Volume 10 Number 4

Fall 2001

Feature: From Postcommunism to Post–September 11

The Month of a Different World
Konstanty Gebert

An instantaneous understanding dawned on commentators and millions of horrified ordinary television viewers alike: the world will never be the same again. And it is not. This is clearly apparent in the thousands of small and large events, from the unheard-of spread of patriotism and solidarity in the US, to the unexpected shifts in the international arena (the warming of Moscow-Washington relations and the chilling of those between Israel and the US), to the slump in the airline industry, and other economic costs. But the most astonishing characteristic of this new world is its unprecedented unanimity of thinking. The attacks on America were condemned by all, from the United Arab Emirates to Syria, Cuba, and North Korea. The American military action in Afghanistan, however, is just as furiously attacked by opponents of the US as it is supported by its allies. Taking any stand in the debate is interpreted as declaring oneself on one side of the war or the other. We are told to choose between either approval of the carnage in New York and Washington or support of the bombing of Afghan peasants. This situation eliminates all possibility of rational debate. And yet, rarely does it happen-as it did during the Second World War-that one side in a conflict represents absolute evil. And even then, it does not follow that the other side represents absolute good. The fact that the allies also committed crimes should surprise no one: war by its very nature is criminal. But that events like Katyn, Dresden, or Hiroshima were lied about, back then, has left a poisonous imprint on the world that emerged from the war’s ashes. Let this be our warning.

Nonetheless, there exists a fundamental difference between World War Two and the current situation. On the one hand, it is difficult to lump together all terrorists, the regimes that shelter them, and the nations that will pay the price of the retaliation. Unlike Nazi Germany-or mutatis mutandis, Milosevic’s Serbia-neither the Afghans nor, let’s say, the Iraqis or Syrians have chosen their regimes and their politics. It is hard, therefore, to burden them with the responsibility. On the other hand, unlike in the past, the warring democracies are taking all possible care to minimize civilian suffering. Dresden and Hiroshima were consciously planned war crimes. The death of civilians, yesterday in Baghdad or Belgrade, today in Kabul, has always been the work of chance. This difference fundamentally affects our evaluation.

Inevitably, accidents like these will happen. But if we support war, then we must have arguments strong enough for us to be able to say to the victims’ families: we mourn and regret the deaths of your close ones, but their loss was the necessary cost of achieving a greater good. Our acts and their motives should be scrutinized through the lens of whether we could utter such a sentence. One should agree with those who claim that, if indeed Afghanistan sheltered and the Taliban protected Osama bin Laden and he is the perpetrator of the murders at the World Trade Center (WTC) and the Pentagon, and the campaign against him is the first battle in the war against terrorism as a whole, then the attack on Afghanistan is justified, even in light of the inevitable civilian casualties that it is already claiming. But if it is not bin Laden, then the campaign is obviously unlawful. And if it concerns only the perpetrators of this particular crime and not those who commit the same crimes elsewhere, then the pressure on other countries (except those tied by treaty in the NATO alliance) to participate and support the campaign would be difficult to justify. As to the first fundamental question regarding bin Laden’s responsibility for this massacre, the honest answer is: we do not know. American authorities claim they have irrefutable proof. Leaders of other countries, from Great Britain to Saudi Arabia, which were given access to the evidence, confirm America’s appraisal. The fragments presented to the public also look convincing. Finally, while the Taliban claim that bin Laden denied any responsibility, his and his people’s public pronouncements suggest quite the opposite. They enthusiastically support this massacre and warn of others, though, technically, they actually have not and are not admitting responsibility. All of this legitimates the American version, especially since the hypothetical alternative assumes the existence of a highly improbable worldwide conspiracy to mislead public opinion. But this still does not mean that we know that bin Laden is guilty. It only means that we trust the lawfully and democratically elected authorities who claim to know that he is the perpetrator.

As to the second question, whether this is a worldwide war on terrorism, the honest answer, again, is: we do not know. At first, the Americans declared a willingness to attack all countries supporting terrorism but then drastically narrowed their scope to cover only bin Laden’s al-Qaeda, provoking the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, to accuse them of conducting politics reminiscent of Munich in 1938. Recently, Washington has again returned to its prior position by announcing the possibility of an attack on other countries if they continue to support terrorism and terrorists, which need not necessarily be limited only to al-Qaeda (in this context, Undersecretary of State Richard Armitage has named Syria). This enables us to nourish the hope that we are not dealing with a private Washington vendetta, but rather the beginning of a long campaign whose goal is to delegitimatize terrorism. Although, as a phenomenon, its complete elimination is impossible, its effectiveness can be limited by depriving it of national support.

Here, Washington’s decisiveness can have an unusually positive influence on the international situation as a whole. Until now, almost everyone differentiated, based on his or her own criteria, between “good” and “bad” terrorism. In the first category, for example, many included Palestinian terrorism. Such distinctions were already made, for instance, after September 11, by the French ambassador to Israel and the chief of the British Ministry of Foreign Affairs, when visiting Teheran. It is necessary to state clearly that such relativism is both morally dishonorable and politically suicidal: so-called good terrorists are reinforced in the belief that they have support; those called “bad” are lured into the belief that such support can be attained. Such convictions, however, translate realistically into the price of human blood, which, because of the politicians’ relativism, is paid by innocent people. The same reasoning should be adopted with respect to all other conflicts in which terrorism plays a role: in Kurdistan, Kashmir, Chechnya, Sri Lanka, and so many others. If a reader, pondering a list of candidates for the terrorist label, concludes, “Oh no, not them, they are fighting for a worthwhile cause,” then that is a good result. Such a reaction permits one to understand that the condemnation of terrorism should not automatically be carried over to the cause for which the terrorists are fighting.

Palestinian terrorism is repulsive and the sympathy it continues to enjoy is disgraceful. Yet this in no way changes the fact that an independent Palestinian state should be formed. It has not been formed until now primarily because the support of the terrorists has convinced Yasser Arafat that force is a more effective strategy than negotiation. This force, on the other hand, is possible because the everyday humiliations experienced by the Palestinians under occupation mean that for many of them there is no other answer. In order to fight terrorism successfully it is not enough to isolate and stifle it. It is necessary to form political solutions. That is why the new American peace initiative, even though it was perceived as a dictate by both Arafat and Sharon, is actually an effective antiterrorism move-on the condition, however, that it will be accompanied by a ruthless fight against the terrorists themselves. Only together will the two forms of action give fair hope of success. Separately they are doomed to fail.

The same reasoning can be applied to all the other conflicts in which terrorism plays a role. That is why, for instance, ending criticism of Russia’s actions in Chechnya, of Turkey’s in Kurdistan, or of Pakistan’s in Kashmir, in order to gain support for the battle against bin Laden, must, in the long run, be a mistake. It is impossible to expect that in all these cases the Americans alone will undertake the indispensable political and military initiatives. All countries for which terrorism is a threat must also participate, mutually sharing the costs and risks.

The same reasoning, finally, must be applied with regard to the very authors of the WTC and Pentagon slaughter. It is necessary to analyze and understand the immense frustration and fury that the vision of our rich and inaccessible world must awaken in poor and prospect-deprived people, who can only observe it on their inexpensive televisions. How they must feel degraded and deprived of dignity and rights, when our world aggressively invades theirs with McDonald’s, miniskirts, television, rewards, and punishments. How important, then, their faith becomes-it is the only thing they have that we do not, and, which, in their eyes, is better. And how easy it must be for the various members of the Taliban to convince them, the desperate and the hungry, that this faith is an alternative to our world. And that it can become the weapon to destroy our world in order to save theirs.

The war is waged about these people. It is about them, and not against them. Every freely operating mosque in the cities of the West (and, of course, every church, synagogue, or, for example, human-rights organization in the cities of the East) is evidence that the Taliban are mistaken. Our worlds can coexist without fighting each other. But the opposite can also be argued: every racist act or discriminatory practice, every humiliation of a new immigrant and every insolence of a Western newcomer, suggests something else-that the Taliban are right-that the West hates the East as the Taliban hate the West.

This does not mean that we should be uncritical of the Middle Eastern civilization, blinded by political correctness. Quite the opposite: we should just as strongly condemn in them what we consider unacceptable in ourselves, be it the lack of freedom or discrimination against women or the support of unjustifiable force. Note, too, that a one-sided criticism of only our own society, like a one-sided attack on somebody else’s, only strengthens the Taliban. “Look,” they then say, “they too are opposed to their own corrupt world.” But this only seemingly is a war of civilizations. In reality, this is a war within civilizations, in the West and in the East, in Christianity and Islam, in their every shade and variety, between those who are ready to kill, and even die, in the defense of the principle that “ours is better” but most definitely that “yours is worse.” Huntingtonism is just as “useful” in describing this world as Marxism was in describing the world of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It gives simple answers to hard questions, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The same vision of the world, however, is also proclaimed by the Taliban. To them, and to their allies on our side of the frontline, I would like to recommend a quotation from Oliver Cromwell, a man who himself was not disposed to doubt but who, in a letter to the Scottish Church, wrote: “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken.” Muslims know about this: according to one tradition, Satan once put false words into the mouth of the Prophet himself. But do the members of the Taliban remember this-about their words and ours?

Konstanty Gebert is the founder, former editor-in-chief, and current publisher of Midrasz, a Jewish intellectual monthly published in Poland. He is also a frequent contributor on international affairs to Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland’s largest daily newspaper.

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