During the usual melee of Facebook group debating, as it is politely called
I was suddenly faced with an interesting question. This debate was concerning
the question of whether the West should intervene in Syria. I stated my
position that I was pro-intervention, and then proceeded to be faced by the
usual herd of Facebook keyboard chimps, flinging their excrement at me and
shrieking. I was scanning through it when one critic interrupted his monologue
of character assassination against me to put an intriguing question to me;
since I cared so much about the Syrian overthrowing Assad, would I be prepared
to put my life on the line and go to Syria to fight with the rebels?
My first reaction was to scoff at the question and dismiss it as ridiculous.
Me? Go over there and fight? Then I went through it with a logical and moral
mind. I have stated I support intervention, so surely if I don’t volunteer to
carry it out myself I am a hypocrite? Is it right for me to in reality support
intervention, when what that means is essentially volunteering someone else,
members of the UK's armed forces, who will end up taking a bullet for the cause
I support? In a legal sense it does makes sense given the government-society
set up, whereby I pay taxes to fund those forces. Furthermore those people who
are in those forces have sworn an oath, by stupid arcane tradition to the
Queen, but in actual fact to do whatever the elected government of the day
tells them.
So yes the armed forces are there, paid for me the UK taxpayer and will jump
when our elected government will tell them to. But that still doesn’t get me
out of my moral conundrum completely does it? Would I be willing to fight and
very possibly die in the fight against Bashar Al-Assad? I am then forced
through the practicalities of my hypothetical freedom fighting adventure
including; a lack of knowledge of the Arabic language, a woeful lack of money,
a lack of knowledge about who to sign up with and my Mum and fiance having a
joint heart attack. But at the end of it I am forced to admit that no, I am not
willing to go out there and fight. And I am faced grim prospect that I may well
be in some way a hypocrite. Not for the first time, and likely not for the last
time.
I then started to ponder over the tradition of people volunteering to fight
for a cause in a foreign land on their own initiative. During the Vietnam War
some British former servicemen volunteered to join the fight on the US-backed
South Vietnamese side against the Communist North Vietnamese. In the idealistic
view of these volunteers this meant fighting for democracy against Communism.
In reality the South was anything but democratic. The US gave medals to the
volunteer servicemen who dedicated their lives to the cause.
Perhaps the most famous example of a mass volunteer soldier effort was the
International Brigades of the Spanish Civil War, which took place 1936 to 1939.
The Spanish Civil War started when General Francisco Franco lead an army revolt
against the government of the newly proclaimed Spanish Republic. Franco rallied
rebels within the army along with various conservative and right wing factions,
all of whom were angry at the reforms made by the republican government. These
reforms included the abolition of the Spanish Monarchy and the separation of
church and state. While Franco had the elite Spanish Army of Morocco to rely
on, much of the main army, the fascist phalangists and various conservative
factions to fight the nationalist cause the Republicans had to cobble together
a resistance quickly. Through the Socialist, Communist and Anarchist parties
and their channels in Spain volunteers from all over the world were called up
to fight.
Many answered the call. Some were ex-servicemen. Some were ardently of a
socialist, Communist or Anarchist disposition. Many were very prophetic in
seeing the danger that Fascism posed to the world if it was left unchallenged.
The Western Democracies chose to sit the war out. But in so doing they left a
vacuum to be filled by dictators; Stalin on the Republican side, Hitler and
Mussolini on the other. By one estimate 32,000-35,000 members of the
International Brigade fought. In the end their struggle was in vain. Franco
won. But in recognition of their sacrifice, this year surviving members of the
International Brigade were given honourary Spanish passports by a Spanish
government that is not yet a Republic.
For many reasons the prospect for a similar International Brigade looks
pretty slim today. I have geared my academic brain to asking why this is. One
of the reasons I can nail down is that the world's public is not only more
experienced in the horrors of war, and know what it looks like thanks to the
era of 24 hour news. Images of carnage from half a world away bombard us every
day, giving us a million different reasons not to leave our comfortable lives.
A second reason is the cynicism that now accompanies the idea of fighting for a
political ideology. Political ideologies in a globalised world are in a
constant state of flux. That which do exist today have changed massively since
the era of the Spanish Civil War. Idealism for better or worse is dead or at
least dying.
A third reason which would make anyone think twice about embarking on an
International Brigade style mission is exemplified by the Iraq War. Put simply,
many people are tired of wars seemingly for wars' sake and the rest simply do
not care. The Iraq War in many ways is an example of when idealism (some would
say arrogance) is put ahead of being practical. Everyone is suspicious of
someone sounding like a missionary who wants to do their duty at the point of a
bayonet, well they should be.
Having said that there is still much evil in the world. Corrupt and
dictatorial regimes that deserve to be overthrown are all around such as
Equatorial Guinea, Zimbabwe and North Korea, yet stand pretty much
unchallenged. They stand unchallenged mostly due to the war weariness of
Western Democracies and their refusal to challenge them. But I wonder, if an
organisation similar in style to the International Brigades existed, couldn’t
revolutions in any of these troubled spots be given a helping hand? However any
such organisation would be faced with many practical problems. Who would
finance the organisation? What would stop government's using such an
organisation for its' own nefarious purposes? Who would the ground troops be?
What would stop these soldiers causing atrocities? I do not have a full
response to these queries, but I would say that the constitution for this
organisation would have to be carefully formulated.
So the International Brigades are a part of history. But they exist in a
type of cruel imitation today. I speak of Muslim extremist insurgencies all
across the world, but most notably in Syria. In recent years, idealistic young
Muslim men have left our shores to fight under the banner of groups such as the
Al Qaeda affiliated Al Nusra front. On one level I can admire their idealism
and enthusiasm while I detest the ideology they hold. Holy War it seems is back
in vogue. I wonder whether secularists such as myself will one day have to
counter their idealism.
But I detest just as much the apathy and idealism gripping the British
people. Not just as regards Syria but what happens across the rest of the world
too. So what? There is suffering in this country right? I was asked this before
by a colleague. He pointed out that there are kids in care in this country. I
sat patiently and quietly and took this in. Then I pointed out that when it
rains in Mumbai poor kids with no care homes to go to are often flushed down storm
drains, where they drown. I then left him stunned and went about my day.
