I recently learned that one of my brothers-in-law, who spent his first summer after completing high school going through basic training for the Marine Reserves, has been called up for active duty. Of course, no details were given regarding where he'll be going, but the few facts given are illuminating, and not at all surprising: he's being taught some Arabic phrases; he's being vaccinated against some possible biological warfare agents we've been hearing scary reports about; and he'll be sent to a camp that's a known staging area for U.S. troops going to the Middle East. I don't know Pepe very well; we live pretty far away, and he's a reserved, somewhat shy person. We don't seem to have that much in common, either: I'm viewed by much of the family as a radical, and I'm a busy mother and writer; he's a young man interested in computers and muscles and much younger femmes than I. Still, the news of his activation sent a shiver through my mind, which lingers even now.
I wasn't a war supporter before Pepe's news reached me, so this isn't a tale of my new-found enlightenment as to the horrors of war. Ever since a fifth-grade interest in World War II led me to do some independent reading and researching on war, I've loathed it. Instead, Pepe's news spurred me to think, and helped me clarify how my take on individualism seems to differ from many others'.
I've been an individualist for much longer than I've known that word. I remember thinking about people, different colors and forms and sizes, as a young girl of around 8. It didn't make sense to me that some people hated black people (who really weren't black, but just a darker brown than they) or yellow people just because their skin looked different (and whoever decided to call people with skin like mine "white" was pretty dumb too, I concluded). It made less sense to me that boys and girls -- and men and women -- spent so much time bad-mouthing and hurting each other, especially when they seemed to care about each other. And my mind just couldn't wrap itself around how something like religious differences, particularly among various forms of Christianity, could become important enough to result in discrimination, let alone outright killing of others whose beliefs differed in some way. Call me naive -- I'm sure I was at that age -- but I wondered why people couldn't just choose to get along better.
I thought about lots of so-called "others" -- blacks, boys, Hispanics, Asians, men, women (something I knew I'd be, but still was an "other" at this point), Jews, Catholics, Lutherans, Arabians, Europeans, old people -- and just couldn't get to any good rationale for hating some people simply on the basis of some characteristics of skin, or sex, or beliefs, or geography. What groups people belonged to mattered less to me than the fact that each individual is ultimately a person. And, I reasoned in my naive child's way, each person wants the same fundamental things: to live one's life as he or she thinks best; to have some circle of family or friends to share love and life with; and to be left alone by others. That's how I came to my approach to people: I view each person as an individual, who on the basis of his or her interactions with me is shown to be worthy or not of continued interaction.
When I read reports of discrimination or violence against Kurds, or Saamis, or Hindus or Serbs or Catholics or divorced fathers, I can imagine those individuals, trying to do their best to live their lives, and being hurt simply because others see them as Kurds or Catholics or whatever hated group they're part of, instead of as an individual. I know that this is simplistic, because often those individuals behave in similar ways to members of groups they dislike -- but I can imagine how Muslims and feminists and Bosnians and Baptists are hurt, too. Being sexually assaulted didn't stop me from being intimate with my then-husband, nor did it cause me to despise all men; my anger was limited to my assailant. He was the responsible party, not all men.
In thinking about this escalation of the U.S.'s long-standing war with Iraq, my focus is on the people who'll be affected as the decisions of the political leaders play out. Civilians are already being hurt in Iraq, as are troops, from enemy combatants as well as friendly fire. To me, the source of injury matters less than the fact that people who just want to be left alone to live their lives as best they can are being hurt, and killed, at the whim of two national leaders with little but bloodlust apparently on their minds.
The political system that allows individuals like Hussein and Bush -- who covet power and apparently know no bounds in their desire to keep it -- is ultimately at fault. What is the nation-state if not a means by which some individuals align themselves into groups on patches of ground and, more often than not, begin aggressing against other individuals with differently-patterned rags flying over their patches of ground? Those who truly understand individualism and seek to live in a voluntary society have no refuge from this collectivist idea gone wrong.
Pepe signed up for the Marines in order to be "part of the toughest." He knew that he could be put into harm's way, and he accepted that risk. From what I know of him, I'm confident Pepe will follow the proud Marine tradition of semper fi -- "always faithful". When I heard that Pepe will most likely be in harm's way soon, I felt dread and sadness. I can imagine this young man, with a warm, engaging smile that allows a glimpse behind his reserve, in the sands of Iraq, being shot at and possibly dying because the leader of one group doesn't like the leader of their group ... just like I can imagine an Iraqi mother's dread and sadness at her son facing similar possibilities. The only difference is that I know and cherish Pepe's smile, and the person behind it, and not her son's. In my own way, I, too, am being always faithful -- to my conviction that what matters most is individuals and personal choices, not groups and coercion.
I loathe war, for it's a tool that one group leader wields against another, using individuals who may or may not agree with the rationale and methods, to hurt other individuals. Inevitably, other individuals are caught in the crossfire, both literally and figuratively, and bear heavy prices with no possible value attached. In the end, no one wins, yet one group declares its victory and exerts its will over more individuals. I loathe war, because it is the ultimate anti-individual action, and a pure distillation of what's wrong with the rule of some over others.
It continues to astonish me that others who call themselves individualists fail to see this as well.