Changing culture, one gamerscore at a time.

Eight years ago today was the first time I’ve ever literally fallen to my knees. In this case, it was in front of a television showing two planes smashing into a tower, mere months after we were repeatedly told it was a threat and the men and women in charge ignored it, and mere months after I’d spent a fortnight in Washington DC, visiting the White House and Pentagon City. Countless dead, wounded, and worst of all, the millions of people now alone because of the lives lost. To some, it was a harrowing initiation into the true nature of humanity when push comes to shove. To others, it was simply another wave of deaths in an endless list of pointless wars and conflicts.

The odd thing about 9/11, and for that matter, the bombings in London on the seventh of July a few years back, is that everyone was outraged that these people had attacked us in such a brutal fashion. The vast majority didn’t understand what could have provoked these men and women into committing acts of terrorism, even though on a daily basis the news sources were inundated with footage of the USA and the UK stomping Iraqi men, women and children flat under the boot of the “superpowers” that jump in at the first possible opportunity.

I hold no strong political views, simply because I’ve accepted long ago that the only person who’ll hold identical views to myself is, well, myself. I can rant and protest all I like, but unless I’m willing to be Emperor of Earth, there’s not a lot I can do to change things, especially with the government being such a characteristically stubborn and clunky machine in the hallowed United Kingdom. Irony in the name itself is evident enough, because I’ve never seen a collection of constituencies so divided as North Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales. The Scottish National Party should be indication enough of the continuing fracture in the societies we live in.

We consider culture important because it allows people to celebrate the customs and traditions of their people, and to embrace other cultures by showing them how the country in question would, for example, cook a meal, or go dancing. The problem with culture is that it’s become the most subtle source of the collapse of international relations that we could feasibly name. I recently saw Bruno, apprehensive as Sascha Baron Cohen sat down with representatives of Palestine and Israel to try to come to some sort of agreement.  ”So what are you fighting over,” he said, feigning complete ignorance. “Hamas,” they chorused. “Humous?” he responded, and I laughed, wondering what they’d do next. They corrected him, and agreed it was something they both ate in their respective cultures.

“See? You both like humous. That’s one thing, let’s go from there.” The Bruno persona was gone, and in its place, albeit only for a fraction of a second, Cohen sat there honestly wanting them to see the logic in his argument. In thirty seconds, he had achieved more than the UN had in years, connecting these people on a base, fundamental level. Have you ever met someone at a party, and connected over the smallest bit of trivia, be it a song, a meal or a train station you get off at to go to work? Everyone has at some point, and it’s these things we need to rely on if anything is ever going to get better.

The problem I find with the USA is they have an amazing sense of patriotism. So amazing, in fact, that it’s become quite xenophobic. This is a familiar feeling if you’re anywhere in Europe, or anywhere else, for that matter. However, when you’re a xenophobic superpower, the problems start to arise when you take offense at various things you don’t really have the right to be involved in. There are several countries I could name, shamefully the one I live in at the moment also, that are very gung-ho when it comes to bombing countries that are barely developed. Bill Hicks once rightly stated “I’m sorry, it’s not a war. It’s only a war when two armies are fighting.”

So what can we do, and where do we go from here? The USA and UK have militarised so much of Iraq that to pull out immediately would write the death sentences for many civilians, the Taliban rising up to reclaim their territory and punishing the Iraqi citizens who submitted to Western rule. It’s patently fucking ridiculous, because had we not gone there in the first place we wouldn’t be in this situation. “It was for the oil,” some say. “No, it was for the damn terrorists,” say the others. It doesn’t matter what it was for. People have died. Thousands of people. And for what? Nothing. We found no weapons, there was no-one there causing any more trouble than normal. In fact, the arrival of marines probably doubled the amount of teenagers being given guns and told to die for their God.

Sinan, co-host of Big Red Potion, was recording with myself and his other co-host Joe DeLia, revealed that he was of Iraqi descent whilst we were discussing the cancellation of the game Six Days in Fallujah, a shooter set in a hyper-realistic contemporary Iraq, a far cry from the melodramatic bullshit of Call of Duty 4. I felt so sorry for him and his family, watching endless news bulletins about one marine dying every few weeks, when thousands of friends and relatives on the other side, who’d never so much as wished a bad thought towards the USA or Europe, were being shot dead in raids and blown to pieces by carelessly planned bombing runs. Remember Clinton’s raid on the “explosives factory”? The one that turned out to be a factory making asprin? Thousands dead, and for what? A few thirty-second CNN bulletins, but never an apology.

As you look around at all the memorials, I’ll be thinking about my visit to Ground Zero four years ago. I cried, simply because building a tower wasn’t the answer to remembering these people, and neither was a plaque citing the deaths of those involved. However, a plaque covering the entire foundations reading “people died here because peaceful resolution is not something that humanity has mastered, these people died because our government drove a small country to desperation and brutality” might be more appropriate. Ghandi was once asked in an interview what he thought of Western civilisation.

His response? “I think it would be a very good idea.”