Firstly, I tend to turn a gimlet eye on overly academic language; what to me often seems like inordinately verbose wording, and since this is par for the course in academia, I find myself annoyed quite a lot of the time. While I'm aware this does me no favours (as scholars are, to put it mildly, unlikely to change their writing styles to suit some random undergraduate student), I find it irksome and pretentious when a writer, for example, is forced to construct an entirely new term in order to explain a phenomenon perhaps only her has noticed. I'm talking, of course, about Hage's "exighophobia", which he knows he must explain in the text of his article, as it is not in fact an actual word.
His central premise is that we (the West) tend to fear those who for whatever reason find it difficult to condemn suicide bombings and bombers, and that we also fear knowing that the people who perpetuate these crimes are also human beings.
I don't think this is necessarily true. While I have no doubt that there are far too many people in the world who would prefer to believe suicide bombers are "monsters" (harkening back to one of our earlier lectures on horrible crimes), I am certain that there are quite as many others who are reluctant to absolve suicide bombers of what they've done by removing from them their humanity. To call a suicide bomber a monster, to say that he or she is "not human," is to excuse their actions. Hage does not exactly do this, but in order to make his point, he remains unwilling to outright condemn suicide bombing, under the premise that it would go against the principle of the thing. Therefor, I can only conclude that Hage absolves suicide bombers of any blame, and tacitly approves of their actions.
Further, I take issue with the fact that the only voices the reader hears in this article are those of Palestinians or those sympathetic to the mainstream Palestinian cause. While I understand that this is a polemic (and thus does not pretend to have any kind of balance), I think it detracts from Hage's argument to silence the Israeli voice. After all, no matter what one's political persuasion with regards to the conflict, it is in fact the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and removing the voice of one of the central players is odd indeed.
In the interest of full disclosure, I have to tell the reader that this issue is a particularly painful thorn in my side. I have family in Israel, and I am not of the opinion (though Hage might respectfully disagree) that any suicide bomber to blow them up would be correct. I am still grappling with my own political position with regards to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but one thing about which I am quite clear is that I am for whatever will grant true peace and safety to the civilians of Israel proper and the territories. This means that civilian voices, the voices of the actual players in this conflict - the people themselves - are more important to me than hollow ideology, academic gymnastics, and clever citation of only those whose points support one's own.
It is because of this, really, that I want to share with you the trailer for a film I particularly love. It's fictional, of course, but it holds essential truths about the humanity of suicide bombers that I think are conspicuously absent from Hage's screed. I hope you will all consider watching this movie, because it is firstly an incredible piece of cinema, and secondly (in its own small way) a force for justice.
You can watch a trailer for the film here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ou4UFIiY1wk
No comments:
Post a Comment