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Commentary :: International Relations
Aftermath Of 911 And The War On Terrorism
The annual Conference of North American and Cuban Philosophers and Social Scientists met in Havana June 2002. The Conference is a project of the Radical Philosophy Association. Cliff DuRand spoke on the Bush Administration's "War on Terrorism" as part of a roundtable discussion.
(University of Havana, June 24, 2002)
The events of September 11 were a great tragedy and a major trauma for the American people. First of all, it was a tragedy on the human level. I appreciate the fact that Cuba immediately extended expressions of sympathy to the U.S. -although most Americans did not hear them. I personally received many such messages from Cuban friends. You have suffered from more than 40 years of terrorist actions. We owe you thanks for your sympathy and solidarity when the guns were finally turned on us.
But in addition to the human tragedy, the events of that fateful day were also a political tragedy. They have allowed the political Right to achieve undisputed national leadership in the U.S. Having come into control of the Presidency in a way that called into question the legitimacy of their rule, the Right was able to seize the opportunity this trauma offered and rally the nation behind its leadership.
There were in fact two options available at that moment. The first option would have been to interpret 911 as a criminal act to be prosecuted under international law. Cuba urged such a sane approach. If that had been followed, the result would have been to rally international sympathy to strengthen international law and its institutions. That course would have served the interests of humanity in an increasingly interdependent world.
But that was not the road taken. Instead, 911 was interpreted as an act of war to be responded to militarily. The result of that option is to strengthen U.S. imperialism and the imperial presidency. That better serves the political needs of Bush, the interests of the military-industrial complex and the national security state, and ultimately the economic interests of transnational corporations.
I want to suggest that this War on Terrorism, as it is called, can be seen as the military front of the neo-liberal globalization that has been sweeping the world in the last quarter century. The fact is that the global reach of capital has established substantial U.S. economic interests in most parts of the world. While enriching the comprador bourgeoisie in various nations, it has also impoverished the popular classes in the Third World as their economies have been integrated as satellites into the capitalist world system. This polarization leads to popular unrest and weakens governability by national elites.
Interestingly, the reaction against capitalist globalization has been strongest in more traditional societies where the local culture is threatened by the secular commercial culture of the U.S. There a fundamentalism rejecting modernity has taken root in popular classes and legitimated terrorism as a defensive measure. It is this terrorism that has now in turn legitimated a U.S. fundamentalism in the War on Terrorism. It is this Manichean struggle that now threatens civilization.
Why has the main reaction against capitalist globalization taken such a reactionary form? What happened to the progressive alternative? The short answer is that it was defeated in the Cold War. Under the ideology of anti-communism, the U.S. sought to destroy every progressive social movement, allying itself with local oligarchies that would be friendly to U.S. interests, i.e. transnational corporations. The U.S. succeeded almost everywhere; Cuba remains as its major failure. Here a social system that fosters social justice survives as a living proof that there is a progressive alternative to capitalism. Here an island of humanity survives in an increasingly brutal world.
Yes, the U.S. did win the Cold War. But at what a price! By crushing every progressive movement it could, it not only denied the U.S.S.R. new allies, it also dashed the hopes of the increasingly wretched masses of the earth for liberation from oppression and exploitation. And it bred a deeply felt resentment beneath the silence that was imposed on them. What they feel against us is not envy of "our freedom and prosperity" (as Bush would have us believe). It is a resentment of the arrogant domination over them that we have imposed. That is what moves the anti-Americanism that now haunts us. For over a half century the U.S. inflicted violence on the wretched of the earth. Now, as Malcolm X said, the chickens are coming home to roost. Or, in CIA parlance, it's blowback time, as previous actions, both covert and overt, both tactical and strategic, now blowback on us in the most frightful ways.
The American people are very much like the family of a Mafia boss who does not know what their father does, and don't want to know, but then wonder why someone just threw a firebomb through the living room window. Most Americans don't know, don't want to know, and have been told little about what our national political elite has done in our name.
This elite has not served the American people well. It led us into the Cold War by instilling a fear of communism; now it leads us into an endless and increasingly aggressive war on terrorism, once again by playing on our fears. While it has built the greatest empire in the history of mankind, the American people are now paying the price of that empire. The attack of September 11 targeted centers of U.S. economic and military dominance in the world. But it was interpreted as an attack on the American people. What we are now seeing is the further expansion and consolidation of the national security state that our political elite has been constructing over the past 60 years. Rather than dismantling those institutions and policies that have placed us all in such great jeopardy, we are now faced with the permanent militarization of American society in the service of the transnational corporations -the true beneficiaries of the Empire. We are a generous and kind-hearted people; we deserve better.
At this moment, the historical responsibility of the American people is to stop this permanent war being conducted in the name of ending terrorism -a war that in fact is aimed at those who oppose the Empire and that will only instill more resentment against U.S. arrogance, thereby planting the seeds of future terrorism.
Yes, our political elite has not served us well for the last half century and more. And it is now misleading us into a new century of permanent war against the oppressed of the earth that endangers civilization itself. Fidel is right: only we, the American people, can stop this mad drive toward fascism in the world. No one else can save us from the abyss.
That will only be possible by restoring the democratic will of the American people -the democratic will of an informed people, no longer blindly following a political elite that serves the interests of the wealthy and the corporations, a people that takes back our nation and makes it stand for social justice both at home and abroad, a nation that allies with the popular classes around the world rather than reactionary oligarchies. Such a nation can finally promote the rule of law rather than the lawlessness of Empire. We can demand nothing less.
Venceremos !
Cliff DuRand is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Morgan State University, Baltimore, Maryland and Profesor Invitado at Universidad de la Habana, Habana, Cuba. As a member of the Radical Philosophy Association, he is North American Coordinator of the annual Conference of North American and Cuban Philosophers and Social Scientists.
The events of September 11 were a great tragedy and a major trauma for the American people. First of all, it was a tragedy on the human level. I appreciate the fact that Cuba immediately extended expressions of sympathy to the U.S. -although most Americans did not hear them. I personally received many such messages from Cuban friends. You have suffered from more than 40 years of terrorist actions. We owe you thanks for your sympathy and solidarity when the guns were finally turned on us.
But in addition to the human tragedy, the events of that fateful day were also a political tragedy. They have allowed the political Right to achieve undisputed national leadership in the U.S. Having come into control of the Presidency in a way that called into question the legitimacy of their rule, the Right was able to seize the opportunity this trauma offered and rally the nation behind its leadership.
There were in fact two options available at that moment. The first option would have been to interpret 911 as a criminal act to be prosecuted under international law. Cuba urged such a sane approach. If that had been followed, the result would have been to rally international sympathy to strengthen international law and its institutions. That course would have served the interests of humanity in an increasingly interdependent world.
But that was not the road taken. Instead, 911 was interpreted as an act of war to be responded to militarily. The result of that option is to strengthen U.S. imperialism and the imperial presidency. That better serves the political needs of Bush, the interests of the military-industrial complex and the national security state, and ultimately the economic interests of transnational corporations.
I want to suggest that this War on Terrorism, as it is called, can be seen as the military front of the neo-liberal globalization that has been sweeping the world in the last quarter century. The fact is that the global reach of capital has established substantial U.S. economic interests in most parts of the world. While enriching the comprador bourgeoisie in various nations, it has also impoverished the popular classes in the Third World as their economies have been integrated as satellites into the capitalist world system. This polarization leads to popular unrest and weakens governability by national elites.
Interestingly, the reaction against capitalist globalization has been strongest in more traditional societies where the local culture is threatened by the secular commercial culture of the U.S. There a fundamentalism rejecting modernity has taken root in popular classes and legitimated terrorism as a defensive measure. It is this terrorism that has now in turn legitimated a U.S. fundamentalism in the War on Terrorism. It is this Manichean struggle that now threatens civilization.
Why has the main reaction against capitalist globalization taken such a reactionary form? What happened to the progressive alternative? The short answer is that it was defeated in the Cold War. Under the ideology of anti-communism, the U.S. sought to destroy every progressive social movement, allying itself with local oligarchies that would be friendly to U.S. interests, i.e. transnational corporations. The U.S. succeeded almost everywhere; Cuba remains as its major failure. Here a social system that fosters social justice survives as a living proof that there is a progressive alternative to capitalism. Here an island of humanity survives in an increasingly brutal world.
Yes, the U.S. did win the Cold War. But at what a price! By crushing every progressive movement it could, it not only denied the U.S.S.R. new allies, it also dashed the hopes of the increasingly wretched masses of the earth for liberation from oppression and exploitation. And it bred a deeply felt resentment beneath the silence that was imposed on them. What they feel against us is not envy of "our freedom and prosperity" (as Bush would have us believe). It is a resentment of the arrogant domination over them that we have imposed. That is what moves the anti-Americanism that now haunts us. For over a half century the U.S. inflicted violence on the wretched of the earth. Now, as Malcolm X said, the chickens are coming home to roost. Or, in CIA parlance, it's blowback time, as previous actions, both covert and overt, both tactical and strategic, now blowback on us in the most frightful ways.
The American people are very much like the family of a Mafia boss who does not know what their father does, and don't want to know, but then wonder why someone just threw a firebomb through the living room window. Most Americans don't know, don't want to know, and have been told little about what our national political elite has done in our name.
This elite has not served the American people well. It led us into the Cold War by instilling a fear of communism; now it leads us into an endless and increasingly aggressive war on terrorism, once again by playing on our fears. While it has built the greatest empire in the history of mankind, the American people are now paying the price of that empire. The attack of September 11 targeted centers of U.S. economic and military dominance in the world. But it was interpreted as an attack on the American people. What we are now seeing is the further expansion and consolidation of the national security state that our political elite has been constructing over the past 60 years. Rather than dismantling those institutions and policies that have placed us all in such great jeopardy, we are now faced with the permanent militarization of American society in the service of the transnational corporations -the true beneficiaries of the Empire. We are a generous and kind-hearted people; we deserve better.
At this moment, the historical responsibility of the American people is to stop this permanent war being conducted in the name of ending terrorism -a war that in fact is aimed at those who oppose the Empire and that will only instill more resentment against U.S. arrogance, thereby planting the seeds of future terrorism.
Yes, our political elite has not served us well for the last half century and more. And it is now misleading us into a new century of permanent war against the oppressed of the earth that endangers civilization itself. Fidel is right: only we, the American people, can stop this mad drive toward fascism in the world. No one else can save us from the abyss.
That will only be possible by restoring the democratic will of the American people -the democratic will of an informed people, no longer blindly following a political elite that serves the interests of the wealthy and the corporations, a people that takes back our nation and makes it stand for social justice both at home and abroad, a nation that allies with the popular classes around the world rather than reactionary oligarchies. Such a nation can finally promote the rule of law rather than the lawlessness of Empire. We can demand nothing less.
Venceremos !
Cliff DuRand is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Morgan State University, Baltimore, Maryland and Profesor Invitado at Universidad de la Habana, Habana, Cuba. As a member of the Radical Philosophy Association, he is North American Coordinator of the annual Conference of North American and Cuban Philosophers and Social Scientists.
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