11.07.2007

a military used for peace. what a concept.

We went to Matt Bin's book launch last night, which was great. He read excerpts from his new book, On Guard For Thee; the gathered audience heard from Canadian peacekeepers in their own words. It was very moving.

I'm still getting up to speed with the whole concept of a country's military being used in the furtherance of peace.

Most non-Canadian readers will be familiar with the concept of peacekeeping, in which neutral forces go into a region of conflict, to help stabilize it and allow a peace process to begin.

What you may not know is that peacekeeping was born in Canada. The concept of UN peacekeeping was the brainchild of Canadian Prime Minister Lester Pearson, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957. Beyond national defence, Canada's military is supposed to be used expressly for this purpose. I say supposed to, because many of us, including me, feel that Afghanistan is not a peacekeeping mission and that Canada should not be involved there.

(A discussion of Canada's role in Afghanistan is already going on here, continued here, so let's keep it there, please.)

I come from a country that has been invading other nations since its inception, first within its own self-declared borders, then around the globe, mostly to further the economic and political interests of a tiny, powerful class. Check out this list of United States military "interventions" since 1890. A few of them were arguably justifiable, one or two clearly so (although the prosecution of the war itself may not have been). It's a long list.

Most Americans are aware of very few of these. Even the most educated and peace-loving among us would be surprised by some of the entries. It's a long and ugly history, one we are not taught. (And we can't all memorize our Howard Zinn!)

This is another essential way that Canada differs from the US. When Canadians worry about the country being "Americanized," they should think of this. It's definitely a slippery slope, and we should be very careful to not tread upon it - but it's a long, long way down to that level.

Matt's book, however, isn't about the politics of any peacekeeping mission, the relative success or failure of peacekeeping, or anything like that. It's about peacekeepers themselves - what they've done, what they've witnessed, and how it has affected them personally. You can read my mini-interview with Matt here, and buy the book here.

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