Forget the individual, consider the big picture

Pretty ghastly, that killing of the eight-year-old American girl, wasn’t it? …No, not another crazy shooting in a US primary school. Nawar (sometimes known as Nora) al-Awiaki was the daughter of Anwar al-Awiaki, who was an al-Quaida propagandist and an American citizen. Nawar was one of at least fourteen people who died last Sunday, when the elite US Joint Special Operations Command launched an attack. Speaking for the American military, Colonel John Thomas said “Al-Qu’ida in the Arabian Peninsula has a horrifying history of hiding women and children within militant operating areas and terrorist camps, and continuously shows a callous disregard for innocent lives.”

Except you’ve had your sense of right and wrong surgically removed, you should be able to spot the flaw in Colonel Thomas’s reasoning. His men go into action thousands of miles away from home, and in the name of attacking Al-Qu’ida and its supporters shoot dead an eight-year-old girl along with at least fourteen others, and then blame Al-Qu’ida for the deaths.

There are some who would say that while the child’s death was unfortunate, even tragic, we have to accept such deaths as part of…yes, Virginia, the Americans invented the phrase…collateral damage. And in the overall scheme of things, that line of reasoning might sound plausible. But I doubt if it would convince Nawar’s mother, or grandparents, or other family members. They’d say that a violent assault, knowing, as the colonel indicates, that there were women and children in there, should never have been sanctioned and can never be justified.

But let’s cut from such gloomy Arabian events to our own level of conflict. Britain’s Supreme Court yesterday ruled that flag protestors should have been stopped from parading past a Short Strand resident’s home, that the protestors were breaking the law , the man felt himself and his family were in serious danger and the police could and should have stopped the march.

The police at the time, under Chief Constable Matt Baggott, argued that their softly-softly approach avoided further public disorder, and while the marchers were allowed to act in unlawful ways, they were later followed up on and prosecuted. Which is a bit like saying “We know a burglar is going to enter your house and steal your television, and you’ll be upstairs with your family frightened out of your life, but don’t worry: we’ll catch him in a few months’ time and he’ll be prosecuted.” For most of us, that wouldn’t leave us untroubled. Why, we might say, should I be frightened witless and placed in danger rather than protected in the first place?

In the overall scheme of things, you might argue that Matt Baggott’s policy was a good one. Better to have the disorder and lawlessness we had than risk greater disorder and lawlessness. I’m tempted to have sympathy with it myself. Except if I was the man from the Short Strand or a member of his family, I’d be outraged that my fears and my safety would be seen as collateral damage.

We don’t know the name of the man from the Short Strand, because he’d be fearful for his safety if it was known. We do know the name of eight-year-old Nawar (Nora) al-Awiaki because she was shot dead. While one case is infinitely more tragic than the other, both were dismissed as collateral damage in the overall scheme of things. Which is outrageous and why the struggle  to protect the human rights of  individuals, wherever in the world and under whatever circumstances, is unending.