I posted this (below) yesterday and then removed it. I was concerned that it might offend. But through yesterday's rain, and as I walked around the foreshore track this morning in moist sunshine, I decided I was wrong to remove it. That it is no more than one perspective amongst many and that it is by putting out our thoughts that we begin to talk and hopefully understand.
There is a horizontal southerly rain outside. Very heavy. I am sitting by the fire. Tabby and Van are curled up asleep in their blanket-lined baskets, even closer to the fire than I am. Leonard Cohen is singing in the background. I am hoping optimistically that a break in the rain might enable me to slip-slide down the hill to feed the chooks.
But the reason for clicking on 'New Post' is to ponder out loud about something that has bothered me the last few days. It is something I have felt silenced about and am unsure even now if I want to say what I am thinking - but here goes.
My dis-ease is around the death of Osama bin Laden, the global responses to his death and the media coverage. It has felt like a feeding frenzy. An Old Testament 'eye for an eye'... Revenge but not justice. Maybe if I had lost family in the twin towers or in the Bali bombings or in the London underground ... I would feel the need for 'payback'. But my preference is always to ask why. Why Al Qaeda? Why the Taleban? I'm not sure that we (the 'West') have a good track record in the Middle East. We have interfered too often in the past. We have supported corrupt and violent regimes when it suited us. We even supported Al Qaeda when the Russians were in Afghanistan. Just as it is possible to link the rise of fascist Germany to the Versailles peace treaty, so perhaps we need to acknowledge our culpability in the emergence of fundamentalist, militant Islam.
There, I have poked my head above the parapet - and now I will move from the global to the very local, brave the rain and feed the poor, bedraggled chooks.
But the reason for clicking on 'New Post' is to ponder out loud about something that has bothered me the last few days. It is something I have felt silenced about and am unsure even now if I want to say what I am thinking - but here goes.
My dis-ease is around the death of Osama bin Laden, the global responses to his death and the media coverage. It has felt like a feeding frenzy. An Old Testament 'eye for an eye'... Revenge but not justice. Maybe if I had lost family in the twin towers or in the Bali bombings or in the London underground ... I would feel the need for 'payback'. But my preference is always to ask why. Why Al Qaeda? Why the Taleban? I'm not sure that we (the 'West') have a good track record in the Middle East. We have interfered too often in the past. We have supported corrupt and violent regimes when it suited us. We even supported Al Qaeda when the Russians were in Afghanistan. Just as it is possible to link the rise of fascist Germany to the Versailles peace treaty, so perhaps we need to acknowledge our culpability in the emergence of fundamentalist, militant Islam.
There, I have poked my head above the parapet - and now I will move from the global to the very local, brave the rain and feed the poor, bedraggled chooks.
*****
This morning I listened to a very good interview on Radio New Zealand. It was that, plus Niki's prompting that encouraged me to repost. Here are the details of the interview.
10:06 James Fergusson - Inside the TalibanAs a foreign correspondent, James Fergusson covered the Taliban for years and got to know many within the organisation, and how it ticks. He talks to Chris about how the Taliban is rooted in Pashtun culture, its mission to drive foreign invaders from Afghanistan, the relationship with Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, and how the West's bid to win Afghan "hearts and minds" is doomed to failure.
James Fergusson is based in Edinburgh and will be in New Zealand next week, to speak at the Auckland Writers & Readers Festival.www.writersfestival.co.nz'Taliban' by James Fergusson, is published by Bantam Press.
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