Book of Revelation

There’s much to hide in Canada’s “peacekeeping” international behaviour

by Michael Nenonen <mnenonen@republic-news.org>

Every so often, a book comes along that challenges my most basic assumptions. Unveiling Empire: Reading Revelation Then and Now (Wes Howard-Brook and Anthony Gwyther, Orbis Books, 2000) is just such a book. I've always assumed that the Book of Revelation simply documented John of Patmos' madhouse vision of the future. In contrast, Howard-Brook and Gwyther argue that the Revelation has to be read as an attack upon the mythology of the Imperial Cult of Rome. According to these authors, the imagery of the Revelation is specifically designed to undermine Roman religious propaganda. The Revelation doesn't, in this reading, use literal language to describe events expected to take place in the future, but rather uses metaphorical language to critique the realities underlying the Roman Empire.

Rome’s Imperial Cult promoted the view that the "divine" Augustus had ushered in the long-prophesied Golden Age. The Empire's victories had established a universal and eternal peace, known as the Pax Romana, that encompassed all nations. The Gods, as embodied in the celestial bodies, provided the Empire with its authority to govern. The Earth's unprecedented fruitfulness demonstrated that nature itself supported Roman rule. These myths provided the ideological infrastructure needed to hold the Empire together.

To counter them, John identified Rome with "Babylon," a long-fallen empire that in its arrogance had once considered itself to be immortal. He depicted an age of torment and a world subjugated by violence (the Beast) and economic exploitation (the Whore of Babylon). In John's account the heavens and the Earth condemned the Empire: the stars fell from the sky, the moon turned to blood, the sun refused to shine, and the land was beset by famine, pestilence, and natural disasters. He encouraged the faithful to maintain a counterculture that he referred to as the "New Jerusalem," a counterculture in which a communitarian social structure and transcendent ethics replaced Rome's hierarchical social structure and imperial values. If Howard-Brook and Gwyther are correct, then the Book of Revelation had the same relationship to the Imperial Cult that Adbusters has to the corporate media today.

Our current empire is as dependent upon its myths as Rome once was. Like its British predecessor, the American empire presents itself as humanity's saviour, charged with the task of bringing "civilization"—known these days as "democracy"—to what George W Bush describes as the dark corners of the world. According to sociology professor Sherene Razack's Dark Threats and White Knights: The Somalia Affair, Peacekeeping, and the New Imperialism (University of Toronto Press, 2004), the imperial mythology isn’t confined to the US. Canada has created a mythology of its own, one that serves imperial interests. It is most clearly expressed in the aura surrounding Canada's peacekeeping activities.

These days, when Canadians think about peacekeeping we tend to think about Romeo Dallaire, the man whose mighty spiritual spine nearly buckled beneath his Rwandan burden. Dallaire plays an important role in Canadian mythology. Razack writes that "modern peacekeeping is constructed as a colour line with civilized white nations on one side and uncivilized Third World nations standing on the other. . . . [The peacekeeper] is entrusted with the task of sorting out the tribalisms and the warlords that have mysteriously sprung up in regions of the world where great evil dwells. Confronted with such savagery, peacekeepers can ‘lose it,’ either by descending into violence themselves or descending into madness. The traumatized peacekeeper, an important Canadian icon, is a man who bears witness to the savagery and who is overcome by it."

It's comforting to fix our mental eye upon Dallaire, whose anguished decency enhances our collective self-image and distracts us from the lingering memory of the atrocities committed by the Canadian Airborne Regiment in Somalia, a memory that might otherwise expose an enduring ugliness in the Canadian character.

In 1993 the Regiment, considered by many at the time to be our most elite fighting force, was sent to help stabilize Somalia. It's unlikely that the Regiment's members were familiar with Somalia's history and current situation; it's even less likely that they understood the effects of colonialism, the slave trade, the Cold War, IMF and World Bank reforms, and corporate plunder on Africa's social, economic, political, cultural, and ecological well-being. The Regiment's racial attitudes were singularly ill-suited to the African context. Some members belonged to White Supremacist groups. A videotape of a hazing ritual conducted by members of the Regiment shows that the phrase "I love the KKK" was smeared in feces on the shoulder of a black corporal who was then tied to a tree, sprinkled with flour, symbolically sodomized, and made to crawl on all fours. One soldier in the videotape referred to the Somalia operation as "Operation 'Snatch Nig-Nog.'" Another declared that the Somalis weren't starving, and that "they never work, they're lazy, they're slobs, and they stink."

The Regiment was stationed in Belet Huen. According to African Rights, Belet Huen was peaceful throughout 1993. The Somalia militia had long before left the area, which was afterwards populated primarily by starving refugees. During their stay, no Canadian personnel were injured or killed by Somalis. Though children would sneak into the camp to steal food, water, and small items, there was little evidence of any threat of sabotage or armed incursions. Despite this, the troops became increasingly paranoid and violent.

On one occasion, members of the Regiment fired into a small crowd demonstrating at Bailey Bridge. One demonstrator was killed, and at least two were disabled. Food and water were sometimes used as bait to lure Somalis to the base after dark, where soldiers wearing night vision goggles would apprehend them. Prisoners were typically beaten. Kids, perhaps as young as six years old, were tied up, hooded, and left for hours in the scorching sun.

On March 4, 1993, two Somalis, Abdi Hamdare and Ahmad Aruush, approached the camp to ask for water. They were fired upon, and when they ran they were shot from behind. Hamdare fell under a shallow cliff and was hidden; Aruush wasn't so lucky. They found Aruush and shot him again, this time in the face from close range. Less than two weeks later, a teenage captive named Shidane Abukar Arone was tortured to death. The entire camp heard his screams, but no one helped him. Master Corporal R E Campbell later testified that "The only way I could describe it was from my childhood on the farm. We used to slaughter our own animals. If an animal was not put down properly, then as they were finishing off, they would still be alive and conscious and that sound was very close to what I heard."

Just like in Abu Ghraib, the soldiers of the Airborne took trophy photos to document their abuses, photos that made their way onto the front pages of Canada's newspapers. The Regiment was disbanded shortly after its sins were exposed. A public inquiry was held into the "Somalia Affair," but it was terminated prematurely by the Liberal government in 1997. According to the Commission Report, if the inquiry had been allowed to continue, it would have asked the following questions: "What was the motive for the torture and killing of Arone? How could the values and culture of the Canadian military and its leadership have allowed the atrocities in Somalia to occur and tolerate subsequent attempts to cover them up? Why did so many soldiers look the other way in relation to the incidents on March 4th and March 16th? Why did any ethical sense of compassion for the victims appear to be almost totally absent during the deployment and its aftermath?"

By then, most Canadians wanted to put Somalia behind us. We didn't want to ask these questions; odds are, we still don't. The Airborne's story is unbearably humiliating, and the possibility that racism is a systemic problem in the Canadian military is too threatening. As Razack suggests, we prefer another story, a story about "our mission in the First World to save Africans, our helplessness and vulnerability in the face of so much horror, and our bravery in continuing to help."

Just like the myths of Imperial Rome, our myths of Northern nobility and Southern savagery help legitimize and perpetuate an unjust and ruinous social order. Through our international economic institutions, our corporations, and our military forces, Northern countries continue to rape the resources of the South, creating unfathomable suffering and chaos in the process. Canada isn't innocent; proportionate to their size and strength, Canadian hands are as dirty as American hands. Like John of Patmos, we need the courage to deconstruct our imperial myths. However uncomfortable this task may be, it's of the greatest urgency. By loudly parroting Washington's War on Terror rhetoric, respected Canadians like General Rick Hillier are now generating ideological support for Canada's deepening integration into the American war machine, a process that's sanitized and sanctified by colonial myths like those now surrounding Romeo Dallaire. To challenge the process, we need to attack its accompanying mythology. We need a Canadian Revelation.

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