Joseph A. Buttigieg
The horrors inflicted upon New York and Washington D.C. on September 11th caused not only unspeakable carnage and unimaginable suffering but also great confusion. I am not referring to the confusion and disruption experienced by the people in the two stricken cities and all over the United States, where life seemed paralyzed for a while, but to the psychological, mental confusion into which an entire population was plunged—a confusion so profound and debilitating that it could only be described as pure dread. It was the kind of confusion, of debilitating fear, that grips anyone whose grasp of reality, whose world as one knows it suddenly, inexplicably falls apart and one is left to contemplate a devastation (figurative, as well as physical) that defies explanation, that cannot be encompassed by any readily available interpretation—a situation in which the material reality before one’s own eyes can only be described as «unreal» or «unbelievable.» In such conditions one seeks, first and with the most pressing urgency, understanding. To be sure, the entire nation turned instinctively to television, the radio, and the internet to find out exactly what was happening and what was about to happen. Yet, even before all the gruesome facts and all the important details could be ascertained, the gnawing, irrepressible questions in everyone’s mind and on everyone’s lips were: How could this happen? Who did it? Why? What next? In other words: What does it all mean? It was obvious to everyone that the atrocities were momentous, even epochal, and would have grave, unpredictable global consequences. The unthinkable had happened; hence the difficulty of figuring out the significance of what occurred and, at the same time, the unbearable straining of the mind to comprehend, to control the chaotic sentiments of terror, to resist the panic of despair, to re-configure its compass bearings [rilevamento a bussola?].
Before the day of the attack was over, my computer was flooded with messages from the «listserves» of various left groups—messages that attempted to make sense of what had just happened and tried to suggest or outline ways in which «the left» could or should interpret events that seemed to have reduced everything to ruins. The rush to explain, interpret, formulate a position vis-à-vis the cataclysm even before the mind could begin grasp its monstrous proportions was, at best, an effort to assuage the dread, to attenuate the confusion of the mind. At worst, it was the symptom of intellectual arrogance—that is, of the unshakeable conviction of the ideologue that he possesses the key that explains everything. Gramsci described this as «la fatua ingenuità dei pappagalli che credono di possedere in poche formulette stereotipate, la chiave per aprire tutte le porte (queste chiavi si chiamano propriamente ‘grimaldelli’).»
Just to give an example, the following is the opening segment of a message —its subject: «What We Should Do: A Beginning»—that was circulated on the «listserve» of a putatively Marxist academic group on the evening of September 11th:
«Dear Colleagues, Friends, Comrades:
Today’s events—whatever they finally turn out to be—create the dangers and opportunities of an emergency, one to which we must all respond. The government, and other ruling class political forces, will use these terrorist attacks, and the atrocities against civilians which they involve, to whip up support for its imperialist policies. A big effort to push patriotism; to justify US imperialist policies, especially in the Middle East; and to whip up anti-Arab and anti-foreigner racism. It’s up to us to show the truth: all this is the result of decades of the most brutal US imperialist massacres and exploitation. We should make it clear that we oppose terrorism, because it strengthens, rather than weakens, the forces of imperialist murder and oppression, and weakens the working class and its allies, like ourselves. Terrorism is the weapon of the weak—weaker than the US—and of nationalist, bourgeois forces who want to use it as a bargaining chip to negotiate with the imperialists, and who DO NOT want to organize the working class, students, and others around a class line: to build an international movement against capitalism. We should do whatever we can to organize meetings, rallies, and teach-ins to get the message out.»
While this message was being composed countless working-class New Yorkers were risking their lives searching for survivors in the burning rubble of the World Trade Center. In the rush to explain with stereotypical formulae the political meaning of a horrendous massacre of thousands of innocent people of all races, the author of the message never paused to consider who actually perpetrated so heinous a crime; he felt no need to wait and find out because he already knew beforehand that the responsibility was ultimately the US’s. Nor did it occur to him that if one were to address one’s students—to say nothing of working-class allies—using this rhetoric, one would almost certainly generate more potential recruits for the FBI and CIA than sympathizers for any leftist cause. And, of course, because he did not deem it necessary to learn the facts before disseminating his pre-fabricated views, the author of this message could not imagine the possibility that there might indeed exist non-bourgeois forces that employ terror not to «negotiate with imperialists» but precisely to «build an international movement against capitalism»—and that such a movement would represent not so much an alternative to capitalism as an abyss of history. This is the kind of unthinking, knee-jerk anti-Americanism that has the counter-productive effect of inducing the mainstream elements of society to automatically dismiss what remains of the left in the US as a lunatic fringe.
Meanwhile the truly lunatic fringe turned out to be the religious fundamentalists who constitute the backbone of the US political right and whose support proved crucial to Bush in last year’s elections. The country’s two leading television evangelists, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson discussed the terrorist attacks on the Christian Broadcasting Network two days after they occurred, and they came up with a novel theological theory explaining why God had permitted such a tragedy and who was ultimately responsible for it. According to Falwell, «God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve.» Robertson expressed his agreement, and Falwell then proceeded to identify the guilty parties, blaming the American Civil Liberties Union, the federal courts (for enforcing the separation of Church and State and, thus, «throwing God out of the public square»), and various other progressive movements:
The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way—all of them who have tried to secularize America—I point the finger in their face and say, «You helped this happen.»
The White House spokesman rushed to declare that «the president does not share those views.» When contacted by reporter, Falwell conceded that the terrorists were legally responsible, but then added, «When a nation deserts God and expels God from culture . . . the result is not good.» Unfortunately, in these perverse times Falwell and the fundamentalist right will continue to thrive, while the voices of the left, including those responsibly calling for restraint and respect for human life, will remain largely ignored.
The chilling events of September 11th, or rather one should say the events set in motion by the inexcusable slaughter of ordinary U.S. citizens and residents on that day, are not susceptible to ready-made explanations. The scale of the carnage, the sheer boldness of the attacks, the unprecedented experience of watching a seemingly impregnable superpower in disarray: all this, and much else, could not but be regarded as indicative of the advent of some horrible, nightmarish, new destructive force (which, at first, was unnamable and seemed to strike out of nowhere) that has the potential to radically and forever change the course of history. This view was quickly reinforced by the pundits who were rushed to the TV studios to explain to a bewildered, traumatized populace the significance of what they were experiencing. Before the dust had settled, while lower Manhattan was still enveloped in a cloud of smoke and dust, the opinion was shaped that the «new world order» declared by the first President Bush was shattered under the watch of his recently elected son. It was encapsulated by the words emblazoned on the cover the influential British weekly, The Economist: «The Day the World Changed.»
Yet, notwithstanding the unprecedented nature of the catastrophe, the mainstream media—television, radio, newspapers, new weeklies, etc.—generated the same rhetoric, the same type of analysis that had been used on numerous previous occasions: talk of «striking back,» descriptions of «terrorist cells,» etc. Much of what was (and is still being) said and written echoed the language that was employed in previous crises, especially during the «Iran-hostage crisis» and the Gulf war, but also in the immediate aftermath of other attacks on US citizens, soldiers, and interests abroad.. Americans are now receiving simplistic descriptions of the various branches of Islam, rudimentary geographical information (the countries that border Afghanistan, the characteristics of its terrain, and the names and locations of its major cities, such as Kandrahar, Jalalabad, Herat, etc.), and the complex politics of the Middle East and central Asia. Quickly, the cause of the destruction and murder perpetrated on September 11th was reduced to something that can be named, located, and targeted—i.e., Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan under the protection of the Taliban regime. There have also been some efforts made by the major newspapers and TV stations to explain that, to very large extent, Osama bin Laden and the Taliban are the products of US foreign policy during the Cold War and its continuing cynical alliances of convenience with corrupt and repressive regimes in the Middle East. None of this, however, has given rise to any significant degree of self-criticism by either politicians or mainstream intellectuals. Rather, the dominant view has been conditioned by the US administration’s rallying call for an all-out war against «international terrorism,» a war waged on behalf of the whole world for the sake of «democracy and liberty» and «civilization» itself. On the Friday following the historic perfidy, George W. Bush told the nation that «America was targeted for attack because we are the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world.» The overwhelming majority of the nation’s population is in no mood to question this Manichaean account of the crisis as a straightforward war between the unblemished good and the unqualified evil. Simple, self-reassuring explanations are almost always guaranteed to find a receptive audience in troubled and confusing times. The traumatized general public is not receptive to complicated, detailed analyses, especially when such analyses might lead to ambiguous views and doubts about what needs to be done next. From the start of the crisis Bush started preparing the nation for war and for the most part the people have shown a strong willingness to follow and support him in this dangerous venture.
In the lull between September 11th and the first military bombardments of Afghanistan on October 7th, the Bush administration worked extremely hard to create an image of itself as humane, restrained, responsible, and considerate. Bush visited a mosque to confirm that the US held no grievance against Islam. The Attorney General, Ashcroft, severely denounced Americans manifesting their hostility against Arabs and Muslims. Secretary of State Powell, in his press conferences, emphasized the forging of alliances with every nation willing to participate in the war on terror. Unspecified sources from within the administration told reporters that the president was resisting the pressure of the hawks pushing for an attack on Iraq, and was instead listening to those «moderate» advisers who were advocating a narrowly defined response that would depose the Taliban without hurting innocent Afghani civilians. With much fanfare, the public was reassured that any attack against bin Laden and his Taliban protectors would be accompanied by generous humanitarian aid for the people they repressed and impoverished. All the posturing and the carefully crafted rhetoric were designed to make the administration appear so reasonable, so just, so considerate that to oppose it, to question its wisdom made one vulnerable to the accusation of being un-patriotic. It was clear to everyone that the US was preparing to engage in war—not an abstract war, such as the «War on Poverty», but a real war with bombers, aircraft carriers, cruise missiles, troops, etc. Scandalously, the politicians of both parties refrained from expressing even the slightest reservation. When Congress was asked to authorize the use of force by the president and commander-in-chief George W. Bush, it granted it enthusiastically without even demanding to know who exactly was the enemy, or what country he intended to wage war against. The sole dissenting vote came from a California Democrat, Representative Barbara Lee. «Let us step back for a moment,» she said on the floor of the House, «let us just pause for a minute and think through the implications of our actions today so that this does not spiral out of control.» She has been treated like a pariah ever since. The nation’s leaders are prepared to march on, and the general public is more than willing to go along. A remedy has been found that would dispel the confusion generated by the events of September 11th, and that would make it impossibly difficult for the nation to engage in any kind of critical self-reflection on (much less a thorough re-thinking of) its complex and often harmful relation to the rest of the world. The remedy is called war.
Now that the war is fully under way, the news media have shifted a good deal of their attention to the war front. The newspapers are full of pictures and maps describing what «our forces» are doing. On television, one can watch images of Kabul’s night sky illuminated by explosions. There have been images of huge airplanes being filled with packages to be dropped from the air for the starving civilian population of Afghanistan. None of the major newspapers or television commentators have paused to reflect on the absurdity of the scenes they are incessantly reporting on. They speak or write without the slightest hint of irony about the most sophisticated weaponry imaginable destroying the «military assets» and «command centers» of the enemy, as if the Taliban were some potent, modern military power. Nor do they regard it as bizarre that airplanes are being used to drop propaganda leaflets that are supposed to reassure a shell-shocked population that the US actually cares about them. For over a week, now, the bombardments have been going on and, it seems, there’s still more to come. The inevitable human casualties are mounting, but the expressions of regret from the Pentagon are reported with a minimum of fuss.
In the meantime, anxiety and apprehension continue to grip the nation—not because innocent people are being killed in distant Afghanistan but because of the fear stemming from the increasingly numerous reports of anthrax infections. It seems that biological warfare has penetrated even the security defenses meant to protect the country’s political leaders. Senate majority leader Tom Daschle’s office has discovered anthrax in the mail it received, and more than one television network seems to have been successfully targeted. Needless to say, this has made the nation extremely jittery, but it does not seem to be inducing too many people to think about the futility of conventional warfare in combating these most unconventional of enemies. In fact, it might well be the case that these latest incidents involving anthrax might lead to a war on multiple fronts. Already, some influential individuals are insinuating that the source of the anthrax bacteria was most likely Iraq; and there have been reports that one of the September 11th hijackers had had contacts with Iraqi agents. Will Iraq be bombed next? There is sufficient reason to fear that the war will expand and escalate, and that it will set in motion an uncontrollable chain reaction.
People all around the world recognize the seriousness of the dangers of the policy that has been adopted by the US—as the massive turnout at the demonstration held in Italy on Sunday, October 14th made clear. They also recognize that the failures and errors of US foreign policy could create chaos, death, and destruction in places other than Afghanistan; to say nothing of the very real possibility of adding to the already staggering American death toll. Yet, the concerns and public demonstrations of people abroad are having no impact on the policy makers; and, the average US citizen knows very little about them. In part, this is due to the traditionally isolationist culture of the US whose population is, for the most part, ignorant of the world it dominates. But that does not explain the almost total lack of attention being paid to the calls for restraint and to the warnings about the ineffectiveness of war coming from progressive and leftist intellectuals, students, various activist groups, and some religious leaders. To be sure, some left activists employ a shrill and denunciatory rhetoric that is bound to alienate the general public. But what about the many serious public intellectuals, experts in Middle eastern and Central Asian affairs, writers, academics, etc, who have spoken or written intelligently about the perils of a new war? There is an almost willful deafness, a conscious effort to dismiss, even suppress, the voices of dissent.
The signs of intolerance manifested themselves within days of the catastrophe. Two journalists—one in Oregon and the other in Texas—lost their jobs after writing articles criticizing Bush for acting like a scared man rather than a confident leader when he spent several hours in a secret bunker in Nebraska before returning to Washington D.C. on September 11th. The White House put out a story that Bush was compelled to delay his return to the capital because Air Force One was among the terrorists’ targets. The excuse that lacked credibility and was later deemed to be unfounded. A few days later, a TV talk-show personality, Bill Maher, remarked in the course of his program that it was incorrect to label the terrorists «cowards» and he added: «We have been the cowards, lobbing cruise missiles from 2000 miles away.» It was the same point made by Susan Sontag in an article that was published in Le Monde and La Repubblica before it appeared in the New Yorker magazine. Both Maher and Sontag have been subjected to the most vehement attacks. Maher was publicly rebuked by White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, who ominously stated: «Americans . . . need to watch what they say, watch what they do, and this is not a time for remarks like that; there never is.» The Voice of America, too, was subjected to severe official criticism for broadcasting, on September 25th, portions of an interview with the Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar. The State Department, futilely urged the radio station to suppress the interview but was ignored. At a press briefing the following day, the State Department spokesman said: «We didn’t think that the American taxpayer, the Voice of America, should be broadcasting the voice of the Taliban.» An even more alarming effort to control the media was made by the National security advisor, Condoleezza Rice: she called all the leading TV news executives and asked them not to broadcast in their entirety videos originating from bin Laden and the Al Qaeda organization. Such videos, in her view, could contain coded messages and, in any case, they were propaganda tools harmful to the American public.
The stifling of free speech in the name of patriotism is also occurring on university campuses. On a number of campuses across the country faculty members have been upbraided by some newspapers, reprimanded by university administrators, and in some cases openly criticized by students for expressing views critical of Bush and of US policy. A teach-in organized by the faculty and staff at the City University of New York, for example, sparked the ire of The New York Post. The paper reported that one professor told the gathering of 200 people that «The ultimate responsibility lies with the rulers of this country, the capitalist ruling class of this country.» Another professor purportedly stated that he favored peace over war and criticized US diplomacy. Members of the university’s Board of Trustees (who did not attend the teach-in and only knew about it through the inflammatory article in the New York Post) have vowed to issue a severe condemnation of the professors; and the chancellor of the university chose to ignore the fact that the professors had deplored the attacks and instead blamed them for «making lame excuses» justifying the attacks on the World Trade Center.
Teach-ins and rallies advocating peace have been held on more than a hundred university campuses, but they have generally attracted modest crowds. Students have also been joining other activists in anti-war demonstrations and peace vigils in various cities in different states. One peace demonstration, held in Portland, Oregon, was reported to have attracted as many as 3000 people. At Harvard University a crowd of about 500 gathered on September 20th to urge the country’s leaders to refrain from war. Still, considering the seriousness of the situation, these protests and demonstrations have not attracted crowds large enough to make a strong impact. The efforts of the left and other progressive groups have not coalesced into a significant movement—they bear little resemblance to what took place in Seattle. They have also been generally ignored by the news media.
Not long after the attacks on New York and Washington D.C., Noam Chomsky was asked; «What consequences do you foresee for the Seattle movement?» He responded:
It is certainly a setback for the worldwide protests against corporate globalization which . . . did not begin in Seattle. Such terrorist atrocities are a gift to the harshest and most repressive elements on all sides, and are sure to be exploited—already have been in fact—to accelerate the agenda of militarization, regimentation, reversal of social democratic programs, transfer of wealth to narrow sectors, and undermining democracy in any meaningful form. But that will not happen without resistance, and I doubt that it will succeed, except in the short term.
The resistance mounted thus far has not been effective. Distinguished intellectuals, such as Edward Said, prominent theologians such as the ethicist and pacifist Stanley Hauerwas of Duke University, renowned authors such as Alice Walker have written and spoken eloquently and soberly about the need to refrain from violent retribution, to reflect on the real causes of anti-American resentment, to consider the plight of the impoverished masses of the world, to work for reconciliation and heal the divisions that separate nations and cultures. Few are paying attention. The approval ratings for Bush remain astronomically high.
The general public approves of the war being waged against the Taliban. And so do certain elements hitherto associated with the left. Christopher Hitchens, a regular contributor to The Nation, perhaps the most widely read progressive weekly in the US, has accused Chomsky (and others who share his views) of «rationalizing» the terrorist deeds. Hitchens does not dispute the fact that bin Laden and the Taliban are, in part a monstrous creation of a misguided US foreign policy. But precisely because bin Laden and the Taliban are monstrous—he calls them «fascists with an Islamic face» and «theocratic fascists»—he considers it the duty of the US to destroy them. According to Hitchens: «We certainly owe a duty to Afghanistan’s people, whose lives were rendered impossible by the Taliban long before we felt any pain.» And he sarcastically adds: «But wait! That might mean that one could actually do something. Surely we are too guilt-ridden for that.» In a way, Hitchens has opted for a straightforward solution, making it sound vaguely analogous to the intervention of the US against the forces of fascism in World War II. Of course, Chomsky’s arguments against war do not stem from guilt. Rather, he believes, war is counter-productive. The bin Laden network, Chomsky maintains, «draws from a reservoir of anger, fear, and desperation which is why they are praying for a violent US reaction, which will mobilize others to their horrendous cause.» (For the complete texts of Hitchens’ and Chomsky’s articles, interviews, and polemical exchanges see The Nation website: http://www.thenation.com.)
Now that war has started, it is almost impossible to imagine the US pulling back. The easy explanations have prevailed, the simplistic notion that to «do» something necessarily means going to war has been embraced by the Bush administration and endorsed by the overwhelming majority of the population. One can only hope that the war will come to a quick end, but in the meantime it is wise to get ready to face further tragedies. Globalization has taken on a new meaning and the task of all the progressive movements that exist has become more difficult than ever. As Lucio Magri pointed out in last month’s issue of this Rivista, the world has been plunged into a planetary civil war: the temptation to join one side or the other will be great but must be resisted fiercely. The task now is to construct nothing less than a new secular vision capable of persuading the peoples of the world to abandon the hidden god of the marketplace and the wrathful gods of all religions.
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