Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Valori universali e tribali: Lettera di Assaf Oron

Il testo sotto fu scritto qualche mese fa
da uno degli obiettori di coscienza Israeliani (che rifiutano di far
parte delle forze di occupazione
in Cisgiordania/Gaza).
Per la sua profondita', e potenza, secondo me, e' un documento
assolutamente incredibile;  Al pari, forse,
dei discorsi di Martin Luther King.
Giudicate voi.
http://www.seruv.org.il/signers/AsafOroneng.asp
Asaf Oron's statement (Translated by Amichai Kronfeld) 
On February 5, 1985, I got up, left my home, went to the Compulsory
Service Center on Rashi Street in Jerusalem, said goodbye to my
parents, boarded the rickety old bus going to the Military Absorption
Station and turned into a soldier.
Exactly seventeen years later, I find myself in a head to head
confrontation with the army, while the public at large is jeering and
mocking me from the sidelines. Right wingers see me as a traitor who
is dodging the holy war that's just around the corner. The political
center shakes a finger at me self-righteously and lectures me about
undermining democracy and politicizing the army. And the left? The
square, establishment, "moderate" left that only yesterday was
courting my vote now turns its back on me as well. Everyone blabbers
about what is and what is not legitimate, exposing in the process the
depth of their ignorance of political theory and their inability to
distinguish a real democracy from a third world regime in the style of
Juan Peron.
Almost no one asks the main question: why would a regular guy get up
one morning in the middle of life, work, the kids and decide he's not
playing the game anymore? And how come he is not alone but there are
fifty? I beg your pardon, a hundred? beg your pardon again, now almost
two hundred regular, run of the mill guys like him who've done the
same thing?
Our parents' generation lets out a sigh: we've embarrassed them yet
again. But isn't it all your fault? What did you raise us on?
Universal ethics and universal justice, on the one hand: peace,
liberty and equality to all. And on the other hand: "the Arabs want to
throw us into the sea, " "They are all crafty and primitive. You can't
trust them." On the one hand, the songs of John Lennon, Pete Seeger,
Bob Dylan, Bob Marely, Pink Floyd. Songs of peace and love and against
militarism and war.
On the other hand, songs about a sweetheart riding the tank after
sunset in the field: "The tank is yours and you are ours." [allusions
to popular Israeli songs - AK]. I was raised on two value systems: one
was the ethical code and the other the tribal code, and I na?vely
believed that the two could coexist.
This is the way I was when I was drafted. Not enthusiastic, but as if
embarking on a sacred mission of courage and sacrifice for the benefit
of society. But when, instead of a sacred mission, a 19 year old finds
himself performing the sacrilege of violating human beings' dignity
and freedom, he doesn't dare ask - even himself - if it's OK or not.
He simply acts like everyone else and tries to blend in. As it is,
he's got enough problems, and boy is the weekend far off.
You get used to it in a hurry, and many even learn to like it. Where
else can you go out on patrol - that is, walk the streets like a king,
harass and humiliate pedestrians to your heart's content, and get into
mischief with your buddies - and at the same time feel like a big hero
defending your country? The Gaza Exploits became heroic tales, a
source of pride for Giv'ati, then a relatively new brigade suffering
from low self esteem.
For a long time, I could not relate to the whole "heroism" thing. But
when, as a sergeant, I found myself in charge, something cracked
inside me. Without thinking, I turned into the perfect occupation
enforcer. I settled accounts with "upstarts" who didn't show enough
respect. I tore up the personal documents of men my father's age. I
hit, harassed, served as a bad example - all in the city of Kalkilia,
barely three miles from grandma and grandpa's home-sweet-home. No. I
was no "aberration." I was exactly the norm.
Having completed my compulsory service, I was discharged, and then the
first Intifada began (how many more await us?) Ofer, a comrade in arms
who remained in the service has become a hero: the hero of the second
Giv'ati trial. He commanded a company that dragged a detained
Palestinian demonstrator into a dark orange grove and beat him to
death. As the verdict stated, Ofer was found to have been the leader
in charge of the whole business. He spent two months in jail and was
demoted - I think that was the most severe sentence given an Israeli
soldier through the entire first Intifada, in which about a thousand
Palestinians were killed. Ofer's battalion commander testified that
there was a order from the higher echelons to use beatings as a
legitimate method of punishment, thereby implicating himself. On the
other hand, Efi Itam, the brigade commander, who had been seen beating
Arabs on numerous occasions, denied that he ever gave such an order
and consequently was never indicted. Today he lectures us on moral
conduct on his way to a new life in politics. (In the current
Intifada, incidentally, the vast majority of incidents involving
Palestinian deaths are not even investigated. No one even bothers.)
 And in the meantime, I was becoming more of a civilian. A copy of The
Yellow Wind [a book on life in the Occupied Territories by the Israeli
writer David Grossman, available in English -AK] which had just come
out, crossed my path. I read it, and suddenly it hit me. I finally
understood what I had done over there. What I had been over there.
I began to see that they had cheated me: They raised me to believe
there was someone up there taking care of things. Someone who knows
stuff that is beyond me, the little guy. And that even if sometimes
politicians let us down, the "military echelon" is always on guard,
day and night, keeping us safe, each and every one of their decisions
the result of sacred necessity. Yes, they cheated us, the soldiers of
the Intifadas, exactly as they had cheated the generation that was
beaten to a pulp in the War of Attrition and in the Yom Kippur War,
exactly as they had cheated the generation that sank deep into the
Lebanese mud during the Lebanon invasions. And our parents' generation
continues to be silent.
Worse still, I understood that I was raised on two contradictory value
systems. I think most people discover even at an earlier age they must
choose between two value systems: an abstract, demanding one that is
no fun at all and that is very difficult to verify, and another which
calls to you from every corner - determining who is up and who is
down, who is king and who - pariah, who is one of us and who is our
enemy. Contrary to basic common sense, I picked the first. Because in
this country the cost-effective analysis comparing one system to
another is so lopsided, I can't blame those who choose the second.
I picked the first road, and found myself volunteering in a small,
smoke-filled office in East Jerusalem, digging up files about deaths,
brutality, bureaucratic viciousness or simply daily harassments. I
felt I was atoning, to some extent, for my actions during my days with
the Giv'ati brigade. But it also felt as if I was trying to empty the
ocean out with a teaspoon.
Out of the blue, I was called up for the very first time for reserve
duty in the Occupied Territories. Hysterically, I contacted my company
commander. He calmed me down: We will be staying at an outpost
overlooking the Jordan river. No contacts with the local population is
expected. And that indeed was what I did, but some of my friends
provided security for the Damia Bridge terminal [where Palestinians
cross from Jordan to Israel and vice versa - AK]. This was in the days
preceding the Gulf War and a large number of Palestinian refugees were
flowing from Kuwait to the Occupied Territories (from the frying pan
into the fire). The reserve soldiers - mostly right wingers - cringed
when they saw the female consscripts stationed in the terminal happily
ripping open down-comforters and babies' coats to make sure they
didn't contain explosives. I too cringed when I heard their stories,
but I was also hopeful: reserve soldiers are human after all, whatever
their political views.
Such hopes were dashed three years later, when I spent three weeks
with a celebrated reconnaissance company in the confiscated ruins of a
villa at the outskirts of the Abasans (if you don't know where this
is, it's your problem). This is where it became clear to me that the
same humane reserve soldier could also be an ugly, wretched macho
undergoing a total regression back to his days as a young conscript.
Already on the bus ride to the Gaza strip, the soldiers were competing
with each other: whose "heroic" tales of murderous beatings during the
Intifada were better (in case you missed this point: the beatings were
literally murderous: beating to death). Going on patrol duty with
these guys once was all that I could take. I went up to the placement
officer and requested to be given guard duty only. Placement officers
like people like me: most soldiers can't tolerate staying inside the
base longer than a couple of hours.
Thus began the nausea and shame routine, a routine that lasted three
tours of reserve duty in the Occupied Territories: 1993, 1995, and
1997. The "pale-gray" refusal routine. For several weeks at a time I
would turn into a hidden "prisoner of conscience, " guarding an
outpost or a godforsaken transmitter on top of some mountain, a
recluse. I was ashamed to tell most of my friends why I chose to serve
this way. I didn't have the energy to hear them get on my case for
being such a "wishy washy" softy. I was also ashamed of myself: This
was the easy way out. In short, I was ashamed all over. I did "save my
own soul." I was not directly engaged in wrongdoing - only made it
possible for others to do so while I kept guard. Why didn't I refuse
outright? I don't know. It was partly the pressure to conform, partly
the political process that gave us a glimmer of hope that the whole
occupation business would be over soon. More than anything, it was my
curiosity to see actually what was going on over there.
And precisely because I knew so well, first hand, from years of
experience what was going on over there, what reality was like over
there, I had no trouble seeing, through the fog of war and the curtain
of lies, what has been taking place over there since the very first
days of the second Intifada. For years, the army had been feeding on
lines like "We were too nice in the first Intifada, " and "If we had
only killed a hundred in the very first days, everything would have
been different." Now the army was given license to do things its way.
I knew full well that [former Prime Minister] Ehud Barak was giving
the army free hand, and that [current Chief of Staff] Shaul Mofaz was
taking full advantage of this to maximize the bloodshed.
By then, I had two little kids, boys, and I knew from experience that
no one - not a single person in the entire world - will ever make sure
that my sons won't have to serve in the Occupied Territories when they
reach 18. No one, that is, except me. And no one but me will have to
look them in the eye when they're all grown up and tell them where dad
was when all that happened. It was clear to me: this time I was not
going.
Initially, this was a quiet decision, still a little shy, something
like "I am just a bit weird, can't go and can't talk about it too much
either." But as time went by, as the level of insanity, hatred, and
incitement kept rising, as the generals were turning the Israeli
Defense Forces into a terror organization, the decision was turning
into an outcry: "If you can't see that this is one big crime leading
us to the brink of annihilation, then something is terribly wrong with
you!"
And then I discovered that I was not alone. Like discovering life on
another planet.
The truth is that I understand why everyone is mad at us. We spoiled
the neat little order of things. The holy Status Quo states that the
Right holds the exclusive rights to celebrate the blood and ask for
more. The role of the Left, on the other hand, is to wail while
sitting in their armchairs sipping wine and waiting for the Messiah to
come and with a single wave of his magic wand make the Right disappear
along with the settlers, the Arabs, the weather, and the entire Middle
East. That's how the world is supposed to work. So why are you causing
such a disturbance? What's your problem? Bad boys!
Woe to you, dear establishment left! You haven't been paying
attention! That Messiah has been here already. He waved his magic
wand, saw things aren't that simple, was abandoned in the midst of
battle, lost altitude, and finally was assassinated, with the rest of
us (yes, me too) watching from the comfort of our armchairs. Forget
it. A messiah doesn't come around twice! There is no such thing as a
free lunch.
Don't you really see what we are doing, why it is that we stepped out
of line? Don't you get the difference between a low key, personal
refusal and an organized, public one? (and make no mistake about it,
the private refusal is the easier choice.) You really don't get it? So
let me spell it out for you.
First, we declare our commitment to the first value system. The one
that is elusive, abstract, and not profitable. We believe in the moral
code generally known as God (and my atheist friends who also signed
this letter would have to forgive me - we all believe in God, the true
one, not that of the Rabbis and the Ayatollahs). We believe that there
is no room for the tribal code, that the tribal code simply
camouflages idolatry, an idolatry of a type we should not cooperate
with. Those who let such a form of idol worship take over will end up
as burnt offerings themselves.
Second, we (as well as some other groups who are even more despised
and harassed) are putting our bodies on the line, in the attempt to
prevent the next war. The most unnecessary, most idiotic, cruel and
immoral war in the history of Israel.
We are the Chinese young man standing in front of the tank. And you?
If you are nowhere to be seen, you are probably inside the tank,
advising the driver.


Timor est: assolto il capo della polizia
Il generale indonesiano Timbul Silaen è stato dichiarato "non colpevole" da
un tribunale di Giakarta per la strage che si svolse a Timor Est dopo il
referendum sull'indipendenza.
GIAKARTA - Molti gridano già al processo farsa. Ma la giustizia ha fatto il
suo corso e il generale indonesiano Timbul Silaen, ex capo della polizia di
Timor est, è stato assolto dal tribunale speciale chiamato a giudicare le
violazioni dei diritti umani a Timor est nel 1999. Proprio in quell'anno con
un referendum gli abtitanti di Timor est scelsero l'indipendenza da Giakarta
ma l'esito di quel voto scatenò la furia delle milizie filo-indonesiane.
L'accusa era di crimini contro l'umanità ma Timbul Silaen, che dirigeva la
polizia durante le violenze che provocarono trai 600 e i duemila morti, è
stato riconosciuto "non colpevole". Contro di lui e contro gli uomini che
dirigeva, secondo il tribunale, "non vi sono prove'' e la polizia durante i
sanguinosi scontri a Timor est ''restò neutrale'' durante le violenze.
Ieri, l'ex governatore di Timor est, Jose Osorio Abilio Soares, era stato
condannato a tre anni di carcere per violazione dei diritti umani: anche per
lui l'accusa aveva chiesto dieci anni, e ricorrerà in appello.
Sconcerto e rabbia da parte dei parenti delle vittime e delle organizzazioni
per i diritti umani, che hanno messo in discussione l'imparzialità del
tribunale.
15 AGOSTO 2002; ORE 18:15
Rispondo con una notizia per rimarcare la distanza che separa valori ideali
e reali.
La ragione di stato cozza contro i principi etici, molto spesso.
La grandezza dei grandi statisti e' quella di conoscere questo, cercare di
conciliare le due cose e sopratutto, in nome della responsabilita' di fronte
al popolo che poi e' tribu', di non farsi fermare da scrupoli fuori luogo.
La diserzione e' un pericolo in tutte le guerre, perche' chi scanna altri si
rende conto di non fare del bene, nessuna guerra e' sensata, tutte sono un
vomito schifoso quando stai in mezzo.
Questo soldato e' il cinese che stava davanti al carro a Tien Han Men, in
teoria aveva ragione, in pratica la storia lo ha smentito.
La Russia ha avuto la sua democrazia nominale, ma trema perche' ha
idiotamente distrutto la propria economia in modo insensato e data in mano
ai soliti Gangster. La visita di Gorbaciov innesco' i fatti di Tien Han Men.
La Cina non ha la sua democrazia nominale, ma un cinese ad oggi e' piu'
libero di un Russo, ha una economia in boom, possibilita' di lavoro, bassa
criminalita', accesso ai consumi, poverta' zero.
Il vecchio governante cinese ha mandato i carri sopra agli studenti, ma la
sua gente ora sta bene e molti meno morti si sono prodotti.
La distanza tra valori universali e tribali non e' un problema di oggi,
esiste da sempre, molte volte la ricerca dei valori universali in modo
ottuso ha prodotto le piu' barbare stragi e i regimi piu' orrendi.
I contenuti del messaggio di cui sopra sono validi ma vanno pesati alla luce
della realta'.
Saluti Cad Ali'
http://www.hyperlinker.com/spg/
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http://www.hyperlinker.com/spg/pppop.htm
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ideali e reali.
Oppure che separa realta' e fantasia.
-Stefano