Abbe Boulah’s Weblog

Terrorists and Power and Slivowitz

• Heading down to the Tavern, Bog-Hubert?
• Well yes — though I’m not sure it’s going to be very relaxingthere today, even with a decent glass of something. Why? 
• Why? I heard there were going to be demonstrations there, both pro and con, about the war in the Mediterranian. Because Vodçek has a bottle of Slivowitz on his shelf…
• Huh?  What’s that got to do with anything? 
• Good question. Some people think it’s a Jewish thing, — even if it’s really a Balkan name for the plum brandy of that name — but it’s also produced in Israel with that name. Smart people. But being an alcoholic thing, Muslims object to it — even though ‘alcohol’, as far as I know, is an arab word, though Allah only knows why Muslims today object to consuming such. I remember once I was sitting in a cafe in Paris — how long ago, why am I just remembering that incident?  I was having an espresso, and this friend of mine, a Muslim from Africa, was drinking a beer. All of a sudden, he saw a compatriot Muslim come into the place, and asked me to quickly change the drinks — moved my espresso in front of him, the beer across the little table, so I was looking like I was drinking the infidel beer. It must have been Ramadan or some holy season. — Well, now I hear there are Palestinian supporters who want to shut down Vodçek’s Tavern for that reason, serving Slivowitz. 
• You’re putting me on!
• Okay, sorry. Busted. I just want to go there to help Vodcek get rid of that stuff before worse things happen to it.  To keep the peace.
• Bog-Hubert, my friend, I applaud and praise your peace-keeping intentions. But stop giving me such scares. Would it be OK if I join you in raising a glass or two, with a prayer for your success? 
• Of course, Abbe Boulah. I was actually counting on it…I’m kind of short of funds…
• Thank you for your confidence. But hey, let’s get serious here. There are people dying over there — aren’t you ashamed for this facetious way of responding to that catastrophe? Children women, innocent people, entire cities flattened…
• You are right, of course. But what should a reasonable fellow do about it, over here? Taking sides, getting the government to act accordingly? Which side?
• You are right, sadly. The argument is unwinnable for both sides: any justification for any actions for either side can be countered by equally valid arguments for the other side. Arguments based on facts, but then just jumping to ought-premises and conclusions that sorely lack logical validity.
• Now, doesn’t it It all depend on where you but the blinders on your historical fact-perspective, to determine ‘who started it’? Sure: useless. Even worse: Any of the remedies they are arguing about, as far as I can see, are suffering from the same fatal flaw..
• Oh: What’s that?  One specific flaw, only? 
• Yes — at least a key one. In my uninspired (so far, by the adequate spirits) opinion…
• Well, we’re almost there, patience. Meanwhile, enlighten me, please? 
• The problem is that all the responses people are arguing and protesting about, are involving the use of force, coercion. Or the the threat of violence, again. All equally unacceptable, in principle, to both sides, because they don’t see how the conflict can go away in any version of peace. Quite the contrary: they both end up with the  same inference, that the problem will only go away if one or the other party will disappear. Killed, or at least expelled, in other words. 
• Well, are they really saying that? At least on the pro-Israel side, there are many who just say that the leaders, the Hamas, have to go. If you know what I mean.’
• Yes. There have been slips of the tongue though, when people have sloppily or not so sloppily, said that ‘they all… ’ — meaning all the folks in Gaza? — ‘… have to ‘disappear’. Unacceptable and stupid as it is to say that, it is the plausible inference of the escalating logic of the violence-based power needed for all those remedies. 
• Let me try to understand what you are saying: as a valid pattern applicable to all such conflicts between two ‘communities’ that pursue their respective aims. If those aims are pursued using  physical force (or threats of such) each application act of such force will be countered by efforts to apply equal or stronger force to ‘deter’ or make it impossible for the other side from doing that?
• Yes. And if one side gets the idea that it commands the greater force, the more power, then it will be tempted, if not compelled, to actually use that force? 
• Or just threatening that, anyway.  So what’s wrong with that? 
• Well the other side may not be willing to acknowledge that. Denial. Or thinking there may be a big brother out there… 
• Who are you talking about: a bigger, stronger entity, to keep the balance and the peace?  The UN?
• Well the UN doesn’t seem willing to do anything, for reasons that bear looking into: haven’t there been hundreds of UN resolutions to tell Israel to behave differently? Let’s not get into all the details. All ignored, nothing done.  But there are other Arab, other Muslim states; bigger brothers all, that the Palestinians may count on… 
• Youn mean all the Palestinians, or just the terrorists?
• Terrorists? what’s a terrorist, really?
• Well. I guess you could say: a terrorist anybody, any entity that uses violence or threats of violence to get its ways, Creating fear, terror, in the public.
• Careful, now, my friend. That’s an easy label to put on either side — based just on what they are bragging about, both sides in that particular conflict, anyway. So using that label as justification for any acts to counter terrorism with violent force will brand both sides with the sticker, won’t it? 
• Well, would you say that a terrorist is any person, (or group)  that isn’t part of an acknowledged regular government ‘military’ force, that uses violent, military-like means to pursue its aims…?
• Sorry: stuck in the quicksand again. If you are denying a whole group of people you don’t like or are stepping on your toes, or who don’t like what you are doing to them, the formation of a regular, globally acknowledged government state status, any members of that group that are attempting to safeguard its interests, are now ‘terrorists’? Especially, if that other entity is not a real ‘state’ and therefore illegitimate, by some plausible definition, its fighters are inevitably terrorists? 
• Huh. Well, I guess you are right. I never saw a good reason for opposing the two-state ‘solution’, as if that would even begin to solve the  problem.  So again: looks like those arguments are unwinnable, and therefore unacceptable, to both sides. But are they equally unacceptable for any third party, asked to take sides? 
• Yes and the problem is made even worse by the role of power in the process. 
• I was waiting for that: you’ve been harping on that already. But can you remind me of your reasoning again?
• Ok: I actually owe it to something you taught me earlier: There are several motivations for using violent power: the need for pursuing the empowerment for realization of ‘basic needs’ and rights; that we might call somewhat ‘legitimate’ and therefore acceptable reasons. So when threatened, these aims are used to justify the use of violent, ‘destructive’ means.  Now there also are people who get ‘empowerment’ experiences  from those kinds of acts: ‘adrenaline rushes’;  even for encouraging other in the own realm to  such acts — a kind of vicarious enjoyment of destructive power. 
• I know. There are people who actually like killing and hurting others. 
• Right. And that kind of power motivation is, to make matters worse, addictive: the more you have, the more you need. To keep getting the kicks, and to protect you from losing it to other power-hungry patriots. Makes people crazy. 
• So:  When two ‘powers’ get into that kind of mutually escalating cycle, is there there is a ’final solution’  other that the total victory of one over the other; annihilation or demoralization? And is that  the best any tribe calling itself human, even ‘sapiens’ can come up with? 
• Well, you are right, it doesn’t look good for this so-called humanity. Even though there were third ways, even in antiquity,  to get around it, though they weren’t taken seriously enough…
• Well, chrunch my purple chakra: What in three twisters name are you talking about?  
• Think about it, Bog-Hubert:  It was called ‘divine judgment’.  If you believe in such a divine power and its benevolent judgment, the prayers for victory that opposing armies used to invoke  to grant them sucdess in the bloody business they were getting ready for would be useless for one army if the deity —all-knowing and allmighty — already knew to which side it would grant victory. So wouldn’t there be a simpler, less painful and destructive (for the innocent populations that would suffer from the mayhem as well as pay for it) to find that out? If accompanied by adequate rituals and prayers and sacrifices; simply tossing a coin wouldn’t be sufficiently dignified — innocent lambs were the preferred proverbial victims? The famous examples of antiquity — can you spell Achilles and Hector? — provided more spectacle for vicarious enjoyment of pain and bloodshed.  But did the people learn the lesson? No: more mayhem and killing and burning of glorious cities was needed. 
• Never thought of it that way. Well; if all the generals and systems thinkers can’t come up with anything… do you have a better idea? 
• Let’s see if there’s any Slivowitz left at the Fog Island Tavern… Maybe something will occur to us?