[George Katsiaficas] September 11 and the American Conscience (2)
George Katsiaficas
A Fulbright Fellow, a student of Herbert Marcuse, a long-time activist and currently Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences at Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston, Massachusetts
The most vituperative attack on critics of the war was launched by Nation longtime contributor Christopher Hitchens when he personalized his political disagreements with MIT professor Noam Chomsky. To answer a plethora of media inquiries regarding his viewpoint on the attacks at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Chomsky had issued a tersely worded statement that made reference to the US destruction of the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in the Sudan in 1998. According to Chomsky, "tens of thousands of people--many of them children--have suffered and died from malaria, tuberculosis, and other treatable diseases" in the Sudan because no drugs were available after the attack. Rising to attack Chomsky as though he were Saint George seeking to slay the dragon, Hitchens first praised the men who fought the hijackers on the fourth flight and caused it to crash before it could reach its intended target: "One iota of such innate fortitude is worth all the writings of Noam Chomsky, who coldly compared the plan of September 11 to a stupid and cruel and cynical raid by Bill Clinton on Khartoum in August 1998." Hitchens continued: " I have no hesitation in describing this mentality, carefully and without heat, as soft on crime and soft on fascism. No political coalition is possible with such people and, I'm thankful to say, no political coalition with them is now necessary. It no longer matters what they think." [2]
In his response, Chomsky refused to be drawn into a personalized exchange. He maintained that Hitchens "cannot mean what he says" and that "The fair and sensible reaction is to treat all of this as some aberration, and to await the return of the author to the important work that he has often done in the past." Hitchens is, after all, the author of an important work that seeks an international war crimes tribunal for Henry Kissinger based upon his responsibility for US policy in Vietnam, Cambodia, Chile and elsewhere. Not to be misunderstood, however, Chomsky also elaborated on his original statement about September 11: "Proportional to population, this is as if the bin Laden network, in a single attack on the US, caused hundreds of thousands of people -- many of them children -- to suffer and die from easily treatable diseases…To regard the comparison to Sept. 11 as outrageous is to express extraordinary racist contempt for African victims of a shocking crime, which, to make it worse, is one for which we are responsible: as taxpayers, for failing to provide massive reparations, for granting refuge and immunity to the perpetrators, and for allowing the terrible facts to be sunk so deep in the memory hole that some, at least, seem unaware of them."
Hitchens was neither willing to relent nor to leave the exchange alone. Rejoining the attack, he wrote that Chomsky's "casuistry appears to be limitless"; "the pretense of [his] remorseless logic degenerates into flat-out irrationality"; and "Noam Chomsky has lost or is losing the qualities that made him a great moral and political tutor in the years of the Indochina war… the last time we corresponded, some months ago, I was appalled by the robotic element both of his prose and of his opinions."
Hitchens was not alone in his personalized condemnation of Chomsky. Todd Gitlin, former 1960s radical and today a New York University professor, joined in the chorus of "left-wing" abuse and wrote: "Sneering critics like Noam Chomsky, who condemn the executioners of thousands only in passing, would not hesitate to honor the vengeful feelings of Palestinians subjected to Israeli occupation. They have no standing."
Rather than viewing these attacks simply in personal terms, it is important to understand them as part of a wider distancing of Americans?and not only radicals or former radicals?from any semblance of moral or material critique of America's global role. According to this perspective, whatever "mistakes" the US has made, there should be no parallel drawn with the "criminal" events of September 11.
While the above examples make clear that traditional voices of anti-war sentiment are today divided, simultaneously large constituencies who were opposed to the Vietnam War are today staunchly in favor of a war on terrorism. African-Americans led the opposition to the war in Vietnam in the early 1960s and have traditionally been a strong voice against US foreign military intervention. Immediately after September 11, however, many leading African-American commentators and respected organizations all issued statements condemning the attacks of September 11 as a "crime against humanity" ?the very rhetoric that has become a signal for patriotic allegiance.
Nowhere is Manichean thinking more pronounced than among conservative intellectuals. George Bush maintains that there is "no neutral ground" in the war against terrorism. Within this context, anyone who questions whether, for example, the bombing of al-Shifa or any number of other similar US actions were also "crimes against humanity" is immediately accused of sympathy?or even support for?terrorism. Depending on the length and intensity of future US attacks, such a position bodes ill for the future.
For more than a decade, right-wing forces have inveighed against multiculturalism and campus "political correctness." In the past few months they renewed their offensive, singling out for public scrutiny the few professors who have spoken out publicly for peace. Significantly, the organization sponsoring this initiative was founded by Lynne Cheney, the Vice-President's wife and herself a powerful conservative voice since being head of the National Endowment of the Humanities during the first Bush administration. Listing 115 instances of how college and university events equivocated in support for the war, Cheney's spokespersons also rebutted the notion that Americans should get to know more about Islam. That idea, Cheney said in a speech on October 5, "implies that the events of Sept. 11 were our fault." Rather, the group's report clarified that: "We believe that the West will fight for its own survival. But only if we know what we are fighting for...We call upon all colleges and universities to adopt strong core curricula that include rigorous, broad-based courses on the great works of Western civilization as well as courses on American history." [3]
While the needs to educate the American public about world civilizations and constrain the US military have seldom been so urgent, powerful voices are pushing in the opposite direction. Moreover, at the same time as traditional peace constituencies are divided, much of the world peace movement supports the US war against terrorism. The Germans Greens, whose founding principle is pacifism, have served a key role in legitimating the US war (to say nothing of the first foreign deployment of German combat troops since Hitler).
In this context, activists in Korea can play a vital role. A non-Islamic country with a citizenry that is deeply concerned about war, Korea can have a voice that speaks to governments and activists all over the world. If Koreans were to mount significant protests against the real possibility of the US war against terror being expanded, governments would take note and activists in the US and Europe would be affected?maybe even inspired to act.
On this wintry evening, I decided to enjoy my home's fireplace, so I went to the supermarket to buy firewood. As I entered the store I encountered a sale racks of items marked down 75% or more. Among them was a large pile of white cotton t-shirts with American flags and "United We Stand" printed on them. I would love to think that the new patriotism in the US, like the t-shirts, will soon be gone. But no matter how hard I try to imagine that happening, I have the feeling that the changes after September 11 are more than a passing fad.
[2] The Hitchens/Chomsky exchange can be found in the archive at http://thenation.com.
[3] Cheney's report is available at http://www.goacta.org/Reports/defciv.pdf.