Phantom towers (page 3)
Feminist reflections on the battle between global capitalism and fundamentalist terrorism
by Rosalind P. Petchesky

 

NONE OF THIS RECKONING can comfort those who lost loved ones on September 11, or the thousands of attack victims who lost their jobs, homes and livelihoods; nor can it excuse the hideous crimes. As the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish writes, "nothing, nothing justifies terrorism." Still, in attempting to understand what has happened and think about how to prevent it happening again (which is probably a vain wish), we Americans have to take all these painful facts into account. The United States as the command center of global capitalism will remain ill equipped to "stop terrorism" until it begins to recognize its own past and present responsibility for many of the conditions I've listed and to address them in a responsible way.

But this would mean the United States becoming something different from itself, transforming itself, including abandoning the presumption that it should unilaterally police the world. This problem of transformation is at the heart of the vexing question of finding solutions different from all-out war. So let me turn to how we might think differently about power. Here is what I propose, tentatively, for now:

The slogan "War Is Not the Answer" is a practical as well as an ontological truth. Bombing or other military attacks on Afghanistan will not root out networks of terrorists, who could be hiding deep in the mountains or in Pakistan or Germany or Florida or New Jersey. It will only succeed in destroying an already decimated country, killing untold numbers of civilians as well as combatants and creating hundreds of thousands more refugees. And it is likely to arouse so much anger among Islamist sympathizers as to destabilize the entire region and perpetuate the cycle of retaliation and terrorist attacks. All the horror of the twentieth century surely should teach us that war feeds on itself and that armed violence reflects, not an extension of politics by other means, but the failure of politics; not the defense of civilization, but the breakdown of civilization.

Tracking down and bringing the perpetrators of terrorism to justice, in some kind of international police action, is a reasonable aim but one fraught with dangers. Because the US is the world's only "superpower," its declaration of war against terrorism and its supporters everywhere says to other countries that we are once again taking over as global policeman, or, as Fidel Castro put it, a "world military dictatorship under the exclusive rule of force, irrespective of any international laws or institutions." Here at home a "national emergency" or "state of war"--especially when defined as different from any other war--means the curtailment of civil liberties, harassment of immigrants, racial profiling and withholding of information (censorship) or feeding of disinformation to the media, all without any time limits and under an ominous new Office of Homeland Security. We should oppose both US unilateralism and the permanent security state. We should urge our representatives in Congress to diligently defend the civil liberties of all.

I agree with the Afro Asian Peoples Solidarity Organization (AAPSO) in Cairo that "punishment should be inflicted according to the law and only upon those who were responsible for these events," and that it should be organized within the framework of the United Nations and international law, not unilaterally by the United States. This is not the same as the US getting unanimous approval from the Security Council to commandeer global security, which is a first step at best. Numerous treaties against terrorism and money-laundering already exist in international law. The pending International Criminal Court, whose establishment the US government has so stubbornly opposed, would be the logical body to try terrorist cases, with the cooperation of national police and surveillance systems. We should demand that the US ratify the ICC statute. In the meantime, a special tribunal under international auspices, like the ones for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, could be set up, as well as an international agency to coordinate national police and intelligence efforts, with the US as one participating member. This is the power of international engagement and cooperation.

No amount of police action, however cooperative, can stop terrorism without addressing the conditions of misery and injustice that nourish and aggravate terrorism. The US has to undertake a serious reexamination of its values and its policies with regard not only to the Middle East but also to the larger world. It has to take responsibility for being in the world, including ways of sharing its wealth, resources and technology; democratizing decisions about global trade, finance and security; and assuring that access to "global public goods" like health care, housing, food, education, sanitation, water and freedom from racial and gender discrimination is given priority in international relations. What we even mean by "security" has to encompass all these aspects of well-being, of "human security," and has to be universal in its reach.

Let me again quote from the poet Mahmoud Darwish's statement, which was published in the Palestinian daily Al Ayyam on September 17 and signed by many Palestinian writers and intellectuals.

We know that the American wound is deep and we know that this tragic moment is a time for solidarity and the sharing of pain. But we also know that the horizons of the intellect can traverse landscapes of devastation. Terrorism has no location or boundaries, it does not reside in a geography of its own; its homeland is disillusionment and despair.

The best weapon to eradicate terrorism from the soul lies in the solidarity of the international world, in respecting the rights of all peoples of this globe to live in harmony and by reducing the ever increasing gap between north and south. And the most effective way to defend freedom is through fully realizing the meaning of justice.

What gives me hope is that this statement's sentiments are being voiced by growing numbers of groups here in the US, including the National Council of Churches, the Green Party, a coalition of one hundred entertainers and civil rights leaders, huge coalitions of peace groups and student organizations, New Yorkers Say No to War, black and white women celebrities featured on Oprah Winfrey's show, and parents and spouses of attack victims. Maybe out of the ashes we will recover a new kind of solidarity; maybe the terrorists will force us, not to mirror them, but to see the world and humanity as a whole.

This essay originated in a presentation given at the Hunter College Political Science Department Teach-In, New York City, September 25, 2001.

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