Saturday 3 November 2007

To all my enemies...whoever you are....


A good few years ago I remember a friend of mine telling me his experiences of growing up in South Africa during the last years of apartheid. Conscription to the army was still compulsory for young white men during this period, and Mark (my friend) recounted a particular story concerning his older brother, who was conscripted for 2 years: Upon joining, Marks brother, with a bunch of other 19 year-olds, were given their first briefing by a fierce, grizzled Afrikaner sergeant.
“The enemy is out there, and watching at all times.” The Sergeant bellowed. “We must strike quickly and crush the enemy. The enemy will do everything the destroy us. We must be strong.” Mark’s brother gingerly put his hand up.
“Excuse me Sir……who exactly IS the enemy?” The Sergeant glared at him, before replying:
“We don’t have that information at this time…….but when we do, we’ll let you know.”
This tragi-comic story is very relevant in the current ‘war on terror’ environment, because it highlights an uncomfortable truth….we seem to need enemies, even if we don’t know who they are. The sense that there is something or someone, some group or institution out there, who can be blamed for the things that threaten us or go wrong in our lives can provide a sense of balance, even comfort, to our existence. This is a need played on by successive governments and institutions, both good and bad: The cold war has given way to the war on terror, but there is a rich vein of form here throughout history: The crusades; the religious wars of early modern Europe; the political revolutions of the 19th century and the dictatorships that followed. The need to provide an unseen enemy is played upon in the writings of Orwell, Kafka, Machiavelli, Swift and St Thomas More in their various political utopias and dystopias, and in a sense, the need for us to believe in ‘the enemy’ is what unites the politicians in the White House with the fundamentalists in the caves of Afghanistan.

Yet there is something deeper here: I think we get the enemies we choose, and that our nemeses are often a reflection of ourselves much more than they are of the world ‘out there’. It’s no coincidence that the compensation and litigation culture has sprung from a period of unparalleled economic individualism (2% of US GDP is now litigation fees!!!)This has led us to believe that there must be someone financially responsible for our misfortunes. Being used to economic advantage has led us to look for enemies who can compensate us.

We create enemies from the most surprising of sources- I remember, when I was a child, the calm of a hot summer’s day being punctured by a cry of pain from my Dad, who was in the garden. I ran out to find him standing over a hammer, which was lying on the lawn, hitting it repeatedly with my cricket bat. When I asked him what was wrong, he replied sheepishly that he had hit his thumb whilst hammering the nail and was ‘teaching the hammer a lesson…..’ Here was a grown man pouring all his anger at his own lack of dexterity into humanising an inanimate object!

On a deeper level, the need for enemies to balance and explain our lives can permeate the collective unconscious: The personification of the devil as a creature with horns and hooves in European literature and iconography can be traced to the later medieval period: Prior to this, from the period of the Christianisation of Europe up to the early medieval period, the devil was normally personified as a human being. Why the change? It coincided with the invasion of Europe by the Moors and (separately) the Mongols. When Alien-looking foreigners started to threaten Europe, so subconsciously the devil was portrayed as one of these- a dark and threatening Alien creature.

The enigmatic Dutch medieval artist Heironymus Bosch brilliantly illustrates this in his painting ‘Christ carrying the cross’. Note how Christ is almost ignored by the crowd, who seem to be venting their anger on themselves. I think Bosch is making the clear point here that their condemnation of Christ is in fact a condemnation of themselves.

So our need for enmity can be portrayed as a need to personify our fear and insecurities. I for one will be seeking to understand and explore my enmities, and face them with strength and courage.

And who or what are they specifically?.....well I’m afraid I don’t have that information at this time, but when I do, I’ll let you know….