The Rhetoric of Hope

I wrote before that I'm a news junkie, and the news these days is downright scary. I find myself asking the question 'why?' a lot when I watch things like CNN, the BBC, or even CBC Newsworld. The big one for me right now is: Why does it seem like our actions in the Middle East bring nothing but suffering? I know, I know, the question is incredibly subjective, and you could blame it on a lot of things... But why? It always comes back around to that crazy-making question.

As much as it pains me to admit this, I was a staunch supporter of the Canadian government's decision to send troops to Afghanistan, and not Iraq, but with the news item recently about civilians getting caught in Canada's crossfire, I have begun to wonder if maybe things aren't getting too hot to handle over there. The tipping point for me was the unit's commander telling the press that it wasn't their fault, it's the Taliban's fault. In all fairness, that unit was under fire, and I can't even imagine the stress that they must have been under. The fact is, it could have been a whole lot worse. Is it unreasonable of me to ask one thing; that we say that we screwed up and are really sorry? When we start looking to assign blame on others for our failings, we risk tainting our every effort in any direction thereafter. Why not admit our wrongs and ask for - if not forgiveness - then at least understanding. Surely that would not be too hard?

A lot of people ask why the people of the Middle East hate us so much. Well... they don't. By and large the people of the Middle East are just about the most generous, friendly and compassionate people on the planet; they treat their guests with great kindness and have a strong sense of community. This is probably why they have endured so much in the last thousand years, and yet have prospered. Until now. Up until now they have had one thing that has allowed them to thrive - not just to survive. That one thing was hope. Hope that if we were to come - as in Iraq - that we would give them freedom from fear. Hope that the quality of their lives would improve. Hope for a bright future for their generations as yet unborn. Hope that tomorrow they would look out on a better, more tolerant, world.

Instead, we gave them rhetoric. A patronizing 'father knows best, so run along and play' rhetoric that was used to cover for our cynicism, imperialism, and worst of all: Greed. And the people we said we wanted to save saw right through it.

I no longer want to hear the rhetoric of hope, I want to see its reality.