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TechnoratiChild Soldiers and Demonization
Sitting in the gloom of a movie theatre years ago, I heard a woman in a nearby seat hiss with angry righteousness, "finally!" The movie we were watching was Saving Private Ryan.
The scene this woman found so satisfying was the murder of a prisoner of war.
I've often thought of that strange moment during the long debate about Omar Khadr.
Now a young man, Khadr was born into a family of religious bigots headed by a domineering, violent fanatic.
After a childhood spent mostly in Pakistan, where his father was increasingly involved with terrorists, Omar was taken to live with the death-cult known as al-Qaeda. He was 11 years old.
In July, 2002, American forces surrounded an al-Qaeda compound. They pounded it from the air, then attacked. It is alleged that a gravely wounded Khadr threw a grenade that killed an American soldier. He was 15 years old.
It is obvious and undeniable that Omar Khadr's childhood was saturated with hatred and mad indoctrination. It is obvious and undeniable that he had no control over any part of that childhood.
It is possible, I suppose, that he could have fled after the invasion of Afghanistan but is a 15-year-old boy responsible if he stays and fights?
They never have been. In country after country, 15-year-olds under arms -- including those who have committed far worse acts than Omar Khadr -- have been deemed child soldiers.
They are considered victims and offered rehabilitation. We feel only pity for them.
A memoir called A Long Way Gone, written by a former child soldier named Ishmael Beah, spent the better part of a year on the New York Times bestseller list.
The injustice done to Omar Khadr seems manifest. Inarguable. And yet a great many Canadians don't see anything wrong with his treatment.
Quite the contrary. With angry righteousness, they demand he be convicted and condemned. Like that woman watching Saving Private Ryan, they want to hiss "finally!"
Early on in Steven Spielberg's classic film, an American platoon wipes out a German machine gun nest. After one of their comrades bleeds to death, the American soldiers threaten to kill a terrified German prisoner. A young American -- a translator -- pleads with the captain to intervene.
He does. Unable to deal with the burden of a prisoner, the captain blindfolds the German and orders him to find an Allied unit and surrender. One of the American soldiers complains that he's more likely to find the Wehrmacht and start fighting again. The scene ends.
In the film's final battle, the translator is paralysed with fear. Cowering in a shell hole, he finds himself looking at a line of Germans firing on the fracturing American lines.
He sees the former prisoner. He watches as the German aims and fires at the very man who spared his life. The captain dies.
Shortly after, the air force arrives and the German position crumbles. The translator leaps up from the shell hole and orders the Germans to surrender. They do. The American glares at the former prisoner who shot the captain. The German smiles weakly and says the American's name. The American fires.
It was this act the woman near me found so satisfying.
And she wasn't alone. The film is clearly crafted to produce the sense that, finally, the coward did what was right. It is one of the most obscene moral inversions ever to appear in a film and yet it sparked no controversy. Apparently, few people saw anything wrong.
This blindness is explained, in part, by demonization. In Saving Private Ryan, the Germans are a faceless enemy. And since we come to the film knowing what the German military is fighting for -- Nazism and the Holocaust -- we don't see individual men. We see a hated enemy.
It's also crucial that the only perspective offered is that of the American platoon.
What happened to the German prisoner after he was first released? Whether or not he tried to find an Allied unit as ordered, he found himself back with the German army. What was he to say then? That he had promised not to fight again? That he'd like to please sit this one out? We would not expect an American in similar circumstances to do that. And a German who did would have been put in front of a firing squad.
Is it a crime that the former prisoner shot an American soldier in combat? No. Nor is there any suggestion he knew the American in his sights was the man who had saved him from being murdered -- which would be absurd given the chaos and confusion -- so there can be no claim of moral obligation.
But the audience never considers the German's perspective, only the Americans'. And from that perspective, this is a man killing someone who spared his life -- which makes his subsequent murder feel just.
When I read the passionate arguments of those who defend the treatment of Omar Khadr, I see the same demonization and narrow perspective. The result is the same moral inversion: What should be plainly unjust becomes what justice plainly demands.
Only this is no movie.
Dan Gardner writes for the Citizen Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.
© The Ottawa Citizen 2008
13 Comments so far
Show Allmedusa said: "Nuremberg was thought to have set the standards after the war; what happened to those standards?"
Those standards only apply to those who OPPOSE the United States and it's allies. The US is exempt from those standards, and since they have bullied all the other countries into submission, or share ideological interests with them, nobody will hold the US accountable for their crimes. It's quite sad.
Rupert Murdoch -Izzy Asper - Murdoch - Asper
tomayto tomahto.
Remember the Iranian religious badges story? Outright lie! Outright lie!
I have refused Nazi-onal Post solicitations and been very outspoken to the sales-dudes about why. Disgusting neocon rag.
True, another perspective is hard to find. BUT! Nowadays, with the Net available to all, there's no excuse for ignorance. Is it just web-stupidity or wilful ignorance?
Up In Canada the media is controlled by the Asper clan to a great degree. They have a habit of ordering editors to insert "terrorist" before or after any Arab name.
They will fire editors or journalists that are too sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, or that are too critical of israel.
The head of the clan (since deceased) openly called himself a Zionist wishing a greater Israel and was good friends with Netanahyu. When students protested Netanahyu giving a speech in a Canadian University, Asper compared it to Kristalnicht and the Holocaust in Germany.
The "Press" they control slams any actions by the Canadian Government that they see are not supporting Israel.
It is hard to get another perspective, when so much of the media is under the control of one group.
Hah, when will Kissinger get his due? I'd send him to Gotmo, but I'd hate so soil good shackles with his bloated carcass.
Wonderful comments, all - I'll look for that book by Beah, good tip.
medusa, the Europeans have shown by their actions that they indeed get the point....they repatriated their own nationals years ago!
Omar Khadr is the only 'western' national left in Guantanamo. A CBC documentary/expose' on the Khadr family by Terence McKenna a few years back is in large part responsible for Canadians' apathy towards Khadr. Tragically, he is being made to pay for his father's deeds and his mother's radical views.
MEDUSA: Interesting post, and the remark about Murdoch is important. Note how the same trend of mogul buys media to influence elections has occured in Italy, Mexico, and U.S. to name the most obvious examples.
"Seems to me that Europe and the US were awfully interested in breaking up Yugoslavia"
I agree. It was the kind of chess with people's lives that Kissinger always likes to play; anything to poke the Russians in the nose.
"If so, then the Hague proceedings are as hypocritical as Gitmo"
Hypocritical yes. But there are real crimes in Karadzic's case. There is evidence that he separated men from women, had them tied up and shot before burying them in mass graves by the thousands. The US and Europe didn't make him do that.
What did Khadr do? His loony father took him with him to Afghanistan when he was thirteen and US soldiers shot him twice in the back when he was fifteen. Other than that, all we know comes from the same people who claimed Iraq was forty-five minutes away from nuking London with imaginary yellowcake from Africa
Anyone who reads Ishmael Beah's book will be moved by the manner in which he and his fellow child soldiers were rehabilitated. If you have the good fortune to meet him you will discover what a gift he is to our world, both in his capacity to help us understand how child soldiers are created and how it is possible to undo the harm. His story is also a reminder of what an important role, in creating the opportunity for rehabilitation, is played by UNICEF. I was one of an audience of 300 who heard him; at the end of the evening, everyone in attendance was moved by what we had learned.
One of the reasons that Canadians (and others) think badly of Omar Khadr is that they hate his father. Imagine if all of us were judged on the basis of our parents' reprehensible actions in the way Omar Khadr is! Frightening, isn't it? I, for one, would rush out and change my name immediately!
jlocke123 - Indeed! Redundant then, as the "corrupt career soldiers" are already perceived as such.
I wonder, when you consider the outspoken support for Great Hero Karadzic that we've seen in the papers over the last few days, whether much healing will actually occur. Ultimately, and to be honest, no one over on this side of the Pond really cares about Karadzic (or Khadr). Will his trial be merely another showpiece? How much support and encouragement did he get from NATO, UN and the US? Seems to me that Europe and the US were awfully interested in breaking up Yugoslavia, and Karadzic's trips to the US must have resulted in some kind of support, material or diplomatic. Was he just another tool in their project? If so, then the Hague proceedings are as hypocritical as Gitmo - only with more style and nicer suits. He did live in Austria for years, and he's hard to mistake for somebody else. Interestingly, most of the crimes Karazic is accused of are being committed with impunity by Israel and the US in other theatres.
Omar is more pathetic than evil. We certainly live in interesting times.
Medusa: "Is Omar Khadr really more repulsive than Karadzic?"
I don't think so. Regardless, Europeans believe in fair trials and Karadzic shall have one. Karadzic's trial will be as long and involved as is necessary when dealing with such unspeakable massive crimes. It will undoubtedly serve as an educational and healing tool for the societies involved.
Khadr's "trial" on the other hand will be swift, predetermined and will seem like an anemic pantomime, serving only to condemn the corrupt career soldiers enacting the child abuse.
One more thing - proven mass murderer Karadzic is getting a speedy, open, proper trial (nothing's perfect) at the Hague. Luxury accommodation, three squares and a bedtime snack in Belgium - how do I join up? Is Omar Khadr really more repulsive than Karadzic? I wonder whether the Europeans have a position on Khadr. I'm not hopeful: they have a knack for missing the point.
I hate Spielberg's films except for Close Encounters. They are all cartoony, immature, and cheaply manipulative, and as in Ryan, completely miss the point. The audience loves these films because they stir facile, prefabricated, pre-programmed emotions. They are not think-pieces though they pretend to be such.
As a Canadian I am horrified at the treatment of Khadr and all the Gitmo victims. This is Harper, sacrificing that kid to his solidarity with the Great Moral Leaders of the West, Bush/Cheney. None of the European child soldiers, some as young as 10 when the supply of adult males ran low, were imprisoned. Nuremberg was thought to have set the standards after the war; what happened to those standards? It is especially important to remember your moral standards when the victim is associated with a bunch such as the Khadr's with their track record of terrorism.
It's also tragic that so much of the Canadian public supports Harper, but that's a result of Murdoch's influence on the news. The stories about the Khadr's involvement with terrorism have gone on a long time, portrayed as "odious" people abusing the system. Omar doesn't stand a chance.
It's the St.Louis all over again.
It will be very difficult for me to believe that you can de-program the very reason that a being knows as it's existence. If you can, more power to you.
I think that killing is wrong in any form, and condemning someone for their conditioning is wrong as well. But shouldnt a crime be treated as a crime? By this measure, shouldnt all the ghetto kids who kill be deprogrramed instead of sentenced? Aren't they fighting for their very existence, the only way they know how? And when do you call a willfull criminal wrong?
As a Heidegerrian phenomenologist, this is a real dilemma, and Heidegger has been criticized for the very fact. But I would like some expert to draw the lines.
Thanks
Zero