Last night I finished reading Paul Ham’s The Soul, his 856-page history of the human mind. Ham is an esteemed Australian military historian whose moving chronicle of Passchendaele secured his reputation. But with The Soul he has ventured into broader territory, and I was curious.
After nearly a year of Israel’s relentless genocide in Gaza, I was swirling into depression, and was tempted to follow him through time. I felt I had to step back from the soaring body counts, the harrowing accumulation of IDF barbarisms, Israel’s repeated lies and the Biden administration’s specious calls for a ceasefire while continuing to provide Israel with ever more money and weaponry to conduct its apocalyptic retribution. I hoped that the sweep of Ham’s narrative might lead me to better understand what had made us humans so terribly inhumane to one another, and was more than willing to follow him through time. And like all good books, his has been a springboard for my own thoughts on the subject.
It’s as clear today as it is from the past that there’s little if anything rational about waging war. It depletes populations and treasuries, even the so-called victors suffer greatly. The suffering lingers, engendering further suffering. Then why do we persist with it, against all reason? Years ago, I began to wonder if warring might be natural to all animal species, ourselves included, designed to reduce populations whenever there was competition for scarce resources. This was not to say that I thought we humans are hopelessly wired for war. Quite the contrary. We have shown ourselves to be the most adaptable of creatures. We may have our bedrock animal instincts, but we also have the capacity to think our way out of them. If we try.
Unsurprisingly, Ham’s new history contains much about war, most of it illuminating. Take the 17th century conflict between Catholics and Protestants that plunged all of Europe into “fire, plague and famine”, with faith its murderous propellant. For Ham is convinced that belief is what drives all war and colonisation, and makes a very persuasive case for it. He shows how powerful beliefs like Catholicism and Protestantism made Europeans resort to arms for three decades until the Treaty of Westphalia ended it, and Catholics and Protestants have lived in relative harmony since. (With exceptions – he doesn’t mention Northern Island.) He cites similarly successful outcomes, how countries like Japan, for instance, could be turned from a divinely-authorised autocracy into a democracy. His study doesn’t extend to the current crisis, but reading it offers hope that even die-hard Zionists who take their bibles literally might finally see sense in acknowledging the humanity of Palestinians and making peace with them.
Ham’s approach, then, is nuanced. He notes that some, like a 17th century Protestant, might sincerely hold the beliefs they’re willing to sacrifice themselves and others for, while others, like a 21st century Zionist leader, can cynically use them to keep themselves in power, with all shades in-between. His point being that, after all the pain and the destruction, even the most implacable of enemies can in time become partners in peace. In other words, history has made him a cautious optimist.
As Israel’s follies extend from Gaza to Iran and now, exponentially, to Lebanon, there’s reason even for cautious optimism in the Middle East. On 19 July, the International Court of Justice advised, inter alia, that “Israel’s use of the natural resources in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is inconsistent with its obligations under international law”. And on 18 September, the United Nations General Assembly resolved that Israel withdraw from the West Bank within a year, that Palestinians be permitted to return to the homes they were driven from in 1948, and compensated for the losses entailed.
Though the UNGA resolution, like previous such resolutions, are non-binding, they are yet another crack in the pro-Israel armour. The US voted against it, Australia abstained, but New Zealand and Japan were two of the 142 member states who voted in favour. On the question of Israel’s occupation, Israel and its supporters have consistently thumbed their noses at international law. But world opinion counts for something. If there’s no plan for peace just yet, and Israel, Hamas and all the politicians found to be complicit have ignored the international rulings so far, they cannot keep doing so forever.
Sara Dowse
Sara Dowse is an American-born Australian feminist, author, critic, social commentator, and visual artist. Her novels include Schemetime published in 1990, Sapphires, and As the Lonely Fly, and she has contributed reviews, articles, essays, stories, and poetry to a range of print and online publications.
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