PASSAGE C
Is it ever justified to use violence to prevent or to reduce
violence? Are there circumstances in which the creation, or defense, of
democracy should be attempted by violent means? More generally, is it plausible
to speak of a democratic ethic of violence?
Such questions are back on the political agenda, in no small
measure because even though all wars are nasty, some wars- uncivil wars like
those in southern Sudan and Chechnya, Liberia and the Lebanon- have proved to
be nastier than most. Marked by reckless and random killing without either
mercy or Ruth, they produce a trail of destructive effects that ripple through
the wider world. Uncivil wars show just how easily collective strife can erupt
in otherwise peaceful and vibrant societies with an impressive history of
viable pluralism and how this strife can degenerate into a random and reckless
violence that has a logic all of its own. And, the darkest point of all,
uncivil wars show how difficult it is to define and master the arts of social pacification
and democracy- building. Once the unrestricted killing of anybody who can be
harmed and killed has broken out.
If uncivil wars were confined to specific zones of the earth,
always from the hubs ad spokes of the globalizing world as we know, it they
would be of marginal interest to most people. But uncivil wars are not like
that. They are not easily contained within geographic bounds. Uncivil wars are
hunting and training grounds for gun-runners, mercenaries, profiteers and
terrorists who operate on a global scale. Refugees stream from their infected
battle zones, businesses disinvest from their wrecked economies; other
non-governmental organizations are also forced to escape their clutches. Represented to global audiences by news media
24 hours a day, all these effects help to explain why only the blind or
callous, or foolish still regard them as far-away conflicts in far-away lands,
and why military humanitarian ‘ intervention and hence post-war reconstruction
have become chronic global problems of our time.
Intervention and post-war reconstruction are also now among
the top items of the global political agenda, thanks to the latest fashions in
military strategy. For the time being, the dominant pattern of foreign
intervention has been set. Those carried out by American forces in Iraq,
Somalia, Afghanistan and Kosovo resemble hit-and-run affairs. Like metal hammer
that pounds a wooden stake into the earth, their aim is to beat the enemy into
submission, in the expectation that the earthly elements of time will dissolve
the animosity that originally nurtured the local conflict. Such intervention
bears a strange resemblance to nomads’ strikes against their adversaries. Armed
to the teeth, the attackers travel light,
they rely on their ability to swoop down on their victims, using weapons like
stealth bombers and cruise missiles- the contemporary equivalent of nineteenth
century gunboats – to inflict the maximum harms, then to retreat, all the while
supposing that the violated will not or cannot retaliate.
Measured in farms of the power to build democratic
institutions and peaceful ways of life, this American – style or Washington
backed strategy of quick intervention is deeply flawed. With the outbreak of ‘peace’
US troops in Baghdad found themselves forced to conduct high- alert patrols through
the streets dressed in full combat gear, pistols in hand. Every short-term
occupier was potentially a target, including the young American military
officers- in the absence of broad global support for the invasion – Which had
been left to organize schools, purity drinking water, repair power plants and
pick up the rubbish, often without knowing what they were doing. On democratic
grounds, American –style military intervention is also easy to shame. The
disproportion between military casualties and the violence heaped upon
civilians is staggering. So high are the levels of protection of the invading
armies that their violence is felt by observers and victims alike to have a
terrorist quality about it.
There is another difficulty; the power to force others into
submission does not translate spontaneously into the power of the survivors to
form stable democratic governments and law-enforced civil societies. The
psychic traumas, damaged tissues of sociability and ecological and
infrastructural damage inflicted by both the war of intervention and all the
senseless sanctification of cruelty that came before it are left untreated. In
some quarters of the victors’ camp, nobody gives a damn about that; when the
job is done, the vanquished are tacitly written off (as Kipling once put it) as
‘lesser breeds without the Law.’ From the standpoint of the survivors on the
ground, however, things look rather different. In the aftermath of uncivil war
and outside military intervention, it is as if the worldly power to act stops
flowing through people’s veins. The content of their worlds disintegrates.
People feel numbed. They suffer muted anguish and pain. Reckless,
indiscriminate killing saps people’s trust in themselves and others; it
mutilates their capacity for self- organization ; t frustrates their ability to
make short term decisions and long- term plans through households,
partnerships, neighborhoods and other social associations and networks.
Efforts to build or re-build civil society out of the ruins
of war start from this point, so also do the difficulties. The crafting of
peaceful social relations is undoubtedly an essential antidote to the ruins
left behind by uncivil war. Yet talk of the need for a civil society is no all-
purpose magic wand. New constitutions and some rudiments of government can be
created within a few months. Standing armies take longer to form, perhaps two
or three years, but not quite as long as viable market institutions, which take
at least a decade. The most arduous civil society institution, like
professional associations, trade unions, neighboourhood organizations and self-
help and civil liberties networks- none of which resemble naturally occurring
substances.
The delicate resource called civility cannot be agreed and written
by means of round- table meetings, constitutional conventions, truth
commissions or covenants (like the 1989 Tariff Accord that is credited with
marking the rebirth of the Lebanese republic). Civility can neither be planned
not legislated from above, nor produced though rational agreement and public
controversy. Nor can it be produced like pizzas and fast foods, or like
automobiles or microchips, on assembly lines. It takes time to grow.
13.
The author’s tone in the sentence, “with the outbreak of ‘ peace’ ….. pistols
in hands”, can be best described as
A.
sarcastic.
B.
Ironic.
C.
supercilious.
D.
cynical.
14. According
to the passage, American-style interventions seem like terrorist acts due to
the
A. large –scale loss of civilian lives and property.
B. brutal use of deadly weapons.
C. Enormous
protection that the forces enjoy even as they attack unarmed civilians.
D. fear psychosis that they cause.
15. In the statement, “ in some
quarters of the victors’ camp, nobody gives a damn about that, “ what does
“that’ stand for?
A.
Psychic traumas that people suffer.
B. Infrastructural and environmental damage.
C.
healing the psychological wounds suffered by the victims.
D. The restoration process.
Answer:
