Polar Positions And Polemics

There has been some spirited and hardhitting editorialisingagainst the ‘pathologicalphotocopies of the antiquated Noam Chomsky’. It seems perfectly justified tojoin issue with the visceral hatred of the US at everypretext. That some of the critics are conditioned not to think otherwise renderstheir diatribe inconsequential. Charging their morality as suspect would belegitimate as they take a blatantly one-sided view of world events. However, weshould not fall into the same trap and paint all those who seek a review of theUS behaviour in the international arena as unreconstructed pinkos. We riskthrowing the baby with the bathwater.

The objective of any reflection and public discourse should be to minimisethe chances of a recurrence of the events of September 11 anywhere in the world,including the US, in the future. That requires action by different countries,different people and on different fronts.

Of course, there is no better way to start than with an unequivocalcondemnation of what occurred on September 11. No logic can condone the terribleevents of that day. People from over 60 countries who had the least to do withthe US or the putative victims of its policies lost their lives for no fault oftheirs. There cannot be too many reasons in the world to justify loss ofinnocent life or lives. As Robert Fisk, the celebrated Middle East correspondentof The Independent puts it, the attacks on September 11 are a crimeagainst humanity. That is where the responsibility of the internationalcommunity starts.

Crimes against humanity are investigated and judged upon at the InternationalWar Crimes Tribunal. Slobodan Milosevic, who killed many more than theterrorists did on September 11, has not been summarily executed. He is beingtried. So was Timothy McVeigh who bombed the building in Oklahoma. America, inorder not to imitate the inhumanity of the terrorists, should have used itsliberal values and institutions in order to bring justice to the perpetrators,to show the difference between the world of terrorists and its own.

America chose not to pursue this path but to punish him and his protectorsitself. The question to ask is whether capturing Osama bin Laden ‘dead oralive’ would minimise or eliminate future casualties. After all, the goal ofcapturing him may not meet with success and even if it does, it is virtuallyguaranteed that many more would emerge to take his place. They would not onlythreaten the United States but also its allies in future. Is it the onlypossible way for America to honour the memory of the dead and to thank itsallies?

Irrespective of the clever and cynical exploitation of the Palestinian causeby Osama bin Laden in his videotaped address, it is important that Americacontinues to exert its moral and military pressure on Israel and thePalestinians to negotiate their way out of the current violence and impasse.Yes, successive American Presidents have done their bid to bring peace and nonecame closer than President Clinton. The missing ingredient is sustained effortin the direction of peace. Suspicion of America’s sincerity has arisen partlybecause efforts towards peace have been sporadic but support to Israel andstudied indifference to the atrocities it has committed has been the constanttheme of American foreign policy.

Mr. T. C. A. Sreenivasa Raghavan argued somewhat perceptively in a recentcolumn in Business Standard that the reason for the impassioned hatred ofAmerica could possibly have its origins in its offensives against nations seenas too small and vulnerable compared to its military might. He might well have apoint. In fact, the argument can be made more forcefully in the economic arena.Several people in East Asia recall America’s role during the East Asian crisiswith bitterness even now.

First, America was late to respond to the crisis and when it did, its aidcame with such onerous conditions, through its mouthpiece, the IMF, that it lefta bitter aftertaste. Even the staunchly conservative American economist, Mr.Martin Feldstein, wrote in Foreign Affairs (March/April 1998) that theIMF had no business dictating economic policy to a sovereign nation like SouthKorea in the guise of loan conditionalities. Alienation does not have its rootssolely in the Middle Eastern policy. Fairness in global affairs would help tosoothe as well.

Many vehement critics of the US have the opportunity to criticise it insidethe US than they have of criticising governments in their own countries. Butthen, America should ask itself whether it has stood in the way of othercitizens enjoying the rights that its residents have. The fight is not againstthe American way of life in America but against its denial in other parts of theworld and of America’s complicity in such denials.

At the same time, critics of America would do well to train their guns on thepeace-wreckers in the Middle East. People who point to American militarypresence in Saudi Arabia should ask why the militants tolerate a leader likeSaddam Hossein? If America-led UN imposed sanctions on Iraq have extracted thelives of thousands of Iraqi children, then one has to question what SaddamHossein did with all the money he earned from the ‘Oil for food and medicine’programme.

The critics should also question the need for a country such as Iraq to spendenormous sums of money on biological, chemical and nuclear weapons if itschildren starve their way to death. If the US today faces the consequences ofits unwise arming of mercenaries to take on the USSR in the eighties, then whyis it that the anger of militants not directed at USSR but the US?

Neither America-bashing nor Muslims-bashing would make the world safer.Introspection is demanded of every one. Moderate Muslims should stand up and becounted. They should repeatedly and loudly condemn the unimaginable repressionthat Afghans face in Taliban and the murderous ways of Osama bin Laden. Onlysustained reiteration would counter the stereotypical portrayal of Muslims thatCNN and other Western media agencies project to their international audience.

They should strive to discourage a mindless interpretation of the contents ofKoran independent of the political and social context in the time it waspreached. More than asking non-Muslims to understand Koran and Islam, theyshould ask fellow Muslims to do so first. The remarkable tolerance that thisreligion showed towards other religions in the eleventh and twelfth centuriesshould be recaptured.

What Mr. Francois Gautier, the correspondent of Le Fegaro, stationedin India wrote recently, bears repetition: "If only Islam would accept thefact that it has to adapt itself to the world, it could become a wonderfulreligion. Does it not care for others as no other faith does? It is enough tosay anywhere in the world Salam u alli kum, to be treated like a brother,fed, clothed and sometimes helped financially".

It may require some martyrs initially to make this the enduring spirit ofIslam but it may be well worth the thousands of lives that would be saved in theprocess.

Americans on their part have to ask their government searching questions onthe sacrifices that its government asks of people elsewhere in the world so thatAmericans could enjoy their way of life. If need be, they should be willing torearrange their lives so that such sacrifices are no longer necessary. Theywould do this not necessarily out of the goodness of their hearts but out ofconcern for their own safety. That should be a powerful motive in itself.

In the final analysis, polar positions and polemics may make for interestingreading but do not lead to a safer future. Progress is achieved in the middle.Only a balanced discourse allows ‘lasting good to emerge out of this evil’.

(Dr. V. Anantha-Nageswaran is an economist working for an internationalfinancial institution and lives in Singapore. These are strictly his personalviews)