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Epistemic upheaval
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In the conclusion of a two-part interview, noted writer Amitav Ghosh speaks to RAHUL SAGAR about the future of the modern nation-state after the events of September 11.
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`If any country evokes a depth of feeling similar to the U.S. , it is India,' says Amitav Ghosh.
RAHUL SAGAR: Is it possible for the non-violent to have faith in American public opinion? Susan Sontag, for example, wrote that the American public ``is not being asked to bear much of the burden of reality and there seems to be a campaign to infantilise the public.''
AMITAV GHOSH: It is true that in the late 1990s America often seemed like a terribly introverted, arrogant place. There was a sense of smugness that was tacitly encouraged by politicians and the media. I was always revolted by that triumphal sense of an achieved empire — to me it was appalling. But to characterise all of America in that fashion is also inaccurate. America was also a colony once, and a strong vein of anti-imperialism does run through American life. I live in a predominantly African-American neighbourhood. I know many of my neighbours disagreed with American actions abroad. But they were no more able to change them than say, the average person in Hoshangabad is able to change the situation in Kashmir or north-eastern India.
I'd like to add that as an Indian, I have been much struck by the responses that I have received from India in the wake of the WTC attacks. These have consisted essentially in saying either ``we told you so'' or ``you had it coming''. Now, I don't know if these two things are true, maybe they are. There is no doubt that U.S. foreign policy has created enormous resentment. But if there is any other country in the world of which the same could be said, then surely that place would be India. As an Indian, travelling in other parts of South Asia, I've often been astonished by the anger that people have towards India — in Nepal (remember the riots?), in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, and even further afield. It's unpalatable but true, that if there is any country that evokes a depth of feeling similar to the U.S., it is India. India is guilty of exactly the same things as the U.S., if only on a regional scale — pursuing its own narrow economic interests, fomenting terrorism and fundamentalism (Punjab, Sri Lanka) when it suits its purposes, suppressing local cultures with its exported forms of entertainment and so on. Does this mean that it would be legitimate to respond to a terror attack on an Indian city by saying: ``I told you so'' and ``you had it coming''? We have to be very careful here: there is sometimes only a thin line between the languages of description and prescription.
To what extent are individuals like Frank De Martini (about whom you wrote in the New Yorker), counter-examples to the conservative critique of modern American society having become too atomistic and selfish?
To me my relationship with America is not a relationship with some grand idea or a model of society. My relationship is with my family, my friends, and my neighbours. I have always known that people are far from being atomistic within my community. My neighbour, Frank De Martini, whom I have written about, stayed behind in the WTC to help other people. This was when his wife was begging him to escape; instead he stayed behind to help others. What he did was genuinely heroic and there were many like him.
Despite all that has happened there is very little warmongering in New York. In fact there have been large demonstrations where people have carried placards that say ``Our grief is not a call for war''. To be in New York now is to witness the extraordinary dignity of collective grief. I have also seen this elsewhere: in Delhi in 1984, there was a similar sense of mourning. People everywhere always find resources. It is a mistake to underestimate America and Americans — this is actually a very resilient society.
You have spoken of September 11 as an epistemic upheaval: the maps and certainties of the world have changed. By contrast, the Arab writer Rami Khouri has termed it America's entry into world history. This epistemic upheaval is America's alone — the first and last example of textbook sovereignty.
I agree and disagree. I think the reason why this is an epistemic upheaval is because the idea of the nation-state had been the guiding idea of the 19th and 20th Centuries. It is what makes sense of anti-colonialism to take just one example. But today that idea is slowly collapsing, among the rich as well as the poor. The countries of Europe, North America, Australia and so on, are gradually melting into one transnational entity: the West. In parts of the Middle East and Asia national boundaries have already melted away; in other places huge swathes of territory have passed out of effective government control — this is true of the borders of Burma, parts of north-eastern India, northern Sri Lanka, and much of central Asia. But to date we do not know what is going to take the place of the nation- state. So it seems right now that we are in a moment when the future is still unborn and the past is not quite dead.
Despite the epistemic upheaval, shouldn't international civil society look toward the prevailing state system to police these terrorist groups?
The military historian Martin van Creveld has argued that the world is living through a fundamental change in the nature of conflict — one that will transform the prevailing state system whether we like it or not. He argues that the world is moving from a pattern of war, conducted between states, to low-intensity conflict that is guided mainly by non-state players. Thus, it seems that in the end the only appropriate methods will be policing — but policing itself will look increasingly like war. Also, policing will herald a new level of surveillance. That is where the erosion of the nation-state will impinge upon all our lives whether we like it or not.
(Concluded)
The first part of this article appeared in The Literary Review dated December 2, 2001.
Rahul Sagar would like to thank Professor Sugata Bose for making this interview possible. The essays by Amitav Ghosh and Susan Sontag are available on the web site of the New Yorker.
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