20 - 26 September 2001
Issue No.552
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 20 - 26 September 2001 Issue No.552 |
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The search for vengeance
As grief gives way to anger Americans are demanding revenge, reports Jihan Alaily from Washington DC
As the air is laden with grief, Americans are struggling with a gamut of emotions -- shock, disbelief, sorrow, anger, vulnerability, and a sense of having been violated. Many have turned to God for solace. Many more, united like never before, have rallied behind President George W Bush as he ponders decisions that will have far reaching repercussions for peace and security in the world.
As funerals are held across the country and Americans continue to bury their loved ones, sentiments have hardened. "God may forgive those involved," said the popular Republican John McCain, "but we won't."
America is bracing itself for war to avenge the killing of thousands of its citizens in the deadliest terrorist attack in the nation's history. And President Bush has vowed retaliation: "Those who make war against the US have chosen their own destruction," he declared Saturday. "We will smoke them out of their holes. We will get them running and we'll bring them to justice".
The president's hands have been untied by Congress, which gave near unanimous consent, on Friday, to a resolution authorising him to use all appropriate and necessary force to respond to the terror attacks on the US. In addition, the law makers provided $40 billion dollars to help cover the cost of retaliation and rebuilding. "With the current mood the president can ask for anything from the American public and Congress," said analyst Eliot Cohen. "He can raise billions of dollars for intelligence gathering, defence and security; he can pass legislation to organise the government."
In showing near unanimous support for going to war Americans may not know for certain what they are in for. What they do know is that their lives have been changed forever. They know that they have to commit ground troops, that they may have to face many casualties, that some of their civil liberties will be curtailed in the internal process of securing the country and that there will be "collateral damage" -- others dying in great numbers. As one professor at Johns Hopkins University told the students: "Just as Vietnam shaped a generation, this could be what will shape your generation."
This American-led 21st century crusade against terrorism is pointing in the direction of the Saudi born billionaire Osama Bin Laden, currently in hiding in Afghanistan. He has been identified by the highest officials here as the prime suspect. Bin Laden denies the accusation, but President Bush insists there "is no doubt he is the prime suspect."
One problem with the current official and media discourse about the war against terrorism, as some professors of the Conflict Transformation Programme at Eastern Mennonite University noted in a press statement, is that it is articulated within a very narrow "model of revenge".
The crucial issue, in the end, should not be about eliminating Bin Laden and his organisations, nor is it about bombing Iraq or Afghanistan back to the stone-age to punish their regimes for alleged roles in harbouring and sponsoring terrorism. In the case of Afghanistan, that was, in any case, accomplished by the Russians during their years of occupation. And the US led bombardment of Iraq during the Gulf War and beyond has destroyed most of Iraq's formidable military and economic infrastructure. The crucial issue is about how to address the desperation and resentment that breeds terrorism and suicide bombers. This is the best prevention against terrorism. Yet debate in America currently centres on the massive use of force as a counter measure to such terrorism and offers few, if any, clues on how to address the deep-rooted causes that fuel such deadly acts of vengeance.
Loss, anger, wounded pride, and the shattered public belief in the invincibility of their country is driving America to act in this crisis as if this were a unipolar world, where no dissent is tolerated. "You're either with us or against us," was Secretary of State Colin Powell's message to the world in the drive to assemble an international coalition to fight terrorism.
Professor Samuel Huntington has warned in the past of the dangers of the US becoming increasingly isolated if it persists in a policy of global unilateralism. But in the short run, at least, there seems to be little such risk of isolation. NATO has committed itself to back a US military reprisal, and other non-western, Muslim countries like Pakistan, have agreed to back the US led campaign with whatever might be required to combat international terrorism.
President Bush has said that he will not settle for a token act. America's response will be "sweeping, sustained and effective," he said. At the heart of that neat, linguistic formula, though, remains a troubling inconsistency -- you cannot "effectively" engage the world, particularly the Middle East -- purported birthplace of the alleged terrorists -- in the fight against terrorism while continuing to apply double standards in the area.
The US insists on maintaining sanctions that have reportedly killed close to half a million Iraqi children. And certainly it seems that only one standard is applied as long as the dead are Palestinians, killed as a result of US-backed Israeli policies of bombardment, state sponsored assassinations and wholesale brutalisation and persecution.
What Americans, wounded and angry, are not prepared yet to contemplate is any criticism of their own activities in connection with the emergence of the fury and hatred that led to the terrorist attacks.
A suggestion by one pundit on a major TV network show for a "new national conversation" in the wake of the attacks to reevaluate America's role in the world and to discuss the grievances of those affected by US direct, led, or supported actions, was badly received by the audience. The conflict resolution professor at George Mason University, who made the suggestion, reported that he had received hate mail following the televised interview and was accused of "proposing a compromise with evil."
"Americans need to ponder seriously the question what has the US done, deliberately or inadvertently, in its role as the 'one remaining superpower' to inspire such hatred and anger?" said the statement of the professors at Eastern Mennonite University.
Such views, though, remain firmly on the margins of mainstream debate on the recent terrorist attacks, which focuses almost exclusively on "a war of self- defence fought by the greatest nation on earth."
One sad aspect of this focus is the wave of anti- Arab American and anti-Muslim violence that has spread across the country. Mosques have been fired at, particularly in Texas and Seattle.
Businesses belonging to Arab Americans have been vandalised and many Arabs and Muslims harassed, abused and beaten. An Indian immigrant was shot dead at his gas station in Mesa Arizona on Saturday, a crime investigators believe to be part of the backlash. The murder victim was a Sikh, neither Arab nor Muslim, and may have been singled out simply because his beard and turban reminded his attackers of photographs of Osama Bin Laden.
Senior government officials, including President Bush, Attorney General Ashcroft, Secretary of State Colin Powell and New York Mayor Rudi Giuliani, have condemned such violence and harassment.
In New York President Bush said: "Our nation must be mindful that there are thousands of Arab- Americans who live in New York City who love their flag... And we must be mindful that as we seek to win the war, that we treat Arab-Americans and Muslims with the respect they deserve... We should not hold one who is a Muslim responsible for an act of terror. We will hold those who are responsible for the terrorist acts accountable and those who harbour them."
Yet despite appeals by the president and other senior officials hate crimes against Arab-Americans and Muslims have persisted, said Hussein Ibish, director of communication at the America-Arab Anti- Discrimination Committee, ADC.
Yet the attacks remain "sporadic, spontaneous and isolated," he said, adding that messages of compassion and support from American friends and neighbours, in response to reports of violence, have far outweighed the level of violence and harassment.
The present situation doubles the pain of Arab- Americans. Two hundred of their number are buried with over four thousand other Americans beneath the rubble that used to be the World Trade Center. Some are among the missing fire fighters that rushed to the rescue scene when the first terrorist plane hit the Northern Tower.
In the aftermath of the attacks many Arab Americans have been maintaining a low profile, some keeping their children away from schools for a few days for fear of harassment Participants in Friday's noon prayers at many Mosques across the country were visibly less than usual while in New York Muslim taxi drivers did not report for work the day after the attack because of fears of violence.
But apart from incidents that, on balance, remain isolated, the tragedy has engendered unity across faiths and backgrounds. Such unity has been evident in both houses of Congress, in interfaith prayers, in candlelight vigils and in the nationalism displayed by the show of flags, red-white-and-blue ribbons, and clothes.
As America wakes up from its nightmare, from what was "reality TV," and not some Hollywood blockbuster, the world awaits its response, hoping it will not provoke a reaction more deadly than the terrorist attacks.
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