Wars against ideas impossible to win

Through Murky Waters

There are ideas and ideologies at war across the globe — from the conflicts in the Middle East to the election year conflicts in American homes. While these wars are vastly different from situation to situation, one constant can be seen in them all — it is futile to use force to oppose an idea.

Ideology is stronger than any army — it is deeply rooted in the psyche of those who adhere to it, and no amount of military action, oppression, or legislation can remove it from a people.

A clear example of the clashes of ideologies and armies is the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Both claim the same land, and believe that their right to it is absolute — the same ideology, based in religion, but held by different groups. The Israeli region has been locked in conflict since the modern nation of Israel was founded in 1948, with both sides uselessly throwing soldiers and civilians into the fray, each unable to shatter the beliefs of the other.

In the same region, the United States' mission in Iraq began as war against a dictator and, theoretically, to eliminate a terrorist threat. Now the mission has fallen into a trap — the U.S. military fights a war of ideology. The Iraqis who engage coalition troops daily do not fight for Saddam Hussein, their former ruler. They fight because of the threat they perceive from Western culture and ideas and the United States fights now because they have no choice — it would be ideologically impossible for the United States to withdraw before a democratic Iraq was established.

There are other conflicts of ideology, less well-known but held with equal passion, being fought with equal or greater force and brutality around the world. There are, however, other ideological wars, some within the United States itself. These wars usually do not involve loss of life, or even direct confrontations, but they still are passionately and futilely fought.

One such war is raging over the right of gay couples to marry. Many people believe that the United States guarantees certain rights to all of its people, and that the right to marriage — or equal representation under the law — is one of these rights. The opposition argues that marriage should be defined as being between a man and a woman, for various practical and religious reasons. These two strong ideologies each have support within the government, but the legislation that has been passed and proposed is the same futile resistance against ideas with force — in this case, the force of law.

Another war fought through law and government involves the Patriot Act, a bill passed in 2001 that allows the government more leeway in investigating terrorism. Proponents argue that the act is necessary to insure national security, while opponents argue that it restricts freedoms guaranteed to U.S. citizens. The ideology of "liberty and justice for all," ingrained in Americans from youth, here finds itself at war with the law and a law that, they perceive, threatens their ideology.

These and the countless other conflicts — violent, legal, or otherwise — worldwide cannot be resolved; ideological warfare can have no winners. Even if one side is forced to abandon its fight, not even the horrors of genocide can eliminate a thought, a belief, an ideology from the face of the earth — it will live on in writing, in tradition or in history — and it will resurface again.

The only way an ideological conflict can be resolved is through compromise, not warfare — literal or figurative. Recently, the nation of Libya gave up its open ideological warfare against western culture — and now expects the United States and European Union, who enforced long-time economic sanctions against Libya, to abandon its part in the ideological war. Libya is a model not only for other nations that held similar ideologies, but also to all people who blindly pursue the destruction of ideas they do not agree with.

Victor Hugo, in his "History of a Crime," wrote, "An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come." His words reinforce this point: no army is stronger than a strongly held idea. Ideological change, or even ideological peace, only can result from a mutual desire to discuss rather than preach, and compromise rather than kill.

Only once the warring factions realize this and commit themselves to finding a solution will any progress be made.

Alex Sirney is a freshman SMAD/ Anthropology major who may add something witty to his signature when he's older and wiser.