The return of colonial theology

BY YITZHAK LAOR
 

Our political map, with its constant shift to the right, reflects
precisely this colonial logic, which has become the logic of our
lives: The West is allowed what the natives are not.

Two other Arab uprisings are going on aside from the civil war
in Libya. But no one in Washington has called on Bahrain's
government to step down, and Saudi Arabia, which cuts off the
hands of thieves, has been allowed to invade the emirate to take
part in the suppression there. Protesters are being slaughtered
daily in Yemen, and the West is helping. As always, Arab blood,
high octane, is on sale.

To claim that this is a double standard is like complaining that a

missile has a warhead and a tail. For two decades now, states
have been taken apart in the name of "human rights": Iraq,
Afghanistan, Somalia and now Libya, using human-rights
missiles deployed against humans. Western media outlets are
already producing a global discourse about "a war with values"
and "contradictions between values and strategy," as if strategy
didn't include "values."

Once again the West is quoting Homer and dropping business

and partnership with Muammar Gadhafi in favor of ratings, oil
and especially the use of the machinery of war. The public likes
this, until it has to pay in blood and money. After the graves are
covered, the mood can change. In general, indifference - the
progeny of the malls, reality TV and beach vacations - takes
control.

Something is rotten there. Not only the corruption of Italian

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi or French President Nicolas
Sarkozy. Not only the dismantling of the welfare state, the
disappearance of the left, but - in place of all this - the return of
colonial theology. It begins at home with the great hostility
toward Arabs and Muslims, and now, with the help of Gadhafi's
drugged image, another "no-fly zone," which has turned, with a
great global wink, into a tremendous, high-tech shooting
gallery.

The destruction of Iraq - a crime with the scope of genocide -

began with aerial attacks and a siege that went on for more than
a decade. No one planned the moves at the time. So there's no
point asking what the goal of the attack on Libya is. Saving
human lives? As in Iraq? Maybe democracy? As in Saudi Arabia?
Those who possess giant war machines with funding for
research and development prefer trial and error. There are no
goals. Will Al-Qaida also get there quickly? Well, there's a huge
arsenal that needs refreshing, once in the name of "human
rights," once in the name of "the war on terror." Something will
come out of this. Ratings, oil, a peace conference, photo-ops,
Sarkozy next to Angela Merkel, Berlusconi next to David
Cameron and Barack Obama. A smile. Speeches.

The rush in Israel doesn't come from concerns about the lives of
Libyan opposition fighters, and even the "values" have received
no warm words. Since the Sinai Campaign, Israel has learned to
get excited only as long as Arabs are getting killed by Western
intervention. And what about Operation Cast Lead, a naive
person might ask. What did the West have against Cast Lead?
Well, the fact is, they didn't get in our way, a cynical person from
the silent majority might respond. That's Israel's loss,
historically speaking.

How many generations can recognize truth along the lines of

"the main thing is that the killing benefits us" and not be
damaged? Can humanism really be built on disgust over one
racist rabbi from Safed or over Avigdor Lieberman and wax
enthusiastic about wars like those in Iraq or Libya? Our political
map, with its constant shift to the right, reflects precisely this
colonial logic, which has become the logic of our lives: The West
is allowed what the natives are not.

For the blink of an eye, we thought Obama would change our

lives, but the U.S. presidential election - the author Gore Vidal
once said - is like vying to become manager at a big bank. The
customers don't care who's in charge. And from the Middle East,
it's easy to see how right he was.

*Yitzhak Laor is an Israeli, poet, author and Journalist. He is an

opponent of Israeli militarism.
source: http://www.haaretz.com/print-
edition/opinion/the-return-of-colonial-theology-
1.351029

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