RE: tragedy in New York

From: Phillip Capper (phillip.capper@webresearch.co.nz)
Date: Fri Sep 14 2001 - 21:35:16 PDT


I, too, join this discussion with some misgivings. I am more highly
emotional about these events than many around me, a consequence of having
spent a number of hours believing that one of my own children might have
been a victim. (Nevertheless it is extraordinary how many New Zealanders
shared my experience, or exceded it).

What I, emotionally, want is for this week to become impossible ever again.
It is a rational desire, but it is irrational to expect it ever to be so.
There is nothing in the historical record to suggest that my desire is
achievable.

What is achievable is to lengthen the odds. This could be done by promoting
the political, social and cultural conditions that minimise the risk of it
happening. In my intepretation of the history of terror, indiscriminate
retaliation shortens the odds rather than lengthens them, because it
establishes a reinforcing cycle of grievance and revenge.

Discriminate retaliation and retributional justice against perpetrators may
(only may) provide a short term gain by making it impossible that THESE
people will do it again.

Discriminate and indiscriminate retaliation provide cathartic release for
those hurt and damaged by the initial act. If the response is discriminate
there is a chance of avoiding satisfying that need by setting up a cycle of
vengeance.

For me all this leaves only one strategy that has any real hope of reducing
the probabilities of a repetition, and that is to politically address the
social and economic conditions that place whole populations in such sloughs
of hopelessness that they perceive themselves as having no real stake in the
world, even in life itself. Not everybody living in the conditions of
Afghans turns into a terrorist, but such communities provide the ore from
which terrorists can be refined.

bin Laden, of course, is not in this condition, Who knows what drum he
dances to? But as long as there are Afghans, Palestinians, and other
substantial communities who are marginalised and oppressed, there will be
bin Ladens to use the resources such people offer him. In his case, of
course, we need to remember that he was militarily trained and taught to
hate superpowers when he was working as a subcontractor to the United States
during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. How quickly collective objects
can become contradictions!

I do not believe that we can eliminate bin Ladens from the world. But I do
think that we can reduce the supply of young people who feel so alienated
from their circumstances that they are prepared to contemplate doing what
those 18 or 19 did last Tuesday. That is the optimistic side of my view. The
pessimistic side wonders whether the western world has anything approaching
the political will to do what would be necessary. The fear now is that the
political will is in precisely the opposite direction ('if we make
concessions we will have rewarded terrorism').

Having said all that I have to acknowledge that none of the above adequately
explains, for example, Northern Ireland. But perhaps it does in part. The
origins of Ireland lie in past hopelessness, and it is sustained by cultural
transmission. The lesson, perhaps, is that we may choose to break the cycle,
or else we merely provide yet another accreted layer of hatred that sustains
it in future generations and dooms them somewhere, some time, to other World
Trade Centres.

And in between, in the famine burdened villages of Afghanistan and the
privileged townships of Connecticut, ordinary people just trying to do their
best meet violent ends because, for others, endlessly playing the 'Great
Game' is more important than anything else.

Phillip Capper,
Centre for Research on Work, Education and Business Ltd. (WEB Research),
Level 9
142 Featherston Street
(PO Box 2855)
WELLINGTON
New Zealand

Ph: +64 4 499 8140
Fx: +64 4 499 8395
Mb: +64 021 519 741

http://www.webresearch.co.nz

-----Original Message-----
From: Matvey Sokolovsky [mailto:sokolovs@uconnvm.uconn.edu]
Sent: Saturday, 15 September 2001 1:41 p.m.
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: Re: tragedy in New York

After some hesitation I decided to join the discussion of the attack.

Here is the dilemma - the fourth plane. We don't know how it crashed, one
possibility it was shut down on the way to Washington. Let's think about
it. Say, there is a plane with 250 passengers on board heading towards NYC,
and we know the plan is to crash it into a tower. There is time to act.
Should the plane be shut down?

I completely disagree with Eugene, our discussion is guided by emotions,
and is framed by our own, very local cultural beliefs. We don't like wars.
I don't like them either. I was not really able to work for several days.
Does it mean that all cultures in the world are like us? Were Palestinians
dancing because they are oppressed or because their culture is different?
How many of xmca members are suicide bombers? Was Stalin brutal because he
was oppressed?

Yes, US is at war with the world, or ignorant of the world. It is
convenient to think that people kill because they are poor or do it in
retaliation. It is also very self-pleasing to discuss the right of four
cells for survival when 30% of Africa dies out from AIDS, starvation is
wide spread and huge number of working Americans cannot go to a doctor
because they don't have health insurance. Soltys is probably a
schizophrenic but isn't 2 mass killings last week too much? Was this
because their parents beat them up? Mike, how many people were killed in
the last century? Do you really think this is because they were mistreated
as children?

Many Israelis do not like American interventions. They say Americans come
with their naive beliefs about how the things are. I don't want an
indiscriminant bombing of Afghanistan. Plus, I don't think Bush is capable
of any reasonable solution. Should we take a vote for the place for the
first nuclear terrorist attack? Which coast, any suggestions? (see above
the plane dilemma).

Honestly, I don't have a solution. But all this is a reminder for me that
the world I lived in is a dream world, and I perceive the xmca discussion
as an attempt to come back to the dream world.

Sorry

Matvey Sokolovsky
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