What is conscience? Is it something innate, or is it something that we acquire through education? There is fairly general agreement expressed in the well educated, liberal western democracies today, that conscience must be taught. Consider the child, and his learning process, the time it takes to comprehend the results of thoughtless action and their unintended consequences. By adulthood, most well-rounded humans have developed - or learned - a conscience, be it through family, church, school or community.
The question of conscience is one that many in the global village have been mulling over since war broke out - on the military battlefield as well as the ideological one. Millions are protesting the decision made by G.W. Bush and his allies to topple a truly oppresive, atrocious and inhuman regime in Iraq. The ones supporting the decision seem to remain, publicly at least, the silent majority.
What is evident, and will be even more so, the longer the so-called operation to bring - note, not return - freedom to Iraq dominates the media (which, as a business has little conscience) and the average person’s ability to think or react, is that true conscience plays little or no role in this conflict of words.
In the case of this conflict - fought with weapons, not words, - it is also difficult to take sides. Morally, war is repugnant and wrong, the last recourse after diplomacy has failed. The impotent, useless and now effectively truly neutered UN stood by when the communists took over China and North Korea and squelched the desire of nations to be free in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, closed their eyes during Afghanistan, still ignore Chechnya. Thus, those siding with Putin and his lot against America, arguing for the rule of international law as called for by empty resolutions that none dare enforce are either really blind, or even worse, ignorant to what really is taking place - either in Iraq or Chechnya.
True, the Bush administration lacks a degree of credibility today - choosing to attack Iraq, while providing only a muted response to continuing Russian atrocities in Chechnya. The Putin administration’s stand on Iraq is, however, incredibly hypocritical. Allegations exist that Russia has supplied weaponry to Saddam. Indeed, they are very credible - through Byelorussia and a lesser extent Ukraine, clandestine channels for Russian arms to the Middle East, one that was highly profitable during the Cold War, remain in operation while Putin claims otherwise.
But these are more hidden issues. Covert operations, sales of military secrets and weapons have been part of mankind’s treachery since antiquity. The overt issue that the average individual, safely glued to his Sony screen in the safety of Mittelkanada is concerned about has to do with morality, conscience as preached by the talking heads.
Conscience, however, once developed, cannot be bought, altered or sold. It can be hidden - for self-preservation - or it can be expressed out in the open, courageously. In recent history, the most remarkable expressions of conscience have come from dissidents fighting the Soviet or other communist ideological regimes and their rule of terror, the majority knowing the price of courage that they had to pay while demanding freedom.
Of all the views recently aired, perhaps none had the conscience, passion and intellect that was found in last week’s “Open Letter to President Bush”, written by Vladimir Bukovsky and Elena Bonner. The letter addressed both sides - the desire for freedom of the Iraqis, as well as the American realpolitik, that in so many ways enabled Osama bin-Laden to appear on the world stage, to America’s pain and surprise. It found wide distribution after being electronically published by frontpagemagazine.com on March 17.
Vladimir Bukovsky is a former Soviet dissident who spent twelve years in
Soviet prisons, labor camps and psychiatric hospitals for his fight for
freedom. Elena Bonner is also a former Soviet dissident, human rights activist and is the widow of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Andrei Sakharov. Their credentials are impeccable, their right to comment almost imperative in this case .
In their letter to Bush they rejected the logic of peace marchers, saying that the military action against dictator Saddam Hussein is long overdue. Their experience “under the no-less evil regime of the Soviet Union has taught [them] that freedom is one of the few things in this world worthy of fighting and dying for.”
Yet, they also ask: “Why is the U.S. Government not as smart as its weapons are? Why does it always make it so difficult to support it, even when it fights for a just and noble cause?” They attack US realpolitik, the partnerships that the US has maintained for economic interest with corrupt and abusive regimes, and ask, will the US ever learn the lessons of conscience in all partnerships, or “will it continue forever to build up new enemies while fighting present ones?”
The dissidents are bang-on. The US Army has long been the military manifestation of the good and the moral in major world conflicts, a fact that the French, for one, seem to have conveniently forgotten. Yet as the military Shaquille O’Neal on a world court of Bantu basketball players the US has made enemies, simply because they are the best and the biggest, and side with countries either because of guilt (Israel) or economics (China).
The philosopher Alec R. C. Duncan struggled to define moral obligation as part of conscience, agreeing with the Hobbesian view that without it life would indeed be “nasty, brutish, and short”. Duncan concluded that often moral obligation runs counter to our inclinations, and it is conscience that is key. Moral obligation cannot be proved - like anything else that is real, it is assumed to be a constant. In the present case, fence-sitting, as many European nations are doing is if not contemptible, then certainly wrong. Agree with Bush or not, agree with the pacifists and anti-war protesters or not, one thing is beyond dispute. Confusion over issues of conscience only plays into the hands of despots, and sadly, as history has shown, only force can overcome evil. In this one must side with Bukovsky and Bonner, not those deluded by ambiguous, self-serving and untested, never mind proven good intentions that pale beside the true ideology of tyranny, horror and evil as practised by Saddam and his publicly admitted role model, Jossif Stalin.
English leader: Entrenched on the freedom front (5)
Viimased kommentaarid
Kommentaarid on kirjutatud EWR lugejate poolt. Nende sisu ei pruugi ühtida EWR toimetuse seisukohtadega.
Tõnu, ma ei ole Teie arvamisega nõus. Iraak võib küll olla opressiivne aga võrreldes teiste Aasia riikidega see oli küll üks vabam. Iraaki kodanikud elasid hästi ja olid parema haridusega seal ümbruses. Hussein sai ka islamistidest jagu ja tõi Iraaki poliitilise stabiilsuse. Ainult pärast Kuveidi sõda läks see riik väga vaeseks sanktioonide tõttu. Mul on üllatuseks et üks eestlane saaks seda sõda toetada sest meile juhtus sama asi kui Nõukogude Liit tuli meid vabastama ja arvas et Eestis peaks olema regime change.
Sidewinder:
You suggest that I have forgotten about what my parents and grandparents have lived through?
That's simply not true and frankly you should be ashamed of yourself for suggesting it. You have no idea who my parents or grandparents are/were or what their lives were like. I suggest you not comment about things you know nothing about.
You say that I missed what you THINK was intended to be the point of the article. That's a little vague. Perhaps you could say what you THINK was the point of the article and why you think that I missed it.
You say that complaining is a democratic right - then turn around and take issue with me complaining. Do you think that I should have the right to say what I want but that I not use this right? Do you think that I should be free to say whatever I want just as long as I say the right things and support the right causes? I'm afraid that that's not democracy at all but it does sound rather a lot like totalitarianism.
You say that Iraq - Chechnya - issues, where both the US and russia are breaking laws are hard to comment on. I agree 100%. However, the fact that these are hard issues does not mean that we should not discuss them infact I believe that the opposite is true.
Elagu vabadus! Indeed. Let's not be content with the fact that we are free but make our goal freedom for everyone.
My apologies for criticizing what I see as inconsistencies in this article. I have great respect for the author, I think that he is a very good writer and that readers of this paper are lucky to have him as a contributor!
You suggest that I have forgotten about what my parents and grandparents have lived through?
That's simply not true and frankly you should be ashamed of yourself for suggesting it. You have no idea who my parents or grandparents are/were or what their lives were like. I suggest you not comment about things you know nothing about.
You say that I missed what you THINK was intended to be the point of the article. That's a little vague. Perhaps you could say what you THINK was the point of the article and why you think that I missed it.
You say that complaining is a democratic right - then turn around and take issue with me complaining. Do you think that I should have the right to say what I want but that I not use this right? Do you think that I should be free to say whatever I want just as long as I say the right things and support the right causes? I'm afraid that that's not democracy at all but it does sound rather a lot like totalitarianism.
You say that Iraq - Chechnya - issues, where both the US and russia are breaking laws are hard to comment on. I agree 100%. However, the fact that these are hard issues does not mean that we should not discuss them infact I believe that the opposite is true.
Elagu vabadus! Indeed. Let's not be content with the fact that we are free but make our goal freedom for everyone.
My apologies for criticizing what I see as inconsistencies in this article. I have great respect for the author, I think that he is a very good writer and that readers of this paper are lucky to have him as a contributor!
My opinion: The Western media is all about money. What is conscience against that? Who cares if they are doing right or wrong. Why waste time on stupid issues. Cowards are not always from Europe or from America. They maybe could be enjoying your house and you find out later.
Arvamus
TRENDING
