By Theodosis Pipis, Analyst KEDISA
As leaders across the West continue to utilise the language of security and human rights what we are currently witnessing in the Middle East, Eastern Mediterranean and Iran is the exact opposite. The continuous bombing, starvation, annexation of the Palestinians is still presented as Israel’s right for self-defence. The war against Iran, though looking to tackle an autocratic and theocratic regime, has seen the murdering of hundreds of civilians by US and Israeli bombs, all in the name of democracy. Finally, the Iranian retaliatory attacks on the British bases in Akrotiri, Cyprus are putting Cypriot residents at risks for a war that is not theirs and most importantly for foreign military presence that is an outdated imperialist existence on the island.
What is the timeless truth here? Nothing more than the United States (and more broadly Western powers) are not opposed to violence but simply are opposed to violence they cannot control. The “unipolar moment” where peace can only be assured by the United States having “the strength to lead a unipolar world”, is no more than a fallacy.[1] While speaking of peace Western states and EU institutions have enabled, financed and executed atrocities they claim to be protecting the world from. In this manner, states and institutions that fetishize the idea that they are the protectors of stability are in fact hypocritically doing the same. They do not seek to end killing and destruction, they are seeking to monopolize it.
As far back as the 1990s when communism fell and the United States desired a new enemy the language of terrorism emerged as a central theme to Western control. It became a primary justification for state interventions both at home and abroad. Fighting terrorism became the subtext to military intervention, violence, and destruction in states from Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, Palestine and now Iran. Meanwhile this exact same language has been instrumentalized to enhance domestic surveillance and opposition of free speech across the United States (simply look at the inhuman I.C.E) and throughout the EU, (protesters in support of Palestine have been brutally arrested on the grounds of supporting terrorism in Germany, Belgium, France and many more countries).
Then what can we call this form of intervention? I would call it Western moral exceptionalism, essentially a fiction maintained to legitimize violence. Much of European and American public opinion remains unaware of the full scale of violence carried out in our name. This happens mostly due to the controlled and privatized nature of our media streams.[2] The narratives of Israel as victim amid its continuous attacks on Gaza and the West Bank, the true nature and realities behind the U.S. interventions in the Middle East and the Gulf and potentially even the reality of what the functions of the British bases in Cyprus are. The West is simply the saviour only in the stories it tells about itself.
But Gaza has offered the global audience one benefit; it broke the story the system told itself. It shattered decades of manufactured consent and turned Western democracy’s slow erosion into rupture. These stories are no longer abstract, they are visible, lived and even accelerating at an unprecedented speed. What remains should remain is not a system to serve, but one to question.
When UK Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, visited the RAF Akrotiri on the 10th of December in 2024 and was full of thanks and praise for his troops overseas he stated, “I’m also aware, that some or quite a bit of what goes on here can’t necessarily be talked about all of the time.”[3] Maybe now is the time for us to ask what cannot be talked about? As Cyprus is being treated as a target of the Revolutionary Guard regime in Iran, it is about time to question why our country is being targeted. What are the functions of the British bases on our land, an EU member state? And it is high time that we understand that all the military protection we are receiving is not for the safety of the Cypriot citizens but primarily for the British military personnel and their families. So, we must question; why are we being put at risk?
References
[1] Jordan Michael Smith, “Samuel Huntington’s Great Idea was Totally Wrong”, The New Republic, 19 October 2023, https://newrepublic.com/article/176019/samuel-huntington-clash-civilizations-wrong
[2] Tales Tomaz, “Media ownership and control in Europe: A Multidimensional approach” European Journal of Communication, vol. 39, Issue 5, 22 August, 2024, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/02673231241270994
[3] PM’s address to British troops in RAF Akrotiri, Cyprus, 10 December 2024, GOV.UK, https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pms-address-to-british-troops-in-raf-akrotiri-cyprus-10-december-2024
