During the 8-day Israeli shelling of Gaza, some of the Facebook statuses of my friends turned from witty comments on – or complaints of – everyday occurrences to something more global and definitely more concerning. “<…> [S]o little appreciation of human life <…>”, “<…> need to stop the violence<…>”, or simply “Where is this world going?” type of questions that, although cannot be answered, can nonetheless stir some public or private debates. It is not just Gaza: there are also car bombs in Iraq, appalling situation of Syrian refugees, church attacks in Nigeria, and Uganda about to pass its so-called anti-homosexuality bill.
What always surprises me is this seemingly innocent – and at first glance incredibly politically correct – tendency for some people to start any kind of political discussions with “I really don’t want to take sides…” What is interesting in this case is that there is no “but” following this clause. Let’s not get into political debates, because, well…they are political! Yet are they really?
This question seems a bit weird, I reckon. How can discussing Israeli shelling of Gaza, for instance, not be political? I will argue that if a “political” debate is indeed based on public reason (reason, as not related to any specific religion or a philosophical doctrine) it can be way less politicized as it might appear. Let’s take the same shelling of Gaza as an example. “I don’t support any side…”, “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like what any of the sides are doing…”, “Who can really say who is right here?”, etc. As soon as one says that what Israel doing is unacceptable, someone throws “so you think that Hamas has its right to kill Israeli kids with their attacks?” accusation and…the discussion loses its reasonable background right away. I will accuse you of saying horrendous things despite the fact that you did not say them, neither did you imply them. This automatically closes all the doors to what I would like to precisely talk about now: universal principles.
Let me put them in painfully simple examples, employing a rather limited number of adjectives. It is bad to shoot rockets into a city. It is also bad to bomb densely populated territories. It is bad to shell civilian objects. It is bad to target foreign press headquarters. It is not nice to build huge walls and force people out of their homes. It is bad for kids to live in traumatizing conditions. It is bad to live in a territory that is fenced and controlled by a foreign power. It is bad for people to have their IDs checked multiple times on the way to the hospital. It is sad when kids, while answering a question for a survey of one request they would like to see fulfilled, say that request is a drink of clean water in the morning.
Why, if all that sounds so appallingly simple, should we care which government does this onto which people? Why all of the sudden, who does what becomes so extremely important that we either stop agreeing with these statements or simply use our “I refuse to take sides” card? It is precisely this weird phenomenon that politicizes many debates, it seems.Naturally, who does what also needs the why dimension, but to disagree on the previously mentioned statements is preventing that dimension from being discussed.
(And let’s not even get into “you don’t like what the government is doing, you must be anti-[insert nationality]” discussion, I really do not think CEU students would fall for something as cheap.)
It is, once again, so strange to hear even political science students say “I don’t want to take sides”. I do not perceive this as some sort of educational accomplishment: I myself come from that educational background (I also come from the background of a human being, just for the record). If knowledge and understanding – to some extent – of a subject does not allow you to take sides, what does?
Admittedly, I do not have strong opinions on every affair: in order to take sides on certain issues it is without a doubt useful to first gain some knowledge about them. However, let’s not forget Human Rights are not a matter of opinion.
This week, among other things, is a part of 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence global campaign. No taking sides on this one either? Facebook will tell.
Justina Poskeviciute
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