September 28, 2001
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Dilip D'Souza
To Civilisation, If I Can Find Her
I hear there's a war on the way. I hear it's going to be between the
civilised world and the rest. Between the free democracies of the world and
the rest. Between barbarians and the rest. Terrorism, my Prime Minister
Vajpayee said the other day, is a 'great threat to our people, our values
and our way of life.' The attack on America, he went on, 'is a stark and
terrible reminder of the power and reach of the terrorists to destroy
innocent lives and challenge the civilised order in this world.' And in
this coming war, President Bush announced, 'you're either with us or
against us,' forgive me if not quite in those words. 'Us,' it's safe to
assume, refers to this civilised world.
So as an ordinary human being, horrified and angered by the brutality of
September 11, in the fond belief that I'm somewhat civilised, I'm anxious
to choose my side. But I'm somewhat baffled as well. I look for this
civilisation and I begin to wonder: just where is it?
When Chile's elected leader Salvador Allende was murdered and one of the
century's worst dictators Auguste Pinochet, put in place to spend a
generation molesting that country and killing its citizens, was that
civilisation? When a vast Soviet army overran Afghanistan and reduced that
once fabled country to rubble, its proud people so devastated and
demoralised that they cannot rise to shake off the tormentors who drove out
the Soviets, well, was that civilisation?
When Rwanda's Hutus erupted in a hellish orgy of hatred and slaughtered their Tutsi countrymen for three
months and the rest of the world preferred to look the other way, even
quibbled over whether this genocide really was genocide, now was that
civilisation? When, perhaps inspired by a hate-spewing figure whom a
perverse Afghan cabal fiercely protects, maniacs with knives hijack planes
and pilot them into two towering buildings and a squat one, taking 6,000
unsuspecting humans with them to fiery deaths, hey, is that civilisation?
When in the capital of the world's most populous democracy, a prime
minister is assassinated and that is excuse enough to slaughter 3,000 Sikhs,
and the country -- India, of course -- has not for 17 years found
the will to punish the powerful men who led that slaughter, hello, is that
civilisation? When Russians and Chechens maul and murder each other in
arguably the world's most vicious war, look upon each other as just vermin
to be exterminated, hmm, is that civilisation? When Israel elects a leader
whose idea of negotiating peace is to shove ever more Jewish settlements
down Palestinian throats, devoting ever more of his country's armed forces
to "protecting" these illogical and unsustainable enclaves, thereby
spilling ever more blood in that Holy Land, tell me won't you please tell
me, is that civilisation?
I could go on, you know. South Africa, the Congo, Bombay, Turkey, Cambodia,
Nicaragua: I could really go on and so could you.
So when this is the wealth of civilisation on display, year round, the
world over, it's enough to leave a man scratching a hairy scalp in despair.
Just where are the values that are 'under threat,' the 'civilised order'
that's being destroyed? And what's a man to do when he's told 'you're
either with us or against us'? Where does his revulsion at, for example,
the American role in Allende's murder and Pinochet's regime place him: with
or against? Is he 'with us' because he thinks the hijacking pilots, the men
who murder in Kashmir, are terrorist scum? Or is he 'against us' because he
thinks the murderers of the Sikhs are also terrorist scum?
Now I hardly mean to say that there are no principles of civilised life
that are worth protecting. Nor that they suffer no threats today. Nor even
do I want to introduce a meaningless moral relativism into the debates we
are all wrestling with these days. The assaults on the WTC and the Pentagon
were, as Robert Fisk says, crimes against humanity. Period.
But I do mean to say, let's be careful when we rush to stake our claim to
be good. Let's be careful when we talk so easily of civilisational
struggles between Good and Evil. Partly because we all have our dark little
secrets that will come tumbling out. But mostly because this is an empty
exercise in futility. It produces the grotesque scenario that is unfolding
before our eyes: the massing of a mighty military machine to launch an
assault on possibly the world's most ruined and desperate society; and
these preparations cheered on by my country. Such an assault will kill
precisely the wrong people, ruin that society even more, and leave all the
hatreds intact, ready to strike again in more spectacularly horrific
fashion.
There's no good there, and certainly no civilisation. That is no war
against terrorism that I want to be part of, that I want my country to be
part of, that I want fought at all. That is, to repeat, just futility.
It is futile because it can never stamp out terrorism, just as the mere
spraying of pesticides never eradicates malaria. You do eradicate malaria
by starving its carriers of the conditions in which they thrive. In much
the same way, as so many have pointed out, you destroy terrorism by
addressing the conditions that spawn terrorists.
Which means: no longer must we tolerate a world in which a minority lives
pampered, wealthy, protected lives while the majority scrounges outside for
the next gulp of water. That applies to the USA and Bangladesh just as much
as it applies to Malabar Hill and the homeless beggars who roam its
streets. (Why must a civilised world think it is acceptable that some of
its residents sift through garbage for food?). No longer must justice be so
selective that it is injustice above all. That applies to murdered
Palestinians and disappeared Chileans just as much as it applies to the
silent victims of riots in India. (Why must a civilised world think it is
acceptable that riots "just happen" and so are normal?). No longer must
corrupt or hate-mongering "leaders" be allowed to hold power, escape their
crimes, just because they serve particular political purposes. That applies
to Pinochet and Mobutu and Mubarak and Nawaz Sharif just as much as it
applies to Thackeray and Jayalalithaa. (And yes, why must a civilised world
think a Mobutu must be propped up only because he claims to be a bulwark
against Marxism?).
In short, and we might as well face it: terrorism didn't just arrive on our
planet one recent morning. Oppression, poverty and injustice produce the
hatreds that send terrorists to flight school in Florida. Tackling those
enormous but never insurmountable problems, understanding that if they
persist we are all threatened, will choke off terrorism.
In that sense, the planes that sliced into the WTC were true children of
this globalization we hear so much about. With one cataclysmic explosion,
they woke up America and the entire globe. Not just to the "power and reach
of the terrorists", but also to the consequences of the illusion that "we"
are safe behind our gates and barbed wire and security guards and
immigration laws and eyes that are so firmly shut to the misery that
wallows beyond their lids. Whoever "we" are, the misery now belongs to us
all. It always did, but if we chose not to know it before, we know now. We
can't afford not to. 'No man is an island,' John Donne did indeed write in
1623, but take more heed of what he wrote only a few words later:
Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Yes: after the bell tolled so horribly in NYC and DC, let's know that it
tolled for us. How must "we" respond?
First, find and punish the men responsible, bin Laden if it was him. Not by
landing a gigantic force in a ravaged country, but by the same kind of
tight, focused operation that found gruesome success on September 11. I am
no military man, so I have no idea how difficult that will be. But however
difficult, it is the only way to get the culprits.
That done, open 'our' eyes to all that's around us. Free of political bias,
free of hypocrisy, free of hollow words about "our" civilised values and
their "barbarity" and everybody's religion. Let's understand that the way
we live, the choices we make, the things we do, the policies we follow,
cannot but leave their mark. In all humility, let's each recognize our own
mistakes and failures, whether religious, societal, political or personal.
Let's rebuild beginning from that foundation. I have no idea how difficult
all that will be either. But however difficult, it is the only way to
launch a successful assault on terrorism.
If it happens, that kind of introspection is far more than the way to
eradicate terrorism, more even than the only possible silver lining to the
sickness of September 11. It is the very meaning of civilisation.
Dilip D'Souza
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