Should we concentrate on the symptoms or the disease?
Captain Harry Wales, when asked about his skills as an Apache combat helicopter gunner, quipped in a now famous remark that he acquired those skills playing PlayStation and Xbox games.
Should Harry, as a consequence of his remarks, be prevented from making any statements in future, or should he and others be helped to better understand the realities involved? The Taliban of course have offered to help with the latter.
Undoubtedly, computer and video games do hone reflexes; therefore, they must help in a job such as Harry’s where the requirement is to identify, aim and shoot.
They do not help however to understand the tragedy that results
The best way to end violence and war may be to remove the reasons for their existence: poverty, lack of education, intolerance and injustice. Kids will only stop playing computer games when pigs fly or hell freezes over, whichever comes first. After all, why should they stop? It is a human instinct for young people to emulate adults. Computer games depicting war and violence exist because war and violence are indulged in and glamourised by adults.
At the age of twenty eight, and being who he is, Harry ought to have known better than to say what he did. Obviously his mentors, both personal and professional, neglected their duty. Exactly as Britain’s shadow Secretary of Defence Jim Murphy should have known better than to say in an interview that he found nothing wrong with Harry’s statement, and that Harry’s statements were ‘human, humorous and self aware’. Mr Murphy went so far as to say that his statements showed Harry to be a ‘young man of remarkable bravery’.
On the odd occasion one can sympathise with the Taliban, without agreeing with their methods.
As everyone knows, hundreds of thousands of civilians in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan have lost their lives, and thousands have been injured as a result of the Allied’s ‘war on terror’. There is nothing humorous about this, and nothing brave about a young man sitting high above the battle pressing buttons to destroy lives down below. It is remarkable only that Mr Murphy appears to think so.
It is statements such as Mr Murphy’s more than Harry’s that are deleterious both for Britain’s standing in the international community of nations, and a warning against Mr Murphy ever attaining the position he is at present shadowing.
The lobby against violent computer games possesses extensive evidence against the tragic results of excessive exposure to violent games. Of course, an excessive exposure to anything is potentially dangerous, and imposing a ban is no cure. There is such a thing as ‘dilutional hyponatremia,’ in other words an overdose of water, which results in an imbalance of electrolytes within the body, which can prove fatal. In almost every case of death due to this cause the victim had been a normal healthy individual who consumed too much water as a result of a water drinking competition, or some other (over)consumption of water. Associated with this is also a method of torture where a person is forced to drink huge quantities of water, and dies as a result.
To ban water for the general public is not the best action in this case.
This argument brings us most naturally to the frequent shutdowns against YouTube and cell phone service in Pakistan, measures which those in charge of security obviously feel reveal them at their best, working hard to defend the lives and security of the people they represent.
And of course now the All Pakistan CD, DVD, Audio Cassette Traders and Manufacturers Association, rejoicing in the impressive initials APCDACTM has decided to ban two computer games in Pakistan, Call of Duty: Black Ops II, and Medal of Honor: Warfighter.
Both Medal of Honor: Warfighter and Call of Duty: Black Ops II feature scenes that are set in Pakistan, portraying the country as a hotbed for terrorist activity.
The APCDACTM has said that these games ‘have been developed against the country’s national unity and sanctity’, and that these games depict Pakistan and the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) as supporting terrorist and jihadist organisations.
Are the country’s national unity and sanctity so fragile as to be destroyed by a couple of computer games? Do Pakistan and the ISI support terrorism and terrorist organisations? Will banning these games do any good, if that is indeed the case? If that is not the case, then why are Pakistan and the ISI so repeatedly accused in this regard?
Should we concentrate on removing the greater evils of terrorism and its causes, and on those who support it instead of wasting our time and energies on such trivial things as computer games, YouTube, et al?
