The worst danger is the fear of war
Il Giornale, March 23, 2011
“Do not be afraid or discouraged” God said to Joshua (8:1). It is an exhortation that can be found 40 times in the Old Testament alone: it is a fundamental and essential imperative of our Western culture. Be it in Jewish or Christian culture, it has inspired all their secular developments, both of the conservative and progressive camp. It is a leitmotiv common thread running through literature across the ages, and the modern flags of Renaissance and revolution. Without this exhortation we are nothing. Because fear is a natural feeling, we all feel it, particularly when faced with a conflict. Today, again, as we face a new war, we have the duty to save politics from discouragement.
But the Italian and European media only speak about how unhappily we face the fight; how much it was imposed to us by circumstances and by the UN; how terrible will be the wave of immigration and how dangerous will be the future after Gheddafi, and they insist that we only want to save lives and not destroying Gheddafi’s regime... in a word: that we have been almost unwillingly dragged.
Discouragement is a threat to our success and to our international prestige. In Italy in these days we see it disguised in the shape of wiseness, sometimes of cynicism; at times it is masked as prudence, other times sloth. Italian politicians fill the air with these attitudes. But when the Tornados fly, public spirits should be raised solely by courage. Fear is a sensible sentiment, yet nowadays it is forbidden to turn it into a political flag: it would make things all too easy for the domineering and evil if we were to let it run its course.
When a people go to war, it is the duty of politics to generate the public spirit that will lead to victory. Of course we have reasons to be worried; the French cunning which underlies the split in Europe, a tidal wave of refugees, the loss of our economic relations with Libya, the possibility that there will raise a regime worse than of Gaddafi’s, the fear of a new Somalia stuck to the Italian borders… But now we have a task to carry out: saving the Libyan population, and accordingly attempting to remove the power from Gaddafi’s hands. I am astonished that the Lega Nord party, which all too often makes a show of its virile courage, is so publicly worried.
This very fear, shared particularly by Germany and first and foremost by Obama’s wavering politics, led us to make our first mistake: a relevant delay in taking action, that we now have to catch up on. Italy is the country whose geographical and economic position puts it mostly at stake.
There are many good reasons therefore why we must fight in the front line. In order of importance, from smallest to largest: France, a smart player in competing within the EU, is by no means a great player in Middle Eastern politics. The latest revealing snapshot of France during these popular uprisings shows the French Foreign Minister as a guest of Ben Ali when the latter was about to be kicked out by rebels. And don’t forget the failure of Sarkozy’s brainchild, the Mediterranean Union.
Nor would I worry about ENI: its roots in Libya are sound. We should instead be worrying about Europe’s forthcoming role in an unrecognisable Mediterranean. It is a major game: two Iranian ships have ploughed its waters like evil Cassandras, entering the Suez Canal for the first time since the Khomeini-led revolution. And wherever along the Mediterranean coasts the Islamic danger can become a very present actor, we are obliged now to take part in the world’s great game as it turns over a new leaf, and participate in the role that suits us best: defending freedom.
A historical era is drawing to a close. Italy and indeed Europe cannot hand in a note from their parents justifying their absence, as their American father is also ill. If a dictator decimates his own population, that is all the democratic West should need to intervene in the name of its principles; by failing to do so it would lose its respectability.
We are all asking ourselves who will come next, and not just in Libya, after the sun goes down on these dictators. The truth is that things might go very badly indeed: it may be that the desire for freedom will not coincide with that of democracy at all, and that the Muslim Brothers and their friends in Iran will become our Islamic counterparts in the next few years. Things will get very tough indeed.
So what? Should we go home because of this? It would have happened anyway, whether we intervened or gave our approval, as was the case in Egypt, or not. For now the dictators must fall; this is our credo, our war. Those that come tomorrow, who in any case are the new ruling class of the Arab world whether Islamic or not, will know, if we fight now with courage, that we have a warfare, an identity of our own. Our own courage. Our Tornados. When doubt seizes us, and fear assails us, we must think that the only thing we are interested in is democratic change. And the long road ahead is pointing in the direction of will and courage.