America’s two latest attacks on Syria and Afghanisatan have been headline news in the last fortnight – in case you missed either of them…
In Syria – the US launched 59 Tomahawk missiles to damage and air base in response to the claimed use of chemical weapons by Assad’s forces against civilians.
In Afghanistan they deployed the biggest ever non-nuclear bomb, at a cost of $16 million, to take out an ISIS stronghold.
The US claims the Syrian attack was because Assad crossed a line in using chemical weapons, and much of the news has focused on the declining relations with Russia (who support Assad), and they claimed the scale of second attack was to get into the underground bunkers used by ISIS, and here the news has focused on the message this sends to North Korea.
But why is the Trump administration playing ‘global policeman’ when just 6 months ago they campaigned on a ticket of focusing on domestic policy and making life better for ordinary America?
Noam Chomsky offers an interesting perspective and answer…
One good example of a recent neo-liberal policy which will make life worse for especially poorer working class Americans is the abolition of Obama’s anti wage-theft legislation this required a company to publish details of any violations of minimum wage or health and safety law that they’d made. The regulation forced businesses to disclose each time they broke a law in the past three years, including violations relating to civil rights, health and safety, and minimum wage and overtime violations.
There was also Trump’s recent attempt to repeal ‘Obamacare’ – which would have left 20 million more (poor) Americans without health insurance, but that was defeated, however, the defeat is an embarrassment which fuels the need for a distraction according to Chomsky.
So maybe there is some truth in this? Maybe now the real Trump is showing his colours and enacting policies which support big business and make life worse for the working man, what’s needed is a distraction – and what better than to bomb a few people, which will obviously just generate more problems abroad and more terrorist attacks on US citizens, possibly all ending up in a self-fulfilling prophecy.
If you like this sort of Chomskian analysis, you might also want to check out Naomi Klein’s ‘The Shock Doctrine’, what’s going on here seems to be an evolution of what she argues too.
Below are a few resources focusing on the causes and consequences of the ongoing (hopefully soon to be recent) civil war in Syria. (‘War and Conflict’ in relation to development is part of the A Level Sociology Global Development topic).
The causes of the civil war in Syria
This Guardian video does a reasonable job of explaining some of the causes of the Syrian Civil War in five minutes. NB it has its critics – see below!
The trigger event which caused the Civil War in Syria was when 1000s of people took the street in January 2011 to demand political reforms (e.g. elections) inspired by ‘The Arab Spring ‘ – a wave of violent and non-violent protests which had swept across many North African and Middle Eastern Countries in December – January 2012.
The protesters were protesting about the brutal rule of dictator president Assad who had ruled Syria in the interests of a relatively small elite since the year 2000, when he took over from his father, who had ruled the country since the 1970s, having modernised it while brutally repressing any dissent.
Assad’s response to the protests was to violently repress the initially non-violent protests by shooting over a hundred demonstrators. Over the coming months some of these armed themselves and formed small groups of rebels – the ensuing conflict between Assad’s security forces and the rebels resulted in 60 000 deaths in the first 18 months of the conflict.
The root of the conflict can be further traced back to the after math of World War I when France and Britain established the boarders of the Middle Eastern Countries, lumping many different ethnic groups and religions into Syria. The ethnic/ religious breakdown of Syria’s population is approximately 12% Alawites (President Assad’s ethnic group),8% Christians, 3% Shiites, and 74% Sunnis.
NB – The video has an equal amount of likes and dislikes – with many of the commentators pointing to the fact that the video misses out the role of the USA in causing conflict all across the middle east – commentators argue that the US has a long history of arming rebel groups in the Middle East as part of its foreign policy to deliberately destabilise the region.
Who is Fighting Who and Why?
This second video by VOX starts off by pointing out that the war in Syria is a mess, with four main groups involved:
The Assad/ government forces, backed by Russia and Iran,
The Rebels, backed by the Saudis, Turkey and the USA,
The Kurds, also backed by the USA
ISIS, which established a ‘Caliphate’ in an area which spread across the Syria-Iraq border.
This video focuses more on how the conflict has develop and points to the important fact that Syria has now become a ‘Proxy War’ in which other nation states are effectively fighting each other by funding different factions within the conflict, but without being directly involved themselves.
By 2013 money and troops were being funneled to the rebels by Sunni Muslims (e.g. the Saudis) While Iran (Shia Muslims) funneled money and troops to Assad.
In late 2013, the USA stepped into the war when Obama signed a secret deal for the CIA to train and equip the rebels.
In February 2014 ISIS emerges – which focuses on fighting the rebels and the Kurds, not Assad, and the US now has an ongoing dilemma which confuses matters and possibly prevents the US from taking effective action – who is it’s real enemy – ISIS or Assad?
Up until this time, Assad was losing ground to both the rebels and ISIS until September 2015 when Russia stepped in by bombing US backed rebels, and to date (December 2016) it seems like Assad is likely to defeat the rebel forces.
NB – As with the previous video, this also has its critics, so as with all sources, be skeptical of the validity!
Causes of the Civil War in Syria – A Summary
To my mind, for the purposes of A level Sociology you can simplify the causes of this conflict thus:
Nasty bad men (dictators) in the middle east don’t allow people to vote and oppress anyone who opposes them.
People in many middle eastern countries want the right to vote and basically governments who don’t abuse their human rights.
They use social media to organise and publicise protests – which spread all over the middle east and quickly to Syria
The nasty dictator, Assad, wants to cling onto power so he kills hundreds of the protesters
Other nations have a role to play in perpetuating the crisis – Russia and Iran by funding Assad and the USA by funding the rebels.
NB – Don’t fall into the trap of seeing the USA as backing the ‘good guys’ and supporting democracy versus the bad Russians and crazy Muslims who want to keep the evil dictator Assad in place because that’s in their economic/ ideological interests – the USA has a history of backing ‘evil dictators’ itself, when they support US interests at least.
You could further trace all of these problems back to the ethnic and religious divide/ tensions in Syria, which in turn was at least partially created by the French and British when they invented the country by drawing up artificial boarders after World War I.
Examples include more screen time, less outdoor play, and more anxiety.
Toxic Childhood is where rapid technological and cultural changes cause psychological and physical damage to children
The concept of Toxic Childhood is one of the main criticisms of the March of Progress view of chilhood. It is especially critical of the idea that more education and products for children are necessarily good for them.
In the book, Palmer argues that a toxic mix of technological and cultural changes are having a negative impact on the development of a growing number of children, and she outlines six main ways in which childhood has become increasingly toxic over the years.
Six examples of toxic childhood
A few years ago Sue Palmer’s Web Site had a very clear summary of six social changes which were damaging children’s early development, listed below….
The decline of outdoor play – linked to increased childhood obesity.
The commercialisation of childhood – linked to children being exploited by advertisers.
The ‘schoolification’ of early childhood – which reduces independence.
The decline of listening, language and communication skills – because of shortened attention spans.
Screen saturation – reduces face to face interaction.
Tests, targets and education – increases anxiety among children.
Below I summarise some of the ways aspects of childhood today may still be toxic!
The decline of outdoor play
According to Early Years Matters play underpins every aspect of children’s development. Children develop intellectual, language, social, emotional, and creative skills through play.
It is through play that children explore the world around them, take risks and develop their imaginations.
However outdoor play for children has declined significantly in the last decades. Save the Children recently reported that only 27% of children play outside regularly. This compares to 80% 55-64 olds when they were children.
Outdoor play generally provides children with more freedom than indoor play, allowing children to develop a greater sense of independence and self-reliance than with indoor play which is altogether more controlled and monitored by adults.
The decline of outdoor play also means children are getting less exercise today and it is correlated with increasing childhood obesity. It could also be having a detrimental impact of children’s mental health.
According the interactionist theory of socialisation play is central to the development of the self in childhood. So the decline in outdoor play may even be preventing children from becoming fully social beings.
The commercialisation of childhood
Childhood has become increasingly commercialised over the last few decades. This is where children are turned into consumers from early years into their teens. This is achieved mainly through advertising products and brands to children through television and more recently social media.
While the number of adverts children watch on television has decreased since 2013, social media is a different story.
With such marketing techniques children may not even be aware they are victims of commercialisation.
The ‘schoolification’ of early childhood
Childhood has become increasingly regulated and there is an expectation that children should always be learning at a standardised pace to keep up with ‘ordinary’ child development.
For example the baby centre has milestone charts for children in different age brackets outlining what most, half, and ‘advanced’ children can do by certain ages.
There is thus more pressure on parents and child carers to be teaching language, numeracy, or motor skills to very young pre-school children rather than just allowing them freedom to explore and enjoy their childhoods.
The decline of listening, language and communication skills
The number of children estimated to be behind with language and communication skills in England and Wales increased to 1.9 million in 2023, up from 1.7 million in the previous year.
Combined with the above point this means we are setting more and more targets but children are just failing to reach them. This will then probably mean more catching up in school rather than modifying the targets.
All together we seem to have constructed a set of rules for children than sets many of them up to be failures from a young age.
Screen saturation
One study (reported 2020) based on a sample of 3000 10-16 year olds found that half of them were online for more than 5 hours a day.
However the study above finds mixed results for the positive or negative consequences of increased screen time on child development, physical health and mental well-being.
Tests, targets and education
Marketisation from 1988 has greatly increased the role of testing in schools. This has led to a narrowing of the curriculum as more time is spent on teaching children to jump through the hoops required to pass exams.
More testing and exam pressure is also correlated with increasing anxiety among children.
More Recent Books on Toxic Childhood
Sue Palmer has published two more books, focusing on boys, in 2007, and on girls, in 2014.
Toxic Childhood: Criticisms
There are several criticisms of the view that childhood has become increasingly toxic:
This could be an example of an adult ‘panicking’ about technological changes, maybe children are more adaptable than Palmer thinks?
Taking the longer term view, childhood may well be more commercialised today, but surely children are better off today as consumers rather than producers (child labourers)?
This article by Catherine Bennett is worth a read – it reminds us that ‘in the good old days we just had to endure beatings’, although in fairness to Sue Palmer I don’t think she actually romanticizes the past, she’s really just pointing out the new and different problems children now face in a post-modern age.
Palmer’s Web Site used to be well organised, and used to have a lot of links to recent research on Toxic Childhood..
Unfortunately the and the free information (arguably like childhood) has disappeared, and it now just links to her books, which you have to pay for. (I guess times are hard for adults as well as children, especially when you’re used to a headteacher’s salary!)
Having said that some of her most recent books on child development and education are worth a read. Her most recent publication argues for raising the school starting age to seven!
Related Posts
This material is relevant to the families and households module, usually taught in the first year of A-level sociology.
The causes of the civil war in Syria
