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Literary Review
Epistemic upheaval
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'I believe that the American relationship with the world, political and economic, has gone catastrophically awry, especially over the last decade. But if you ask me whether there is a direct connection between this and the WTC attacks, my answer is no'.
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The following interview with the leading writer AMITAV GHOSH was conducted soon after his lecture on the ``The Power of Language/ The Language of Power'' at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In his lecture, Ghosh had sought to identify the common thread of memory and sorrow that linked the horrors of the 1983 riots in Colombo, the 1984 Sikh riots in Delhi and the events of September,11 in New York. Through finely textured arguments he concludes that ``the greatest sorrow lies in recalling the times of joy in moments of wretchedness''.
The questions posed here by RAHUL SAGAR are drawn from the content of Ghosh's lecture. The first part, presented here, addresses the justifications that some have sought to provide in order to legitimise the events of September 11. The second and concluding part of the interview, to be published next week, addresses the ideological consequences of September 11, including the significant wounding of a Westphalian notion of statehood that has informed the telos of the modern world. Ghosh describes this latter event as an epistemic upheaval, similar in nature to the disruptive and traumatic events of 1983 and 1984.
You have written that the ways in which we remember the past are not determined solely by the brute facts of time: they are also open to choice, reflection and judgment. Why has the deployment of history and memory since September 11 failed to exercise these restraints? Instead we hear of a clash of civilisations...
FOR me the most important lessons of the anti-colonial struggle are those that emphasise responsibility. If anyone expected that the end of colonialism would produce instant international equity and a sunny future for all then they were bound to be disappointed. But the end of European colonialism did briefly create a space in which newly independent countries had some freedom to manoeuvre. Within those parameters some nations made sensible choices, and some nations made disastrous ones. Those who failed to steer the ship of the present can't place the blame wholly on the past. Take Pakistan: the modern history of the country is a litany of disastrous choices, starting with their long dependence on the United States and leading up to their sponsorship of the Taliban. On the other hand I would say that India made some sensible choices along with some bad ones. The nuclear policy, for example, was a very bad choice in my opinion. Yet, I think India is a country that is sound enough today to preserve its autonomy in the world of tomorrow. Pakistan on the other hand, is probably going to undergo a process of recolonisation, with some kind of permanent Western military presence. In the long view, when historians look back on the second half of the 20th Century, I think they will see an interregnum in which some countries succeeded in creating viable societies and some didn't. I think we Indians owe a great deal of gratitude to our leaders of the early 20th Century, for their emphasis was as much on building a society as it was on expelling the colonialist.
How do you respond to Susan Sontag's stance in the New Yorker where she wrote that the terrorists were a consequence of specific American alliances and actions?
I believe that the American relationship with the world, political and economic, has gone catastrophically awry, especially over the last decade. But if you ask me whether there is a direct connection between this and the WTC attacks, my answer is no, I do not think there is. Although much has been written linking the one with the other, I do not think this connection can survive close examination: it is like trying to hold apples responsible for the colour of oranges. Take the Israel issue for instance. As you know, I speak Arabic and have spent a long time in the Middle East. In 1987, when an Israeli publisher bought my first novel, I chose to donate the money to Palestinian refugees. I believe that what is happening in Palestine is horrific and the U.S. should certainly reconsider its policies there. But does this mean that there is a direct link between the sufferings of the Palestinians and the WTC attacks? Look at the evidence: there was not a single Palestinian among the terrorists; the majority were Saudis. But the economic distress of the Palestinians today is in part a result of the refusal of the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia to re-employ Palestinians after the Gulf War. If Palestinian suffering were the issue, then surely the terrorists would have had some history of trying to give shelter to Palestinians in their own country, or of participating in the Palestinian cause? But in fact, none of the movements with which these men were associated have ever tried to do this. Bin Laden, Al Qaeda and the Taliban have never taken much interest in Palestine: they have been much more concerned with Kashmir, Bosnia, the Philippines and so on. As Ahmed Rashid has shown, the Taliban at one point actually took assistance from Israel. If you ask me whether Palestine was the fundamental motivating factor behind the WTC attacks I would say that the evidence is to the contrary. Yasser Arafat has repeatedly said that these terrorists were trying to use Palestine as an alibi. I think he is right and we should believe him: no one knows better than he that Saudis have never been good friends to the Palestinians.
Similarly, consider another grievance that is frequently adduced: U.S. support for the current regime in Saudi Arabia. This is to my mind one of the world's most horrible regimes. But the fact is that if a credible alternative existed, U.S. support could not have kept the House of Ibn Saud in place — look at the example of the Iranian Revolution. But the problem is that no one has bothered to create a real alternative in Saudi Arabia — least of all Osama bin Laden. What is the form of government that bin Laden has in mind? When the Taliban came to power they immediately promulgated an Emirate — an Islamic monarchy. They took this to be in keeping with the Sharia. In effect the alternative that bin Laden has in mind for Saudi Arabia is one in which he himself will replace the House of Saud as Amir, or possibly even Caliph. As you know, the bin Laden family and the House of Saud are very closely linked. Pol Pot similarly was very closely linked to King Sihanouk. Years ago, when I was writing about the Khmer Rouge I once discussed this with a knowledgeable Cambodian. I said: ``Isn't it strange, that Pol Pot grew up in the palace and still wanted to kill the king?'' He said: ``It's not strange at all: it's because he had lived in the palace that he thought he could remove the king.'' I think this is the basic dynamic that is at work here.
Or, take the suggestion that the WTC attacks were in some sense caused by globalisation. The people who have suffered most from globalisation are sub-Saharan Africans — but these are not the people who are turning to terror. Most of the terrorists were from the oil-rich countries of the Arabian peninsula; globalisation had given them lives where everything was taken care of and they never had to do any work. If they were concerned about oppression, the first people they would have tried to liberate would be the huge servant class of foreigners that keeps their countries going — the millions of South and South-East Asians who live there without any political rights whatsoever. None of them have ever uttered a word on that score. The fact is that globalisation's most effective opponents are the thousands of young people who have become active in the anti-globalisation movement. Many of these activists are Westerners and many are American. So if the terrorists attacked Americans because of globalisation, then in fact they were also attacking the people who were their potential allies in that struggle. America is not one place — there are many different ideas and people here. If globalisation is going to change then it will be because it loses credibility in its homeland, the West — and terror attacks are not going to be of any help in this.
As you can see, many of the links that have been drawn between U.S. policy and the WTC attacks do not stand up under scrutiny. The motivations for these attacks have a longer historical pedigree than a few years or even decades. The Ikhwan al-Muslimeen was founded in 1928, when there was no Israel, and America was still in the shadow of the older colonial powers. Sayyid Qutb, who wrote Signposts, the manifesto of contemporary Muslim fundamentalism, was in America in the early 1950s, a time when the U.S. had actively intervened on Egypt's behalf, to prevent a Franco-British takeover of the Suez Canal. This did not prevent Qutb from becoming violently anti- American. In fact Qutb saw the nation-state itself as his real enemy: he thought of it as a fundamentally idolatrous institution. That is why he declared jihad on the Egyptian state as a whole. There are echoes of this in bin Laden's latest letter, where he denounces the entire system of nation-states as well as the United Nations.
I think we must be careful even in making the assumption that an articulate grievance existed at all. I have heard it said that the very enormity of the WTC attack and the multiple suicides involved indicate the existence of a monumental grievance. But in some parts of India even such events as the death of an important public figure sometimes leads to dozens of grisly suicides. What is the grievance here, except mortality itself?
The WTC terrorists themselves were careful not to provide a list of motives or grievances; perhaps they knew that this would leave people free to invest their acts with whatever meanings they chose. This is why I think we must be particularly careful to resist the temptation to supply these connections. If we are not, then acts of terror will always come with inbuilt justifications — for, no matter what the policies of any country, you can be sure that there will never be a shortage of grievances in this world.
(To be concluded)
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