Date: 24/09/2001
It seems clear that September 11 did genuinely change forever, in one respect at least, the nature of the world in which all Western citizens imagined that they lived. Since the end of the Cold War we imagined that we were, finally, free of the military insecurities which, in their different ways, every generation since 1914 had faced.
Even when, in the post-Cold War world, US-led alliances had become involved in conflicts - with Iraq and Serbia - because of overwhelming technical superiority there seemed no longer any need to fear significant loss of Western lives.
From this perspective it is useful to compare the Gulf War with the events of September 11. In the Gulf the UN coalition faced an Iraqi army of 1 million men. Between 35,000 and 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives. The UN death toll was a little over 200. The war had little impact on economic prosperity in the West. On September 11, by contrast, a group of several dozen conspirators at most, armed only with knives and a willingness to die, were able, in a single stroke, to murder some 7,000 innocent civilians; to inject a new element of fear into American and even European daily lives; and, most likely, to push the economies of the advanced industrial world, already approaching global recession, over the edge.
Some members of the Western intelligentsia, opposed to counter-terrorist action, seem to think of September 11 as a singular event, like a natural disaster, unlikely to repeat itself. Unhappily I think they are wrong.
On September 11 a group of terrorists - in whom a medieval mindset was combined with cutting-edge technological capacity and substantial financial means - brought the most powerful society on Earth almost to its knees. For such people - and there are probably many more of them among us than we care to believe - the events of September 11 will now become a shining symbol and an object lesson in what imagination, meticulous planning, self-sacrifice and utter recklessness can achieve.
It is difficult to believe that these terrorists are not now dreaming about the even greater disorder they could spread in Western societies with a chemical or a biological weapon attack. For all these reasons I can see no alternative to some version of the global counter-terrorist campaign announced by Bush.
It seems to me, however, of vital importance which version of the campaign is chosen. In recent days there has been much talk about the attack on "civilisation" which the terrorists have waged. Frequently such talk is empty or boastful, but it need not be so. For talk of civilisation can alert us to the many very different ways in which this war against terrorism may be fought.
No value is more central to what we call civilisation than the idea of the sanctity or preciousness of each individual life. No crime stands greater in our tradition than the taking of an innocent life. One way in which these values are expressed is the frequently breached prohibition on the killing of non-combatants in the course of waging war.
The moral outrage of September 11 centred on the targeting of innocent civilians. The war on terrorism about to begin will almost certainly involve attacks on those states, such as Afghanistan under the Taliban, harbouring terrorists. In prosecuting a war against those whose particular evil is seen to be the taking of innocent life, would it not be utterly grotesque if the commanders of the anti-terrorist strike force did not adhere punctiliously to the ancient "just war" distinction between the killing of the soldier and the civilian?
At the heart of our civilisation is another understanding, that the life of the most humble Afghan peasant is no less valuable than the life of even the mightiest American millionaire.
In anticipation of the air strikes against the Taliban soon to come, hundreds of thousands of Afghans are already on the move. For many years Western governments have almost altogether ignored the needs of the Afghan refugees in Pakistan and Iran. Would it not now be altogether unconscionable if Western governments with direct responsibility for this most recent refugee outflow did not give to these people immediate and generous aid?
The long Western indifference to Afghan refugees points to something more general and deeper still. Since the end of the Cold War a mood of self-absorption has grown steadily within the societies of the West.
From the vast problems facing the peoples of Africa, South and Central Asia and the Middle East, except where our interests are involved, Western societies have increasingly averted their gaze, coming to think of such societies as hopeless cases about which nothing can be done.
In the 1960s the question of foreign aid was an issue of political salience in most Western democracies. This is no longer the case. In recent times most foreign aid budgets have been reduced. Considerable new resources have been devoted instead to ever more elaborate anti-asylum-seeker and anti-immigrant border controls.
Australia provides a nice example of the general trend. This year we are likely to devote 10 times more money to the task of repelling a few hundred Afghan refugees than we will spend in helping to feed and shelter 3 million or so Afghans in the squalid camps of Pakistan and Iraq.
In the end, in my opinion, the contemporary politics of Western self-absorption - the belief that we will be able to continue in comfort while much of the world struggles to survive - is not only immoral but also unlikely to succeed. It is not true that the clear and present danger of terrorism can be overcome by a long-term change of attitude with regard to Third World needs. It is, however, true that indifference to these needs does provide the ideological soil in which anti-Western and anti-American fanaticism and hatred take root.
It now seems clear that September 11 has forever changed our world. What is not yet clear, however, is in what ways.
Story Picture: "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists" . . . George Bush adresses the US Congress. Photo: AFP
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