The Devil's Bill

Yesterday’s shocking attacks had less to do with religious fanaticism than with a secular fundamentalism on our part which provokes acts of impotent (if spectacular) desperation in response. Predictably, root causes and the true nature of things will buried under a barrage of inflammatory invective against depraved and malignant “terrorists”. That much is to be expected. More troubling yet is my premonition that this already-announced “war on terror” will be used to undo what remains of civil liberty and stampede the populace into a police state.

1. Secular Fundamentalism.

I disagree that all religion is in essence dogmatic and intransigent and that these bombings were the product of religious fanaticism. One has to distinguish between religion and fundamentalism; and, in so far as religion is concerned, between religiously inspired policies and religion in the service of politics.

It cannot be denied that, in this past century, entirely secular movements have been among the most “fundamentalist” and intransigent. It is often said that Stalin made a religion out of communism; but this manner of speaking confuses accidental properties with substance. An ideology grounded in dialectical materialism shares nothing with an ideology inspired by faith in some divinity. If Stalin behaved like Torquemada it was not because Stalin was religious or Torquemada a communist, but rather because both shared the characteristics of intolerance and irredentism.

For the most part, present-day American fundamentalism is a religiously motivated movement that aims to impose certain values, practices and beliefs on the rest of society -- for example, abolishing of abortion, banning the teaching of evolution and prohibiting gay marriage. Without doubt this movement takes places within the political arena and aims to impact the polis. But it is not at all based on anything that might be called a political or economic analysis. It actually seeks to know nothing of those things.

In contrast, religion often provides the banner for a strictly economic and political fight. Under what flag did the Zapatistas march? Were they “fundamentalists”? For sure, as individuals, they were deeply religious, but that hardly meant that their struggle was not actually and consciously an economic one. That they marched under the banner of Our Blessed Virgen de Guadalupe in no way altered the core fact that they wanted their lands back and an end to the economic depredations of agri-business.

In such cases, religion serves as a bonding force for movements that are in reality economic or politically motivated. It could rightly be said that the Zapatistas were “intransigent” and, in fact, Madero -- the hero of the Revolution -- said it. But it was a steadfast determination that we, at least, admire and that had nothing to do with what is called “religious intransigence”. Virgen or no Virgen, the Zapatistas were simply demanding from Casesar what was not Caesar’s to have.

I mention these things because, at the outset, I think it is critical to avoid confusions between policies that have a true religious inspiration, policies that aim to enforce a religion and religion as an ‘inflammatory narcotic’ in the service of interests and policies that have non-religious motives and bases.

From what I can tell, Arab fundamentalists have no real desire to evangelize their religious beliefs and customs outside their own societies. They actually could give a damn whether American girls do or do not cover themselves. The notion bruited about that “these Arab extremists” want to force their way of life “on us” is just garbage.

No doubt, the banner of The Prophet is often hoisted over a Pan-Arabist political and economic struggle that is regional in scope. But it is essential to take stock of what is afoot under the banner. The United States and the Western World in general refuses to do so. It benefits them to dismiss legitimate economic and political complaints with epithets. This is a great mistake. Short of liquidating an entire people, these complaints are not going to disappear just because we label them “fanaticism”. These so-called extremists hate the United States not “for our way of life” but for our Government’s unilateral support of Israel and its imposition of client regimes that serve neo-liberal Western economic interests. I do not know if a compromise is yet possible; I know only that the United States has not tried it.

We should not forget that the present day phase of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was precipitated by Ariel Sharon’s putative desire to go a-sight-seeing on the Temple Mount. Like some latter day Meyer Lansky, the cynical thug mimicking the cynic gangster avowed that he was merely an aged man who wanted no more than to see the Rock of his Fathers’ Faith before closing his world-weary eyes. He knew well what he was doing.

Hanan ‘Ashrawi the Palestinian negotiator (who is an Anglican by the way) explained that at Camp David II, the Palestinians were willing to renounce their historical claim to all of Palestine and to settle for the statehood in the West Bank and Gaza and half of Jerusalem -- a 78% reduction of what they considered their land. Not only did the Israelis refuse to give an inch on Jerusalem but they even demanded critical bits and pieces of the West Bank, as well as the right to control the entire border with Jordan and to impose other limitations on sovereignty. Israel’s much ballyhooed “generous offer” gave the Palestinians little more than an Indian reservation without so much as face-saving trappings.

Not surprisingly the details of this offer have been kept secret and no U.S. media source has published any map of the proposed settlement. To do so would make hash of the trumpeted Israeli magnanimity. But if the US public is in the dark, the Palestinians are not. It would have been political suicide for Arafat to accept such humiliating and quisling terms. Had the United State truly been an “honest broker”, Clinton would have pressured Barak and not Arafat. It is obvious who holds whose balls in hand.

The United States is so far from being an honest broker that since 1993 it has consistently supported Israel’s every need and every move. If Israel wanted endless “clarifications” of the Oslo Accords until they have been clarified into oblivion, the U.S. was ready to second the motion. If Israel needed a U.N. veto, the U.S. was ready to do the deed. United States backing for Israel has been so unswerving and uncritical that to reasonable Arab eyes “steadfast supporter” seems more like “loyal agent”. If yesterday’s attacks were indeed the work of Arab operatives, it would hardly be surprising.

And today, in spite of America’s unswerving support for the Jewish State, Israeli’s leaders took advantage of the catastrophe to insinuate themselves even deeper with the U.S. “We are with you as one,” said Sharon. His unmistakable implication was that since we now know how much they have suffered we can identify with them. Idem velle, idem nolle vera amititia est! Following up on this implication, Barak got onto a wee-morning television hook up from Moscow and said, Now is the time for us to collaborate in intelligence matters. In other words, now is the time for the U.S. to give in to long standing Mossad demand for access to CIA files. So as not to let the theme get lost in the news-din, a cadre of Israeli "statesmen" and "spokes-figures" have trooped into the Media's studios to denounce Arab depravity in tones ranging from sorrow to outrage to we-told-you-so schadenfreude .

Beneath these crocodile tears, the Israeli leadership is delighted with the events which they will pump for all they are worth. But support for Israel in 1948, 1956 or even 1967 is not the same as support in 2001. Years ago Israel crossed the line that divides a suffering people from an oppressive power. There is hardly a moderate Arab who does not condemn the U.S.’s unilateral and uncritical back of Israeli stratagems and objectives. That the same disgust might raise the banner of Islam does not convert it into religious fanaticism, and the greater part of so-called Islamic terrorism could have been avoided with even a bare modicum of balance in America’s Middle East policy.

2. The Terror of War

"The United States,” said Bin Ladin, “accustomed to acting in an ambience of arrogance, has today laid down a double standard. It wants to occupy our countries, rob us of our resources, impose agents to govern us insisting that we accept all of this even if it departs from what God has revealed as just and right. If we refuse to accept these unjust impositions, they brand us as terrorists.”

You are right to take note of what Bin Laden says; however, I think his statement points to more than, being an ex CIA trainee, he knows whereof he sings. The real issue is that modern warfare has itself become an act of terrorism.

What is the difference between terrorism and lawful war? Only this: that in one the bombs fall from on high and in the other they explode from below. We would do well to recall the “non-terrorism” of Hamburg (incinerated with phosphorus bombs); Dresden (250,000 civilian dead); Nuremberg (no military objective); Cologne (same); Hiroshima/Nagasaki (150,000 casualties); Hanoi and countless napalmed Vietnamese villages.

The true myth of the Twentieth Century was that conventional war continued to adhere to the limitations imposed by Grotius in the Sixteenth. Shamefully, that was not the case. No century in human history has seen such human carnage of innocent civilians as our own. Statistics prove beyond doubt that during the Second World War it was safer to be a soldier than a civilian. At least soldiers had rations to eat and arms with which defend themselves. The overwhelming majority of casualties during that disaster were old men, women and children.

What is worse is that modern warfare makes such things inevitable. Even before the Great War it was understood that the old distinction between pacific and warlike uses of material was untenable. A fortiori a military blockade would have to besiege an entire country because, in the industrialized world, armies don’t go to war, countries do. By the time the World War broke out, all belligerents understood and openly said that the way to defeat “the enemy” was to “break” the population’s “will to resist” -- i.e. to terrorize them.

Cold War is no better. What we call “economic sanctions” are no more than euphemisms for medieval sieges, aimed at reducing the besieged to eating carrion or dying of the plague. And like any medieval siege, the strangulation can always be, and invariably is, backed up by the occasional catapult terror or air-space "patrol" bombing. When all else is avoided, political and economic objectives are achieved by assasination (Allende), torture (Videla, Stroessner, Pinochet) and stooley thugs like Somoza or Arias whose nocturnal assassination squads terrorized villagers and slaughtered hundreds of thousands of indian farmers.

Mitigations of War? Of course, the only thing that survives of that pleasant theory is the double-standard. More ominous is the fact that the modern state, whether technically at war or not, achieves its political and economic objectives through acts of terrorism. It does so because hot war is the mobilization of entire nations and cold war is a mobilization against people in their raw and primitive sovereignty.

It is hardly news; but Bin Laden knows whereof he speaks. The United States is as arrogant as it is powerful. Instead of applying itself to humanitarian ends, it pushes people around and feigns shock and indignation when they fight back. Indifferent both to their grievances and its own exploitative policies it disparages resistance as terrorism while engaging in its own ongoing wars of terror.

3. A War on Freedom

In all events, this war against terrorism on which we embark today, like the war on drugs on which we embarked years ago, cannot be won. Today our politicians in all but chorus denounce the “heinous assault against civilization and freedom;” but just you wait, tomorrow they will palaver about the required “sacrifices” and “tools” needed to defend our homes and loved ones. What sacrifices? What tools? None other than the loss of the liberty supposedly defended.

This war is nothing that can be won with a handful of battles. On the contrary, it presupposes a continuous engagement. And who is the enemy? All Arabs? No.... not all.... The American militias? Perhaps, but not always. The Irish? At times. The Basque? Could be. What the Government will have to presume is that everyone is at least a potential terrorist. In the most fundamental sense that is a presumption that is entirely antithetical to the concept of civil friendship, i.e., societas.

In present day England they have already mounted cameras on every corner in the country in order, it is said, to defend against IRA terrorism. But what this entails is that every movement anyone makes in public is made under the all seeing eye of the Command and Control Center. Worse yet, Control can zoom in and use high-def photography to snap, digitize and database your corneal imprint.

Such things are but the visible manifestation of what is in actuality a policio-military apparatus of espionage and control that is gradually being erected over us. Bit by bit, the denizens of this country have been led to accept incremental police measures, soothingly reassured at each step that -- the police being husbands and fathers themselves -- these powers will not be abused. Bit by bit, fear has been insinuated between government and the governed and, ultimately, between citizens and neighbors themselves. And, as always, fear goes shadowed with intolerance and hatred of anything different or unusual.

I remember how this country was before. It was a commonplace that the United States lacked culture, good cuisine and the art of convivencia. But it was equally recognized that America had attained an extraordinary degree of liberty unmatched in the world. Notwithstanding the Puritan extremists, the fundamentalists and the racists, this country was basically tolerant and open. No more.

Our national anthem sings that America is “the home of the free and the land of the brave”. If so it is because it is impossible to be free without being valorous. For shame, today’s Amu’rcans don’t aspire to freedom but hanker after security. Emersed in a culture of quivering, they feel “violated” by just about everything -- including cigarette smoke. They speak of “verbal assaults” as if words were as wounding as blows. Several months ago, some vandals destroyed some equipment in a local toddler playground. In emotive tones, the broadcast news reported that, confronted with this “incomprehensible tragedy” the toddlers’ parents and teachers felt it necessary to seek psychological counseling for their children in this moment of “grief”.

What has some local scandal to do with a geo-political crisis? Nothing more than that a pimple or spot can symptomise a lurking systemic disease. One has to know the art of diagnosing. If there is a tragedy here, it is that such extremist attitudes are nothing exceptional. How is it that possession of a few grams of narcotic can result in a life sentence? This fanaticism of fear rivals any religious intolerance. So what now, now that the United States has been struck by real and shocking assaults? Would that Americans would fortify themselves with a spirit of bravery; but I doubt it. Notwithstanding the double-talk, they will rush to cash-in their freedom for an illusory security.

New Yorkers have always been unlike the rest of the country; and, to date, their reaction to the attack has been remarkably sanguine. Of course, they are shocked, sombered and aggrieved, but they are not hysterical. Had these attacks taken place in Oklahoma City 50,000 Teddy Bears would have already been dragged out to line the streets -- each with its votive candle, to be sure, and no man, woman or child without a yellow ribbon. We would already be subjected to dozens of live sobbing interviews with uncomprehending “victims” wondering how “such a horrible thing could happen, here, in America! in God’s Own Country....” And needles to say such festivals of bewilderment and blubber are invariably accompanied by a din of lacrimose hymns and homilies. Alas, it is the spirit of Oklahoma and not New York that will engulf the country as politicians attune their pronouncements (and congressional choirs) to excite the populace and prepare it for the sacrifices needed in this war without an enemy or an end.

The most stupid thing about this new “war” is that the security it purports to achieve cannot be attained. It is impossible to prevent the entry of contraband or undocumented immigrants. Even should they convert the entire country into an actual prison; even should we accustom ourselves to our daily bombing of alleged “terrorist training camps” somewhere in the world; even if accept living under a regime of total vigilance and espionage -- none of this will stop a fanatic, willing to die in order to commit his “crime” or “heroic act”. What of the day when, instead of crashing a plane, someone drops some biological pill into a city’s water supply?

The problem presented by so-called terrorism is not the criminality of the act but the criminalization of the actor. What I mean to say is that the entity we call a “State” always has interests and engagements apart from its casus belli. As a result, there always exists the option and possibility of entering into negotiations with the enemy state in order to convince it that a treaty with certain terms is more convenient than war. The difference between “lawful war” and “unlawful terrorism” is not that the former is in actual fact less terrorist, but that it occurs within a larger context of regularity and stability.

The unofficial terrorist, on the other hand, is like the ordinary criminal who, precisely because he is a nobody, has nothing to loose. The singular difference is that, unlike the ordinary criminal, the terrorist’s aims are political in nature. This distinction provides a practical point of departure for recognizing him as a belligerent, negotiating and gradually assimilating him into the international regimen in such a way that he acquires greater incentives to talk for the sake of peace. But to declare war against an unseen, amorphous, invisible enemy who is given no option other than implacable hate, is a gross stupidity which can only be explained by this country’s overweening arrogance and self-righteousness. For that pride the Devil will have to be paid.

©WCG, 2001
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