The WTC Attack, Sep 11 2001
Commentary and Analysis
Arturo Escobar: a bottom line of sorts
Here is a bottom line of sorts. I write this in the belief of the
need for non-violent forms of protest, and of not condoning in any way
the forms of violence that we saw in New York City on Tuesday, or any
form of violence for that matter. But also in the belief that we need
to aim at forms of analysis that make this violence understandable,
instead of easily doing away with it as “evil” perpetrated by people
who want to destroy “our freedom” and “way of life.” For me the
bottom line is the following:
- that the Tuesday events need to be understood in their largest
possible historical context, as the result of a long process of
historical and cultural conquest and dominance by some social groups
and countries (broadly speaking, Euro-Americans or USA/Europe) over
many other peoples and cultures world-wide. This process dates back
to at least two hundred years, and may be succinctly described as
capitalist modernity.” The use of direct military force and violence
in the last two decades by the United States (from Granada and Panama
to the Gulf War and beyond) is an integral aspect of this history
even of course these campaigns of killing and terror have been carried
out in the name of freedom and democracy.
- that the process of bringing the rest of the world into the
civilizational project of Euro-America has taken a tremendous social,
cultural, and ecological toll on a majority of the world’s peoples.
From an ecological and cultural perspective, the project of
globalizing Western modernity and its attendant cultures of
consumption has been a mixed blessing at best. Indeed, from these
perspectives, the outlook on today’s world is quite dismal, in terms
of the erosion, if not destruction, or world natures and cultures.
- that one must avoid the simplistic arguments espoused by the elite
world wide –and especially the US elite– that everybody in the world
has the desire for the commodity-based Euro-American way of life. For
several hundred years there was a natural order in place that held
that men were superior to women, Europeans to non-Europeans, and white
people to non-whites; for several hundred years women and people of
color lived in the world so defined, often times with pain and rage
(now we know), some times themselves believing in its terms. This
made this order neither natural nor right, even if it was taken to be
this way by many, especially by those who reaped their privileges,
that is, those in power. Today, its is equally simplistic and equally
an effect of the dominating material and ideological power of the
elite to hold a similar belief in relation to the desires of the
cultures of the world. And as women and people of color have
attempted to shake themselves free from the dreadful orders of racism
and sexism, we need to acknowledge that a similar process of cultural
resistance is not only happening today, but that it will necessarily
continue to happen because these groups have the existential
imperative to resist the economic and cultural domination foisted upon
them.
- that in this way what is under attack is not America’s freedom, nor
even the American way of life –after all, all societies have the right
to the way of life they desire. What is under attack rather is the
extent to which America’s freedom is maintained at the expense of
other people’s rights and freedoms; what is under attack is the fact
that the American way of life is tremendously costly in ecological and
cultural terms, the costliest ever in history. Simply put, we enjoy
our freedom and way of life precisely because we are able to limit
tremendously that of billions of others, let alone exploit
irrationally the environment’s capacity for regeneration. Simply said,
there is a close connection between our affluence and comfort and the
suffering of billions, a connection that is dutifully established and
managed by our institutions, our corporations, and those international
bodies under our (and NATO/G-7) control.
- that in this moment what is called for is not the war mongering
calls for reprisals that seem to be the only chant in Washington, nor
the desire for vengeance and repression, but a reflexive call for all
of us in this country to develop a consciousness of globality; not the
blind repetition of allegiance to an abstract notion of “America,” but
a concrete desire to learn how to live with a sense of limits on this
land called The United States, in conjunction with all other human and
non-human living beings elsewhere, in a finite planet; not the banding
together around that equally diffuse abstraction called “the American
people” (meaning, the elite’s view of how we ought to be and behave)
but a recognition of a diversity and plurality within our midst,
including a respect from those whose dissenting voices still find but
a dim echo in public opinion.
- finally, that if we want to see an end to the violence and
intolerance against our way of life, we must acknowledge that this
will only happen if we are willing to accept that what has to come to
an end is the civilizational project of the past two-hundred years,
the same project that our leaders are intent now on globalizing; the
same project that the anti-globalization social movements are
adamantly opposing because they see their dire social, ecological, and
cultural consequences the world over; the same project whose time has
come, if we want to go on living with a minimum of dignity and peace
in a shared world. We must come to accept that the rest of the world
s people will not behave as mechanical wound-up toys under modernity’s
mantra of markets, rationality and order, since they are inspired by
other dreams, moved by other ways of being, and guided by other
traditions, not necessarily better or worse than ours, but theirs –and
at this point in history less domineering and ecocidal than ours has
been. It is thus time for us to catch up with history, instead of
always trying to tame it and defeat it, before our doings defeats the
very principles on which we, in a self-serving gesture, believe our
way of life is based today as it will be forever.
Dr Escobar teaches at UNC Chapel Hill.
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De Clarke