At this months Labor Party sub-branch meeting I had the opportunity to listen to the story of one of the ‘Human Shields’ during the invasion and occupation of Iraq. I thought it would be a good opportunity to try an understand what motivated some people to put their lives at risk. I don’t particularly like the term ‘Human Shield’. Most of those who went were not silly enough to place themselves in the line of fire or in the path of a tank or APC. Perhaps a word like ‘witness’ might have been a better way of defining yourself.
There was nothing fanatical about her. I thought that she was driven to her actions by her heart more than her head. Unlike me, who would have been paralysed by my doubts and uncertainties, this human shield probably felt it was more important to get down to action. Never the less, I thought that her views were apologetic about the Baath Regime.
There is always the covering rider ‘I don’t support Saddam’. Yet in her conversation there was not a word of criticism, not a reflection about the brutality of the regime. I only noted praise for the educational achievements of the regime.
The invasion of Iraq has been a difficult dilemma for those of us on the left. I recently heard a British journalist on Late Night Live describe this dilemma (in the left) as a conflict between the ‘anti-fascists’ and the ‘anti-colonialist’ left. I thought this was a very useful distinction. Most people don’t only associate with one or another tendency. We have these two tendencies working within our mental framework. For those on the left who think (there are, as in all political tendencies, those who don’t think) these two tendencies generate the mental conversation about the invasion of Iraq.
Despite my deep desire to see the Baath regime in Iraq destroyed, in the end I supported the anti-war movement because of my concerns about the way in which Washington’s imperial agenda would affect international politics. Even if one were to accept the claim by the Bush, Blair and Howard administrations that there is no colonial agenda, colonialism may be the outcome of this invasion.
I suppose it would have been difficult to go to Iraq during the invasion if one had major doubts about the regime in power. Never the less, I would have thought that someone who would place their life at risk would have taken the trouble to research the issue and find out what had gone on there and understand how we found ourselves at this historical conjuncture.
In the 1970’s we on the left would pride ourselves on the idea that we combined political action with a deep and abiding interest in reading history (and theory). Today, much of that had disappeared. I have noticed for many years now how many on the left are simply driven by their emotions (the politics of ‘feeling’). This unfortunate tendency has not been helped by the prevalence of ‘post-structuralist’ (or philosophical relativism) discourse among many intellectuals on the left, whose form of discourse is often incomprehensible, if not psychotic.
4:14:37 PM 
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