Anti-Something

The tragedy of September 11 has awakened opposed feelings in different sectors of mankind. On one side we see the emotional empathy reactions towards the victims and their families and on another one the boosting of preexisting resentment that are being used to give new strength to the possible aversion towards the United States or the Muslims, as the case may be.

Curiously, one observes how, as days go by, some men and women on whose intelligence and objectivity we never expressed doubts, are now showing their subjective reactions hiding them behind allegedly impartial analysis.

The mere intent to construe the abominable and inexcusable crime that caused the death of more than 5000 innocent and defenseless people in the light of wrong Government policies is an unconscious way of justified something that may never be justified. All the wrong done by Governments may not be used as a basis to lessen the fact that terrorism is a fatal weapon against humanity. It is a new way of expressing the historical anarchism now being led either by pseudo-ideologies or religious creeds or by mere lust for fame and power.

The fact that one should link these facts to the U.S, conduct in the Middle East, or, even more, that one should drag it back to past actions of American Administrations in Guatemala, Chile, Afghanistan and many other places where the cold war’s conflicts turned into battlegrounds, is a show of stupidity. There is in it an avowed blindness when facing a reality threatening not just a country but also the whole of mankind. Terrorist actions are not committed solely against the United States: think only about ETA, or IRA or so many other examples of little concern for those opinion-shaping individuals. These are the same people who, in spite of the changes in their ideological postures seem unable to get rid of the undeniable and indelible tattoo of their youth: the demonizing of the United States was he cure of all evils of society.

I do not feel a first hand sympathy or antipathy towards the United States, the Muslims, the Jews, Russians or Chinese. I am convinced that each people bear its own burden of success, errors, and values worth being emulated or reproved. Yet, justifying terrorism in the light of previous situations is the same as exonerating every criminal under the assumption that he or she is a product of the circumstances. Moreover, such kind of Manichean posture is generally singular inasmuch as it is easy to throw all the resentment against a successful nation; hence, it is not hard to blame the United States while remaining silent when mention is made, for instance, of Sadam Husein’s actions against the Kurds, or the show of resigned indifference with regard to what the Russians do in Tchetchenia, and, even more when ignoring the deaths in the African struggles of the Hutus and Tutsis.

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There is some kind of perverse logic in some intellectuals who were shaped under the sign of Marxism during the cold war. One could say that they were wearing bifocal lenses magnifying the Western crimes and minimizing the importance of those committed by the rest of the world. It is certainly not my intention to justify any of them: there is the same degree of repugnancy in the deaths caused by the right and by the left. I do believe that a minimum of prudence should prevail in order to understand that although States may be violent, it is also possible —at least in principle— to limit their violence, be it under the laws, or, in their absence, through international pressure by other States. The violence resulting from terrorist organizations cannot be restrained by means of these mechanisms because, in a way, these organizations are not only outlawed, they also think that they are above the law. Flirting with terrorism is just like a two-edged weapon: eventually it will injure those who think that it will only harm the enemies. Today, it becomes important to state on which side of the world one stands, there is hardly any room for ambiguity. Most responsible nations and persons will try to reach agreements setting limits to the organizations’ field of actions when they believe that violence is the only way of changing humanity. The failure to grasp this is an evidence of the structural inability to understand that freedom may be preserved only by societies under the rule of law where there is respect for the fundamental rights of man and mankind.