think to Aquinas’s Just War theory? Is it ever possible to have such a thing?” and provided a link to a short explanation of the seven principles of Just-War Theory.
I wasn’t particularly impressed by them and this was my response:
1. Last Resort
Sartre, Ghandi and Jesus said a violent response need not be the final resort. Deciding not to use violence is also an available option. It was certainly the best way for your civilisation to survive an invasion by the Roman empire, the Mongol hordes or many other invading forces who purpose was to subjugate.
2. Legitimate Authority
We have a representative democracy so if Tony Bliar decides to start a war despite dodgy evidence and 3 million people protesting, he is perfectly entitled. If Obama declares war on Mexico tomorrow, he has legal, personal, absolute authority to do so under USA law.
3. Just Cause
Righting a wrong done to A committed by B by killing C is as logical as bombing for peace. It just results in tit-for-tat feuds that need never end.
4. Probability of Success
If it is wrong to fight in case you lose – and there is always the possibility of unexpectedly losing – then one should not fight. Conversely, if one has such overwhelming power that victory is inevitable, there must be diplomatic alternatives to using overwhelming violence.
5. Right Intention
A hollow argument. The victor is always right, after the event. Also, if the intention of war is to re-establish peace, then the best outcome is genocide of one’s enemies and destruction of their culture since that best guarantees peace.
6. Proportionality
The minimum amount of force absolutely necessary is often the assassination of one person or one dynastic line. However, international conventions have long, long agreed that targeted execution of the leaders of sovereign states is against the rules. Killing millions of the people who happen to live in the same country is OK though.
7. Civilian Casualties
The concept of total war (which is thousands of years old) means that the economy and production ability of the enemy are part of the war machine and valid targets. Bombing dams to flood valleys is fine. Armaments factories employ civilians as do the mines and refineries that serve them. There is no point continuously killing their soldiers if they just keep breeding and equipping more – one must raze their cities, salt their fields, sabotage their infrastructure and starve the population into defeat. The civilian capacity to raise armies must be destroyed. The alternative is to not use total war, but then you lose to someone who is.
I do not see how there can be a just war. Expedient, yes, but just, no.
After my experience this past academic year, there is no way I am doing more than 60 credits at once at Level 3, that is, full-time study while working. The year saved is not worth the stress, the loss of value-for-money from skipping material, the lost opportunity from not having time to read around the subject nor the impact on the grade. And at Open University Level 3, it’s all about the grade since that is most of the final grade weighting.
I was going to do A333 Key questions in philosophy but my experience of A222 Exploring philosophy has put me off. It was not what I thought it would be.
I had also planned to do DD301 Crime and justice as it includes ‘trans-national policing, international criminal courts and universal human rights‘ but those are only a minor part of the syllabus. Also, it is intended for those going into ‘crime prevention and conflict resolution‘ (amongst other things) and my desired career is in conflict prevention. Similar, but not the same thing. I’ll need to have another think.
I downloaded the list of all the 107 Level 3 modules available to me and went through each module in turn, deciding afresh if I wanted or needed to do it. A day’s work turned that into a shortlist of 12.
So many things to consider:
I really fancy S350 Evaluating contemporary science as it would be interesting, challenging and probably very useful to me. One is expected to research, produce and present a scientific paper as practice for being a real scientist! I could do something on sensor reliability in unmanned ground vehicles (or autonomous fighting machines, multi-function utility vehicle, warbots, kill-bots, autonomous drones, call ’em what you will) or the environmental impact of war in an oil-producing region.
But, it is 30 credits and I have talked myself out of the other 30 credit modules. I’ll re-consider it this time next year.
I think I have settled on which one to do next, A327 Europe 1914-1989: war, peace, modernity, mostly because it will look relevant on a Master’s Degree application and because it ought to be relatively easy for me. I’ve been informally studying war and how & why it happens for decades, so those parts ought not to be too alien. However, although the title sounds relevant, I’m not terribly interested in war in history as a subject of study because that has changed nothing. My interest is evidence-based peace process research. But, I shall use it as a corridor of doorways to other paths to study.
Risk: what will be new to me is that it is a history module and I’ve never done one of those. I wonder what new skills and methods I will need for that.
I’ve bought and downloaded the A327 exam paper for 2015 and it asks for “Write a commentary on the following primary source extract…” but I do not know what a ‘commentary’ looks like. It also says “Answer the following thematic question…” but what is a thematic question and what is special about how one answers one?
I have asked those queries on the Arts & Humanities forum and I hope somebody understands. I should probably ask it on the Open Degree forum – the polymathic folk there might understand my concern better.
Meanwhile I can do advance reading by getting the set book and by going through the OpenLearn material that has been produced based on this very module.
After this year’s experience, there is no way I am doing more than 60 credits at once at Level 3. The year saved is not worth the stress (for real: sleeping disrupted, home life disrupted, poor skin, social life ceased completely, et al), the loss of value-for-money from skipping material, the lost opportunity from not having time to read around the subject nor the impact on the grade. And at Level 3, it’s all about the grade.
I was going to do A333 Key questions in philosophy but my experience of A222 Exploring philosophy was so bad (I can’t be confident I’ve even passed the exam) that it has put me off. This may be unfair on the module as the experience I had visiting another group’s day school at the end of the year was very different from my experience up to that point: this was a large group of engaged students who knew the subject well, discussing how to tackle questions with tutors who were focussed and challenging and who provided excellent hand-outs. If I could move to Edinburgh, I would probably do A333. But I can’t. So I won’t.
I had also planned to do DD301 Crime and justice as it includes ‘trans-national policing, international criminal courts and universal human rights‘ but those are only a minor part. It is intended for those going into ‘crime prevention and conflict resolution‘ and my desired career is in conflict prevention. Similar, but not the same thing. I’ll need to have another think.
I downloaded the .HTML file of all the 107 Level 3 modules on the Module Finder available to me and turned it into a table and went through each module in turn, deciding afresh if I wanted or needed to do it. A day’s work turned that into a shortlist of 12.
So many things to consider:
I really fancy S350 Evaluating contemporary science as it would be interesting, challenging and probably very useful to me. One is expected to research, produce and present a scientific paper as practice for being a real scientist! I could do something on sensor reliability in unmanned ground vehicles (or autonomous fighting machines, multi-function utility vehicle, warbots, kill-bots, autonomous drones, call ’em what you will) or the environmental impact of war in an oil-producing region.
But, it is 30 credits and I have talked myself out of the other 30 credit modules. I’ll re-consider it this time next year.
I think I have settled on which one to do next, A327 Europe 1914-1989: war, peace, modernity, mostly because it will look relevant on a Master’s Degree application and because it ought to be relatively easy for me. I’ve been informally studying war and how & why it happens for decades, so those parts ought not to be too alien. However, although the title sounds relevant, I’m not interested in war in history as a subject of study because that has changed nothing. My interest is evidence-based peace process research. But, I shall use it as a corridor of doors into other paths to study.
Risk: what will be new to me is that it is a history module and I’ve never done one of those. I wonder what new skills and methods I will need for that.
I’ve bought and downloaded the A327 exam paper for 2015 and it asks for “Write a commentary on the following primary source extract…” but I do not know what a ‘commentary’ looks like. It also says “Answer the following thematic question…” but what is a thematic question and what is special about how one answers one?
I have asked those queries on the Arts & Humanities forum and I hope somebody understands. I should probably ask it on the Open Degree forum – the polymathic folk there might understand my concern better.
Meanwhile I can do advance reading by getting the set book and by going through the OpenLearn material that has been produced based on this very module.
Slavery was normal. It is now (mostly) history and we find it abhorrent.
Duelling was common. It is a historical curiosity and only exists in old Western movies.
People claimed smoking was good for curing lung ailments. We now know that was nonsense.
Dog fighting and cockfighting were commonplace. Most people now find such bloodsports appalling.
Executing criminals was common. Now capital punishment is known to be an ineffective deterrent, is cruel and all too often was done to innocent people.
Public executions were popular entertainment. The few remaining countries that do execution now usually do so in private.
Corporal punishment for children was common in schools. Now beating children is illegal.
Child labour was normal. Now we value an education as more important.
When will we realise sending people to kill other people is a rubbish way to solve national differences, and consign it to the history books?