If media attention is the measure, some civilian deaths are less tragic than others. Six years on and the three thousand killed in the attacks on the world trade centre continue to generate more breast-beating than the million subsequent deaths in Iraq. While many commentators still shoulder unspeakable pain and indignation about the former event, little is said about this far larger human catastrophe.
No doubt many would retort that the deaths in Iraq are not the responsibility of the invaders but of the same Islamic fundamentalists that perpetrated 911. Regardless of the curiosity of this claim it still doesn’t answer for the disparity of remorse. If both 911 and the million dead in Iraq really are the fault of Islamic militants why is the second toll less shocking and less worthy of comment than the first?
It could just be racism – most mainstream commentators don’t empathise with these foreigners like they do with the American kind. But things are probably more complex. I suspect the key difference is that they still see the invasion of Iraq as a righteous act. Whereas the slaughter in the twin towers was plain evil, the ongoing slaughter in Iraq is an unfortunate consequence of good intent. Even with a death-toll three-hundred-times greater than 911 the motive behind the invasion renders it the lesser of the two evils.
It’s a bizarre view but not unfamiliar. As educated westerners we are trained to suspend the humanity of certain humans when a supposedly higher cause is at stake: We had to shoot one passenger to save the others (even when it’s the wrong man); Bombing Hiroshima and Dresden actually saved lives in the long run; Flattening Cambodia was necessary to free Asia from communism.
Aside from of the veracity of these claims it is interesting to note the transformation they bring about in the victim. It’s as though a switch is thrown, transforming them from human to statistic, person to unperson. All the joy, sadness, ambition, hope, birth, marriage and death that make up a normal human life are snuffed-out by the higher motive.
While a nod to the tragic side of such deaths is permitted, it must remain a nod. Any sustained attempt to resurrect the lives of those transformed from humans into gaming chips will be attacked as treachery. You can describe the suffering in Coventry or the East-end of London in fine detail. Every midnight stroll to the bomb-shelter, every anecdote about rationing or discovery of a neighbour’s disembodied head – all can be combined to create real humans, true people capable of suffering. No external references necessary, context would be perverse. Just real people enduring perpetual fear, death and destruction, none of it of their own making.
But try the same with the civilians of Dresden or Berlin you will swiftly find yourself driven from the subject. You’ll find yourself referred to Auschwitz, Dunkirk and the treachery at Munich. With enemy dead context is everything, their lives nothing. Such people must be switched off if you are to remain a patriot. They can only be allowed to exist as data.
Second part in progress…
