EDGES MAGAZINE Issue 28

January 2002

THE CASUALTIES OF WAR

   

Father Jim McCartney focuses on the situation in Afghanistan and relates its effects on marginalized communities in the UK

 
 


Mary Robinson the United Nations Commissioner for human rights has uttered words for global reflection. In her statement recently she said the threat of terrorism should not be an excuse for any government to stomp on individual rights. In her statement to the U.N. General Assembly she said “the best tribute we can pay to the victims of terrorism and their grieving families and friends is to ensure that justice and not revenge, is served.” The international media are keeping the global conscience alive as we see on our television screens Afghan refugees salvaging their belongings, emerging from their shelters of plastic sheets full of mud and in a desperate state of hopelessness. Before the U.S. military raids, Afghanistan was already suffering humanitarian crises where millions of people faced starvation and homelessness. Such people are economically poor, educationally illiterate and politically powerless.

Recently I met with a family from Afghanistan who fled their homeland eighteen months ago. They are now living here in the UK after claiming asylum. Tamin is married with three children. He looks upon the Taleban as a political cult who have invaded his country and starved the indigenous people. He tells me how the Taleban have destroyed the economy and how the soil is littered with land mines. Although I have never been to Afghanistan my trip to India last year gave me first hand experience of real poverty. As the Director of a Charity working with poverty in the UK nothing could compare with the dire poverty of a developing nation. I witnessed thousands of people living beneath the filth and garbage in the slum area of Yamuna Pushta scattered within the narrow lanes with its open drains and stench of human existence. Yet Afghanistan is much worse. What is unfolding is a desperate people caught between a war and a natural disaster. Journalists are being told of families walking across the desert for ten days and more as they flee the crushing drought. The Taleban have inflicted tremendous hardship on its people. The winter of 1997-98 with heavy snowfall followed by flash floods in the spring destroyed farmland and killed sheep and donkeys necessary for survival, making the situation even worse.

Afghanistan has a long history of invasions and wars. Alexander the Great invaded this region in 330-327 A.D. Over the centuries there has been a variety of conquests between the Muslims and Arabs. However, from a contemporary point of view the last twenty years have left its mark on the Afgan people. The whole infrastructure of Afghanistan has been severely damaged during the Soviet era when houses, schools and hospitals were left in a state of rubble and have never been rebuilt. The Afghan people have become the causalities of war for the last two decades.

Xenophobia continues to attract certain groups within the global family. The word, which comes from the Greek “xenos” meaning strange or foreign, and “phobia” meaning dread or horror, has become the friend of those who reject the human rights of each and every individual. Intolerance and racial bigotry is a destructive force that can create tensions in local communities. Scotland’s leading police forces have admitted that racist attacks have increased in the wake of the terrorist attack on America. In Glasgow Asian Shopkeepers have expressed fear as they suffer daily abuse and verbal intimidation and that is just from their customers. Syed Jaffi lives on the southside of Glasgow; he is a successful businessman who owns a grocery store and two corner shops. He says that since the attacks on America his windows have been smashed. His building was also petrol bombed but luckily, no one was hurt. Some senior Police Officers in Scotland also agree that in recent weeks there has been a marked increase in racial attacks. The Chief Constable of Strathclyde Willie Rae, told the Scotsman recently that Asians, particularly, shopkeepers have become the victims of racial abuse. Thankfully, south of the border, the situation is healthier. Certainly, here in Lancashire, there may have been some isolated events but nothing as severe as Glasgow’s problems.

Just as the Muslim community of Glasgow feels vulnerable so do the Christian community of Bahawalpur in Pakistan. In recent weeks we have seen the brutal killing of eighteen people gathered in their church for worship. This is another reminder how innocent people become the victims of wicked and depraved mentalities. People manipulated by the terrorist cause have carried out this harrowing and appalling activity. Yet again it is the death of the innocent. As the war against terror continues we also must not also fall into the trap of becoming the terrorist ourselves. US bombs, Taliban and Northern Alliance attacks have left their scares on the innocent people of Afghanistan. On our television screens we have seen mothers grieving for their dead children. Equally, children scream in despair as they suffer the loss of limbs. A recent article in the Times gave prominence to a call from the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund for the U.S. and Britain to stop using cluster bombs in Afghanistan, because of the serious long-term threat to civilians. Such bombs are being used against the Taliban defensive lines but at times they can go astray and leave dangerous unexploded particles of bombs that can kill civilians months and years later.

The Anne Frank Education Trust was launched here in the UK in 1991 as a sister organisation of the Anne Frank House Amsterdam. This multi-faith educational charity continues to carry out the wishes of Otto Frank, that his daughter’s diary be used as a tool for educating people against racism and prejudice. The dairy speaks of the psychological effects of living in hiding. Two weeks before the occupants of the hiding place were arrested and deported to Auschwitz, Anne wrote that she had not lost all her ideals while living through her captivity. In spite of everything she believed people are really good at heart. In places like Belfast, Palestine, Chechenia, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Israel, Pakistan, it is so easy to lose sight of this fact. The verbal abuse the intimidation, the prejudice, the racist remarks, the fundamentalist views, become the devices that lead to the bombs. When we get to this stage we face the temptation of losing our rational thinking as we become absorbed by the desire to win. Sensible and intelligent thinking is needed for us to say enough is enough. Let’s hope we will hear those words soon.

 

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