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World Social Forum 2009: a generation’s challenge
Geoffrey Pleyers
The "alter-globalisation" movement gathers in Brazil at a moment of crisis in the system it has long opposed. But its triumph is qualified as it searches for a way to turn global breakdown into political opportunity, says Geoffrey Pleyers.
28 - 01 - 2009
T
hese should be good times for the "alter-globalisation" movement. The unprecedented combination of crises in the global economy, environment, and governance makes its argument for a just and equal world Geoffrey Pleyers is a researcher of the Belgian Foundation for Scientific Research at the University of Louvain (UCL) and a visiting fellow at the Centre for the Study of Global Governance, London School of Economics
An extended version of this text will be published in Mary Kaldor, Helmut Anheier, Marlies Glasius, & Jan Aart Scholte, eds., Global Civil Society Yearbook (Sage, 2009)
The author would like to thank Fiona Holland and David Hayes for their efficient and kind help in editing this text
- "another world" - seem more relevant than ever. Geoffrey Pleyers is a researcher of the Belgian Foundation for Scientific Research at the University of Louvain (UCL) and a visiting fellow at the Centre for the Study of Global Governance, London School of Economics
An extended version of this text will be published in Mary Kaldor, Helmut Anheier, Marlies Glasius, & Jan Aart Scholte, eds., Global Civil Society Yearbook (Sage, 2009)
The author would like to thank Fiona Holland and David Hayes for their efficient and kind help in editing this text
Yet the 100,000 activists expected to assemble at the eighth World Social Forum (WSF) in Belém, Brazil, from 27 January- 1 February 2009 are at a crossroads. The ideas they have been proposing for much of the last decade have in many ways been vindicated by the global financial breakdowns, food riots and elite failures of 2007-09; but even as it celebrates the demise of forces it has unrelentingly challenged the movement itself is divided over its political and organisational direction.
The change within
After its inaugural meeting in January 2001 - a year after the demonstrations in Seattle against the World Trade Organisation (WTO) summit which dynamised the movement - the WSF experienced impressive growth, reflected in increasing participation (from 15,000 to over 170,000 from 2001-05). The forums have become huge meeting-places where people of many nationalities share experiences and discuss local and global issues.
The "alter-globalisation" movement (also called the "anti-corporate-globalisation movement" or the "global social justice movement") has undergone two profound changes since the WSF's last visit to Brazil, in January 2005. That event, in the city of Porto Alegre, remains the most successful forum of all - in terms of the quality and openness of the discussions, and of the size of the event (200,000 people attended the opening demonstration, and 2,500 workshops were run by 5,700 civil-society organisations).
The first great change is in the social geography of the movement, with a notable decline in some of its historical bastions (including most western European countries) but success in important regions such as Africa (where, for example, over sixty national and regional social forums have been organised since 2005) and north America.
The second change is the reorganisation of the movement around new guidelines. The internal quarrels about the forums' objectives and the movement's political orientations are a symptom of this reconfiguration.
The paradox of Geneva
The World Trade Organisation meeting in Geneva on 22-29 July 2008 offered a clear illustration of the current state of the social movement. The purpose of the meeting of thirty delegations from the WTO's most influential member-states was to break the deadlock over the Doha trade-liberalisation process; the failure of negotiations in Seattle (1999), Cancún (2003) and Hong Kong (2005) meant that the credibility of the organisation was at stake.
Europe's "alter-globalisation" organisations had been able to mount large-scale demonstrations at the international summits in Genoa (2001), Gleneagles (2005) and Rostock (2007). Yet despite the importance of the WTO conference - and the fact that it took place in the midst of an evolving global economic crisis - they were unable to mobilise their activists at Geneva.
The evidence of retreat is unmistakable. Major activists' networks - such as the Movimiento de Resistencia Global in Barcelona, the Attac movement and most local social forums - have disappeared or declined; continental forums such as those in Malmö (17-21 September 2008, with 12,000 in attendance) and Guatemala City (7-12 October 2008, with 7,500) attracted far fewer people than previously. Moreover, the movement is much less visible in the mass media than in the 1998-2005 period.
At the same time, the influence of the movement has been felt in other ways. Many of the institutions charged with supervising international trade liberalisation, which encouraged southern countries to adopt neo-liberal policies, now face discredit. Whereas in the 1990s, opening a country to international trade was seen as the only path to greater economic growth, by the late 2000s it had become routine for establishment voices and even state leaders to express support for a new global governance system to contain the destructive tendencies of "casino-", "cowboy-", "hyper-" or "super-" capitalism.
The change of rhetoric reflects a wider ideological shift: the end of three decades marked by the hegemony of neo-liberal ideas. The "alter-globalisation" movement has played an active role in this process, for example by enlarging the space of discussion of trade and economic policies far beyond the realm of international "experts", and by challenging the neo-liberal orthodoxiesof the Washington consensus. Thus even in their relative retreat from the mass mobilisations of the past, the social movements have won a kind of ideological victory.
There is a paradox here: the "alter-globalisation" movement and the organisations and events which compose it seem to have lost much of their capacity at the very time when even prominent policy-makers are coming to believe that the global financial and governance system has in crucial respects failed.
The failure of success
In these circumstances, what is the point of the World Social Forum? It could be argued that it more needed now than ever: that is, to contribute actively to the building of a new and fair global order that can address deep problems of poverty, inequality, food insecurity and ecological crisis. The problem here is that the movement is more united in what it has been against than in what it should now be for. In particular, "alter-globalisation" activists divide into three distinct currents about the way forward.
The local approach
The first current of the alter-globalisation movement) considers that instead of getting involved in a global movement and international forums, the path to social change lies through giving life to horizontal, participatory, convivial and sustainable values in daily practices, personal life and local spaces.
Many urban activists cite the way that, for example, the Zapatistas in Mexico and other Latin American indigenous movements now focus on developing communities' local autonomy via participatory self-government, autonomous education systems and improving the quality of life. They appreciate too the convivial aspect of local initiatives and their promise of small but real alternatives to corporate globalisation and mass consumption.
This approach is exemplified also in initiatives such as the "collective purchase groups" that have multiplied in western Europe and north America. These typically gather small groups of people who buy from local (and often organic) food-producers in the effort to make quality food affordable, create alternatives to the "anonymous supermarket" and promote local social relations. In many Italian social centres, critical-consumption movements have taken the space previously occupied by the alter-globalisation mobilisations. The "convivial de-growth" and "convivial urban" movements belong to a similar, sustainable and environmentally friendly, tendency.
The advocacy approach
The second current of the movement believes that the way forward lies through efficient single-issue networks able to develop coherent arguments in areas such as food sovereignty and developing-world debt; in turn this work can become a route to raising broader questions.
The protection of water-supplies from privatisation, for example, can be used to explore the issues of global public goods, the role of global corporations and "the long-term efficiency of the public sector". After several years of intense exchanges among citizens and experts focusing on the same issue, the quality of arguments has considerably increased to the extent that this form of activity has become the core of the social-forums' dynamic.
There are several examples of the effectiveness of such networks - often without media attention. The European Public Water Network's influence on the city of Paris's decision in November 2008 to restore municipal control over water distribution is just one.
The state approach
The third current of the movement holds that progressive public policies implemented by state leaders and institutions are the key to achieving broad social change.
In the past, "alter-globalisation" activists have struggled to strengthen state agency in social, environmental and economic fields; but now that state intervention has regained legitimacy in the wake of systemic crisis, this more "political" component of the movement believes that the future lies in solidarity with the projects of radical leaders such as Venezuela's Hugo Chávez and Bolivia's Evo Morales.
The national policies of these leaders (social programmes favouring the poor, or taking control of key economic sectors) and their regional alliances and new institutions (the Alternativa Bolivariana por Nuestra América [Alba] coalition, the Banco del Sur) represent a strong pole of attraction for many activists. But if Latin America is the main focus for such identification, similar processes have been at work in western countries too; for example, much of the impetus of the first United States Social Forum in 2007 was redirected towards Barack Obama's presidential campaign.
The shared approach
The participants in the Belém meeting can justly welcome the failure of many aspects of an economic model they long opposed. But as they move beyond critique towards a new role in a transformed global arena, can they find some common ground among these three currents?
An escape from the crises of economy, sustainability and governance is a huge and urgent task that may last a generation. From this perspective, the three trends of the "alter-globalisation" movement could be seen as politically complementary rather than competing strategies. An imaginative understanding of this kind could be the basis of a shared approach that gives the World Social Forum a fresh lease of life.
Nicolai N. Petro, 28 - 01 - 2009
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Against the background of the recent gas dispute, Nicolai Petro suggests that the West recast Ukraine's identity. Rather than a border region, it should be seen as a cultural centre, binding Europe's Eastern and Western halves.
The latest Russo-Ukrainian gas spat may have finally taught the elites in those two countries a vital lesson. Namely, that they stand to gain far more from acting in concert, than either one of them gains from acting against the interest of the other.
The latest statement by European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso that "Europeans" will not forget how Ukrainian and Russian leaders acted during this crisis, reveals more than just impotence. It serves as a reminder that many Western Europeans are still not ready to accept either Ukraine or Russia as part of Europe. It would be wise for both Russian and Ukrainians not to lose sight of this fact, for it both shapes and constrains the policies of European Union towards them.
At the outset of this latest spat, both Ukrainian and Russia political elites made the mistake of assuming that EU leaders cared about the issues. They therefore put all their efforts into making their case in the media, instead of undertaking direct negotiations. Ukrainian leaders hoped to mobilise western sympathy by portraying their country as a victim of Russian imperialism, while Russian leaders sought to portray the Ukrainians as thieves. Each then tried to involve their Western European partners more directly, urging the European Commission to send monitors to the pumping stations, inviting the parties to a gas summit, and floating schemes by which European intermediaries might step in to guarantee payments in the event of further payment arrears.
In the end, however, all these strategies failed. Belatedly, and with the greatest reluctance, the EU did eventually send a handful of pump station monitors and observers to the gas summit, but mainly to urge the two sides to get serious about direct negotiations. It was only when Russian and Ukrainian leaders finally realised that the EU would not be drawn into their dispute that negotiations resumed, and within hours both sides reached an agreement that established not only the gas price for this year, but a framework covering the next ten years![i]
The details of this agreement are less important than the lessons that both Ukraine and Russia can draw from this experience.
Lessons of the gas dispute
One is that the EU is simply not a viable forum for conflict resolution. It has neither the political will, nor the ability to act, even when its economic interests are directly threatened. It is not a body that leads, it is a body that follows. On purely institutional grounds, therefore, any strategy that expected meaningful pressure to come from Europe was doomed to fail.
Another lesson is that the European Energy Charter Treaty, once touted as the best means of guaranteeing access to gas supplies from Eastern Europe, did not survive its first test. As soon as it became necessary to demand compliance with the treaty's provisions prohibiting the interruption of flows, or the implementation of "specific conciliation procedures," nothing was done, even though Ukraine had both signed and ratified the treaty[ii].
Finally, it is now abundantly clear that the prolonged and systemic crisis of Ukrainian politics-of which this spat is just the latest manifestation-is the direct result of a strategic vision that is profoundly at odds with Ukrainian culture.
Consider the following. Five years after the Orange Revolution of 2004, with its accentuated efforts to marginalise Russian cultural, economic and political influence in Ukraine, over 60% of Ukrainians retain a favourable view of the period of national history tied to the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union[iii]. Three-quarters still regard the Soviet victory in the Second World War as a national holiday, and popular usage of the term "Great Patriotic War," in contrast to the more neutral Second World War, has actually risen[iv].
Nearly 88% of Ukrainians say they have a positive attitude toward Russia, while two-thirds say they would vote against NATO membership, mostly because it threatens Russian security. About as many say they want closer relations with Russia[v]. But perhaps most telling of all is the fact that during almost this entire period by far most popular politician in Ukraine has been . . . Vladimir Putin. His popularity rating among Ukrainians has hovered around 70%, compared to no more than 15% for the most popular Ukrainian politician (Ukrainian president Yushchenko's rating, meanwhile, fell to a new low of 3% in early 2009)[vi]
Clearly the problem is not, as former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has put it, that Ukraine is "a country where nation-building needs a little help."[vii] The problem is that the wrong sort of nation-building is being attempted-the kind that views Ukraine's centuries old religious and cultural affinity with Russia as an obstacle to be overcome. The result has been a smouldering cultural civil war, in which large swathes of the population are engaged in destroying the very edifice that others are seeking to build, thereby condemning to ruin the structure that they both must live in.
But coming, as it does, in the midst of a global economic meltdown, this latest energy spat may just serve to concentrate the minds of both Ukrainian and Russian political elites on the utter futility of the confrontation that has been imposed on them by this model of mis-development. It might even point to the way out.
As long as Russia could afford to provide energy to Ukraine below market prices, Ukrainian politicians could afford to play coy. The end of this era of largesse has forced the latter to call in what favours they could from the West, and so last November, the International Monetary Fund extended Ukraine an emergency loan of USD 16.4 billion. But this pales into insignificance in comparison with the estimated USD 47 billion grant that the Ukrainian budget has had since 2005. This is the result of receiving gas at its border at a steep discount, then nearly doubling the price for its domestic consumers, and finally adding on another $100-150 dollars to the price before shipping it westward. At the end of 2008 the price structure was: an average of $179.5 per thousand cubic metres at the Russian border, $320 for domestic consumers, and $450 dollars for neighbouring Romania.[viii]
Cultural affinity, survival strategy
Small wonder then that, looking first and foremost to their own future, Ukrainian politicians are beginning to see the revival of ties with Russia as an attractive survival strategy. The ten-year gas contract just signed is not, of course, an economic agreement. Who can predict what economic conditions will be so far into the future? Rather, it is a sign that important segments of the Ukrainian political elite that were once betting on Ukraine's rapid integration into the West, are now hedging that bet.
Some will perceive this as a defeat for the West. What they fail to appreciate, however, is that any definition of the West that excludes Russia because of its ostensibly divergent "values," must perforce exclude Ukraine, whose culture and values are inextricably interwoven with those of Russia. One need look no further than the fact that 40% of the parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church are located in Ukraine[ix], and played a key role in the election of the new Patriarch of Moscow.
It would be more sensible for all parties involved to stop fighting this natural affinity, and instead incorporate it into a new and more comprehensive paradigm of European identity. The current Western paradigm, as the late historian Martin Malia has pointed out, excludes Russia by treating it as a subspecies of "Oriental despotism."[x] Given Russia's pre-eminent role in the Orthodox world, this amounts to denying all the primarily Slavic and Orthodox countries of Eastern Europe the ability to participate as equals in the re-definition European identity. Western Europe's alienation from its own Byzantine roots has thus perpetuated Cold War divisions in people's minds, long after they disappeared from the political map.
Two decades ago, former German chancellor Helmut Schmidt foresaw this very danger, and warned of the need to embrace a broader concept of Europe. "We also know," he wrote presciently, "that the historical spiritual reality of Europe does not consist of . . . the [European Economic] Community, but that Byzantium and Novgorod, Krakow and Prague have also contributed to our old common civilisation. And our concept of Europe will one day have to once again encompass the whole intellectual and artistic life of our Eastern European neighbours if we do not wish to become impoverished[xi].
Until the rich heritage of Byzantium truly becomes Europe's common cultural inheritance, proclamations by Russian and Ukrainian leaders of their European bona fides will continue to fall on deaf ears. Working together is the only way they stand a chance of bringing about the fundamental change in Western attitudes that is needed to place the task of European integration on a solid footing.
It would therefore be an unexpected boon for all Europeans if, as a result of this latest crisis, Ukrainian elites finally realised the pivotal contribution they could make to European security by re-casting Ukrainian identity from a border region (Russia's border with Europe; Europe's border with Russia) into a European cultural centre binding its Eastern and Western halves. Doing so would offer Western Europeans a manageable bridge for integrating Orthodoxy into their political and cultural horizons, while at the same time serving as an opening for Russia, which can hardly disavow this part of its heritage, into Europe.
Ukrainian politicians who embrace such a strategy will find a largely untapped domestic constituency eager to support it, as well as allies in Russia and Belarus, two of the country's most important economic trading partners, eager to assist.
This combination might just be enough to allow Ukrainian society to overcome the malaise that has been afflicting it for the past two decades.
>>>>>
Nicolai N. Petro is professor of politics at the University of Rhode Island (USA). He served as the U.S. State Department's special assistant for policy on the Soviet Union under George H.W. Bush. Last November, in Kiev, he took part in a nationally televised discussion of security and development strategies for Ukraine, sponsored by the Ukrainian Forum, an association of Ukrainian civic and political leaders devoted to strengthening civil society as a key resource in state-building.
[i] "Gazovoye soglasheniye Timoshenko-Putina. Polnyi tekst" Ukrainskaya Pravda, January 22, 2009, http://www.pravda.com.ua/ru/news_print/2009/1/22/87168.htm
[ii] The Energy Charter Treaty (in particular, Part II 'Commerce' and Part IV 'Transitional Provisions'), available at: http://www.encharter.org/index.php?id=178.
[iii] "Over 60% Ukrainians Positively View Soviet Period - Survey." Interfax (Jan 10, 2007), cited in Johnson's Russia List 2007-#7. Available online at:
[iv] "Overwhelming Majority Of Ukrainians Regard VE-Day As Great Holiday." ITAR-Tass (May 8, 2007), cited in Johnson's Russia List 2007-#105. Available online at:
[v] "Nearly Half Of Ukrainians Want Country To Follow Own Development Path - Poll." Interfax (May 11, 2007), cited in Johnson's Russia List 2007-#108. Available online at:
Interfax-AVN (Sept 24, 2008); "Most Ukrainians want closer rapprochement with Russia - poll," Interfax (October 27, 2008).
[vi] Svetlana Gamova, "Fraternal Peoples Do Not Want To Be 'Choked With Gas' Nezavisimaya Gazeta,January 21, 2009; "Less than 3% of Ukrainians support Yushchenko - poll," Interfax (January 12, 2009), cited in Johnson's Russia List 2009-#8. Available online at:
[vii] Council on Foreign Relations, Center for Preventive Action Symposium on "Preventive Priorities for a New Era," December 9, 2008, cited in Johnson's Russia List 2008-#226. Available online at:
[viii] "Gazprom's Position on Ukraine Gas Dispute," http://www.gazpromukrainefacts.com/, 26 December 2008. in JRL 2009-#5; Further described by "Gas tycoon sees politics behind Russian-Ukrainian gas row, BBC Monitoring of Ekho Moskvy Radio, January 15, 2009 in JRL 2009-#15.
[ix] "Russian Orthodox Church Has 26,590 Parishes: Patriarch." RIA Novosti (October 3, 2004), cited in Johnson's Russia List 8393. Available online at:
[x] Martin Malia, Under Western Eyes, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2000, p. 6
[xi] Helmut Schmidt, "Byzantium and the East Is Part of Europe and It Should Be." European Prospect (1979). Available online at:
Sniper under Seige
The following letter reached openDemocracy from Tehran, accompanied by this story about the relationship between a sniper and his target. It could have been told yesterday, though it is in fact a flashback to the Iran-Iraq War
28 - 01 - 2009
S
alaam & Greetings to All at Open Democracy
In the past 22 days almost 1300 innocent civilians have died in Gaza. The pain and sadness of these days requires us all to do something. For my part as a writer, I want to share a true story I wrote many years ago.
The story is based on a real experience during another disastrous war; a war, which was supported by the United States of America and its allies, and was forced on both countries, Iraq and Iran. The news from Gaza took my mind back, and I wanted to share this with you, a group of concerned citizens around the world.
Let's hope that we never see such violence again, that somehow we can reach peace for everyone and have a better world for everybody.
Sincerely,
Habib Ahmadzadeh,
Tehran
____________________________________________
Eagle Feather- I see you being dropped off. I stop the movement of my scope and then I center the crosshairs on you...and on you waving the driver goodbye. He drives away...leaving you behind at the place where three roads meet, behind the date grove on the other side of the river. Now you're not certain which road to take! The main road where you'll wait for the next vehicle to come by or... the road that I want you to take? Hurry up and choose. My whole job today depends on your decision. It's not clear from far away, but you put something on your back and move off.
You've chosen and my happiness is boundless. You've eased the burden of waiting for me ...and now you're continuing along the paved road that will end up at your first route. You just continue moving along that line and I'll sit in this lookout, waiting on this side of the river, a wait that should take no more than twenty-five minutes and which will reach its climax in the last seventeen seconds. And, during these twenty-five minutes, at least we can speak frankly to each other, though you will never hear what I have to say, but, perhaps, after those last seventeen seconds are over, all of what I say will reach your ears.
How? I don't know. Whatever the case this is the way we think on this side of the river in this completely surrounded city ...and in any case you are not aware of me sitting here stalking you....and in this dark keep, with the entire plain, date grove, the roads you've crossed on the other side in sight...and especially...I keep every step you take under surveillance, and within my sniper scope lest I forget you.
Yes, I am sitting here stalking you and there's a shell in a mortar, waiting for my order, an order that will be broadcast on invisible waves through the air at the promised time via this radio. Your side's radios may even receive the signal and then the waves will pass by your body and you luckily will be deprived from receiving it and then the radio of our mortar...then the firing...and it will take seventeen seconds for the shell to pierce the air, reach its apex and then like a gull diving for fish, fall on that stretch of road...and then...and then thousands of pieces of shrapnel both large and small will embrace you...but now before you reach that point in the road, which will perhaps be the last place in your life, there are twenty-three minutes left...the highs and lows of the time depends wholly on the speed of your steps,...go slower and you'll add a few seconds to your life...go faster and you'll shorten it by a like amount...and now you are moving. You want me to tell you more precisely how long you have before the shell that awaits you arrives?
I have only to keep you within the crosshairs of my sight and then press the button on my stopwatch...but it's better not to lose time. Perhaps this twenty-second friendship will be come timeless with the shell. Would you like to know what the first question is that I ask after I climb up this tower and have selected a prey like you? It is: Where are you from? Khanaqin, Baghdad, Kirkuk, or Basra?...And, as always, Basra concerns me the most.
Perhaps I should tell you why...and the moment the promised shell hits the ground...What are your parents doing at that moment? Is your mother making bread in one of those mud houses in a village along the Euphrates? Your father...What does your father do for a living? What is he thinking now? Could it possibly cross their minds that I am sitting here waiting to take the life of their child in less than nineteen minutes? And, if there is that odd feeling that exists between a mother and her child, how your mother will curse me at that moment?
But I made my decision ages ago; at the time your forces surrounded this city. Want to know where I'm from? It's not necessary to go very far from here. Maybe only a kilometer in that direction along this very boundary river, several years ago, my birthplace was at the hundred meter point along the river...yes and had I been born just seven hundred meters in the other direction, I now would be one of you, at the height of military prowess with those endless munitions which are more than enough to destroy a city far larger than our small town...and ignoring the screeches and howling of the women and children of the city...and drunk with power...I would be shelling them night and day, but now I'm happy...happy that I was born just seven hundred meters in this direction and that I am fighting for several things.
My mother...Want to know what my mother is doing now? Like always she's reciting the Throne Verse...for me...for my brothers and her brothers and all the people on this side of the river. What about your mother? Is she praying for you also? Whatever she prays or has prayed, in about fifteen minutes more it'll all be for nothing...
And you keep moving...perhaps wanting to reach your front line faster to shell or fire on our city at night again. When you put your finger on the trigger and the stock shakes on your shoulder, do you have a sense of power?...Or does the sound of larger explosions thrill you? Do you dance up and down and clench your fist futilely, when the mortars, shells, and missiles explode on our side ...but when the time comes and I hear that promised detonation, I will not jump for joy...and you are still walking toward the chosen spot...you still have fourteen minutes before I switch on the radio and the sounds form in my larynx and on that side a mortar round comes to greet you.
Can you recall all the shells and mortars you have rained down on our city day and night, annihilating anyone and anything in range of your batteries? Is there any goal in the world more pointless than obliterating a city? Continue on your path. I have only have a daily ration of three shells, and, as on the first day, I have already used up one. Would you like to know how? You've stopped, why? Oh, I see, you've put your pack down. So you're tired! What could be in the pack that has made you so tired? Your clothes? A souvenir maybe, for your foxhole buddies? Maybe some of those homemade cakes your mother makes? You want to know what I would bring if I could leave this besieged city? My souvenir would be some more rounds for the mortars.
You tired? Sit! A few minutes either way will make no difference to me, but continue on your way. I fired my first shell into the middle of this very roadway, and the second one is ready to strike the same spot. You'll be there in a few minutes and you'll see the powder burn from the first shell on the ground, and, like your comrades who were there before, you'll slow your pace...and, stunned, you'll stare at the place where the shell hit, not knowing whether the second shell is coming or not...and this question will always remain for me: After seeing where the first shell landed, why didn't you get scared and start running? You probably thought that the it exploded and that you were so lucky not to have been there when it did...this is what caused you to be so calm but when the second shell comes crashing down...why will you still be sitting?
You want to know more? What will you see if you reach the place where first shell hit and look at it carefully? Yes, that it's one of yours...but make no mistake...it's not part of the spoils we've taken from you. Look at it more carefully! It's one of the dozens of shells that you have brought down on our heads, one of the few duds that lands here every day. They just have to be dug out from the ground, their fuses set on safety and their casings changed for a filed-off fifty-caliber shell...and then...three shells are the daily allowance; three shells that until yesterday were in your hands and today are in ours.
By the way, your national symbol is the eagle! Maybe the same eagle that had thought that all of our cities would be under its wings. On this side of the river we have a tale known to all about an eagle pierced by an arrow...they say that when the eagle looked carefully seeing that its own feather...it said, why shed tears? we are our own undoing?...What are you doing? Those minutes added to your life aren't to your liking? You've put your pack back on and you're moving...yes you'll go down the road and I, like yesterday and all the previous days, will lie in wait for you until you reach the zone of your last seventeen seconds...seventeen seconds to your death...and seventeen seconds till the time when the mortar round reaches its target...so I must recalculate how many steps you have to take during the seventeen seconds...and the radio will have to be switched on seventeen seconds sooner than the shell hits and, seventeen seconds later, a crater will be made where it impact the earth.
My eyes, in addition to the scope, your body, the seventeenth second, the shell burst...and the launching of thousands of pieces of shrapnel all around and into your body...every day or so this scene must be repeated several times until you also on that side of the river are robbed of your security and realize that every time you go on leave your death will come...and this thought is many times more agonizing than being killed at the front itself. The insecurity of the back lines, those tributaries leading to family and normal life, so tied up with a sense of safety...but only a daily rations of three shells will cause that insecurity...and during that entire time you have no choice but to run down this road...3.5 kilometers of road...even when we are not manning our lookouts, you must be anxious...anxious that there is somebody waiting to switch on the radio...yes, with only three shells...and not with those thousands of shells...and we have decided to haul the fear and terror from this side of the river to that...and you're still on the road, looking up at the sky and perhaps enjoying it! What wonderful, brisk weather!
If I were in your shoes the only thing I'd want from God is a breeze so that the shell might be go slightly off course before it hits the road...or that the charge in the mortar round doesn't work and the shell doesn't fire in the chamber. Ten minutes to go before the seventeen-second zone. This is probably what you're thinking: How long will the roads remain insecure? With ten, twenty, forty more people killed, you'll doubt the safety of other roads. Yes, it's a good question, you have every right to ask it, and I have every right not to answer. Today it's your turn to find a strategy. Likewise it could be the turn of one of your comrades, someone just passing a few minutes before you and you would probably inspecting his spattered blood on the ground; but today everything has conspired to make you the subject of the conversation. Want me to answer your question? You have the right to know! In the future if this method doesn't work, I'll find another way. Now everything is in place for the old method. Do you know what that is? Keep walking along the path and just listen. "The Mousetrap" is what we call it. At the same level with the road you are on and the others that go off into the desert behind it is a telephone pole. We just have to bring the first shell down on the telephone wires...and a break in communications...and then the poor lineman who will have to come and reattach the frayed cables...exactly at the point of impact...and here a seventeen second wait won't be necessary...and the second shell...and the interesting thing is that I had never seen this break in the lines myself and only became aware of it from the movements of your linemen.
Taking into account the extra time accrued when you stopped, we have another eight minutes to chat. It's an interesting sort of friendship, don't you think?
Know how many people are sitting around our battery waiting for my radio signal? Five...five artillerymen...Want to know who they are? You have a right to. One of them is Mehdi who lost his father before the war. His mother was laundress at the hospital...until one of those thousands of shells landed on the hospital laundry. Want to know how long it took before those bloody sheets were white again? And then there's Hoseyn who's only thirteen and keeps the artillery clean. He had to bury his sister with his own hands; can you understand how hard that was? Bury bits and pieces of her, that is? Enough or should I say more? Thousands of rounds launched at the city just to kill a handful of non-combatants and all we have is three shells at our disposal and, when today's work is done, all of us without the slightest remorse or pangs of conscience will sit down to lunch and then rest and once again track down some more of your duds so that we can prepare another three shells for the coming days. We, in fact, don't even need the three shells to weaken your resolve. All we have to do every so often is to mount the kind of action we carried out two months ago when we got a battalion of your soldiers to turn on one another. Yes, the same battalion that was sent away from the front lines and was replaced by your battalion. Nobody on your side knew the secret behind those leaflets. The leaflets that angered the leadership of your third army. There shouldn't be any secrets between us during these final minutes. In a few days it will be your battalion's turn. One of those shells that dispense leaflets...leaflets that are simple on the surface, promising amnesty...amnesty with pictures of the Imam...the man that terrifies you...yes, you have rained thousands and thousands of leaflets on our homes in the besieged city...give up...until now none of them has done any good, but our leaflets have alarmed many of you, one little shell at that...and you never caught on to the trick we played on your forces!
You weren't in the old battalion, but your comrades in your present battalion will soon see a shell will open in the sky and pour leaflets down on them...each leaflet containing a picture of Imam Khomeini and the promise of amnesty. When we mount our operations, each leaflet will count as a writ of asylum...and your commander like the commander of the previous battalion will order that the leaflets, especially the writs of asylum, be collected and those in your battalion that don't give up the writs will be reprimanded severely; and that in an army known for its collective punishments. Watch what happens when your battalion commander finds leaflets without amnesty writs! What's he supposed to do? He'll wonder who's picked them up. Maybe a number of soldiers have actually taken them! There'll put more pressure on the battalion to find them...If Baghdad gets word of this...your commander will be under pressure...collective punishment...maybe members of the battalion will start accusing one another to escape the punishment... bad blood and suspicion...and in the end a lack of trust in a battalion some of whose soldiers have hidden the writs of amnesty, even with their pictures of the Imam...and a lack of trust in war means laying awake at night fearing betrayal and expecting something bad to happen.
But do you want to know the truth of the matter? It's likely that nobody on your side picked up one of those amnesty writs, because from the very first we made a number of leaflets without pictures of the Imam and the writs. See how we use our wits and talents in a city under siege? O Mr. Iraqi eagle! How could one of your own feathers be the agent of your death? We never learned to fight anywhere except here during these last few months and if it weren't for the war, we'd be in high school in this very city...and which class would we be in?...Probably math...and here I am calculating the three minutes you have left to live. Now it's time to tell my five comrades down below to get ready. They have to be at the ready with a tight grip on the chord, as the seventeen seconds begin. Well, they're ready...everything's set against you.
Do you know what I always think at such times? That you and those before you and those who come after you are probably Basran. I have a somebody there, or had, I should say, a person that I never saw...my mother's sister...who years ago, long before she died, married a man from there. I always wonder whether you, if you are Basran, know anything about her or her children. They say she had two sons several years older than me. Sometimes at such moments like this I have the feeling that I have those two boys in my sights. Now there are only five steps before you enter the zone. Four steps, three, two, one.
Seventeen seconds.
I've turned the radio on. The chord is being pulled and the machinery of your death has been set in motion. Now a shell that for years remained hidden underground in the form of ore...was extracted, refined and then forged...and then made into a container for shrapnel and steel, brimming with explosive powder...and conveyed by boat over miles of ocean, is on its way to rack up your death; a shell that has been ordered twice to kill: once, when used on our city and twice, when used on you. O Iraqi eagle, here's your feather back!
Sixteen seconds.
From this moment on the shell is making its way through the sky, under no one's control, not even mine. Our friendship didn't last very long. You probably would be in school now...and I, if I could, would take you prisoner to that after the war you could return safely to your family; but now your are on that side of the river and I am on this side.
Fifteen seconds.
You'll have one chance at the thirteenth second when the sound of the shell reaches your ears. If, and only if, you pay attention...and stop for a second and sit...when the shell's course is fixed...maybe you'll survive the explosion...get ready to take that chance.
Fourteen seconds.
If I were in your place and knew what was coming, I'd spend these last moment asking God's forgiveness...for everything and everyone...perhaps God...whatever the case you won't need sermons from me when you're dead.
Thirteen seconds.
The sound of the firing...and you are still determined to follow the same path. The sound of the shell didn't attract attention. What are you thinking about? But there's still a chance...the last chance...maybe a breeze will blow at the last moment, but I pray it doesn't.
Twelve seconds.
As boldly as possible I must admit that after killing you and climbing down from this perch, I will have forgotten the whole thing. By donning that uniform, you have signed a contract to kill and to be killed.
Eleven seconds.
Clear your mind of everything except the wind...and me with my allotment of three shells...and that I have used up one of them...the other is on its way...the third?
Ten seconds.
The seconds remaining in your life have gone from two digits to one. Death is on the way, my friend.
Nine seconds.
The shell is also on its way. You are also on the way and my scope is trained on the spot where the shell will explode. The windfall outcropping whose sole cause is human, on that side of the river.
Eight seconds.
See: there's no breeze to make the shell go off course and the blasting powder in the shell, though it's handmade, has performed perfectly, propelling it from the artillery. Now only a miracle can help you...and, maybe, your mother's prayers.
Seven seconds.
How many days will it take for your family to get word of your death? Two days, five? When it comes, what will your father be doing? For me it wouldn't be more than twenty-four hours. My brother will be the first to know.
Six more seconds.
Time is short. Whenever one of your soldiers comes from that side of the junction in the direction of the riverbank, I say to myself, "Chalk up another enemy for our side."
Five more seconds.
You may be wondering whether I would have called in the strike if you had been my cousin. Yes, I would have and I'd be waiting another four seconds. No in another four seconds you will be at the place where the shell is going to land and four seconds more before your rendezvous with it.
Four more seconds.
See the waterway for the last time? We call it the Arvand River and you the Shatt al-Arab. In any case it won't make the slightest difference to you. Whatever happens the fresh water of the river will spill into the sea, becoming salty; as in the past, the present, and in the future. See how foolish it was to start killing the people of our city, in the hope of trapping a river that has never been captive to the man-made?
Two more seconds.
Again, you hear nothing I say; you just keep walking to the place where the shell will explode at the same pace. In one second you'll hear the explosion, but you'll only have part of a second to hit the dirt. So get ready and use the last chance to save your life.
One second.
Our friendship is in its last second. What are you thinking about during the last moment of your life? Your intended, who waited until the last second to say farewell? Your mother? The cold weather? There's nothing else to do! My eyes are fixed on the point of impact and you are caught in my crosshairs and, in this half second, the sound of the shell...and...it's all over. The blast happened exactly where it was supposed to, covering the place in a cloud of smoke and dust that made you disappear. I sit waiting for it to settle. What happens next means nothing to me, but for you, if you're wounded...it is vital...every second you'll bleed more than before...and I know exactly what you are thinking about during this time...about your friends helping you...but if it's all over and your soul has taken flight...now your friends have a dilemma...should they rush to help you? I also have a friend who could come to your aid...don't get me wrong...not to save you...I've let you in on our whole strategy...the third shell is already in the tube so that your friends will suffer the same fate as you.
The smoke has cleared and you're lying on the ground not moving. Your friends are observing from far away. You'll be the bait for the next hook and I'll remain here waiting for your friends so I'll use the third and last eagle feather...
And again another second.
Our friendship is in its last second. What are you thinking about during the last moment of your life? Can you imagine how much the firing of one shell, only one shell, has caused me to think? Where do you come from? I wonder. Who's thinking of you? And this is what I do every day, for every one of you who goes down this road. Do you, before firing all those shells at us, give my mother the slightest thought? So why is launching these three shells so painful for you? Three shells with so much thought versus thousands of shells without any thought, if those thousands of thoughtless shells had not been fired, then these thoughtful shells would never be launched. My eyes are fixed on the point of impact and you are caught in my sights and this half-second...what happened? Why are you lying on the ground? What are you looking at? At a dud? So the shell was a dud again! So now I'll give you five seconds to get up and run away; if not, I'll switch on the radio so and tell them to send the third your way.
I start my stopwatch...one, two, three, four...run faster! You put my mind at ease! Don't get me wrong: I've haven't said this so you'd get away ahead of time. My third shell needs to fly seventeen seconds, and, if you were late to escape, it's possible that there'll be no one where the shell hits...now, perspiring, you'll join your friends...without your back pack which you left in that appointed place...and now you've seen death with your own eyes...will your finger squeeze the trigger of your gun again tonight? Will you give the mothers on this side of the river a thought? Absolutely...so you've got my message loud and clear. With death or fear, it doesn't matter which, you'll transmit you fear to your comrades...like the leaflet-scattering shell that will explode over your heads in a few days...and maybe you are one of those who out of fear kept one of those writs of amnesty. Whatever the case I'll be waiting for you, until at the crossroads...someone else is dropped off...perhaps in a couple of days...and again you my friend....
From Tales of the Iran-Iraq War, translated from the Persian by Paul Sprachman
(Source:Open Democracy)
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