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Sept. 17, 2006 Military conquest –that is, the campaign rather than the culmination has always been presented as a thing of glamour and romance, but alas! Sadly, it has never been so, it is a tragedy. According to Encarta Encyclopaedia,’tragedy’ is a dramatic genre in Western theatre what presents the heroic or moral struggle of an individual, culminating in his or her ultimate defeat. In a globalised world of rapidly shifting ‘trafficked impressions, perceptions, and counter perceptions, ambiguities, calculated and otherwise …’Bin laden may certainly not qualify the label ‘heroic’ or ‘moral’….. struggle maybe, ’ultimate defeat’ most surely as evidenced in the demise of Al –Zarkawi in Iraq, the multiples of resurgent insurgent Taliban constantly being sent to the bloody after life in Afghanistan. Probably the most used, the most popular catch phrase of the 21st Century has come to be the ‘War on Terror’…… odd though I would have thought the ‘War on Terror’ would have been fought on the diplomatic front with a plethora of/in an arsenal of words while the ‘War on Terrorists’ would as a last resort suffice. Sadly, it was and would always have been the former. Entire nations, organizations, families and individuals like it or not who have been caught up and drawn into a whirl pool of uncontrollable sequences and events, pitting civilization against civilization with the effect that the mythologized ‘mutually assured destruction’ scenario of the Cold War and yesteryears is a startling reality . It has given birth to – spawned countless glazed eyed adherents of one singular warped leanings and persuasions who are mote than ready to carry out apocalyptic visitation on both perceived enemies and innocents caught up in what is known as asymmetric warfare usually following no logical path as it reaps a harvest of collateral damages. ‘Plato criticised enactments of tragedy as artistically and socially debilitating,because he felt they stirred emotions without encouraging virtuous behaviour, Aristotle however defended tragic spirit as an ennobling and beneficial force then ….for him, dramatic imitation of tragic events could offer a framework for developing insight and understanding together with the opportunity for cathartic relief …..To a population that was wrestling with questions concerning divine purpose and the worth of human virtue ….’ ‘Euripides, however worked against the expectations of audiences, he challenged the accepted mythological canon, exploring different points of view in order to uncover novel and disturbing meanings …..’ When Euripides wished to depict warfare upon the stage, he did not bring on an army with banners, he brought on an old woman leading by hand a weeping child who had lost his parents, and this is the reality of war and the lesson of Euripedes. ------------ Email Stephen Lonewolf Makama: lonewolfmak@yahoo.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com. Please link to this article rather than copying and pasting it onto your site (which would be unauthorized and illegal). |
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