The blade the bullet and the bomb know no morality, they have one purpose only, to kill and injure. Those who wield these weapons of destruction have choices; they are moral beings who have chosen the way of violence. This choice is informed by their beliefs and their beliefs informed by their chosen cause or ideology; or both.

If choosing the way of violence is based upon an extreme ideology then they have adopted an uncompromising  view of the world and how it should be ordered which requires them, and their co-believers, to spare nothing or no one in pursuit of their ultimate aims; barbarity is unleashed, violence spirals and any semblance of humanity abandoned; they appropriate for themselves the appearance of an irresistible force. However, as in the paradoxical proposition “What will happen if an irresistible force meets and immovable object?” nothing in nature is absolutely irresistible and nothing is absolutely immovable. In the gritty realities of power struggles action and reaction happen by degrees and each mirrors the worst aspects of the other and thus violence breeds violence “Those who live by the sword, die by the sword.” (From the Christian Gospel)

Am I describing Daesh? I could also be describing Cromwell’s Model Army in the England of 1640s or Fascist regimes in Europe in the 1930s and 40s. All believed themselves invincible all were ultimately vanquished. Their legacy was and is more violence. Violence breeds violence.

(Quote)”The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy, instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that”. Martin Luther King Junior

Plato said, “Only the dead have seen the end of war.”

Violence breeds violence and its siblings are: vengeance, reprisal and retaliation. Governments, as well as individuals, adopt these siblings and unleash them at will.  To break the spiral of violence we must contend with these forces of vengeance and violence at their root cause.

All wars end. Either through attrition, intervention, diplomacy or capitulation conflicts cease. But the end of conflict is rarely the beginning of a sustainable peace; too often the end of fighting is merely the impression of peace when in reality it is an armed truce vacillating between possible futures.

For years, America the UK and their allies have appropriated to themselves the mantle of a global, interventionist morality. This policy has been seen by many as either little too late or at worst disastrous for all concerned. For the first time in modern history the consequence of this deeply flawed morality has brought the victims of intervention, in seemingly overwhelming numbers, onto their shores and into their streets. Traumatised, at times half dead, physically and psychologically scarred, starving and despairing they are as much the West’s casualties as any of our armed forces killed or injured in recent wars. Violence breeds violence.

From the violence suffered by traumatised refugees coming to our shores, a new violent reaction is being embodied in the resurgence of reactionary, populist political forces in America, Europe and elsewhere. The populist slogans they scream and chant are a repudiation of the so called liberal, democratic values which have dominated international discourse since 1989. These new forces are indifferent or opposed to any assertion of international morality. They will use violence (rhetorically and actual) to secure their nation’s borders, engender a patriotic siege mentality and practice isolationism from global intervention; rather than try and do intervention better they prefer not to do it at all.

In the Levant, Western influence has waned and is seen as fatally flawed, other regional powers have filled the vacuum but they have historical and ideological agendas which are inimical to the West.

The West, meanwhile, is verging on economic bankruptcy; the UN is also deprived of funds and in thrall to the Security Council, the new American regime is inexperienced and lacks credibility and Europe is fragmenting as a political project. Western intervention seems to be reduced to targeted military strikes in the Levant and anxiety about trade deals elsewhere. The West seems gripped by a moral inertia. So from where will arise new energy for global conciliation and rapprochement come? Russia, China, Turkey, India? Are we in a diplomatic winter?

(Quote from Quran)  “There is no good in most of their secret talks save (except) (in) him who orders Sadaqah (charity in Allah’s Cause), or Maa‘roof (Islamic Monotheism and all the good and righteous deeds which Allah has ordained), or conciliation between mankind; and he who does this, seeking the good Pleasure of Allah, We shall give him a great reward” (Quran, Surah An-Nisaa, 114)

If the Great Reward goes to the conciliators of this world (“Blessed are the Peace makers” Quote from Christian scriptures) then we need an uprising of peacemakers and an army of reconcilers. (The Aramea Foundation, NCF, IoC?). We need a coalition of the willing who will work tirelessly and sacrificially for Peace; demanding a renewal of ethically based foreign policies, a renewal of internationalism, reaching out to enemies and bringing light to the darkest places.

As a person of faith I know faith’s shortcomings but I also know its power to inspire and transform lives and situations and to give vision and hope to humanity in its days of darkness:  “To turn spears into pruning hooks and where people will study war no more” (Quote from Jewish Scriptures).

Faith must play a significant role in post conflict Syria and Iraq, Syria and Iraq will also need all the goodwill that can be mustered and a Marshall type plan of economic and civic reconstruction unprecedented in modern times. This is the cost of the West’s repentance and the East’s intransigence and the Middle East’s incoherence.

Within any plans for the possible futures in the war torn areas of the Levant, their  must be a plan for  the future of Jerusalem, that city set on a hill which is the rallying point for so much human longing for God.

May we find new hope, new vision and new determination to shape a future where it is not the dead who see an end to war, but the living.

 

Fr Larry Wright

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The Next Century Foundation at the United Nations – Intervention on the UPR

The Next Century Foundation took part in the 36th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva. During the General Debate on Item 6 “Universal periodic review” the NCF delivered an oral intervention on the shortcomings of the UPR process.

Migration Crisis – Fighting Xenophobia

Migration Crisis – Modern Slavery

Italia e Libia, verso un nuovo equilibrio?

Negli ultimi mesi si è parlato molto, e con poca chiarezza, di un possibile intervento militare contro l’IS in Libia. L’Italia, inizialmente immaginata dagli Stati Uniti a capo di una coalizione Occidentale, per lungo tempo non ha preso chiare posizioni su un futuro intervento.Le ultime notizie sembrano smentire un futuro ritorno in Libia da una possibile coalizione occidentale per ragioni politiche, di sicurezza, e tattiche. Al contrario si può notare una nuova attenzione da parte dell’occidente agli sviluppi sul lungo termine nella regione e alla necessità in Libia di maggiore stabilità politica.

Nel dicembre 2015 il Consiglio di Sicurezza aveva supportato la creazione di un nuovo governo Libico con sede a Tripoli. Ma, nonostante il sostegno a livello internazionale, l’amministrazione di Al Sarraj ha dovuto confrontarsi per il controllo del paese con i due governi rivali, a Tripoli e Tobruk, e, soprattutto, con le centinaia di milizie locali. L’Italia, durante le discussioni su un possibile intervento nei primi mesi del governo Al Sarraj, ha dato estrema importanza alla rischiosa frammentazione politica Libica. In un primo momento la condizione posta dall’Italia per un eventuale azione è stata la presenza di un governo di unità nazionale in Libia in grado di approvare, congiuntamente con il Consiglio di Sicurezza, l’eventuale intervento Italiano. Tali considerazioni sottolineano le lezioni imparate dai passati interventi in Medio Oriente e la voglia in Italia di seguire la legge internazionale, muovendosi con il supporto internazionale e locale.

Successivamente, la decisione di Al Sarraj a luglio di non chiedere il supporto di truppe estere contro l’IS indica nuove possibilità diplomatiche tra il Nord Africa e l’Occidente. L’IS non ha la capacità di impadronirsi di una zona estesa in Libia e, al momento, un intervento sarebbe precoce. Inoltre, a differenza di quanto precedentemente deciso ed attuato in Iraq e Siria, la consapevolezza che l’IS non possa essere sconfitto senza un forte e legittimo governo locale ha guidato le decisioni Italiane. L’interesse mostrato dall’Italia verso le scelte del governo locale è un importante precedente per le future scelte politiche e militari, in quanto si è posta attenzione alla ricostruzione e alle scelte del governo, presupposto per la creazione di una stabilità interna.

Shock continues as circumstances around the Giulio Regeni atrocity unfold

Contribution by Ashley Forbes

Public outrage continues to soar over the mysterious death of Italian student Giulio Regeni, whose mangled body was discovered last Wednesday on an Egyptian roadside. New information has emerged regarding Mr. Regini’s involvement with a left-wing Italian newspaper, Il Manifesto. The newspaper published an article last Friday claiming that weeks before his death, the student wrote an article for their paper under a pseudonym, criticising Egyptian President el-Sisi.

Over the years, foreigners, and even locals, who dare to express opinions in opposition to the ideas of the Egyptian government tend to find themselves imprisoned, tortured, and sometimes dead. Usually, those detained find themselves in jail or in a courtroom. This begs the question: why wasn’t Mr. Regeni jailed instead of tortured to death? The barbaric nature in which Mr. Regeni was found indicates that his death was no accident. However, even if he was writing for Il Manifesto, and even if the Egyptian government took issue with his opinions, why was he not brought in for questioning, or given his time in court? This occurrence undoubtedly heightens security risks for all foreigners travelling to Egypt. If a PhD student can end up brutally tortured to death for simply wanting to expand his academic background through field research, then are any of us really safe anymore?

In memory of Giulio Regeni

Giulio Regeni, a PhD student at the University of Cambridge, was a visiting scholar at the American University in Cairo, researching on trade unions and labour rights in post-Mubarak Egypt. He was of Italian origin, but had an international background which made him a citizen of the world. On the 25^th January, the anniversary of the 2011 uprising, Giulio was supposed to meet his friends near Tahrir square. He never got there. His body was found five days later in a ditch, half-naked from the waist down, with clear signs of torture (stab wounds, cigarette burns, mutilation): evidence of what was a non-accidental, slow death.

***

As the Italian and Egyptian authorities proceed with a supposedly joint investigation, we cannot help but wonder: How is this possible? How can we accept this horror? Giulio had moved to Egypt for academic purposes, doing research on the field on what was his expertise. The circumstances of his murder suggest that he was killed because of his ideas, that is, because of his decision to pursue his studies even if that meant living in a difficult environment.

As Angelo Martelli, PhD student at the London School of Economics, powerfully commented, “Giulio has paid the price of someone who believed that knowledge has no borders and that academic research in order to flourish needs to be truly free. (..) With Giulio’s murder academic research has also been assassinated, because we are depriving academia of its core idea of universitas, of a community of scholars without borders, where minds are challenged to discover new knowledge and contribute to the welfare of a broader society. A community where freedom of thought is elevated to its highest level without the fear of being persecuted for your ideas or discriminated on the basis of culture, religion or ethnicity. (…) Giulio was an example of a young free man who does not give up, who follows his instinct for knowledge and finds his sense of fulfilment by contributing with his research work.”

Now not only do we find this terrible loss hard to process, but we are more than concerned about the ramifications this event has in terms of freedom of movement, freedom of thought, freedom of expression. As The Guardian recalls, Giulio’s death ‘is not the first incident of a foreign national dying in suspicious  circumstances on Egyptian soil’. Thus my first appeal goes to Egypt to provide better security for its national and international citizens. But what if, as many have suggested, the Egyptian government or its institutions are to some extent responsible for this death? Should that be the case, then the same appeal goes to the international community: we cannot let our people be killed in such a dramatic and terrible way. If it is true that pursuing one’s research in sensible topics may carry the risk of travelling to unsafe areas, this cannot entail torture and death. It is simply not acceptable.

Giulio, we will remember you as a person who followed his dreams and interests and was not afraid of doing that, raising up your voice in search for a deeper knowledge. At the same time, as we keep on affirming, when terrorism and extremism bring horror and death, this tragic event should not represent an obstacle to those of us willing to explore the world and continue our work, whether it is for academic purposes or not.

We believe in freedom, and we want justice.