The Sins of Our Fathers

Every once in awhile I am struck by a particularly strange combination of information, a juxtaposition of events and fact that is so strange that it come close to feeling as if it were impossible.

Quite often as I spin, I listen to an audio book that I have downloaded from the library. Usually it is a novel - generally some trivial thing that keeps my mind at least partially occupied. However last week I download a nonfiction book called  Lawrence of Arabia - War, Deceit, Imperial Folly, and the Making of the Modern Middle East - by Scott Anderson.  It was an exceptional "read". It discusses in some detail the activities of  four young men, their peers and superiors, who were active as spies and provocateurs during the 1914- 1918 war in the Middle East. While the author, as the title suggest, focuses mainly on T. E. Lawrence (better known to people of my generation as Lawrence of Arabia), Anderson also devotes considerable space to talking about the American agent who was still on the payroll of Standard Oil, a Jewish agronomist who ran a spy network in Palestine and a German who did what he could to ensure that the Ottoman empire was victorious. It was a fascinating read.  At the end of it I was left with three very strong impressions: one- how completely incompetent was Lawrence and his peers (along with the generals) at collecting information and developing plans based on that information; two - that the war in Europe was a horrendous waste of the human life - a war that was unneeded, driven by imperial visions of glory, poorly fought and at the end, had no ending; and three - how absurdly arrogant were the "victors" specifically Britain and France in terms of their absolute belief that they had the right to carve up the Middle East in any way they chose.

During the same week as I was listening to my book, some  Syrians were attacked by their own government. According to the New York Times 69 people were killed by a intentional chemical attack. The only words to discuss the attack is heinous. With the exception of Russia, we all want to condemn Assad. Even the most hardened among us has to believe that it is profoundly unjust, unfair and inhumane to kill citizens who are doing the best they can to survive in a war that may not be survivable.  While one could argue that these most recent deaths are not more important than the estimated 1400 Syrian civilians who died from chemical attacks in 2012, it is clear that by any measurement - far too many people have died in that poor, chaotic country. In all of our angst and outrage towards Assad and his minions we, who are safely ensconced in our middle class homes, need to remember that the chaos that has existed for the last 100 years in the Middle East is the direct result of our ancestors compulsion to rule the world.

This week is also the 100th anniversary of the Canadian Army's "victory" at Vimy Ridge. While I appreciate that some have argued that this military engagement that cost 10,000 men who were either killed or wounded shaped Canada into what we are, I think the argument can be made that this is a particularly Eurocentric perspective.  We are and always have been so much more than a winning a battle to climb a little hill in another country. That those soldiers were brave is beyond question; that they did their duty as defined by the state, the church and their generals is clear. But their actions do not define the country I chose to live in. The war was a human resource disaster for Canada. 61,000  men were killed with another 170,000 wounded (Canadian War Museum). The war was, in fact, a disaster for much of the western world. Wikipedia states that approximately 11 million military persons were killed. For most of the war the battle lines moved hardly at all. Men died because of imperial stubbornness (on both sides), incompetent leadership (on both sides) and a general inability for anyone to say 'enough is enough".

So as our politicians and our main stream media commemorate those glorious days of yesteryear and as those same politicians and media people pontificate, with great anguish for the Syrian people, on the horrors of last week - I personally am going to reflect upon the fact that the sins of our fathers do visit upon someone. All too often however, in the western part of the world, the people who are the most affected, the people who are most damaged are not the sons of those who sinned.