When the unexpected attacks on New York and Washington, on September 11th, 2001 occurred, the entire world took notice. Millions became privy to the most sensational non-military assault on a civilian population in media memory. As the dust and smoke made its acrid presence felt across Manhattan, people began to speculate on who could have been responsible for such an act. The name Al-Qaida bulleted from television sets and into the devastated minds of Americans and others around the globe. It was unprecedented in world history; could this type of massive loss be conceded to such an indefinable foe? Governments from all cultures offered condolences, but they seemed awkward in the absence of any concrete or enduring enemy. Within hours of the attacks, some people had suggested that America had brought them upon itself. As hours ground into weeks, the political Left became ever-more mobilised by the kaleidoscope of denial and anger that gripped the nation. They found evidence for their claim as others were outraged. Old alliances gushed in novel ways, while unbridled hate frothed with glee. They played “The Star-Spangled Banner” at Buckingham Palace – and danced in the streets on the West Bank. It was as though the world’s leaders had arrived at some kind of complex and very modern precipice. The question was: Which side of the precipice are you on?
The word “modern” conjures up images of technology, especially medical, agricultural, transportation, communications/information and weapons technology. The military-industrial complex of the United States sits at the hub of these technologies, feeding off scientific and engineering breakthroughs and growing stronger all the time, thanks to the billions of dollars that are pumped into research and politics in the wealthiest country the world has ever seen. People talk about America being the “one remaining global superpower”, drawing on myriad images of fighter-jets, aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines and their attendant communications and guidance systems. Nobody seems able to recall that the one weapon of mass destruction that truly qualifies a nation as a superpower found its niche as a deterrent.
When the U.S. government embarked on its “you’re either with us or against us” adventure, in the immediate wake of the September 11th attacks, there was a palpable undercurrent of apocalyptic gauntlet-throwing whose ripples spread through the Hub of Islam, supposedly sorting the wheat from the chaff. President Bush seemed to suggest that Muslim leaders would quake in their boots and melt at the feet of their Western opposites, or else die a horrible death. It looked very black and white, but there were grey areas. President Bush referred to nuclear-capable Pakistan as “our friend”, before a numb television audience, many of whom had no idea where or what Pakistan’s geographic location or political ideology was – what was important was that everybody got the black and white message. Nobody did; both the television audience and Pakistan were subjected to a deep, cold gulf of mixed signals, which carried them (and President Bush) into an uncertain future.
Academics, activists and “non-partisans” strutted and scoffed; the Pentagon had brought all this on itself, by manipulating and warmongering in areas that didn’t concern America. Their media declarations, of how Western hegemony wouldn’t rest until every last ounce of “authentic” culture had been purged from the lives of those who championed it resounded angrily at a volume not heard for decades. The difference now was that the people doing the shouting weren’t dancing around a camp-fire, or painting their faces, or taking mind-altering chemicals; that was a long time ago. These people had achieved respectability through qualifications and expertise in world affairs, and, next to the cowboy-style Bush administration, they provided a chilling contrast. That strange, modern precipice was suddenly among the American people, polarising them as it yawned, but yielding no answers. The debate raged in all media, but with no resolution in sight the sociological fissure simply became even more inflamed, and no amount of American flags or bumper stickers could salve the wound. The world’s one remaining global superpower was up against a new technological adversary; informational awareness.
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The Intelligence Agencies of America, Britain, France and others have all been extremely active, in one form or another, since the days of the horse and carriage. It could even be argued that prehistoric humans employed a form of intelligence-based warfare when members of one tribe stole the secret of fire from another. The objective has always been to grab as much of the world’s natural resources as possible, and use them to your advantage or sell them to your allies, preferably at a huge profit, the profit margin shrinking or growing on a perverse sliding scale depending upon exactly how your allies having these resources can most directly benefit you (your closest allies, if you’re a “superpower”, being almost as wealthy as you are able to pay more for what you have, as opposed to fresh converts from savagedom who are able to enjoy Budweiser or Coca-Cola for pennies a bottle, because it’s worth it in the long-run).
From archea-bacteria to fungus, to scavengers and predators, to chimpanzee society, cost-benefit budgets are worked out. Liberals see this truth as an intoxicating testament to the workings of evolution, ecology and sociology. Conservatives believe it to be so obvious that it is not worth discussing, and that those who do discuss it are incredibly näive.
The general Western public has spent the past five hundred years emerging from the Middle-Ages (and all of time), gradually shaking animal fears and biological constraints from its fevered brain-stem. The Industrial Revolution provided seemingly limitless possibilities for people in the cities of Europe and, later, America. The degrading conditions industry created gave rise to unions, which in turn spawned the dissemination of Socialist and other “progressive” doctrines, leading to an elevated public awareness of who the “haves” and “have-nots” actually were, enabling some plucky folks to realise that Who Dares Wins and go on to build private empires. The First and Second World Wars were fought largely by the “have-nots”, but the cause was a righteous one, and the enemy was most certainly evil and had to be quashed. There were no protests; there were only “heroes”. World War Two constituted a dynamic clash of industrial powers, with only the geographical isolation of America’s ordnance factories providing the edge. Germany was bombed to bits, Japan was vaporised, and the Allies triumphed. In post World War Two America, even the “have-nots” got to attend college and earn degrees. For free. America became flooded with educated, regimented corporate drones, all willing to do whatever it took to make the nut for their corporate superiors. The nation seemed to have become a utopian beehive, very busy and very happy. White picket-fences and vast, gleaming suburban tracts appeared overnight, like magic mushrooms. The words “please” and “thank you” were utilised as much as they were in the proto-culture, England. People truly had never had it so well, and it was interesting to see how the notorious Human Condition would fare in this fairytale environment.
The affluence and consequent boredom of the second-half of the 20th Century caused severe disorientation among the youth of America, and what might have been a small, directionless eddy in Western evolution suddenly exploded into purposefulness, when the government entered a war against a new “enemy” on the far side of the world. Protests, by the famous as well as the anonymous, erupted in the West, and the American government found itself fighting two enemies, one abroad, and one at home. This new enemy may or may not have been evil, but they were far beyond the natural curvature of the earth, and the Big Picture had to be viewed through a kind of political periscope to be fully appreciated; the younger generation refused to climb aboard this far-fetched torpedo, choosing instead to man the “Yellow Submarine”.
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Today, war protestors are an accepted player in any international conflict involving a Western nation. The opposite is the case in the World of Islam. Religious fundamentalism is seen there as a viable alternative to Westernisation. Westernisation is not the same as modernisation, however, and it is obvious that some regions of the world have been westernised without their benefiting technologically, such as certain African states. Existing simply as a consumer for Western commercial interests is a fate that the World of Islam wishes to avoid at all costs, and what has been termed the Islamic Resurgence is in large part the Muslim answer to Western hegemony. Muslims see themselves as victims of the technological, Western-dominated world of today, and mainstream acceptance of the values of the Resurgence has galvanised a billion Muslims, “from Morocco to Indonesia and from Nigeria to Kazakhstan”, in the words of Samuel Huntington, author of The Clash of Civilisations and the Remaking of World Order. Huntington claims that world trends toward democratisation seen in recent decades were effectively damped in the Islamic world by the Resurgence, with the oil embargo of 1973 being perceived by Arabs as a crucial turning point in their asserting themselves internationally. The Muslims truly are the planet’s one remaining tribal superpower, fighting Abel’s war against his more organised brother, refusing alien access to the ancient Sumerian bitumen swamps, refusing to adopt superficial and destructive Western methodologies.
During the oil-embargo era, Muhammad bin Laden refurbished the two holy mosques in Mecca and Medina, in Saudi Arabia. The elder bin Laden was deeply affected on a spiritual level by his involvement in these projects, and these effects were absorbed by his son, Osama, facilitating a religious awakening in the younger bin Laden. Osama bin Laden was said to have been something of a reveller prior to his religious awakening, often spending time in 70’s Beirut, drinking and womanising. Something changed him; something made him turn to a different path – the same something that affected another man in the United States.
George W. Bush was also a drinker, a drunk-driver, a man who liked to “hang out” with his friends and become intoxicated on alcohol, on stories, on male braggadocio. He, too, underwent a severe psychological shift, one that was to win him popularity among the God-fearing people of the American Bible-Belt.
There is no question that Osama bin Laden chose a more humble and selfless existence than the one he would have enjoyed in his father’s mansions in Saudi Arabia, just as Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri – bin Laden’s right-hand man – also did, in a cave in Eastern Afghanistan, as a result of their spiritual awakening. Bush, meanwhile, ensconced in the velveteen, media-driven West, simply took his show on the road, seeing political office as just another business opportunity. Liberals discuss this development as a landmark indication of all that is wrong with the American mindset; conservatives, meanwhile, have no idea what all the fuss is about; this is the Free World, and no Euro-wannabe socialists are ever going to change that.
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The current world political perspective is extremely peculiar. There is a universal gulf, which seems to reflect the human condition on a planetary scale. On the one hand we have those with fundamental religious views – both in the Middle East and in the American Midwest – and on the other hand we have the moderates, such as those in New York City and London. The cowboy and the turbaned cave-dweller are deadlocked, while the rest are crying out for understanding and compromise. The cowboy has industry on his side, while the cave-dweller has communications technology (“the internets”). The world of Islam is engaged in numerous global conflicts simultaneously, while claiming itself to be the victim, and the United States is also in a similar situation, while claiming itself to be the dispenser of world “freedom”. There are those who declare that Islam is a convert-or-kill mindset, and that the conflicts they are experiencing spring directly from this fact, and there are those (not necessarily the same people) who claim that Western civilisation seeks merely to turn the Arab world into a sucker on the teat of McDonald’s, Wal-Mart, Coca-Cola, Nike, et al, stealing their oil while giving nothing in return. As “mainstream” opinion carves out its territory via television, a vast and silent “almost-majority” simmers in the wings. America’s naïve depictions of life, on network TV dramas, in Hollywood movies and even in small Midwestern towns, are being defended by those who still believe that a unique and fabulous kind of freedom is available here – and only here. Those who espouse this crooked view have no inkling of the equivalent freedoms which reign in places like Brussels, Belgium, or Sydney, Australia. They do not care that they have no inkling of these things; they are the rallying cry for this side of the precipice, and if lesser democracies want to get on board they are welcome – and if not they can expect Uncle Sam’s boot up their ass if and when they have something America needs. The “almost-majority” was defeated in November by what George W. Bush in his victory speech called “The Architect” – one Carl Rove. It is interesting that the Bush campaign director was praised for the concentrated burst of energy he injected into the Conservative bid for re-election; an ad campaign was the be-all and end-all of their political existence. John Kerry’s concession speech, in contrast, was heartfelt, and he used it as an opportunity to pour thanks back to all the people on his team for the socially just plans they had conceived. The ad campaign had defeated the Vietnam veteran, Captain Codpiece had strutted victoriously away from the contest, cocking his Stetson at the camera while Kerry fought to clear his name, mired in a swamp in the Far-East. The almost majority became embroiled in a conflict on their side of the precipice, many of them caught up in an avalanche of denial that swept them into unfamiliar territory; faith, religion, inflexible values. Finding themselves perched on the “wrong” side of the gulf; they convinced themselves that Mr Bush was probably the best man for the job, given the extreme nature of the Muslim terror threat. Prozac and apple pie prevailed. Wellness gave way to Western medicine (where cash is medicine). Time magazine became the well-source of Christian thought, as millions of Democrat “atheists” rethunk their position. People began to talk about the benefits of sticking to one’s guns, of being good Christians – the steam from this freshly-laid bullshit intoxicated those who possibly were truly wishy-washy Liberal…
There are those who claim that the Cold War was World War Three, and that September 11th was the beginning of World War Four. They are, of course, conservatives, people possessed of an incredibly subjective (they would not know what “subjective” meant, but they would be enormously pleased that there was a word that described them) perspective. There are those who claim that any belief system counter to Islam is delusion, that Islam will relieve people of this delusion and that it is imperative to convert as many people to Islam as possible, however long it takes. These people are essentially identical, despite superficial cultural differences. Part of the confusion lies in the fact that one side of the precipice involves conflict (the Conservative side), while the other entails cooperation (the Liberal side), but this discontinuity itself is a conflict, across the actual fault line. It composes a genetic difference in perspective. The so-called American Century has cleaved the atom, but it has also cleaved humanity, thanks to information. Humanity is a simple culture, apparently, capable of being divided in two like bacteria. Culture and cultism are little things, insignificant and piddling, there in the tiny Petri dish of American thought. America has long been victim to a particularly ugly form of personality cultism, one steeped in fear and pretence. The question is, which side are you on?