Only Good Guys Retaliate
Not currently accepting new applications for Good Guy programme.
Iran is looming. Not to mention threatening. It’s what Iran does, apparently.
The Guardian, still thought of as left-leaning for some reason (the bar for UK newspapers may now be as low as ‘doesn’t actively incite hate crimes’ but I have faith they’ll limbo under it eventually), tells us today that the ‘threat of Iran looms’ over a classic media euphemism: the ‘Middle East peace talks’.
The Middle East peace talks are, of course, an attempt to stop a military juggernaut (Israel) from slaughtering a trapped civilian population (the people of Gaza), now that the juggernaut has got a decent 40,000 kills under its genocidal belt. And the threat that is looming is an Iranian response to Israel assassinating a military/political opponent on Iranian soil.
Iran is being urged to show restraint, as it was when Israel bombed one of its diplomatic buildings in Syria. Iran not showing restraint is a threat to us all. Iran must be reasonable. Iran can’t do anything it wants. That’s reserved for Good Guys. That is reserved for ‘us’.
You know what I mean: not necessarily our country or even ‘our people’, but the allies, the sharers of culture, the characters who share a ‘clubhouse’ on the global stage. The people inside, whether we think of them as the wealthy North, the culturally similar West, the liberal democratic family or the Anglophone world, are Good Guys. They behave properly. We only act out of the best intentions. Other nations, outside our little house of goodness, can’t really be trusted to invade other countries, to effect regime change or even to defend themselves, unless we say it’s okay.
As US spokes-ghoul Matthew Miller put it when asked whether Iran had the right to respond: “The right is one question; what’s productive is another. And ultimately, we don’t think it’s productive or conducive to anyone’s interests, including Iran’s, to conduct further actions, be they retaliatory or not.”
It’s a nicely phrased response. Miller is a professional at justifying the unjustifiable at this point. It’s a threat, posed as an impartial and reasonable call for peace. Well done, Matty. Almost human.
Any response by Iran would, by the logic we are asked to swallow, be the source of the problem. The people who have been repeating the mantra for months (years, decades) that ‘Israel has the right to defend itself’ cannot bring themselves to afford this right to Iran, Lebanon (God forbid Palestine or her liberation movements) or anyone not in the Good Guy clubhouse.
And we are so used to this narrative, so guilty of dehumanising anyone not part of ‘our side’ that we automatically accept it. If Iran bombed a British embassy (or British Council) building in France tomorrow, or if North Korea executed a drone strike on a dissident in New York, many of us would find it perfectly reasonable for NATO (or any of the nations in the clubhouse) to respond.
Is that just because these countries, these victims, are not white? Because they are ‘not like us’ in religion, culture or politics? Or is it really as simple as the fact they are our opponents in global politics, the enemies of our rulers and betters (who know best about who deserves to die so we never need to question the killing)?
Whatever the reason, watch your response if Iran does respond.
Will you and I shake our heads at their lack of restraint? Will we ignore the provocation? The preceding violence?
Will we justify it by saying that Iran are the Bad Guys? I expect some people reading this will be shouting ‘Yes! Of Course! Look at how they behave, what they believe, who they back!’
To which I would say: take the plank out of your own eye, North America, Western Europe, and all those drinking G’nTs in the Good Guy clubhouse.
Have ‘we’ not backed death squad after death squad, tyrant after tyrant, over the years. Have we not been responsible for more invasions and civilian deaths (both directly and in the inevitable aftermath of our appalling ‘interventions’) during our lifetimes? Have we not assassinated our enemies on foreign soil with impunity and seen our economic interests overseas cause human misery on a massive scale?
Do we really think that we treat our own populations so much better than our enemies do that it justifies everything we do abroad? Are we sure?
Now, look. I’m not wanting Iran to retaliate. I think there is a solid chance that doing so could lead to a regional conflagration and even nuclear strikes. Even if the resulting carnage was ‘limited’ to Israel, Iran and their neighbours (and allies on both sides weren’t drawn in, like the empires in 1914 were), the human suffering would be incomprehensibly awful.
I just want us to be honest. To show some humility.
If we think we and our allies are allowed to do things (like defend ourselves or use any force necessary) and our enemies are not, just because we are the Good Guys, I think it’s probably useful to ask whether we actually are. Or ever were.
And it’s probably a good idea to ask, in the spirit of justice and not showing favouritism, if people living under a brutal occupation have the right to defend themselves. If people regularly bombed by a neighbouring country have the same moral rights in our vision of the world as we would were we the victims.
We can ask this without wanting violence. I think the best of us should abhor violence. But calling for non-violence on only one side is a sick parody of peacemaking, just as wanting stability while oppression persists is a travesty of justice.
And what of us specifically?
Christians may be tempted to invoke turning the other cheek at this point. And that is a noble sentiment. A beautiful and powerful idea, a core of what makes Christianity good. But is it really appropriate to demand it of others? Do we really think that’s what Christ meant: ‘If you can get someone to turn the other cheek, you can really beat the crap out of them whenever you want’?
If Iran chooses not to respond with the kind of violence Israel has been bathing its national conscience in, that will be a good thing. They will avoid that stain, at least.
But our leaders demanding or coercing that restraint and morality should be seen as what it is: the hypocrisy of the abuser. The sick logic of the crying bully.
Let’s pray for peace and for restraint. But let’s not allow our pacifism, our devotion to mercy, our righteous concern for all human life, to provide cover for monstrous delusions.
The looming shadow is too often shaped like our avowed allies. The threat to global peace is coming from inside the clubhouse.
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Re: last week’s mail
Like a chump last week, I left out a whole section about the ‘biological arguments’ in the insane trans-misogynist ‘debate’ around Olympic boxing. Subsequent interactions with readers made me think I should publish it. For what it’s worth (which may be very little), here’s the passage:
Ah, but this is different, you might say. Gender may be socially and personally constructed (it is), but men and women are binary at a biological level, and insisting on strong binaries in sport is reasonable, particularly as way of promoting safety.
Sorry, bud (or buddette / enby buddleia). No.
We are talking about a situation where natural physical advantages are not just regularly but universally accepted – unless the person benefitting is a woman of colour. Specifically, the JK and people who need to STFU crew are concerned about a ‘hit people in the face competition’ where someone got upset because her opponent was *checks notes…* really good at hitting her in the face.
If Khelif has a natural advantage in hitting people in the face, it has not been proven and even the disreputable IBA has produced no evidence to this effect.
BUT. Let’s say she does. So what?
In swimming, a significant physical advantage would be quick recovery time through producing less lactic acid than a competitor (the advantage of Michael Phelps). In cycling, having an unusually large lung capacity would really put you ahead of the field (the advantage of Miguel Induráin). In basketball, a real help would be a height that got you closer to the hoop (the advantage of… *gestures at all the basketball players*). And even these advantages do not make anyone invincible. Just genetically lucky.
The fact you think a physical advantage a woman hypothetically might have must mean she’s a man displays breathtaking misogyny. And since this almost always is applied to women of colour, I’m calling racism too.
The key fact here is that high level sport hasn’t been about ordinary people with ordinary bodies for a very long time.
But let’s put that aside so we can talk about what you want to: an imaginary world split into ‘boys’ and ‘girls’ who are easily and rigidly defined in an objective way.
While you may be super proud of mastering (or mistressing / madaming) biology in primary or middle school, it turns out that the whole picture is significantly more complex than xx = female and xy = male. Hormones and biochemicals are similarly complicated.
Asserting the simplistic categories you were taught before you learned how to work a washing machine as if they are the pinnacle of scientific knowledge is not the flex you think it is. Remember, you were also taught about gravity. And the positive impacts of the British Empire. As a grown-up, you really do need to be able to encounter complexity without bursting into tears or, if you’re a billionaire writer or her simp, attacking strangers.
In the world of sport and the world generally, men, women and intersex folks come in a dazzling variety of chromosomal, hormonal and phenotypic points on a spectrum or series of spectrums (spectra? spectacles?). There are few neat lines delineating them aside from the ones we choose to give significance. And ignoring this will lead you to making a fool of yourself like JK and the TERF Squad. Worse, it will make you say unkind things to people for literally being themselves and doing their jobs.
But set aside the biological and pugilistic realities. Some of us just naturally look less or more masculine or feminine. And any boundary line you draw will be arbitrary. And demanding to look up women’s skirts every time you’re confused is not just dumb, it’s creepy as hell.
Ohai. Nice of you to make it all the way to the bottom. Weird to be writing so regularly again. But nice. Or at least feels necessary, given the huge volume of right-wing takes dominating Christian media spaces. Reaching a few hundred people with these newsletters isn’t going to fix the world, but hopefully it makes some of us feel less alone. I know it does that for me. Anyway, I hope you have a really nice weekend. Do something good for you and for someone else. And try not to attack anyone. xoxo.