In These New Times

Cailean Bochanan

25th September, 2011

The whole world has agreed not to talk about NATO’s Libyan campaign. What does this resounding silence mean? Is everything now resolved? Have “the last remnants” of the “Gaddafi regime” now been wiped out? Has every last Libyan, to use David Cameron’s words, now been “protected”. Or have we so distorted language and so twisted meanings that there is no longer any point in reverting to the use of language. Dumber than dogs we bomb on- that evidently is the only way we can express ourselves. Human discourse reduced to a series of explosions of varying pitch and intensity.

What the silence means is complicity. Everyone with the notable exception of Chavez and his comrades in ALBA has gone along with this misguided and failed crusade. What can they do now but contemplate the result of their handiwork: the death, the destruction of city after city, the destruction of an entire nation. What can those who recognised the bandits of the TNC say now that their inability either to form a government or to control even Tripoli is patent? What can the leftists and progressives who celebrated “the fall of Gaddafi” say now he leads the brave resistance to NATO and Al Qaeda terror. What can the peace activists who won’t fight war say? Is this the Islamic awakening or is it Erdogan’s secular model? Is this the liberal’s democratic dream- the projection of our western values onto the dark continent. Are we the light of the world, the way and the truth? Or is it some kind of death cult that a few haven’t yet been introduce to.

But maybe we should welcome the silence. Let them forever hold their peace until a new a voice of sanity emerges from those who have not as yet had a voice.