There is no question that my favourite biblical tale is the Exodus. In the whole of Torah, I do not believe there is a stronger storyline with a more compelling message for any time or nation than is found in Exodus.
In the Exodus, we are told the narrative of a slave underclass, who are liberated from bondage after generations of enslavement, and then are delivered to a place of safety far beyond the reach of their former oppressor. The ancient Hebrews existed with a societal clean slate - if you will. So what is the first thing these people do with their freedom but attempt to create a mirror image of the society which they left behind. This, despite the miracles they have witnessed with their own eyes.
Eventually, they are presented with a set of laws, and told that they must submit themselves to the authority of the law; if they are to continue to live in freedom as a free people. They must become not only a people of a book but a people of laws. There is no freedom without responsibility and there is no responsibility without law.
Okay, I am not too sure about the last sentence but it sounds good. Why bring up the Exodus? Well, because it is has been almost 7 years since the fall of the Taliban and think it is time to seriously re-examine what the Canadian role is in Afghanistan.
I supported the original invasion of Afghanistan and if another country (or even Afghanistan again) today were to give safe harbour to Al Qaeda or an Al Qaeda-like organization, who then uses that safe harbour as an operations planning base to attack another nation - it deserves to be invaded and see its government fall but…and there are buts and plenty of them.
I do not doubt for a minute our soldiers are doing a good job sticking their rhetorical fingers in the dikes of Afghanistan nor do I doubt for a minute that chaos will ensue the minute NATO forces were to pull out of Afghanistan, but you should also recognize, it has been seven long years of trying to drag this country ass over teakettle into the 21st century and I still sense a general and real Afghani reluctance to leave the Iron Age behind. There seems to be no Afghani Moses willing to articulate a collective vision to inspire the Afghani people to search for the borders of this promised land nor do I see an Afghani Joshua ready to lead the fight for this promised land. What I do see is a diverse group of warlords jockeying for positions of ultimate hegemony over the ordinary lives of Afghanis.
There is no question as long as there are western soldiers patrolling the streets of Afghani cities or the outlying districts the ordinary lives of men, women and children have improved a hundredfold but….if the Afghanistan people cannot make this collective leap and do for themselves; than no amount of Western combat soldiers in no amount of time will make a whit of difference. If anything, we risk turning our soldiers from liberators to occupiers or agents of a colonial force.
And if we are to be agents of a colonial force than the government of Canada (whether it be a Liberal or Conservative government) needs to come clean and say so to the Canadian people and let us decide for ourselves if this is where we wish to spend the treasure of our sons and daughters. And if we are to stand in the place of an Afghani Joshua; how long shall we labour reasonably in this endeavour?
3 comments:
I think a Book more illustrative of our experience in Afghanistan is that of Job. But that's just me.
Call it a failure of imagination on my part but I don't see how Job works - unless we aren't thinking of the same story...always a possiblity
I guess it depends on how you read Job. At the obvious level, it's a lesson in devotion to and faith in God in the face of adversity. On another level, it's a fairly bleak story that acknowledges that the human experience is in large measure a painful one, and warns the faithful that belief does not exempt them from suffering. The Happy Ending has always struck me as an addition by committee, sort of the like the revised ending of Fatal Attraction.
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