"Juba" the Baghdad sniper..strikes again.

[Poi E]

Riiiight.

 

[poet]

Most westerners recoil in horror at the sight of a machete, whereas to those in the developing world it's a plough, hoe, scythe, axe and a million other farm tools rolled into one. To most westerners an AK47 means oppression and slaughter - to hundreds of millions of people it means liberation, independence, protection and pride. Mozambique have a Kalashnikov in their national coat of arms, Hezbollah have it in their flag and hundreds of thousands of African boys are called Kalashnikov. The primary function of light arms is not, as popularly believed, as a killing tool. It is a tool which promises (or threatens) that the owner is capable of fighting on equal terms to any man. For those of us in safe european homes it is easy to dismiss firearms as brutish tools with no place in the modern world, but for oppressed people all over the world armed struggle is their only means of defence and their only hope for freedom. Lucky us that we have rough men to stand ready out of sight and out of mind, but the reality is that the stability of our nation is paper-thin and utterly reliant on the capability of our armed forces to act in our defence. The briefest of glances over our history shows that the unthinkable happens with alarming regularity. It is easy to villify those of us who are familiar with firearms in times of peace, but much harder when the shit has hit the fan. I have lived and worked in many places where knowing how to field-strip an AK or zero a scope is a definite asset, where there is a rifle by the door for a fucking good reason, where an unwillingness to take personal responsibility for one's safety is a luxury few can afford. I am not some fantasist, nor am I a thug. I have seen what guns do, I have no glamorous illusions as to my own capabilities, I merely understand that no-one is ever far from violence and that screwing up your eyes and saying 'guns are evil' will not help you when times get tough.

 

[Poi E]

 

[bugsy7]

So, poet, I assume you don't know who Juba is either?

MsG

 

[poet]

So, poet, I assume you don't know who Juba is either?

MsG

Ain't got a clue mate. I suspect he's an amalgamation of people and events, but you never know.

Oh, and thank you for your reasoned and insightful response, Poi.

 

[Poi E]

Oh, and thank you for your reasoned and insightful response, Poi.

Veneration of weaponry is not something I understand. I can't provide any insight into that mentality.

 

[poet]

Veneration of weaponry is not something I understand. I can't provide any insight into that mentality.

It is not veneration. It is an understanding that without weaponry and men willing and able to use it you and everyone else in the civilised world would be utterly fucked. Without good men willing to bear arms, the only people with them would be the thugs who would seek to use them to gain power. If you fancy living somewhere without an organised defence service then I'll happily pay for your ticket to Somalia, but don't come crying to me when "white man with no bodyguards" gets kidnapped.

"Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest."
-- Mahatma Gandhi

 

[Poi E]

I think that you're mixing up the nobility of a cause with a fetishising of *one* of the means of bringing about change. India became free without mass militarisation of the populace. I don't deny the legitimate use of weapons to advance a national liberation movement. What has occured to me is that people I've spoken to who fought in such wars in Angola, SW Africa/Namibia or in wars of aggression in Bosnia and Croatia fought so that they could lay down arms and didn't see them as a thing of peculiar fascination (naturally there were some extremely unsavoury exceptions). It was the power of words and suffering that motivated them, not the gun.