31 Jan. - 6 Feb. 2002
Issue No.571
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 31 Jan. - 6 Feb. 2002 Issue No.571 |
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Reflections
The infinite crossroads
"As we gather tonight, our nation is at war, our economy is in recession, and the civilised world faces unprecedented dangers. Yet the state of our union has never been stronger," declared President George W Bush in his first State of the Union address on Tuesday. Gathered in the House of Representatives chamber to listen to the address (as per tradition), the members of Congress, the cabinet, top military brass and other dignitaries (including, this time around, benighted Afghanistan's Karzai) rose in a standing ovation. The ghost of energy giant Enron (the biggest single contributor to Jr's presidential campaign) may have been hovering somewhere in the chamber; it did so very discreetly, however. "War" and "unprecedented dangers" to "the civilised world" ensured its proper behaviour, here as on the outside. From the millions of Americans watching the "at times, uplifting" (according to Reuters) presidential address on TV, George W was basking in an above 80 per cent job- approval rating -- a record high for a first-year American president.
Enron and recession notwithstanding, "war," however ridiculous, and "unprecedented dangers," however absurd, are good for business. US corporations get to gorge on the best part of $1.35 trillion in tax breaks. Democrats and organised labour may grumble, but hey, there are tens of thousands of Bin Laden's "ticking time bombs" around the world, not to mention "the axis of evil," fantastically made up of two archenemies, Iran and Iraq, and remote and isolated North Korea. The US president is renowned for his original way with words, and he has given "axis" a new meaning here, but "what we have found in Afghanistan confirms that, far from ending there, our war against terror is only beginning." And, "This campaign may not be finished on our watch -- yet it must be and it will be waged on our watch." It may sound like unintelligible, if appropriately "uplifting" nonsense to many of us, but probably not to ears long accustomed to advertising jingles and Hollywood promos (of the "love means never having to say you're sorry" variety). In any case, the gist is clear enough: the war against terror is to be milked for all it's worth; after all, "the state of the union has never been stronger."
Now to someone like me, all this is a scene out of an insane asylum. The war in Afghanistan, as far as I could see, was won decisively in a couple of weeks, and that after the concept of war had been stretched to its extreme limits: on the ground, a sordid and backward little civil war between eternally warring warlords in one of the world's most economically, technologically and culturally backward countries (where severed hands and feet are taken as war trophies); from the sky, the full might of the superpower to end all superpowers, wielding a war technology so advanced it is said to be at least a generation ahead of its industrially developed allies. In a world that, mere decades ago, was presumably threatened by nuclear annihilation, the leader of the sole superpower can speak of Bin Laden's allegedly "ticking time bombs" as an "unprecedented danger to the 'civilised world" -- and no one is laughing. They are, in fact, as much of a joke as Bin Laden's nuclear capability -- yes, the one he threatened to deploy only days before the fall of Kabul. As for the "axis of evil" made up of bombed-and- sanctioned-back-to-the-Middle-Ages Iraq, famine-benighted North Korea and mullah- devastated, Western-friendship-seeking Iran -- can any of this be serious? It is, and the fact that it is boggles the mind.
A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to hear a high-ranking European diplomat explain that the "war against terrorism" was the EU's top priority. Surrealist images from Louis Bunuel's film, That Obscure Object of Desire, flashed through my mind as the diplomat spoke: bombs were exploding in European capitals; machine gun-wielding terrorists were ambushing cars, mercilessly shooting their bourgeois occupants down. Where is the war? The Americans, at least, have the excuse of 11 September. What, other than blind servility, is Europe's?
All this brings to mind the so-called Karine A affair. I can't remember exactly who spoke of it as "the ship of fools," but the designation struck me as totally apt. Madness and Civilisation, Michel Foucault's first book, immediately came to mind. Finally, some sense could be made of the sheer insanity. A nuclear occupation power (the last colonial state in the world since the demise of Apartheid in South Africa), armed to the teeth and led by a well-known war criminal, has kept a whole people disenfranchised, dispossessed and subject to the murderous repression for over 30 years; yet in this mad world, the occupying power can still be portrayed as a victim, while the victims are portrayed as aggressors.
Foucault describes "the ship of fools" as follows: "Confined on a ship, from which there is no escape, the madman is delivered to the river with its thousand arms, the sea with its thousand roads, to the great uncertainty external to everything. He is a prisoner in the midst of what is the freest, the openness of routes: bound fast at the infinite crossroads."
Sub-titled A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason, Foucault's critique brilliantly outlined the historical process involved in delineating the absence of reason, e.g. madness, as one of exclusion. I'm no disciple of Foucault's; and, while the lines between reason and its opposite may be much more blurred, arbitrary and coercive than was once believed, they do exist, even if only as parody. The dividing line is sharper than ever; but today, only sheer power determines whose "reason" prevails.
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