The War on Terror has been raging since the hegemony of the West was first challenged, says Saswat Pattanayak.
Let’s not romanticise terrorism. Terrorists blew up Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Terrorists organised the White Army to kill over three million Russians. Terrorists funded the Nazis and the Fascists, killing nearly 12 million Jews and Communists. Terrorists killed nearly three million Koreans in an anticommunist war. Terrorists killed two million Vietnamese, half a million Cambodians and Laotians in the name of Cold War. Terrorists killed nearly 200,000 Algerians whom the French colonised. Terrorists infiltrated into Greece and colonised the Philippines. Terrorists disrupted lives in Albania and Iran. Terrorists flew into Guatemala and killed Syrians and Costa Ricans. Terrorists targeted Indonesia and Haiti and Ecuador. Terrorists colonised and killed over eight million people of Congo under Belgian kings. Terrorists introduced death squads in Brazil and went on a rampage in Peru and the Dominican Republic. Terrorists threatened Ghana and tortured working poor of Uruguay and killed Che Guevara in Bolivia. Terrorists funded Pinochet in Chile and invaded Grenada. Angola, Zaire, Jamaica, Seychelles, Morocco, Suriname, Nicaragua, Libya, Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan, El Salvador—terrorists imported their dreaded forms of democracy through murders, rapes and territorial invasions.
All these terrorists have had one religion—Christianity. All of them have had one civilisation—Western. All of these terrorists have been upholders of one ideology—Eurocentric colonialism. And they have one common claim—that they have been fighting terrorism and civilising the savages, one Thanksgiving at a time.
All of these terrorists have been upholders of one ideology—Eurocentric colonialism. And they have one common claim—that they have been fighting terrorism and civilising the savages, one Thanksgiving at a time.
The so-called “War on Terror” has been raging ever since slavery was challenged by African freedom fighters, feudalism was challenged by the Russian communists, and colonialism was challenged by the nationalists of the Global South. In the latest instance, the War on Terror is a series of targeted attacks on the Arab countries and allies that currently challenge the unipolarity of NATO powers.
Žižek and the spectre of Western values
The renewed War on Terror in the wake of Paris attacks is merely a continuation of the moral argument that Eurocentric colonialists need to protect the cultural purity of western civilisation. Slavoj Žižek’s latest argument decrying the refugees, who are threatening the fabric of “radical western roots” through attacks on the soil of western lands, is an intelligent summation of racist justification for colonialism, a nostalgic tribute to the “good old days” when France used to be an apostle of “liberty, equality, fraternity” while it enjoyed brutalising its colonies (Algeria, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Tahiti, China, Lebanon, Syria).Advocates of Eurocentrism have not only deemed themselves superior on the basis of the “Western values” Žižek pays rich tributes to in his latest essay, they also pre-empt the possible conjecture, if not an informed critique, that a response/retaliation may be warranted. Take the case of “pitiless” actions of France in Syria, the day after the Paris attacks—10 aircraft dropped 30 bombs hitting among other things, a soccer stadium, a museum and medical facilities and destroying electricity facilities affecting 200,000 people. Most likely, the human casualties in Syria in the coming months will not even be counted, let alone mourned.
Take the case of “pitiless” actions of France in Syria, the day after the Paris attacks—10 aircraft dropped 30 bombs hitting among other things, a soccer stadium, a museum and medical facilities and destroying electricity facilities affecting 200,000 people. Most likely, the human casualties in Syria in the coming months will not even be counted, let alone mourned.
Just as there were no European tears shed following deaths of 26 in Iraq the very day Paris was attacked. Or, over the killing of 43 in Lebanon the day before, over the deaths of 66 in Pakistan, and of 56 Palestinians last month. Three hundred thousand have died following NATO’s “War on Terror” in Syria. Over four million Muslims have died the world over in the process of reclaiming Western values of liberty and democracy. And there has been no civilised grief over these.
In fact, quite the contrary. Defence expenditure among NATO nations is increasing. If the United States as leader of the rogue nations spends $1,891 per capita on defence, that alleged peacenik Norway is not far behind with $1,328 per capita in funding the War on Terror. They are able to persist with such military spending against the interest of working class in those countries precisely by employing a moral parameter that defines terrorism as acts conducted by the people of Global South, by people not practicing Judeo-Christian faiths.
Scholars like Žižek and Richard Dawkins take pride in rational views, as enlightened Europeans who are clearly not conservative rightwingers. But while at it, they consistently depict the roots of Western civilisation to be categorically progressive and advanced. In many ways, they conveniently overlook the subtle contradictions in their preferred narrative by overtly attacking the regressive elements, which are more obvious. A case in point is the way Dawkins refused to acknowledge the slave-owning heritage of his family estate while attacking Islam as a religion that has produced no Nobel laureates. Likewise, Žižek refuses to attribute centuries of racist wars and genocides to European onslaughts, while riding high on the allegedly “Western legacy” of “egalitarianism and personal freedoms”.
Fanon and the Wretched
What is this Western legacy that Žižek and Dawkins take pride in? What is this Europe if not a region built upon the sweat and blood of the Third World? As Frantz Fanon wrote in The Wretched Of The Earth,Moral reparation for national independence does not fool us and it doesn’t feed us. The wealth of the imperialist nations is also our wealth. . . . Europe is literally the creation of the Third World. The riches which are choking it are those plundered from the underdeveloped peoples. The ports of Holland, the docks in Bordeaux and Liverpool owe their importance to the trade and deportation of millions of slaves. . . . Colonialism and imperialism have not settled their debt to us once they have withdrawn their flag and their police force from our territories. For centuries the capitalists have behaved like real war criminals in the underdeveloped world. Deportation, massacres, forced labor, and slavery were the primary methods used by capitalism to increase its gold and diamond reserves, and establish its wealth and power.
Fanon is right. Contrary to what Žižek claims, egalitarianism and personal freedoms do not comprise Western legacy—their suppression in the name of colonialism does. One cannot rule over and plunder another country for decades, if not centuries, and then blame the “backwardness” on the ruled subjects. Has Žižek analysed the role of French colonialism in treating Algerians and Syrians as little more than animals and forcing them to be refugees in their own lands before equating the issue of terrorism with the issue of the “refugee crisis”?
Žižek squarely blames the victims while ridiculing the “anti-Islamophobia” in the following words:
Multiculturalist or anti-colonialist’s defense of different “ways of life” is false. Such defenses cover up the antagonisms within each of these particular ways of life by justifying acts of brutality, sexism and racism as expressions of a particular way of life that we have no right to measure with foreign, i.e. Western values.
Contrary to what Žižek claims, egalitarianism and personal freedoms do not comprise Western legacy—their suppression in the name of colonialism does. One cannot rule over and plunder another country for decades, if not centuries, and then blame the “backwardness” on the ruled subjects.
A scholar of Žižek’s repute can indulge in some more word games to create a dialectic therein, but the above postulation as a normative already exists in the mainstream. He merely fuels it by using it as a proposition, no matter what conclusion he derives at the end. For instance, it is already a widespread belief, thanks to the new-age atheists, that Islamic believers are intolerant brutes. This analysis based on the Charlie Hebdo shooting is Islamophobic precisely because it does not take into account the hostile pattern in France towards Muslims as a historically gruesome reality. The Hebdo incident was a reaction, not an initiation. The denial of the Paris massacre of 1961 was for decades not considered an act of Christian terrorism. But come Hebdo, and it was suddenly Islamic terrorism. So much so that 54 people who exercised their free speech rights to defend the attack on Charlie Hebdo were arrested as “apologists for terrorism”.
In India too, we now witness the branding of Mani Shankar Iyer, Salman Khurshid, Azam Khan and Shakeel Ahmad as apologists for terrorism, simply for failing to parrot the grand Eurocentric narrative that demands unconditional regret over acts of terrorists of a specific faith—Islam. Not only does one need to condemn “Islamic terrorism” (Iyer has been criticised for being anti-Islamophobia instead of simply calling Paris attacks as terrorism), but in the case of Ahmad’s tweet, one cannot bring religion into the picture to depict a terrorist who is a non-Muslim (Chhota Rajan as a Hindu terrorist is inadmissible because “Hindu terrorism” is still a misnomer in India, just as “Christian terrorism” finds no usage in Europe/US).
Violence: Whose Prerogative?
As a lazy researcher, Žižek repeats the charges of “brutality, sexism and racism” against the anti-Islamophobes. A closer look at the global situation would reveal that these very features are tools of oppression for the ruling elites precisely everywhere in the world. Žižek does admit to the anti-immigrant racists in power while conceding slightly, but where he fails to discern the all-important distinction is the necessary Marxist critique that is completely absent in his analysis.What are the wars—whether “World War”, “Cold War”, or “War on Terror”—if not a front to prove who is the bigger champion of brutality, sexism and racism? Imperialist wars in the name of the War on Terror have been notorious in the use of torture and brutality; they have wrought nothing if not rapes of women as prized captures, and have achieved nothing if not ethnic cleansing.
Who gains from these weapons and who suffers? Islamophobia has claimed lives all over the world, just as Eurocentric colonialism has. Racism/sexism/brutality as state policy are radically different consequential tools compared to those as reactionary mechanisms with the subjects. Anti-colonialism, which Žižek mocks, is not an ideology created to profit those who are suffering due to NATO’s Eurocentrism. It is a necessary tool to oppose all-too-familiar colonial aggression, about which both Fanon and Sartre have extensively written. But it is in no way a shield to protect values of brutality, sexism and racism, whose primary manufacturers and sustainers happen to be the former colonial masters.
What are the wars—whether “World War”, “Cold War”, or “War on Terror”—if not a front to prove who is the bigger champion of brutality, sexism and racism? Imperialist wars in the name of the War on Terror have been notorious in the use of torture and brutality; they have wrought nothing if not rapes of women as prized captures, and have achieved nothing if not ethnic cleansing. The “Torture Memos” advising the CIA to use enhanced interrogation techniques that are otherwise illegal, but are permissible under the pretext of the War on Terror are revealing in this regard. Let alone “Western values”, where is humanity in all of this?
Selective Humanity
Was there a shred of humanity in the Paris attacks? This has an expected answer: of course not, because no matter how ghastly the past maybe, nothing can justify the killing of innocent people attending a rock concert. However, feel-good assertions like this are deeply problematic in that they assume that violence of any sort is just immoral—when it occurs in France or in the United States. When Facebook activated a “Safety Check” button for folks who have relatives in France, to the exclusion of similar buttons for relatives of victims of terrorist attacks in Palestine, Pakistan, Lebanon, Iraq or Yemen, then there is something else to the “humanity” question that we subconsciously overlook.According to the Global Terrorism Index, in 2014, 82 percent of those killed in terror attacks were in just five countries: Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria, and Syria. And ever since the “War on Terror” has been launched, the number of deaths from terrorism has in fact increased five-fold: from 3,361 deaths in 2000 to 17,958 in 2013.
It points directly to the dehumanisation of black and brown people. While flags of many countries went half-mast in many countries to honour those who lost lives in France, and many monuments lit up with the colours of the French flag, there was no such display of official mourning by these countries when terrorist attacks were occurring in countries like Pakistan and Palestine and Lebanon.
What explains this is a climate of extreme racism amidst the media and their consumers in the world today, which in turn remains entirely Eurocentric. And this invalidates Žižek’s longing for the missing Eurocentric values. Indeed, the Eurocentric values themselves are central to this crisis, not alien.
The Eurocentric tears are in the backdrop of a denial that the countries worst affected by terror attacks are indeed the Muslim countries themselves. According to the Global Terrorism Index, in 2014, 82 percent of those killed in terror attacks were in just five countries: Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria, and Syria. And ever since the “War on Terror” has been launched, the number of deaths from terrorism has in fact increased five-fold: from 3,361 deaths in 2000 to 17,958 in 2013.
It is to the credit of the Islamic countries that they are not only bravely fighting these terrorists who have been emboldened via foreign funding, but these societies are also retaining a calm that is infinitely more surprising than it is praiseworthy.
Not only have NATO member states suffered the least from terror attacks so far, more importantly, they have enabled terror organisations through direct funding and military assistance to “rebels” who have subsequently grown beyond their intended purpose (if at all). If the Taliban were enabled by Reagan administration to destabilise the secular fabric of Afghanistan in an effort to contain the Soviets, and Al-Qaeda was funded to destroy Libya’s stability under Obama, it was Bush and subsequently the Obama administration that were responsible for funding the hate that produced ISIS in the first place.
Thus far, these outfits have been causing significantly more havoc among the Islamic societies than in the NATO countries. It is to the credit of the Islamic countries that they are not only bravely fighting these terrorists who have been emboldened via foreign funding, but these societies are also retaining a calm that is infinitely more surprising than it is praiseworthy.
The video clips of women and children on the streets of Baghdad beating their chests and cursing the aerial bombardments in search of the mysterious WMDs are not isolated ones. The Abu Ghraib torture and Guantanamo Bay abuses are part and parcel of inhuman foreign policies instituted and indeed continued to this day by the NATO member states, principally led by the United States. To assume that there will be retaliations on part of those we have “othered” is infinitely more prophetic than it can ever be justified.
Glorification: Guns, bombs and violence
Gandhi did remind us once that “an eye for an eye only ends up making the world world blind”. And he was right. We are headed that way. But if we must take shelter in Gandhian ideals, then we should be in a position to condemn violence in all its manifestations. It is wrong when people take up arms and aimlessly shoot others. And it is all the more evil when the State uses military force to strategically eliminate innocent people of foreign lands under the pretext of killing a select few terrorists. Violence needs to be treated as bad each time one violates the principle of non-violence. One cannot endorse political parties that retaliate swiftly with drones and indiscriminate shootings and then blame a handful of terrorists for what was coming. One cannot remain indifferent when people are bombed to death in Iraq, Pakistan, Syria and Libya and then get all teary-eyed at Paris shootings.ISIS has spared none and has been criticised by all sections and people across all religions. Precisely due to this then it is like the inspector who called in; the conscience gone wrong, horribly wrong. ISIS aside, the deaths of innocent beings in Paris still must be looked within the prism of manifestation of reactions. Waterboarding and torture tactics employed by NATO folks are equally evil, more so, because they are carried out in the name of the taxpayer.
As citizens, we partake in the glorification of militarist exhibitionisms. Our violence-prone culture is such that a decorated war hero of Indian origin in Canada is actually being applauded for being a “badass” defence minister because some reports suggest he is an expert at torturing enemies. One Putin meme is circulated widely because it shows Putin saying his job is to send terrorists to God. Killing of human lives, whether through capital punishment or via cop “encounters”, are cheered by enthused citizenry. Indeed, the foremost patriotic song of India that make us emotional has these lines, “Thi khoon se lath-path kaaya, phir bhi bandook uthaake/Das das ko ek ne maara, phir gir gaye hosh ganvaake.”
One cannot endorse political parties that retaliate swiftly with drones and indiscriminate shootings and then blame a handful of terrorists for what was coming. One cannot remain indifferent when people are bombed to death in Iraq, Pakistan, Syria and Libya and then get all teary-eyed at Paris shootings.
Gandhian/Buddhist/Christian values do not distinguish between people as they do between values. What sort of violent world we are building up for future generations depends on our endorsement of terror tactics or opposition to them, regardless of who is the perpetrator. As long as we use guns and bombs and drones as tools to resolve crisis, both the state and non-state agencies will take the cues and up their games in the contests within the ambit of conventional warfare/terrorism. When police officers can be awarded in India with medals who torture and sexually abuse women prisoners like Soni Sori, then we have a real lack of humane values. Against the backdrop of violence and flaunting of a “license to kill”, from Singham to James Bond, our popular culture overflows with justifications for gory violence to end all ills.
A few months ago, one of my articles opposing death penalty for Yakub Memon had invited the wrath of the lynch mob, one member of whom publicly stated on a Facebook page that I should be handed over to the R&AW for torturous interrogation so that I can confess to my ties with terrorist groups of Pakistan. The audacity to make such serious remarks in such casual fashion points to the level of normalisation in ourselves regarding the acceptance of terror tactics, and any tool of violence as a legitimate measure to win even an argument.
Unsurprisingly and not entirely unrelated to the issue of terrorism in civilised lands, the gun violence in United States does demand special attention. In this year alone, from gun violence, 11,696 have died so far and 23,787 have suffered injuries. There have been 293 incidents of mass shootings within the last 10 months. Six hundred and twenty seven children (aged 0–11) and 2,329 teenagers (aged 12–17) have lost their lives so far. Violence has become not just commonplace, but also the preferred method to reach a resolution.
In the current world, which mass shootings are acts of terrorism indeed depends on the religion of the perpetrator than on the nature of shooting. And the spiraling silence around this prejudice, while pitiless responses await innocent civilians outside the zone of NATO member states, should disturb us all the more.
However, not all violences are condemned and therefore gun violence is not taken as seriously within the United States. That is because, unfortunately in the current world, which mass shootings are acts of terrorism indeed depends on the religion of the perpetrator than on the nature of shooting. And the spiraling silence around this prejudice, while pitiless responses await innocent civilians outside the zone of NATO member states, should disturb us all the more. Alas, thanks to an Eurocentric world, we still need an imperialist narrative to define what should be considered to be terrorising us today.
