Posts Tagged ‘machismo’
Vive les bonobos: Afghanistan heroes and villains, and wondering why
Jacinta: War is hell. The innocent suffer. Rape has always been a part of it. It’s generally been a masculine ‘endeavour’. They can mostly be avoided through negotiation and a modicum of goodwill. Please comment, with reference to the current controversy regarding Ben Roberts-Smith and Australia’s involvement in the invasion of Afghanistan – Operation Slipper (2001-14) and Operation Highroad (2015-21).
Canto: Well, having read parts of Justice Anthony Besanko’s judgment on Roberts-Smith, whose case I hadn’t been particularly following, I get the impression of a hubristic psychopath of the type that is attracted to the military, but should be prevented from joining the military, or the police, or any other authoritarian organisation, any organisation that has sometimes dubious power over the citizenry of their own or any other country. But this takes me to the much broader issue of Australia’s involvement in the invasion of Afghanistan, essentially at the behest of the US government.
Jacinta: Yes, that’s the wider issue. We’ve been reading a lot of history – of Scotland, of England, of the civil war of 1642-49, which embroiled Scotland as well as England, of the thirty years’ war of 1618-48, of the Greek war of independence (1821-1832), and of the French revolution (1789-99), altogether too much war, and we’ve found that, although the instruments of warfare have become ever more refined and destructive, the sorts of atrocities practised as a matter of course by Edward I, the soi-disant ‘hammer of the Scots’, the Catholic League army in Magdeburg, and Robespierre, the ‘virtuous terrorist’, have diminished considerably in the WEIRD world, partly because of the altogether too-powerful weaponry available to us, but mainly due to the global networks developed, the education systems, the whole gamut of WEIRD developments that are transforming our world, highlighted by the likes of Peter Singer and Steven Pinker, so that we would be more wary, today, of the sorts of colonial depredations that had such dramatic impacts on the native or first nations people of Australia and the so-called New World.
Canto: Well that’s a good intro to the Afghanistan invasion, which was clearly a response to the September 11 attack in the USA. At the time the Taliban was in power in Afghanistan, and the claim is that they refused to hand over Osama Bin Laden, the alleged mastermind of the September 11 attack. So the US invaded the whole country.
Jacinta: Which raises a number of questions – is/was the Taliban to be equated with the Afghan nation, and was the Taliban in league with Bin Laden’s al-Qaeda organisation – in other words, was there sufficient reason for invading a foreign country, a country much divided into tribal groups…
Canto: Yes it’s not at all clear that the Taliban would’ve been in a position to ‘hand over’ Bin Laden, even if they wanted to. But I don’t want to go into the machinations too much, because I also want to emphasise war as a human catastrophe that generally envelops innocent citizens, as you say, but one of the important events that preceded the invasion was the assassination of the northern alliance commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, the major opponent of the Taliban. This ‘clarified’ the situation in Afghanistan from a US perspective, as the Taliban were likely providing cover for al-Qaeda operations. As to how much control the Taliban had over the Afghan people in general, that’s an open question.
Jacinta: I suspect that the US miscalculated on more than one level – as they so often do. They imagined that if they changed the style of government to something a bit more WEIRD, if not entirely democratic, they’d render it safer, less likely to be a springboard for further attacks. And they imagined – and it would take a lot of imagination – that at least some proportion of the population would welcome them as liberators from what they probably saw, from their WEIRD mindset, as their nasty brutish and short lives.
Canto: A wee bit of historical research should’ve disabused them of that second notion. As you remember, our own response to the invasion was to buy a book on the history of Afghanistan. John Griffiths’ Afghanistan: a history of conflict was published in late October 2001, only weeks after the September 11 attack. It drew heavily on previous work, Afghanistan: Key to a continent, and maybe it was written as a primer and a warning to those involved in the invasion.
Jacinta: Something tells me Ben Roberts-Smith didn’t read it. Anyway the region was dominated by Persia for a couple of thousand years, and was spectacularly conquered by Alexander the Great, but shortly after he dropped dead the Maurya Empire of northern India came conquering – a rare invasion from the east. They brought Buddhism, briefly, though they did leave behind the famous rock-carvings of Bamiyan which stood imposingly tall in the desert for around 1400 years until the silly Taliban blew them up.
Canto: Yes, Buddhism did seem to last longer in that region, just west of Kabul. It wasn’t until around 1000 CE that Islam ‘was forcibly made the religion of Afghanistan’ (Griffiths).
Jacinta: United by religion they might’ve been, but the people have many different ethnic identities – there are the Mongol Hazaras of west-central Afghanistan, remnants of the devastating invasions of Genghis Khan, his son Chagatai, and Tamerlane in the 13th and 14th centuries; the Tajiks of the north, descendants of eastern Iranian/Persian peoples; the Uzbeks, a Turkish people found mostly in the north, and the Pashtuns or Pathans, the country’s largest ethnic group, mostly in southern Afghanistan, along the border with Pakistan, which also has a large Pashtun population.
Canto: And it’s also fair to say, I think, that the people of Afghanistan, and of Pakistan, identify first with their ethnic group and second with their nation.
Jacinta: Okay, so enough of all that, let’s get back to war, invasion and war crimes. Australia was only involved because our conservative PM John Howard went ‘all the way with the USA’, what with the old ANZUS alliance, which New Zealand dropped out of in the eighties…
Canto: Lucky NZ, good move. So the question is, how prepared were Australian forces, not so much for the warfare, but for handling a diverse and proud people, with generally a vastly different culture from their own, when those people expressed confusion, to say the least, about people arriving, armed and uniformed, from across vast oceans, speaking a foreign language, for the purpose of expunging terrorists from their ranks, apparently, and perhaps also bringing about the downfall of their national government?
Jacinta: Well put. And I suspect the answer would be something like ‘Uhh, gee, uh, well, uh, dunno.’
Canto: Now, now, you’re insulting our well-oiled and educated Australian military. But the point is, there needed to be a lot of ‘cultural training’ for an operation like this to have any chance of success, surely. Which brings us to a couple of pieces written on this blog more than two years ago, regarding the so-called 30% rule for improving the culture of organisations, notably the military. Current data suggest that the figure for women in the Australian military is around 19 to 20 percent and gradually rising, and as we go up the ranks, the percentage falls, as one might expect.
Jacinta: Roberts-Smith was deployed to Afghanistan six times, from 2006 to 2013, and I’ve no idea whether he served under, or had command over, any women at that time – in fact I’m happy not to think about the bloke at all – but what I’ve read about some of the goings-on there, and the so called ‘code’, a sort of warrior code of silence, that he and others tried to impose on their ‘mates’, suggests to me the kind of macho claptrap that has stained human history for millennia. A 70% rule, rather than a 30% one, might be the best solution.
Canto: What exactly was the Afghan ‘thing’ anyway? A war? An invasion? An occupation? It was never really clear – to those performing the action, never mind those on the receiving end.
Jacinta: I doubt if Roberts-Smith had much idea, or gave the question much thought. It appears he saw it as an opportunity to act on all his tough-guy training. And perhaps psychopathy lies at the bottom of it, as some have suggested.
Canto: Yes, I’m torn between turning away and wanting to know more. Feels ghoulish, like suddenly coming upon a horrific road accident.
Jacinta: In her interesting opinion piece in the Financial Review last week, Laura Tingle wrote of the problems of ‘military jingoism’ and so drew attention, albeit obliquely, to the real question – why exactly we were in Afghanistan in the first place. But no mention of the maleness of it all, unfortunately….
References
a bonobo world etc 27: male violence and the Myanmar coup
a bonobo world 29: the 30% rule and Myanmar
more on macho thuggery and a world turned upside-down
WPL – female political leaders past and present
Jacinta: So here’s the thing – after the horrible cannon-fodder event of 1914-18 that became known as the Great War, and subsequently WW1, the League of Nations came into being, to try to ensure that no futher war of such magnitude, such destruction, would occur. It would be a forum for the negotiation of grievances, a move towards a more civilised behaviour between nations.
Canto: Yes there must’ve been a sense of urgency as the death toll and the suffering came to light. But then it all happened again – so it failed?
Jacinta: Well of course I’m talking about this as the world watches a piece of obvious butchery in Ukraine, over a hundred years after that ‘war to end all wars’. The League of Nations, the United Nations, the International Criminal Court, these institutions have been, IMHO, vitally important 20th century developments, but they haven’t effectively prevented wars and invasions in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and so on. And war is hell, especially for those who’ve made the mistake of being born in those fought-over lands.
Canto: Yes, the ICC is massively hamstrung by the fact that the most militarily powerful countries, the USA, Russia and China, won’t join it, for the obvious reason that they don’t want to be held accountable. What’s the point of being massively powerful if you don’t get to throw your weight around with impunity?
Jacinta: Yes, and to be bonoboesque about it, none of those countries have come close to having female leadership in recent times. Okay, the USA has at last celebrated it first Vice-President, but it’s not really an elected position. There have been 45 male US Presidents, and zero female Presidents so far. Not bad for a group that represents just under half the population. China hasn’t had a woman on top since the much under-rated Empress Dowager Cixi died in 1908. The CCP’s Politburo Standing Committee, a kind of divinely elected inner Cabinet, which has been operational, more or less, since the 1950s, has had fifty-four members, of which zero have been women.
Canto: Wow – not even a female impersonator? But then, during the one child policy, something miraculous happened. Almost all the kids born turned out to be male. You can hardly blame the CCP for that.
Jacinta: And as for Putinland’s mighty ruler, he’s an unabashed misogynist and he plans to rule his namesake for the next 200 years or so, so the chances of any of those countries allowing themselves to be accountable to the rest of humanity are close to zero for the foreseeable.
Canto: Yes, and it’s funny how the nations most likely to be naughty to the tunes of their national anthems are the ones least willing to defend themselves in open court. I’ve found that there are some other interesting countries that aren’t interested in the ICC – Israel, Libya, Iraq – nations with a very spotty recent history.
Jacinta: And nothing much in the way of female leadership. Israel did have Golda Meir, described in Encyclopedia Brittanica as the country’s first female Prime Minister, as if there were others.
Canto: And then there are nations where women are barely allowed to hold down a job never mind boss others around. So what is to be done?
Jacinta: Well, all we can do is try to lay down foundations. And there’s a groundswell of interest in women’s empowerment, it’s been happening for decades. When we compare women’s wages with those of men, and grumble about a gap that never seems to narrow, we need to remember that it wasn’t so long ago, in the long arc of human history, that women weren’t considered a part of the paid work-force at all. Now they own businesses, run science labs and occasionally help to govern nations. And I should mention that here in little old South Australia – where we’ve never had a female Premier, our newly elected Labor Premier Peter Malinauskas celebrated his victory with a press chit-chat flanked by five new female MPs as well as Deputy Premier Susan Close. A sixth new female Labor candidate looks set to win her seat.
Canto: So how do we promote the empowerment of women in Australia, before taking over the world?
Jacinta: Well the government occasionally brings out policy documents, such as the ‘Gender equality and women’s empowerment strategy’, published by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) in early 2016. It recognises that ‘nowhere in the world have women and men achieved equality’, and points out, in its global analysis, that GDPs would rise everywhere if such equality could be realised, or approached. It points out the obvious benefits of female education, for women, their children and the community, and the greater stability and peace that comes with female empowerment (no mention of bonobos however). As was pointed out in the military document I read some months ago, a greater female presence in the military leads to better peace-keeping. This DFAT document repeats the point:
Greater gender equality contributes to stability and peace. Women are often instrumental in brokering ceasefires in conflict situations, and peacekeeping operations involving women as soldiers, police and civilian personnel are more effective. Greater equality can prevent disputes escalating to armed conflict.
Canto: That must be why Putin and his Patriarch aren’t into gender equality so much. And just to change the subject, I’ve heard that, since their invasion isn’t going so well – possibly because the billions spent on the military have been largely siphoned off by the luxury yacht-loving kleptocrats in his inner circle – they’re now trying to pretend that they’ve been largely successful in their main aim, which is to gain complete control of the Donbas and Crimean regions, and this is really all they wanted in the first place, etc etc.
Jacinta: Well, I’ll believe that when I hear something from Putin himself, but that’s highly unlikely. They’re basically fucked, though Putin will never admit it. Hoist by his own macho petard, I’d say. Anyway, this document from six years ago talks the talk convincingly enough, and with a likely change of Federal government in the next few months, the talk will continue. It promotes a three-pronged approach to its aid, trade and foreign relations programs – 1) Enhancing women’s voice in decision-making, leadership and peace-building. 2) Promoting women’s economic empowerment. 3) Ending violence against women and girls. Which all sounds great, though all this needs to start at home. Also the document argues that ‘at least 80 per cent of investments [presumably by DFAT], regardless of their objectives, should effectively address gender equality issues in their implementation’. What about the other 20 per cent? Where did the 80 per cent come from?
Canto: Well, 80%, 90%, 60%, it’s all just talk, who’s going to be doing the measurements? Surely the important thing is that they’re pushing for a much better situation than pertains at the moment. And meanwhile on the world stage there’s an organisation, probably quite informal, called Women Political Leaders (WPL), consisting of former and some current national Prime Ministers and such, as well as heads of the European Commission, high-ups at the UN and so forth, all promoting the benefits of female leadership, benefits we’ve outlined so many times. They held a major forum last July, which seems to have garnered little attention.
Jacinta: I’m hoping that the machismo antics of Putin, Xi Jinping and others, which of course are garnering plenty of attention, might have more effect on our appreciation of female leadership than these forums, which of course are a pointer to the future. Unfortunately, our attention will always be more drawn to the thuggery of these types than to the speeches and achievements of intelligent women. Violence, destruction and suffering are riveting because they bring to mind our own vulnerability, and often our own sheer good luck at not finding ourselves in the thick of it. And I sometimes wonder whether, if we ever achieve something like a bonobo world, many lifetimes into the future, our victory over the male hellholes of the world will render us complacent and soft…
Canto: Haha, little likelihood of that – after all, even the bonobos males have to be kept in check by what Bjork calls ‘an army of me’. So I suspect bonobos aren’t as complacent as they might look.
Jacinta: Yes, happy loving relations often need a lot of work. Hostile relations tend to come naturally – at least so it seems from within our patriarchal culture. So, nothing for it but to keep working for a world turned upside-down.