What Should We Be Fighting For?

When sixty American intellectuals signed their names to a letter entitled 'whatwe are fighting for,' published by the Institute for American Values,some readers hoped to hear a voice of reason, some alternative to the Americangovernment's newest foreign policies following Bush's invention of an 'axis ofevil' in his union address. Instead they found that these intellectuals not onlyneglected to formulate alternatives to these aggressive strategies, but in factgave the US administration their total support for the 'war against terrorism.'Many of the academics who signed this letter -Huntington, Fukuyama, Etzioni,Skocpol - are considered 'public intellectuals' in the United States, and areheld in high regard as examples of how prominent individuals can combineintellectual and political activity. All of them, have, however, at the veryleast utterly failed to fulfill this important responsibility by signing thisletter. For what is an intellectual if not someone who produces realalternatives to the current state of affairs and to official policies which havecreated the disastrous status quo at first place?

The signatories of this letter have not only failed to fulfill their socialresponsibilities in this regard. Despite their many references to human rights,they have also exposed their fundamental lack of faith in the universality ofhuman rights by refusing to condemn the violation of human rights of those whomust suffer in what they call a 'just war.' This basic hypocrisy raises doubtsabout whether these academics should be seen as intellectuals after all. JeanPaul Sartre once wrote that the world, seen from the perspective of the westernruling class, is divided into half a billion citizens and one and half billionindigenous people. The explanation of 'why we are fighting' unfortunatelydemonstrates that this world view is still very much alive and kicking; the onlydifference being that though the number of citizens, or those with the power tointerpret the world, has remained constant while the number of indigenous hasquadrupled. This letter fails to address the grievances of people exhausted byoppression; it fails to argue, propose and advocate the adoption ofsocio-economical and political policies which aim at tackling the causes ofterrorism by reducing the ever-increasing level of world poverty. In fails tochallenge discriminatory political and social policies in concrete terms.

The most striking disappointment of the letter is the signatories' totalfailure contextualize the heinous terrorist acts of September 11th within therealities of America's discriminatorily foreign policy in the Middle East. Theyhave instead actively followed the dominant discourse of the government andmedia, which deliberately isolates the two issues.

The most shocking oversight of this letter is that its signatories fail toquestion the sincerity of the American government's mission to 'fightterrorism,' even though it is obvious that the goals and means of this so-calledwar on terrorism are completely incompatible. This is naive, at best. One doesnot need to be an expert in politics, terrorism, or revolution (as many of thepeople are) to realize that the war against terrorism does not require a astaggering annual budget of $380 billion, or to know that spending $10 billionto inseminate lies into the media is not aimed at fighting terrorism, but atmanipulating public opinion into supporting the idea. It does not take an expertanalyst to realize that the US government, devoid of real solutions to thechronic and worsening socio-economical problems of American society, has usedthe war to legitimize and detract attention away from itself. It has everyinterest in continuing to do so. No wonder there is so little public debate thataddresses the actual context and causes of terrorism within and against the UStoday.

We cannot defend freedoms by suppressing them, nor can we defend human rightsby violating them. The American government has aggressively violated many rightsof many humans in its war against terrorism. This is most clearly illustrated byits treatment of its prisoners of war in Guantanamo Bay. Despite a public outcryagainst their brutal treatment and arguments by scores of international humanrights organizations and the International Red Cross that these detainees areprisoners of war, the American government has stubbornly defined them ascriminals. Even if, for the sake of argument, we assume that these prisoners arecriminals, according to the American legal maxim of 'innocent until provenguilty,' they are innocent and should receive treatment in accordance with theirhuman dignity. Shackling them, shaving their beards and keeping them in opencages is in total violation of their human and legal rights. The American legalcode is based on a belief that no human being should ever be treated in such aninhumane manner, no matter what the crime is. But perhaps this code is meantonly for Americans? If so, then we should not talk about civilizing codes ofbehaviour. Europe knows this, and has declared its condemnation of the inhumanetreatment of prisoners at the Cuba camp. The signatories of this letter claim tobelieve in the universality of human rights. Why should we not wonder about thesincerity of their claims?

Perhaps their belief is based on the traditional American ideology of humanrights, which is in essence a discriminatory understanding of both human andright because it holds double standards for Americans and 'others.' Thesignatories of this letter claim that to become American is easy; that 'peoplefrom everywhere in the world come to our country with what a statue in NewYork's harbor calls a yearning to breathe free, and soon enough, they areAmericans...'. True, if we define the act of becoming American solely byreceiving a work permit and an American passport. There is, however, anotherside of the coin which the signatories have failed to point out: it is also easyto become non-American and to be stripped off of the rights which Americancitizens are allegedly entitled to. Within hours after the terrorist attacks onSeptember 11, almost the entire Moslem population of America became suspect.Within days, hundreds of Moslems were illegally arrested, thousands wereattacked and millions began to live with fear in the land of freedom. Overtdiscrimination against anyone with a Moslem name or even a Middle Eastern lookbecame justifiable. This rampant discrimination has also infected academicinstitutions across America, and it is hard to imagine how the signatories ofthis letter can fail to see that American citizens of Middle Eastern descent -and those who advocate for their rights - are facing widespread injusticesregarding scholarships, loan, and intellectual freedom.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this letter is that its signatoriesconsciously legitimize the murder of innocents, so long as it is accompanied bythe murder of combatants. They argue that 'within strict limits, it can bemorally justifiable to undertake military actions that may result in theunintended but foreseeable death or injury of some non-combatants.' In practice,this translates into a green light for the murder of innocent people. Here againwe observe that despite their claim to struggle for justice, the signatories donot believe in the universality of human rights. Such a statement indicates thatthey are far more faithful to the principle that the "goal justifies themeans". This principle, however, is in total violation of the spirit andprinciple of the sanctity of human life. It also reveals that power, and notfreedom, form the core of their guiding principles. We must ask, in light ofSatre's argument about the world of 'men' [sic] and 'others,' whether any of thesignatories would support the bombing and killing of American citizens (insideor outside of America) if a few suspected terrorists hiding among them couldalso being killed? Would they call the massacre of Americans as justifiable'collateral damage'?

When these signatories give their total support to government in its waragainst terrorism, they also support new draconian legislation that emerged inthe wake of 11 September to provide the government with legal means to fightterrorism, such as the 'Patriot Act' and a slew of other ad hoc rulings. It iswell known that these laws were ratified in order to increase security at theprice of liming citizens' freedoms. The articles of universal human rights,however, were written to be in harmony with one another. There is no zero-sumrelation between them, and the extension of one right does not contradict theothers. In other words, we should be able to see all human rights within anysingle right, as they are intertwined expressions of the total right of thetotal human. To prioritize one right over another, or invoke it at the expenseof others, is nothing but sophistry - the very same sophistry whichauthoritarian and totalitarian states have always used in order to legitimizethe oppression.

The language of this letter is eclectic and ambiguous. Criticisms of Americanforeign policy or negative aspects of the American way of life are clouded inambiguous and non-committal terms. This not only allows for multipleinterpretations; furthermore, it does not define who is responsible for carryingout this commitment, or what resources they can draw on to do so. There is onlythe pledge of sixty 'intellectuals.' However, when it comes to supporting thegovernment in its war against terrorism, the writing becomes vivid, clear anduncompromising. Most importantly, it names a specific guarantor for carrying outthese policies: the American state, a state that boasts of the strongestmilitary and economical might in the world.

If the signatories of this proposition really want to propose effective waysto combat terrorism, they must not support the American government's line onterrorism. They, as intellectuals, could focus on analyzing the causes ofterrorism today. They could try to communicate this with the American people.They could explain the context in which terrorism emerges and spreads: theconsequences of domination and exploitation; the fact that small islands ofaffluence are surrounded by vast seas of poverty; the endless perpetuation ofdiscrimination and despotism. They could argue that the dictatorship of capitalin the form of multi-nationals and the failure of western democracies to controlthe incursion of these institutions into less powerful nations has meant thatthe common people of these countries have effectively lost control over theirnatural and human resources. In another word, they could argue that terrorism isa blind and hateful reaction to a type of relation, dominant in our world today,which produces great inequalities between people, which divides the world intodominator and dominated, and which leaves the latter with, as Fanon argues,nothing more than their rage.

It is misleading for these intellectuals to explain the contemporary angeramong non- western people against the American government by resorting totheories such as the 'clash of civilizations.' Civilizations do not clash butinteract, exchanging knowledge and information. It is only the uncivilizedelements of civilizations that clash with each other. Neither does it make senseto attribute this anger to the envy of the poor because, if the informationabout the terrorists is correct, they were all from well-off families. Bothexplanations discredited, what is left? Only to make suggestions for how Americacould move out of its hegemonic position and make a real attempt to remove worldpoverty and set an example for the democratization of the world. It would, ofcourse, be difficult to make such a proposal. It is much easier to supportsending planes and to massacre innocent people in the Islamic world, praisingthose within it who also support this, and condemning as terrorist-lovers thosewho do not.

At the moment it is easy to win popular support for this populist positionsince most Americans, deprived of hearing the truth about their country'sforeign policy, support such actions. Sooner or later, though, the war will beover, and the people will know that they have been betrayed not only by theirgovernment, media and institutions, but by the very intellectuals whoselegitimacy was based on the values of freedom. Because more than any other timein America's history, the main casualty of this war against terrorism has beenthe very freedom which the government is waging a war to defend. Someday, whenthe hysteria has died down, the signatories of this letter will be called on toanswer for and justify their position, both to themselves and to the generalpublic, when it emerges that they have dismantled all the institutions whichwere designed to defend and extend human freedom - most importantly, theinstitution of the critical American intellectual. They would be wise now toreconsider what it is they are really fighting for, and what, in the end, isworth it.

(Mahmood Delkhasteh and Simone Wright are working on their doctorates insociology at the London School of Economics. They can be reached at: M.Delkhasteh@lse.ac.uk)