An eye for an eye...

At the age of ten, I was involved in my one-and-only fistfight. At the time, my family and I lived in a small country town where, it seemed, fistfights were all the rage. For example: two towns over, a football team was kicked out of the local league after an exceedingly violent clash between that town’s residents, rival supporters, and the game’s umpires. The reaction in my town was not one of disgust and dismay that our near neighbour could display such hideous base instincts; rather, an atmosphere of self-conscious shame settled over the town – as we were seemingly no longer the toughest town around.

During these winsome days, a friend had devised a jolly game to play with one of the other boys in our Grade 5 class; he would offer the boy a choice - ‘five dollars or a fight’. The boy, despite being involved in many a round of fisticuffs in his time, would always acquiesce, promising to supplying my friend with the remuneration required to avoid a violent encounter - much to our amusement. No money ever actually changed hands (although I can imagine my friend now readily employed as a standover man); the whole production hinged on the boy’s agreement to pay five dollars, and our subsequent mirth – “Did’ja see that jerk?! He’d rather pay five bucks than fight me! What a loooo-ser!” Indeed, champagne comedy. Yes, fun was had by all, until one day I decided to take a more active role in proceedings – it was my turn to initiate the entertainment: “Five dollars or a fight!” I said to the boy, already looking over at my friend and waiting for his laughter at the inevitable reply.
“OK: a fight,” came the unexpected response. Oh, snap.
My ten-year-old world began spinning – a fight? I looked to my friend for help, but he had (for the first time all day) discovered that schoolwork was fascinating. He was sitting right next to me, but could have been battling giant space beetles on the planet Nebulaar for all the acknowledgment he gave my plight. (Note: if you even think of writing a movie about a young boy battling giant space beetles on the planet Nebulaar, prepare your arse for a lawsuit.)
What was I to do? Though this may come as a surprise, at the age of ten I was less than physically intimidating. Scrawny, bookish… undersized, shall we say. But, I couldn’t back down, because less than undersized was my mask of confidence, ego, and general superiority. So, much to my sub-mask horror, I heard myself squeak: “Fine”, and subsequently arrange a meeting place. It was done.

The time and place was soon upon me; I found myself alone, behind the netball club, awaiting destiny. My solitude was testament to the strength of my friendships in those days – one of my closest friends couldn’t come to support me because his mum had hired Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, and he needed to watch it (again) before it went back to the video store. Conversely, the boy arrived with three buddies – with whom I’m sure he still associated today, whether they have adjoining stools at the local pub, or adjoining cells in the local prison. And so, with my heart pounding so hard my ribcage petitioned for respite, the fight began. The boy threw a punch. I managed to block it – my tae-kwon-do lessons were paying off. Another punch came at me – I blocked again. Instinctively I threw a front-kick, which landed in the middle of the boy’s chest, pushing him backward a few feet. “Hey! None of that tae-kwon-do shit!” the boy barked indignantly.
“Okay,” I replied. After all, I was told repeatedly only to use my yellow-belt level powers for self defence, and since I’d started this fight, it seemed unfair to evoke such an advantage.
The boy swung again, connecting with my upper arm. Ow!
“Uh… when does this end?” I asked, imagining the two of us raining blows on one another, onwards into eternity.
“The first one to get blood on his face loses,” the boy replied.
That made sense as an endpoint; we would trade punches until blood appeared, then cease hostilities. As such we briefly continued, until a combination of my lack of anger – I had no desire to hit the other boy – and a sharp whack to the side of the head prompted me to initiate negotiations. All my bravado from earlier that day was spent.
“Ah… can we stop?” I asked. “I… I’ve never been in a fight before.”
The boys reacted in an unexpected way. For an endless split-second, scenarios rushed through my head – the boys, perhaps all four of them, giving me a bit of a beating, berating me all the while for being such a wuss. But, they simply laughed and walked away. And that was that. I never heard about the situation again. No name calling at school. No snide comments. No surprise dackings, or wedgies, or wedgie/dacking double-plays. My pathetic surrender was seemingly satisfaction enough.

Unfortunately, contemporary aggression between countries, particularly those in the Middle East, lacks a similar endpoint. It is not ‘blood on the face’ of the opposition – a relatively minor, reversible sign of superiority – that will signal the end of the theistic conflicts that threaten the world today. Indeed, adult fistfights often don’t end until someone is in hospital, or even dead. Likewise, protracted destruction and copious innocent deaths is the norm in the Mid East. Also, for one of these opponents to ask: “Can we stop?” is tantamount to them exclaiming: “Your God is first! Ours is the worst!” And of course this is despite Muslims, Jews, and Christians believing in the same God. With religion at stake, no side is simply going to laugh and walk away.

Another troublesome (or perhaps ‘terrifying’) aspect of modern warfare is the phenomena of disproportionate escalation. What if I had refused to curtail my ‘tae-kwon-do shit’? Would the other boy have counteracted my advantage by finding a weapon such as a rock or a piece of wood? Would he have had his friends join in? Both may have seemed to him to ‘even things up’, but would actually have provided an even more lopsided battle. Would I have escalated in response? (No, I would have run away, but that’s beside the point.) Hezbollah (operating out of Lebanon) kidnapped two Israeli soldiers. Israel responds by destroying Lebanon. Hundreds of civilians dead, including dozens of children, infrastructure destroyed, cut off from the rest of the world, over half a million people forced to leave their homes, many with no homes to which to return. Escalation on the part of the Lebanese seems unlikely, until you consider the thousands of potential terrorists created by the destruction, and the fact that Lebanon’s mates, Syria and Iran, could potentially ‘jump in’ at any moment. The Israeli response in this conflict, as Daniel Gilbert of the New York Times has said, is less “an eye for an eye” than “an eye for an eyelash”. I prefer to think of it as ‘a kick-in-the-nuts for a Chinese-burn’. But when Lebanon’s groin is sufficiently iced, what will come next?

I deserved the situation in which I found myself all those years ago – I was cocky, superior, and probably needed a punch in the head to learn some humility. In this current conflict, Lebanon – and especially its civilian population – surely does not deserve the aggression expended by Israel. But, with neither side likely to be satisfied with a bloody nose, with Israel and the USA unlikely to laugh and walk away, and with Lebanon’s mates standing at the ready, the situation is exceedingly dire. Throw in a twitchy, nuke-totin’ North Korea, and we can just hope that netball isn’t cancelled due to the mushroom cloud rising from behind the clubhouse.