violence353

Who ya gonna call?

Every now and then, my editor unlocks the door on the All Men Are Liars office and I get to roam the newspaper like an ill-bred cousin no one wants to acknowledge they're related to.

A few months ago, I snuck into Sunday Life (that's the wimmen's magazine in the middle of your Sunday newspaper) where I got an eyeful of guest columnist Jacinta Tynan in full flight, shouting over cubicles about why we shouldn't beat our children.

All right - I actually really just read her column - in which she quite validly argued that, by belting a kid, you're teaching them that the best way to resolve conflict is through violence.

She quoted a West Australian-based paediatrician, Gervase Chaney, as saying "How do you educate children that violence is wrong when you use hitting as a method of punishment?"

The phrase that caught my attention was "violence is wrong", a wonderfully idealistic sentiment, but surely one we're only capable of indulging because we snuggle under the security of our police, armed forces and alliance with the mighty USA.

I'm all for resolving conflict without violence, but if you take even a cursory look around the world, you'll see that, by and large, fights are won by the metaphorical big man with the big stick who beats his enemy into submission.

George Friedman puts it thus in his geopolitical bestseller, The Next Decade, writing that "justice comes from power, and power is only possible from a degree of ruthlessness most of us can't abide".

In February, Friedman's company Stratfor had its pants pulled down by WikiLeaks, which published more than 5 million emails sent between the company and some of the most powerful people in the CIA, Mossad and dozens of other governments and security agencies.

My point is that Friedman is someone demonstrably at the hub of global security and probably has a pretty good handle on the realities of violence.

So let me ask you this?

Why do Chaney, Tynan, myself and every other non-indigenous person in Australia own all the good stuff rather than the original inhabitants of this country?

Violence.

Perhaps not perpetrated by us, but we eat the fruit of our forebears' violence. Or at least the threat of it.

You know why Israel exists, Jews have a homeland, but 35 million Kurds do not? The application and threat of violence.

It's why Europe, the Middle East and Africa have the national boundaries they do. It's why indigenous peoples in almost every country on earth are fringe dwellers, while the newcomers drink the cream.

I would love my daughter to grow up in world that is not thus, but it is, always has been and, I dare say, always will be.

So me teaching her that "violence is wrong" strikes me as wildly naive, not to mention dangerous.

This is not to say I'm going to haul off and belt her if she does the wrong thing - I can't imagine ever raising a hand to my child - but I won't be teaching her that good intentions will solve all hers or the world's problems.

Sometimes you need a bloody big stick.

Sam de Brito's latest novel Hello Darkness is in bookstores now. You can follow him on Twitter here. His email address is here.