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In a few weeks, the horrifying events in Paris last Friday will fade. They will become absorbed into the fabric of an increasingly hostile world. We will adjust. The Russian Metrojet, blown out of the sky at the end of October and killing all 224 people onboard, is already a faint memory. If we were ever conscious of the bombing in Beirut, killing 40, just a few days before blasts and gunfire ripped apart Paris, this memory has now been flung to the farthest reaches of our consciousness. We pack up these images and put them far away, and in time, we hope, forget how brutal we humans can be to one another. It is how we cope. How we process these horrors.
It is worrying, however, when faced with repeated atrocities, how quickly our outrage morphs into a sense of helplessness. On the extremes, manic voices prescribe either big, high walls or indiscriminate bombing of an enemy for whom we can’t even agree upon a common name (ISIS, ISIL, IS or Daesh. Or is it Bashar al- Assad or al Qaeda?). The French, acting out of blind anger, have opted for the latter. Predictably, the images of innocent civilians will soon flow out from under the rubble wreaked by hundreds of munitions France is hurling into IS strongholds this week. Just as predictably, the world will recoil in dismay— urging France to relent.
We will resolve that this problem is too hard. We will try to go about our business. After all, American Thanksgiving is coming. So too are the Black Friday sales. We will retreat into the smallness of our lives— little more than squirrels gathering and storing nuts.
We will continue to do this until we can look away no longer. By then, of course, it will be much too late. We’ve been here before. Done this all before. Will do it all again.
Avner Mandelman is an Israeli-born money manager in Toronto. He writes occasionally in the Globe and Mail. Mostly about where and why he invests, but not always. I find him to be an astute, if somewhat pessimistic, observer of humans.
A decade and a half ago, Mandelman saw all this playing out before us now. Fifteen years ago he predicted the long and painful deleveraging of corporate and government balance sheets, the subsequent slowdown in the global economy and the pain economic stagnation would inflict upon workers and savers alike. He predicted western economies would respond by looking inward— abandoning those outside their nation states to look after their own. The world’s problems were too complicated. Too hard. And not ours.
A student of history, he understood, that left undefended, values we hold as fundamental, irreducible, bedrock stuff, would come under attack—bit by bit in far-flung corners of the world. But that eventually, those with a different set of human values would seek to impose their views on a larger battlefield. He knew this because it has happened over, and over, and over again.
So it was eerily troubling to observe in 2009 when millions of Iranians took to the streets of Tehran and other cities, demanding democratic reform and basic human rights. Ordinary Iranians pleaded for our help. We in the West sat quietly. Minding our own business. It was an internal matter. We would only make matters worse.
In a narrow sense, that fear was likely justified. Dozens were killed in the aftermath, thousands arrested, many tortured and raped in prison, and the Iranian government quelled the revolt. It is easily imagined that many more folks would have become casualties had the West intervened. But it was the message sent by the West’s indifference that would prove to be the most destructive outcome of that conflict.
Suddenly it was clear, there were hard, geographic limits to our belief in the values of liberty, justice and life. Thugs like Bashar al- Assad saw this weakening of the West’s resolve as an opportunity. That is what despots do best.
He and his dad had had a long track record of violently suppressing the aspirations of Syria’s people. Now with the risk of western retribution muted, he was free to put order back into his fraying country.
So we stood by as the death toll rose. Slowly at first. 7,841 died in the first year. It was clear the West weren’t going to interfere. Nearly 50,000 died the next year. In 2013, he turned to gas attacks and barrel bombs to hasten the pace of murder. 73,447 were killed that year.
Earlier, U.S. President Barrack Obama had warned al- Assad not to gas his own people—that there would be a powerful American and global response if he did. Al- Assad called his bluff—poisoning at least 1,700 children, women and men in Ghoutta in the early hours of a Wednesday morning in August.
There were stern rebukes from Obama and other western leaders—but no action. So the killing has continued, spawning terrible and monstrous forces in the region. Millions have been displaced from their homes.
We are confused, and sometimes misled, by cartoon images of good and bad. We believe, because we want and need to believe, that if we kill or imprison enough bad people we will restore peace and equanimity. It all rather misses the point.
When Omar Mostefei left his home in Brussels last week, strapped on a vest of explosives and later triggered it in a crowded stadium in Paris, it wasn’t the act of an deranged madman—but rather the expression of certain set of values. We don’t recognize these values— nor should we. And to be absolutely clear on this point, his religion doesn’t recognize these values either. But in a vacuum of order, the most belligerent and ruthless values rise to the top. And they dominate.
It is here that we must draw a line. And the line must mean something. We must be capable, as a communicative species, to draw up a short list of values we can agree upon, that are irreducible and non-negotiable. The right to life, ability to live freely and to access justice, basic education and health care come to mind as belonging on this list. But first we must agree that we can do this and begin working toward it. And with steely resolve, vow to uphold these values wherever in the world they are violated.
As hard as this sounds, we now know the heavy cost of focusing inward. We can look away from travesties raining down on foreign civilians for a while—but not forever. Some of course, will wear themselves out, or overreach and fall without outside intervention. But others will take their place—emboldened by the inaction of a complacent and distracted global community.
Mandelman isn’t hopeful. It’s not that we don’t learn from history—but rather that we believe we live in special times. That this time it will be different. That this time our cumulative wisdom will enable us to avoid calamity.
We have an overdeveloped confidence, I think, in our species’ cleverness—that in our own personal 75 years, human existence reached the zenith of knowledge and insight. On our watch.
If the events of Paris are to have lasting significance let us begin talking about that list of common human values and how we intend to uphold them.
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