The Pakistani Spectator

By Dan Tow
www.singingsql.com

Here in the US, like much of the English-speaking world, bookstores recently released the seventh and last book in the “Harry Potter” series, written for youngsters in grade school and up, but also popular with adults. For the uninitiated, this extraordinarily popular series follows the title character, an English boy, from shortly before he turns eleven years old to young adulthood. His parents died when he was a few months old, and he was adopted, but unloved, by his obnoxious aunt and uncle, who neglect him outrageously in favor of their own son, a bully and a horribly spoiled brat. On his eleventh birthday, he learns, to his shock, that his parents were a witch and a wizard, that he has inherited their magical powers, and that he is invited to live and to study at a boarding school, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Over the course of the books, he learns that he is destined repeatedly to battle Voldemort, the most evil and powerful wizard in history, and that only one of them can survive this battle, in the end.

The series isn’t Shakespeare. It isn’t meant to be Shakespeare – it is, mainly, meant to be great fun for kids, and millions of kids, and millions of adults, even, have found it to be a really fun read. (However, this article is not about the books – things are not always as they seem.)

Before this last book was released, bookstores all over the US had advertising displays showing one of the Hogwarts teachers, Professor Snape, with the question “Severus Snape, Friend or Foe?” To some of the younger readers, this question might have seemed puzzling – in earlier books, Snape and Harry Potter had shown nothing but loathing for one another, and at the end of the sixth book, Snape had committed an act that seemed to place him obviously on the side of the evil Voldemort. To the more mature readers of the series, including probably most of the older children who followed the series closely, the question was, however, no great surprise – throughout the series, Harry learns that “friends” may really be foes, and “foes” may really be friends. Harry, himself, who felt in early childhood like an insignificant, unloved nobody, turns out to be a great wizard of high destiny. Actions that would seem to help his fight against Voldemort may turn out to be precisely in line with Voldemort’s plans, and actions that would seem to help Voldemort might turn out to be necessary in the fight against him. In short, things are not always what they seem, a useful lesson for children to learn, but not something we would expect adults would need to learn, right?

Pathetically, many of the current figures in world politics appear to have utterly failed to learn this simple, children’s lesson. George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden undoubtedly view each other as hated foes, and so they might seem to be, but how have their actions affected one another, in fact, in a real world where things are not always as they appear?

In the US, even most friends of George W. Bush would agree that the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center made Bush’s re-election in 2004 vastly easier. Opponents of Bush generally agree that without the 9/11 attack, Bush would never have stood a chance of re-election, as the economy was already in poor shape before the attack, and Americans rarely re-elect a president who presides over a downturn in the economy, especially one with all of Bush’s other problems. Neutral exit polls at the time of that election showed that most voters believed that the Republicans’ most favorable issue was voters’ perception that Republicans in general, and Bush in particular, were “strong” on fighting terrorism. In short, bin Laden handed Bush his re-election. Has Bush returned the favor? Well, undoubtedly, the US military has captured and killed al Qaeda terrorists since 9/11, and made survival more complicated for the remaining members of bin Laden’s organization, especially those at the top. Death (“martyrship”) within his forces is, however, just part of bin Laden’s stated plan. Power and recognition are his goals. Has bin Laden, as a result of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, grown less renowned? Has he found it difficult to recruit replacements for those members of al Qaeda killed during the occupation of Iraq, or has he all too easily replaced each of those lost with many more?

In the simplistic world of the Bush Neoconservatives, a terrorist killed is simply one less terrorist. In the real world, the occupation of Iraq is welcomed by some (apparently rapidly shrinking) number of Iraqis (who would surely be friends of the US, anyway) and hated by other Iraqis. The same goes for people all over the world who care much, one way or another, about the occupation of Iraq. Those who hate the occupation are far more likely, now, to act, sometimes violently, against the US than they were before the war and occupation. There are now almost certainly far, far more new enemies of the US, as a result of the occupation of Iraq than any number of old enemies killed or captured in Iraq.

In the real world, almost any significant political choice has both direct effects and indirect effects, and even the indirect effects have side-effects. All too often, the indirect effects work in the opposite direction from the direct effects, even to the extent that they can more than cancel any good achieved through the direct effects.

Things are not always as they seem…

Throughout history, leaders have imagined that they had divine inspiration from God to take the course that was God’s will. The course they chose seemed to them to be the will of God. However, the course chosen by their enemy likely seemed to be the will of God to their enemy, too, and one of them or likely both of them were wrong. The will of God, I’d humbly suggest, is unlikely to be as simple as any human imagines, and I therefore believe that we ought to stumble along with good human sense, as best we can, without deluding ourselves that we can read God’s mind. The “inspiration of God” leaders imagined they heard was all too often no more than their subconscious echoing their own all-too-human desires. So it was when bin Laden imagined that Allah willed the deaths of thousands of innocent men, women, and children. So it was when Bush imagined God’s assurance that a small force of American soldiers in Iraq would be welcomed as liberators, and would oversee the rapid, easy installation of a harmonious democracy, and a lasting, loyal American ally, in Iraq.

For anyone who imagines that their God favors war, and glorious victory for their side in that war, I heartily recommend Mark Twain’s short, passionately anti-war, deeply ironic, The War Prayer. (And, if you are pressed for time, please, please, click the link, and skip the rest of this article: The War Prayer is one of the wisest pieces of writing in the English language, in my opinion. With deepest irony, Twain wrote from the point of view of someone supporting a coming war, but if you think that was Twain’s own view, things are not always as they seem!)

Leaders of nuclear powers, or countries that wish to become nuclear powers, imagine that each new warhead makes their nation stronger, and safer. They might be right, if building a new warhead had no side-effects. However, when their enemy responds by building just as many new warheads, or more, is either side safer?

The same lesson applies to the US “Star Wars” program to build a defense against nuclear missiles – surely a defense can only make us safer? So it may seem, until the opponent simply adds warheads to be certain to have enough bombs to overwhelm the defenses, or finds new means to deliver the warheads that bypass any planned missile defense. What’s worse, in response to our potential for missile defense, the enemy forces become more dangerous even before the US solves the incredibly difficult and expensive technical problem of how to block some fraction of the previous generation of missiles!

In all too much of the world, including the US, there is an all-too-tempting movement to bring government and the dominant local religion closer together. Christian fundamentalists who want official prayer in US public schools, and who generally wish to tear down the constitutional wall between church and state in the US imagine that government sponsorship can only help. Foolishly, they fail to look to Europe, where government links to official churches are hundreds of years old. Is Europe more religious than the US, and are European churches stronger than US churches? Hardly! Government sponsorship of religion only invites contempt of that religion, as the religious organization stoops to the level of politics, as it becomes lazy with automatic government supply of funds, as it, inevitably, must accept some control from government, along with those funds. (I make a key distinction, here – however you feel about your religion, I hope you agree that your religious organization is, after all, headed by human beings, with all our flaws.)

At the extreme end of the spectrum, in truly theocratic governments (as opposed to the much milder church-state links in Europe), are religions better off? Through history, in all the major religions, we have the repeated pattern – when the highest human religious authorities are handed political power, politicians (pretending to be devout) rapidly consolidate control of the religious hierarchy, and run that hierarchy corruptly, pursuing petty political and personal goals that have nothing whatever to do with the religion’s ideals. When religious organizations (run, after all, by human beings, not by God) are given legal control of people’s lives, through government, it is the petty political issues, and the petty politicians pretending to be devout, that end up controlling the religious organizations, not the other way around – things are not always as they seem. In the end, the strongest, least-corrupted religious organizations are the ones with the least direct control of people’s lives, the organizations that can only affect people’s lives purely by unforced persuasion of each individual! Whatever truth there is in any religion, that truth, and any God behind that truth, surely does not require even the slightest government linkage to religion to achieve its goals.