I devote this entry to a long piece by a regular Webdiary contributor John Wojdylo on the war ahead. He’s a brilliant thinker and writer, and I thank him for contributing to this forum.
John Wojdylo, an Australian in Germany
1. Where does fear come from?
“It was like a film.” The reaction is alien to me. Butchery is like a film? No, butchery is like history. My horror at the footage is limited by memories of other butchery I have deeply experienced in my imagination: the Warsaw Uprising; the battle for the fortress around Przemysl in World War I, where a million died, unknown to the West; Auschwitz; the Rape of Nanking. Many others.
I’ve seen hardly any Hollywood films in the last few years. For me, none of what has happened is like a Hollywood film, and references to celluloid catastrophes are lost on me. Like the CNN coverage, Hollywood films have a simple inevitability about them: even the so-called suspense thrillers are safe experiences, ultimately shallow. As Luis Bunuel said, you can tell what will happen in the film from watching the first five minutes.
If I think of any films at all in connection with the recent events, it’s Andrei Tarkovsky’s “The Sacrifice”, the most frightening film I’ve ever seen. About nuclear war, a total end, but also about hope. Fear is produced by not knowing. War is a time when the usual comfortable daily order ceases, certainties dissolve, nobody knows the outcome. On very bad days that for others seem completely normal, when you think too much about what life means, and see clearly the prejudices, the gullibility, and the hollowness of words – when you slip through all the mental safety nets that you’ve become accustomed to – then you can feel a similar fear.
“The Sacrifice” reproduced dissolution of certainty perfectly. It was very, very frightening. And there’s a scene in it that looks like Manhattan “ground zero” today.
I’ve realized that much of the fear I feel about what is to come is due to the CNN coverage thus far. Relentless shellshocked fixation on the present, and endless rehearsal of an immediate future driven by blind lust for vengeance. Very little analysis of what the mid- and long-term strategies against international terrorism ought to be; no insight into the struggle that Islamic societies themselves are going through against fundamentalism – actually, fanatic nihilism – or how the U.S. might help them.
Fear wells up when my imagination unconsciously tars the American president, his advisers, his military chiefs and everyone else involved with CNN’s blindness. Gradually, over the last day or so, I’ve realized that this is a terrifying and unjust simplification, at once debilitating and mistaken. Blinded by fear.
I was thinking in a simple mode, an irrational mode, because of lack of information. I was in a vulnerable state – easily manipulated because I could not imagine the next step, because fear of the unknown made me believe outrageous things. This state of mind, in a reaction to the events of September 11, is exactly the stage tens of thousands of increasingly extremist fundamentalists – and those on the verge of joining their ranks – are at in Pakistan, Algeria and elsewhere. An easily manipulated state, people waiting to become tools of ambitious, evil, self-aggrandising con-men.
The process I have been going through is a reclamation of my individuality.
With CNN being viewed in most middle-eastern countries, maybe the network realized the responsibility and opportunity it had to do some good. A few hours ago they began expanding their vision slightly beyond America’s navel, began considering the shape of the political and military action to come, while awkward email questions from infidel Europeans flashed past
along the bottom of the screen. At last, I felt that maybe the “boundless grief” of Americans will not, after all, be universalized to boundless grief of humanity.
Essential in my personal process of regaining spiritual shape is intelligent, considered, insightful comment. Two commentaries by Thomas Friedman and William Pfaff in the International Herald Tribune on Saturday and Monday (17/9) are healing, in the sense that they see a way ahead, and thereby beat away the terrible phantoms of the unknown.
German television has been very, very good. Direct, intelligent, urgent, searching questions have been answered by experts and senior political figures, intellectuals that tower over anybody in Australian politics at the moment. In some cases, studio audiences have obviously been a mix of conservatives, Greens and social democrats, and they often applauded in unison as, for instance, the German Interior Minister, Otto Schily, described the road ahead with restraint, resoluteness, intelligence, cultural sensitivity and moral depth. The Greens parliamentarian had clearly been unable to see a rational road forward, and her remarks verged on hysterical, were full of fear, and she could only radiate and spread fear whenever she spoke. Her fear blinded her too – but she was on the public stage, and she was spreading fear.
None of the most powerful figures in Australian politics has the credibility in my eyes, or the ability, to stabilise and give form to the Australian public psyche, to drive away the terrifying creatures of the unknown. They are small people who cannot break out of the provincial paradigm, who do not have the vision or moral strength to inspire a love of what is good, of that which is beyond their immediate self-interest.
The expert discussions on German television have gone way beyond what is possible on Australian TV in other ways too. In piecing together exactly what must have happened, calmly, logically, guests such as Nicki Lauda – owner of the airline Lauda Air, and a commercial pilot himself – have taken audiences through a reconstruction of the experience, into the heart of darkness, rationally – inspiring not fear, but faith in the future. A flight-simulator-software demonstration was run to put the audiences on the “inside”. Viewed as an urgent search for knowledge, it was riveting. But if everything that passes in front of the eyes is supposed to be entertaining, and is viewed in that light, then the simulation would be condemned as appalling taste.
A professor of architectural engineering described exactly why the towers collapsed, details of why some had hope of living while others had none. In archtypical German rigour, he detailed the limits and advantages of the two types of skyscraper construction used today; as well as why the same type of attack on a nuclear power station would certainly fail. The good that knowledge does was clear. Through it, the audience learned what the limits of aircraft, buildings, and current standard procedures are. When we know more, fear is quelled. We see more clearly the remaining sources of fear. Now we can focus on those and deal with them.
Actually, I don’t really know what’s been happening on Australian TV – I suspect that it’s about the level of the CNN coverage. Certainly no long, logical trains of explanation, or simulations. This is one of the traits that, for me, typifies Australia. We shun “getting on the inside” of a situation. Our society, our adversarial legal system (where a logical chain of events is almost never presented), our debates, our conversations, proceed as a series of disconnected snapshots from the “outside”. The surface view. Trains of logic are almost never followed through from beginning to end. We pay for it psychologically. In the absence of logical sense, our imaginations are free to latch onto any horrors that infiltrate our consciousness. I suspect that because of the aesthetic, surface, view so common in Australia, because Australia’s public figures are small people, fear is rampant now in Australia.
Fear is produced by not knowing. War is a time when the usual comfortable daily order ceases, certainties dissolve, nobody knows what will happen. Even at the start of the Gulf War, where the military power was so obviously stacked on one side, I felt fear. Saddam Hussein gambled that he’d be able to unite muslims everywhere into a holy war. He lost.
Even the most powerful nations do not know the outcome. They hope they do. They believe it. But nobody really knows. It’s a time for faith in clear thinking, which means power to drive away the demons of fear – the power of human intelligence and wisdom, not just military power.
2. What might happen in the next few years? What are the limits? What are the possibilities?
Some things are clear. After today’s arrest of his right hand man in London, I’m prepared to believe Osama bin Laden and his group was behind the attack. I think it’s fairly clear – and U.S. planners know this – that Osama bin Laden has been orchestrating a personal rise to power over a number of years, using wealth and influence to establish dissident fundamentalist communities, with Koran schools, civil infrastructure such as roads and buildings, and so on, in his native Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Egypt, Sudan, United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Pakistan and possibly other middle-eastern countries, as well as Malaysia.
It’s important to know that Afghanistan is the only country that welcomes him at present; only two others support him. Bin Laden is part of the ruling family – Afghanistan’s supreme leader is married to his daughter – an ancient tribal method of cementing the bonds of alliance. In Saudi Arabia and elsewhere he is considered a dissident, an extremist. There’s a clash of civilisations happening within Islamic countries – those with a medieval worldview are reacting against those with a modern view. Those with medieval views are easily manipulated into imagining that the source of all their troubles is America: it is they who believe that the clash of civilisations is actually between Islam and Western society. Many Westerners, some in ignorance, or xenophobia, think like them. The false dictotomy of Islam and the western world is what bin Laden wants to make real.
Every civilised and semi-civilised Muslim country has had a growing problem with fanatic nihilists. Most, such as Pakistan, have had a policy of appeasement, even outright support – using them to further their own strategic interests. With the American (and possibly Allied) military action, probably aimed at targets within Afghanistan as well as in other countries, the leaders of the terrorist networks will be able to manipulate the groundswell of fanatic support amongst increasingly extremist Muslims in these moderate countries. There will certainly be anti-government violence within these countries.
The skill of American political and military planning in splitting moderates and fanatics, in keeping moderate muslims from becoming radicalised, will determine how serious this turmoil will be. A good sign is that the U.S. is not acting unilaterally in this – they have gone to great lengths to enlist the support of Russia and muslim countries including Indonesia. A sign of thought, not just blind vengeance.
Moderate muslims feel trapped in failing societies; America (and the West) is a symbol of the good things in life for them, the freedom of living as one wants to, without the interference of a totalitarian government. Many have children or friends in the west, and know that the fundamentalists do not represent modern Islamic values.
After hearing German government ministers describe their communications with the Americans, it’s clear that the Americans understand this and bin Laden’s strategy. They understand the importance of not making the situation impossible for moderate muslims – the bastions of Islamic civilisation in the middle-east and south-east Asia – of not allowing the fanatic nihilists to define the conflict as a “clash of Islam with the West”. These fanatics do not represent Islam: they represent their own selfish ends.
Bin Laden’s strategy will be to radicalise these countries, toppling relatively moderate governments and installing fanatic regimes. We’re seeing the beginnings of this already in Pakistan, where fundamentalists are protesting against their government’s allowing American forces onto their holy soil. Taliban forces massing at the border could be a classical strategy of mobilising an uprising from within a country by invading it (like the Soviet Union encouraging the communists in Bulgaria in 1944).
Within the realms of possibility, depending on the skill or ineptness of American military, diplomatic and political efforts, this could happen in seven or more middle-eastern countries, with varying degrees of efficiency. The mad plan imagined by the probable supreme leader, Osama bin Laden, is to undermine the western world by taking over oil supplies in his native Saudi Arabia, where he has a substantial following, and in other oil-producing nations. Western prosperity is not built on the illusory wealth of Wall Street’s paper money, but on old-fashioned middle-eastern oil. In this way, he wants to achieve what Saddam Hussein failed to do in the Gulf War: unite the various fundamentalist groups across the middle-east and perhaps south-east Asia, topple the moderate or semi-moderate governments, and create a fundamentalist Islamic empire that would girdle the earth. This is the mad plan.
Bin Laden wants to install radical Islam as the world’s foremost religion, thus consolidating his power and place in history: Islamic nations are to be the future dominant world powers, economically and militarily, along with China. He wants to be the one who causes the downfall of western civilisation. He would be remembered as a “great” historical figure by future followers of fundamentalist, medieval interpretations of Islam, even if toppling the west was the only thing he achieved. He sees destroying western power as a necessary step towards Islam’s “great leap forward”, because western countries – the U.S. in particular, with Israel as its vanguard – are perceived by the fanatics as keeping Islamic states under their thumb and purposely hindering social progress and improvement of living standards. They see themselves as the victims of a great injustice. The grains of truth in their claim explode in their minds into hatred and obliterate all reason.
We’re seeing the fruition of a decade-long build-up of influence by an organised network of Islamic fanatics. It’s not a case of “if you leave us alone, we’ll leave you alone”. Fanatics invent their own reasons for continuing the holy struggle, to die fighting Satan and thereby reaching paradise. Struggle – like Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” – is their meaning in life; and when all around them suddenly becomes peaceful, they invent reasons to keep on fighting.
(Incidentally, a perhaps accidental resonance of radical Islamicist nihilism and Hitler’s Nazism is the Hezbollah’s outstretched arm salute – exactly like a Hitler gruess – when taking their oaths: a deeply disturbing image.)
Even if Israel did not exist, and even if U.S. troops left Saudi Arabian soil, Islamist fanatic nihilists would keep on hating the “Great Satan”, America, keep on with their holy struggle. They’ll find other countries to hate, too – and different groups will hate different countries besides America. The nations they form will be internally divided and self-destructive; and their leaders can only rule through terror and great cruelty. Osama bin Laden would certainly not give up the thrill of the terror industry and return to his construction company in Saudi Arabia, a peace-loving man who simply loved life.
I can’t see any reason why isolated cells of this network shouldn’t take root in every city in every country in the world. I don’t care what Australia’s defense minister says – he has no credibility in my eyes. There are only a few hundred cities in the world, and each city only needs about 10 agents. Why would they want to? Because they only need to weaken nations, cause chaos, to facilitate the rise of fundamentalist radicals. Are there enough such radicals? Maybe not, and there may or may not ever be enough.
Sensational acts of destruction are like recruitment posters: they prove the impact that each individual fanatic can have, the great glory that they can attain in death, a passage to paradise that advances the cause of “Islam”. Except it’s not Islam’s cause that they are manipulated into fighting for, but Osama bin Laden’s, or any fanatic nihilist that might rise up to take his place. Killing bin Laden would only have temporary effectiveness – hundreds would rise up to take his place.
They look like ordinary people in the street, mild-mannered, model citizens, and are like a time-bomb waiting to be activated. Each cell of terrorists acts autonomously for great lengths of time, setting themselves up in society, seeking out a city’s weak points, planning a devastating act. Their objective is to topple the world order that is dominated by the “Great Satan”. They will wield whatever power is necessary to do it, undermine whichever country when it seems useful to do so.
They hope to manage the ensuing chaos towards their own ends. If they can somehow gain control of oil supply, then they can wield power whichever way they wish. They don’t need to destroy cities then; but they might do it if they think that the backlash won’t be too great from their supporters. We need to defend the weak points of our cities. It doesn’t take much of a brain-storm to think of what these might be.
So the situation has limits. As well as a number of stages of intensity. The fanatic nihilists are limited in the amount of destruction they can wreak if they want to achieve their goals. The four-figure death toll from the World Trade Centre attack created a severe backlash against radical extremists from moderate, civilised muslims all over the world, signing petitions or expressing deep condolences. On Palestinian territory too, which you would notice if you look at the CNN images closely, where two boys, totally uninterested, pass by the small, cheering crowd, which was obviously hamming it up for the obsessed and untruthful western cameramen.
Clumsy overuse of power by the Americans – in which “too many” innocent people are killed, or if Bin Laden manages to get good publicity and political mileage with the few killed – will tend to radicalise muslims. But the fanatic nihilists cannot use nuclear weapons too soon. The backlash from the civilised muslim world would be too great. It would reveal their terrifying nature. It would reveal that they are like the Nazis, or Pol Pot. That they are the Islamist Khmer Rouge.
The strongest point of the fanatic nihilists, at present, is that they present no targets. They are not a country or a city, but somebody’s polite neighbour – with good-looking passport and official documents that prove to the Australian government and opposition (and all like-minded naive believers in order) that they’re saints. If they carried out a nuclear attack now, they would be invulnerable to military retaliation; on the other hand, they will alienate the civilised muslim world. If there ever came a stage when they had widespread support – say, alliances across the muslim world – then they would be targets. In a sense, their hands are tied too. What the world needs now is for all civilised muslim nations and governments to declare their opposition to fanatic nihilists who are desecrating the Islamic faith in pursuit of Osama bin Laden’s, as well as their own, vainglorious agendas.
Islamic leaders must openly declare that radical Islamic fundamentalism is the path away from Islam and towards fanatic nihilism. They must actively involve themselves in Islam’s cultural revolution, because Islam – as Thomas Friedman put it – is now suffering from cancer.
The only sure way of easing the problem of Islamic fanatics, of present and future followers of people like Osama bin Laden – in fact, of fanatic nihilists who do not truly believe the tenets of any religion at all – is through the power of persuasion, through the wisdom of Islamic governments.
Relations with relatively moderate Islamic nations should be fostered more strongly than ever before. This means the U.S. playing a leader’s role in middle-eastern politics. It must be visibly even-handed. The road to a better life must be shown to exist – and to be reachable and desirable – on this earth, not in some warriors’ heaven.
If I just went on information I see in the Australian media, if I didn’t think about the possibilities at all, then I’d conclude that in principle, there’s no reason, in this absolute, fanatic nihilist mindset, not to murder as many westerners – or “collaborating” muslims – as possible, using nuclear or biological weapons, to achieve spectacular effect. Infinite darkness; the deepest dread.
But in reality, these people have goals too. They do not yet have enough support, and must persuade many more people to join them. They have to play a strategic game with the United States.
Internally, western countries might have to give up a measure of liberty in order to protect their societies. But at all times, a clear distinction must be held between muslims and fanatic nihilists, for the former desire the furtherment of society, while the latter do not believe in society at all. We must use our intelligence, not prejudice and blind might, in fighting the nihilists.
In the meantime, a reaction is necessary, according to the logic of power. Not to react will invite more and more devastating attacks. Appeasement of dictators has never worked. Dictators must be challenged. We hope that the natural human reaction of desiring vengeance will not make the problem explode beyond all imagined proportions.