If there's any that I have believed since puberty, a war cannot be an option in whatsoever circumstances. But, today I unexpectedly faced a strong argument claiming that it is worth having wars sometimes. An article from the New Yorker, chronicling the life and political believes of a second-elected Democrat, Mr. Barrack Obama, contained slightly different perspective from what I thought he had. Hear me out.
I could definitely see why Americans are so excited by Mr. Obama's political emergence. Just by looking closely at his biography, one can easily recognize his life well representing that of a contemporary everyman of America . He was born as a result of an inter-racial marriage, which made him keenly involved in the immigration reform bill. He appears as a black (his father was an African foreign student from Kenya) but lived with the whites. (his father left him and his mother when he was two and went back to Kenya, since then he mostly lived with his grand parents. He describes in his book "Dreams from my father" that his father's complexion being pitch black, whereas his mom's being milkish white.) Additionally, he's been through certain amounts of despair and solitude as a child whose background was relatively marginalized from a perspective of a standardized social hierarchy - a black kid from a broken family. Having grown up with his grandparents, one of whom worked as an insurance dealer, which turned out to be unsuccessful, he never felt that he was privileged, at least in terms of the capitalist social norm that has been prevailing in the nation. The dramatic turn of this fourty-someting man came with his entrance to the Harvard Law School. Upon completing the degree and earning a stepstone to move up, he decided to land himself in a desolate place in Chicago instead of taking offers from the top legal firms in the country. (His close friends testifies in the book that he could've gotten any position if he wanted by the time of his graduation.) Providing legal services to mostly less educated and less benefited African Americans and new immigrants populated in the little town he stayed, in many ways, cultivated his political ambition. The most impressive factor of his CV is not that he successfully became able to present himself in a higher social class in spite of a less previliged background he had, but he still seems managing to keep his faith to support those he grew up with, i.e.. those who need assistance to sustain themselves as his priority. That indicates how strongly he is self-disciplined and dedicated for what he believes. Certainly, putting oneself into difficult positions for someone's else's sake is not the best thing most of the ordinary would hope, in fact, most of us are busy for avoiding those if possible.
Now, this is a script of Q&A session held in downtown Chicago in the fall of 2002.
“I noticed that a lot of people at that rally were wearing buttons saying, ‘War Is Not an Option,’ ” he said. “And I thought, I don’t agree with that. Sometimes war is an option. The Civil War was worth fighting. World War Two as well. So I got up and said that, among other things.” What he said, among other things, was “I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.” Invading and occupying Iraq, he said, would be “a rash war, a war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.”
Upon reading his answer, the familiar slogan of his, "War is not an option," became a stranger to me, because I have understood it as he was agaisnt all wars regardless of any circumstances. Upon directly/indirectly witnessing so many fights waged between parties of which believed in the motives they had and seeing more of destruction and despair rather than hope and future therein, the conclusion I come up with was there is no excuse strong enough to rationalize a cause of war. But now Obama, one of the rare I begin to look at closely hoping that I finally found someone I can be role-modeled, said that some wars are worthy of fighting. That evokes some old questions. Now. then, who would ever be entitled to judge which wars are worth fighting and which are not. And how would they get the legitimacy of their judgement? Or, wouldn't there be any other option but to wait until the history makes its own judgement of the events? Then, how does his argument have a legitimacy until he confirms with the judgement in front of the history??
On the other hand, we need to keep in mind that most of human developments have been achieved through fights between groups whose interests were acutely conflicting to each other. Women's suffrage finally achieved in 1940s after a lot of people shed efforts and sacrifices, Gandh's non-violence resistance won the independence from the imperial Britain after claiming countless lives, Martin Ruther King's famous speech of "I have a dream" moved hearts of the world but later on he had to pay it with his own life, and the 3.1 Movement became the initiative of independence movement against the imperial Japan in Korea but also claimed many casualties. All of the above examples were fights in a sense that one or both part(ies) got wounded as a consequence, and most of us will probably evaluate them as great achievements in human history. However, look at the middle east today. People there fight, probably they've been fighting since the mankind began to exist on this planet, and seemingly they will not stop in any foreseeable future. There have been young men willingly dedicated their lives for attacks on many many occasions. From the perspective of Arabs (Palestines), there were divine sacrifices for greater causes, whereas from the rest of the world, they're more likely seen as hostile actions against innocents - media in the west conveniently call it a terrorist action. Then, think hard here. Is this a worth war or not? If you can answer this, how can you distinguish your reason from those advocating the rationalization of Gandhi's non-volence resistance, the 3.1 movement, and Rev. King Sr.'s resistance movement?
As another example, the death of Pinocchete. He fought for his office by having the U.S. supported military strength, and ruled the nation for many years. In the course of his regime, many had suffered from tortures, imprisonment, and even death. Now he is dead. And would everyone be happy?? To everybody's surprise, still fair number of people in the nation were reportedly was mourning for him. What about Fidel Castro? He is more adored by his people than the Pinnochete by his. Then, really,, who are we to judge which fights are worth waging and which are not??
