Finger-pointing not allowed when hands are bloody

By Malinda Seneviratne

(May 10, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) There are names that some people just don’t want mentioned. David Miliband, for example, would rather die a hundred deaths before Afghanistan is mentioned. Or Bala Boluk. Or Grani. And I suppose one could add Iraq and hundreds of unhappy villages and towns that received ‘liberation from Saddam Hussein’ courtesy the United States of America and Great Britain.

The same goes for Robert Blake, the US Ambassador in Sri Lanka, Bernard Kouchner (French Foreign Minister), Des Browne (Labour MP, UK) and others who have been screaming and ranting and weeping copious tears about civilians in Sri Lanka (those held hostage by the LTTE and those in welfare centres - who, according to these gentlemen, are suffering because of a cruel, genocidal Government and not on account of a ruthless terrorist). Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State, probably wishes a world map where Afghanistan and Iraq do not exist. Barack Obama too.

The problem is that Iraq and Afghanistan pulls the political rug from under their feet. You really can’t bomb civilians, facilitate and/or sanction the bombing of civilians, remain silent about the bombing of civilians and then point fingers at Governments for not taking care of civilians. When you do that you get numbers thrown in your face. You get accused of duplicity, double-standards, selective memory and hypocrisy. You get laughed in your face. You are called idiot, moron and nitwit. You get egg in your face. Considering the numbers that’s a lot of egg on the faces of Blake, Kouchner, Browne, Clinton, Solheim and the ladies and gentlemen of Human Rights Watch, not to mention many officials in the UN who are contracted to act as though Afghanistan and Iraq do not exist and that ‘Gaza’ never happened.

The numbers say a lot and they must make these ladies and gentlemen squirm. On May 5, 2009, the US Air Force dropped bombs on the village of Grani in the province of Bala Boluk, Afghanistan. The death count so far stands at 147. Among them were, women, children, the elderly and the sick. Guess what, it’s really not significant compared to what the US-UK combine has ‘achieved’ in Iraq and Afghanistan overall! Yes, they can be called ‘civilians’.

The invasion of Afghanistan has seen over 35,000 people being killed, most of them civilians. Over half a million Afghans have flooded out of the Swat Valley thanks to the military offensive. Yes, ‘civilians’. Over 1.2 million Iraqis have perished since the US-UK, rogue nations if ever there were such entities, decided to walk in to take out Saddam Hussein. That’s a lot of civilians. Let us add to this the half a million Iraqi children who died on account of sanctions imposed on that country and enforced by these thug-nations. Should we say ‘wow!’? We should.

We should also say the following to any self-styled Brit or Yankee who comes to preach humanitarianism to us:

“Look chum, you people can’t differentiate human beings from tadpoles, civilians from cow-shit. You people don’t know about civilians. You don’t know civil. You don’t know civility. In short, you don’t have a clue about civilization, and this is perhaps why you’ve made it your national pastime to destroy civilizations. Must be envy, we have to conclude.”

Miliband, Browne, Clinton, Kouchner, Obama and other positively un-civilised and perhaps ‘uncivilisable’ creatures may want to believe that Afghans and Iraqis are not exactly qualified to be civilians, but it won’t hurt to do our best to haunt their dreams and waking hours with these names. Bala Boluk is a name they have to wake up with, have with their breakfast, lunch and dinner, ring in their ears when they work, write, play, rear children, make love, are sickly are dying. There are a hundred other such names in Afghanistan. Hundreds more in Iraq. I don’t have a hotline to the President of the United States or the Prime Minister of Great Britain, but some of those who read this will have the ear of their respective representatives in this country, or know someone who does. It won’t hurt to hang these names on their ‘Pinocchiaic’ noses. The blood of the Afghan dead must torment their memories and rot in their nostrils.

There’s a word the representatives of these countries can no longer use: civilians. There are other terms (and derivatives and associated terms) that are similarly taboo. ‘Humanitarianism’. ‘Grievances’. ‘Aspirations’. ‘Solution’. In fact there are so many no-no words that these people might as well shut up their large and loud mouths for all time. The world will breath more freely because there will be less bad breath wafting through and polluting our countries, our cultures and communities.

The way I see it, the USA and the UK can go fly a kite in some you-scratch-my-back-I-scratch-yours corner. It is time that we stopped thinking ‘civilian’ because Uncle Sam wants us to. We should think ‘civilian’ because that’s a big Our Business thing. We have suffered enough at the hands of terrorism. We are still suffering. For too long we have waited for someone else to tell us how to go about defeating terrorism. In the end what worked was a mix of resolve, skill and faith in self. The same should be applied to doing everything necessary to protect all our civilians and especially those held hostage by Prabhakaran and those who fled his iron-grip.

We are a nation that survived a tsunami and two bloody insurrections. We will survive this war. We will find a way to rebuild our nation. In the meantime, we have close to two hundred thousand of our fellow-citizens in welfare centres in the North. We have to help them. That is an ‘everyday’ thing. There will be obstacles and difficulties of course. The word-poor Brits and Yankees will do everything possible to throw sand in the proverbial wheels. They’ve got to be told to shut up because their lack of language skills can only rob clarity. So remember these ‘forgettable’ place names. It works like magic. Whisper ‘Bala Boluk’ and that will stop these busybodies, these global village idiots in their tracks. Whisper ‘Iraq’ and ‘Afghanistan’ and they’ll probably faint. All things considered that’s a necessary part of winning this war against terrorism and more importantly ensuring the safety of all our civilians.

Malinda Seneviratne is a freelance writer who edits the monthly magazine Spectrum. He can be contacted at malinsene@gmail.com.

-Sri Lanka Guardian