'WESTERN CIVILISATION' WILL NOT DEFEND ITSELF
The declared War on Terrorism is turning out to be a phoney war. This will be no consolation to the scores of muslims detained throughout Europe, or to the Afghans who still face military intervention. But for the most part the War on Terrorism is a confidence-building campaign aimed at the folks back home.
Anyone who thought that the reaction to the World Trade Center/Pentagon attacks could bring out the best in America, mobilising Americans in self-sacrifice and solidarity, was sadly mistaken. Skin-deep demonstrations of patriotism have not disguised the profound self-doubt that grips American society. The War against Terrorism is looking much like the War against Drugs on a grander scale. It engages only popular fears and insecurity, and for that reason it is incapable of mobilising real enthusiasm.
It was Italian president Silvio Berlusconi, breaking ranks with his demand for a vigorous defence of Western civilisation, who revealed the coalition against terror's lack of substance. Rather than take up Berlusconi's offer, Western leaders ran for cover, insisting that Western civilisation was overrated, and they were not going to defend it any way.
Of course 'Western civilisation' is a myth - civilisation is global, and belongs to no one region. But the refusal of the allies to defend it was not based upon an inclusive internationalism. On the contrary, their retreat from the defence of Western civilisation is because they no longer believe in it, nor in their own claims to it.
Time and again the coalition has stated bold ambitions, only to withdraw them by the next press conference. First they announced a 'crusade' for 'Infinite Justice', only to withdraw both claims on advice from Islamic scholars. This Monday, British prime minister Tony Blair announced that the Taliban would be targeted, only to retreat from that position. Colin Powell similarly doused the ardour of the press corps insisting that the US was not interested in 'state building' in Afghanistan. By Thursday Blair was announcing a 'Marshall plan' of aid for Afghanistan.
Some on the left have noticed that the script is not very convincing, and tried to write a better one. 'This is no time to be effete', thunders Peter Hain, protesting too much. The Taliban are fascist throwbacks, reacting against modernity, insist Christopher Hitchens and David Rieff. But everyone knows that the Taliban, and the bin Laden group are entirely modern organisations, created by the US to fight their proxy wars against the Soviet Union and Serbia.
Western leaders have given confusing messages to their publics. Americans have been promised a war. But despite the rhetoric of warfare, no substantial demands have been put on the public. Already the White House is lowering expectations of immediate action. Americans have been reduced to armchair generals acting out fantasy scenarios in front of the TV screen. This is a recipe for the same kind of impotent frustration that leads Americans to demand that the military 'go in and finish the job'. War that entails no sacrifices, and, so far at least, no battles merely robs the word of meaning.
Pointedly, Western leaders like Bush and Blair have made only one demand on their people, to go about their business as usual - and to keep on spending. The paralysis of the airlines, the stock market losses, the lost consumer confidence and the anticipated collapse of the tourist industry are the only casualties since the initial hijackings - and they are self-inflicted. The nervous requests for a return to business-as- usual coming from the White House are an indication that the phoney war's one success is to paralyse US society with official mourning.
In response to the WTC attack, commentators ask 'why does the world hate America?' Foreign reporters hunt out demonstrations burning the Stars and Stripes. Ironically, American culture has never been more popular across the globe, nor anti-American sentiment at a lower ebb (with the exception of a handful of sulking European intellectuals). The perception that America is hated is not based on any empirical evidence. Rather it is an expression of America's own perception of its loss of purpose, of America's war with itself. Americans imagine that the world hates them because they doubt themselves. To admit that the hijackers' success was simply a fluke, with no greater significance than the raging of a tiny group of individuals, would require the American elite openly to confront its insecurity and belittle further its already diminished sense of mission.
Morbidly, critics hunt for splits in the alliance, expecting opposition from the Islamic world to the coalition against terror, or better still, for divisions between Europe and America. But the real weakness in the coalition is right at its heart. America does not believe in its own civilisation, and has no idea how, or whether, to defend it. For Afghanistan, phoney war could still turn into attacks, and American frustration at the indefinite war-aim will likely turn into indiscriminate attacks. But even if the Americans capture or kill bin Laden, it will not solve the West's own loss of belief in itself.
DISLOYALISTS
Ulster's protestant paramilitaries' response to losing their local franchise on ruling the catholics reached new levels of depravity. Not content with stoning schoolgirls, and shooting at their own Royal Ulster Constabulary, on Friday night they assassinated Sunday World journalist Martin O'Hagen. O'Hagen's disclosures of loyalist/police collusion in the assassination already earned him death-threats.
But if the peace process has had a demoralising effect on loyalists, its impact upon Republicans is more remarkable. The Republican movement's news service called upon the British Secretary of State Dr John Reid to intern loyalists, writing: 'A declaration that the UDA or LVF 'ceasefire' is over could be quickly followed by a move to re-imprison loyalist paramilitaries released on licence following the signing of the Good Friday Agreement.' Having demobilised their own independent forces, the Republicans are fast turning into the biggest cheerleaders of British law and order. -- James Heartfield