|
March 27, 2003
I thought that this post on patriotism might be relevant in the light of the forthcoming attack on and defence of Baghdad. It is now realised that the Iraq war will not be a continuation of the lightly armed and highly mobile United States-led coalition racing across a largely empty desert to Baghdad. Nor will it be the Hollywood version of kisses, roses and joyous celebration for the liberators.
We have pockets of concerted, if outgunned resistance to the coalition forces in southern Iraq, and a mimimal number of Iraqi soldiers surrendering with welcome relief and open arms. The lack of any signs of a systematic collapse of the Iraqi armed forces from the shock and awe tactics has put the military machine's strategy of dashing to Baghdad and bypassing the key towns on hold. It is in the process of rethinking its strategy to the made in HOllwood version.
So much for everything being under control, all contingencies have been planned for and all scenarios taken into account. The bypassed towns are now centres of guerilla warfare, civil disorder, devastation and humanitarian crises. The US military machine lacks the troops to take Baghdad quickly without significant causalities. The war has suddenly got longer (six weeks -2 months-more?)with a messy, bitter urban battle in Baghdad looming. The politicians must be starting to bite their fingernails.
Why the resistance? As Robert Fisk observes here
"....the truth of the matter is that Iraq has a very, very strong political tradition of strong anti-colonial struggle. It doesn’t matter whether that’s carried out under the guise of kings or under the guise of the Arab Socialist Ba’ath party, or under the guise of a total dictator. There are many people in this country who would love to get rid of Saddam Hussein, I’m sure, but they don’t want to live under American occupation."
Why not? The text below offers on account. It is from my old Public Opinion. It is reproduced below in full with some additional comments.
Quote
I thought this remark on patriotism might be of interest in the light of 'the war on terrorism'. I have been using patriotism as love of country.
The remark is from Hegel's Philosophy of Right (para.268) in the section dealing with ethical life, which Hegel understands to be grounded in our social relationships and institutions. Hegel is commenting to his students on a difficult passage that is written in his technical language. He says:
'Patriotism is often understood to mean only a readiness for exceptional sacrifices and actions. Essentially, however, it is the sentiment which, in the relationships of our daily life and under ordinary conditions, habitually recognizes that the community is one's substantive groundwork and end. It is out of this consciousness, which during life's daily round stands the test in all circumstances, that there subsequently also rises the readiness for extraordinary exertions.'
This is quite different from John Howard's understanding of patriotism. This conservative understanding sees patriotism as being embodied in the Anzac tradition---and so patriotism is the readiness to make sacrifices for the sake of one's own country. In contrast, Hegel's conception is closely allied to trust (and educated insight) by which he means that my interest is contained and preserved in anothers. Patriotism is a part of the customs and habits of everyday life experience which we then reflect upon and reason about.
Additional Comments
Is this happening in Iraq today? Can this understanding of patriotism be used to understand Iraqi resistance to the US led military machine? Are the Iraqi people reflecting upon the customs and habits of their way of life and then making judgements to defend their country? Does looking at this open the play of Derridean difference in the Iraqi war and so take us beyond the spin and disinformation buried in the contemporary live feeds from the US cable networks?
Hegel's understanding of patriotism can be used to undercut one of the central myths of the militarized Enlightenment: that the terrified Iraqi's are only fighting/resisting the US because the Saddam hit squad has a gun to their head. Or, at a more sophisticated level, it is because the Sunni Muslem military are terrified that, with fall of the Iraqi regime, the Sunni minority will liquidated by the Shi'ite majority in southern Iraq. Its all about fear and terror.
What the Americans do not seem to understand that Iraqi's can make a clear distinction between the Saddam Hussein regime and their country. They may be glad to see the dictator go but they will fight to defend their country from foreign invaders who plan to occupy their country.
What Hegel shows is that it is not only Americans who are patriotic. His text points to the 'heart and mind' people stuff that the US militarized enlightenment machine has such difficulty understanding beyond psych-ops. As Guy Rundle observes here many people, including many Iraqi reservists:
"...may continue to lie low and avoid fighting, hoping the invasion will be quickly concluded. But others may be stirred to resistance, a resistance made not out of any love for Saddam but out of deeper loyalties - to home, to family, to community."
Patriotism is based on those loyalties. They go to the very heart of what it is to be human. Rundle then develops the distinction made above:
"When these things are being torn up by explosives, assurances of the good intentions by the bombers tend to be blown away with the smoke and fire, and the fact that one is ruled by a dictator or a parliament can come to matter less than that there is a fundamental threat from beyond."
This patriotic response to the destruction of friends home, family, community and nation means that the Iraqi people begin to see that Iraqi deaths are the deaths caused by an invading army. So this military machine will be resisted not merely by the professional Republican Guards defending the Iraqi regime but also by ordinary Iraqis defending the country they love. As Rundle rightly observes:
Rundle says:
"There is no great comfort to be taken in such killings and in such deaths - killings done of people in their own homes, on their own land, deaths suffered as an aggressor invades, for a cause that has shifted from day to day. These are bitter, comfortless deaths, and they will tend to weaken rather than strengthen the commitment to war."
And the following statement by Gazwan Al Muktar, a retired engineer and ordinary resident of Baghdad, expresses this argument that resistance to the US military machine coms from patriotism:
"Well ah—what I’m planning to do? I will pull up my rifle and I will shoot. And I will shoot at anybody who comes in. I’m a sixty year old man, but I am not going to let anybody, any foreigner tell me what to do or running my own country. This is a country I have spent all my life, trying to build something, to do something about improving the lot of the Iraqi people. Iraq is a wealthy country, Iraq has been, because of the sanctions, relegated to a third class country. You remember in 1961, that’s 42 years ago, the Iraqi government then, and it wasn’t the Ba’ath Party government, sent me to the States to study. I was a high school student. They sent me. Iraq has invested a lot of money in our education, a lot of time. The consecutive governments, all the governments of Iraq, and we are trying to build a country and you have ruined it. The US government is destroying everything. They destroyed it in ‘91 and we rebuilt it and they are destroying whatever we have rebuilt."
Simply put the Iraqi's are fighting for their country.
So the possibility that the battle for Baghdad will turn into a bloodbath---what Robert Fisk calls the quagmire of Baghdad---becomes ever more probable. The image is Stalingrad.
|
I believe you are right that there is deep suspicion of the U.S. among everyday Iraqis (as well there should be), but I am skeptical about this patriotism.
1. I don't believe there really is such a thing as an Iraqi people. The Kurds certainly don't seem to identify much with the rest of the nation. The relationship between the Sunnis and Shi'ites is less clear to me, but the people of southern Iraq did have a revolution in the last Gulf War that failed only because we didn't support it. That they are reluctant to risk their necks again is not surprising.
2. There are reports that many Iraqis are being forced to fight by having their loved ones held hostage. This is hard to confirm right now, of course, but it could explain some of the resistance.
3. The resistance is largely ineffective in terms of killing the soldiers of the U.S. and its allies. To hear some of the reports from the soldiers, the resistance is in many cases suicidal in nature. This doesn't strike me as the actions of a patriot, but the actions of people somewhat out of their head. A consequence of totalitarian culture, perhaps?
4. There are many Iraqis who have no future without Saddam. It appears that he has maintained order within his close ranks by making everyone guilty of atrocity. They will live and die together.
I do believe that the average Iraqi feels shame at seeing Western powers decimate their troops, at seeing their countrymen surrender, and at hearing the Western powers claim a moral high ground against them. But these are also people who have learned to live with greater sufferings and indignities than that. I would not think that their patriotism is the decisive issue.