19 November 2015
Blessed are the Peacemakers
History is being made by good men in Vienna, not by bad men in Paris.
By Neil Tidmarsh
The terrible events in Paris have understandably and quite properly knocked everything else off the front pages this week. But it’s worth turning the spotlight back onto the Syrian peace talks in Vienna for a moment, because it seems that important progress is being made there. If nothing else, it’ll shine a ray of hope through the darkness of an otherwise bleak week.
Three significant developments in Vienna this week deserve headlines of their own:
First, the foreign ministers from nineteen different countries have been discussing which of the competing factions in Syria should join them at the negotiating table. Agreement here depends largely on a consensus about the definition of the word ‘terrorist’, and that appears to have been achieved; those groups willing to allow or participate in a democratic process will be included, those who do not will be excluded. One assumes that this will exclude Isis. (Why would Isis want to participate, to negotiate, anyway? Remember what happened when Canon Andrew White, the remarkable vicar of Baghdad, invited Isis militants to lunch and talks when they first surfaced in his area? Predictably they turned down his invitation and threatened to cut his head off.)
Second, the 19 foreign ministers mapped out and agreed a schedule for progress towards peace. Talks are to start in January between the Syrian government and opposition groups; a transitional government should be established within six months; and UN monitored elections should take place within 18 months. This peace plan was endorsed and announced by the UN.
Third, although Russia and the US continue to disagree about Assad’s future, significant common ground between the two powers continues to grow. After meetings with President Obama and with David Cameron in Turkey, President Putin announced that Russia is willing to communicate and cooperate with rebel factions in Syria to further the fight against the common enemy, Isis.
It is always tempting to be sceptical, if not cynical, about such talking shops, to write them off as hot air and smokescreens which achieve nothing. But here it looks as if real progress is being made, that the chances for success are considerable. With so many of the interested parties involved, from Russia to the USA, from Saudi Arabia to Iran, there does, incredibly, seem to be real hope for Syria at last.
Contrast these constructive developments with the utter futility of what those eight or nine murderers did in Paris. All that bloodshed, all that heart-ache, and they have achieved nothing for themselves. They may well have intended it as the declaration of war which M. Hollande has taken it to be, but it’s difficult to see how it can further any strategic plan or serve any tactical purpose. They may have intended it to be nothing more than a simple show of strength, but even there it fails. What’s so difficult about throwing bombs and shooting automatic weapons in a free and open society? Anybody can do that. Petty criminals – feuding and drug-dealing gangsters – commit such murders almost every day in our cities. They don’t impress us. We know they’re weak, not strong. All it needs is brutality and stupidity, and brutality and stupidity aren’t strengths, they’re weaknesses. The greater the number of victims, the more stupid, more brutal and weaker the murderer.
The long-view of history shows all such acts to be pointless and wasteful. This isn’t the first time the streets of Paris have been awash with French blood. On 24 August 1572, some 15,000 Protestants were slaughtered in the Saint Bartholomew’s Eve Massacre. During the Terror of 1794, the Paris guillotine despatched almost 3000 people. The revolution of 1831 claimed 3000 dead over three days. The revolution of February 1848 claimed 350 dead over three days. In the June Days of 1848, over 2000 lives were lost as the republic put down a second wave of revolution. In December 1851, almost 400 people were killed during Louis Napoleon’s coup d’etat. In May 1871, between 20,000 and 25,000 lives were lost during la semaine sanglante when government troops crushed the Communards. And did any of these terrible massacres make any difference in the long run? No, not really. Protestants and Catholics live together peacefully in today’s Paris. The Communist party enjoys considerable respect and support in modern France. And all the revolutions turned out to be precisely that – 360 degree turns which ended up exactly where they began. History trundles on implacably, showing up these and this week’s atrocious attempts to trip it up or divert it to be utterly futile.
And yet, encouragingly, this might not be entirely true about this week’s events in Paris. It’s almost certain that the recent atrocities in France and Egypt have galvanised the efforts of those peace-seekers in Vienna. Could there be a silver-lining to this week’s dreadful events, after all? With all sides acknowledging Isis as the common enemy, Isis appears to have scored an own goal. The terrifying alignment of Russia and Iran behind Assad against the USA, Europe and the Gulf states behind the Syrian rebels (an alignment which threatened a Third World War as never before) is being dissolved by the emergence of this common enemy striking at both sides. The swords of war which Isis has wielded in Paris and over the Sinai are being beaten into the ploughshares of peace by the negotiators in Vienna.
