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<p>Christopher Isherwood, an Englishman who became an American, once
gave
expression to the unreality of American daily [[life]], exemplified in
the motel room: “American motels are unreal! … They are deliberately
designed to be unreal. … The Europeans [[hate ]] us because we’ve retired to live [[inside ]] our advertisements, like hermits going into caves to
contemplate.”
</p><p></p>
<p> The Wachowski brothers’ 1999 hit [[film ]] The [[Matrix ]] brought this [[logic ]] to its extreme climax: The [[material ]] [[reality ]] we all [[experience ]] and see around us is a [[virtual ]] one, generated and coordinated by
a gigantic mega-computer to which we are all attached. When the
hero, played by Keanu Reeves, awakens into the “real “[[real]] reality,” he
sees a desolate landscape littered with burned ruins—what remained
of Chicago after a [[global ]] war. The [[resistance ]] [[leader ]] Morpheus utters
the ironic greeting: “Welcome to the desert of the real.”</p>
<p> Was it not something of a similar [[order ]] that took [[place ]] in New York on [[September 11]]? As we were introduced to the “desert of the
real,” the landscape and the shots we saw of the collapsing towers
could only remind us of the most breathtaking scenes from innumerable
Hollywood disaster movies. The unthinkable had been the [[object ]] of [[fantasy]]. In a way, America got what it fantasized [[about]], and this
was the greatest surprise.</p>
<p> It is precisely now, when we are dealing with the raw reality
of a catastrophe, that we should bear in [[mind ]] the [[ideological ]] and [[fantasmatic ]] coordinates that determine its [[perception]]. If there is any [[symbolism ]] in the collapse of the [[World ]] Trade Center, it is not that the Twin Towers stood for [[capitalism ]] per se, but of virtual capitalism, of financial speculations [[disconnected ]] from the sphere of material production. The towers [[symbolized]], ultimately, the stark [[separation ]] between the digitized First World and the [[Third ]] World’s
“desert of the real.”</p>
<p> The American sphere of safety is now experienced by its citizens
as [[being ]] under [[threat ]] from an [[Outside ]] of terrorist attackers who are ruthlessly [[self]]-sacrificing and cowards, cunningly intelligent and [[primitive ]] barbarians. Whenever we [[encounter ]] such a purely [[evil ]] Outside, we should gather the courage to [[remember ]] the [[Hegelian ]] lesson:
In this evil Outside, we should recognize the distilled version
of our own [[essence]]. For the [[past ]] five centuries, the (relative)
prosperity and peace of the “civilized” West was bought by the export
of ruthless [[violence ]] and [[destruction ]] to the “savage” Outside. It’s
a long story, from the conquest of America to the slaughter in Congo.</p>
<p> Cruel and indifferent as it may sound, we should also, now more
than ever, bear in mind that the actual effect of these attacks
is much more [[symbolic]]: In Africa, every single day more [[people ]] die
of AIDS than all the victims of the attacks on the World Trade Center
and the Pentagon, and their deaths can and could have been easily
minimized with relatively small financial means. The [[United States ]]
got a taste of what goes on around the world on a daily basis, from
Sarajevo to Grozny, from Rwanda and Congo to Sierra Leone. If one
adds to the [[situation ]] in New York rape gangs and a dozen or so snipers
blindly targeting people who walk along the streets, one gets an
[[idea ]] of what Sarajevo was like a decade ago.</p><p> Now, we are [[forced ]] to strike back, to deal with real enemies in
the real world … but whom to strike? Whatever the response, it
will never hit the [[right ]] target, bringing us [[full ]] [[satisfaction]]. The [[spectacle ]] of America attacking Afghanistan would be just that: If the greatest [[power ]] in the world were to destroy one of the poorest
countries, where peasants barely survive on barren hills, would
this not be the ultimate [[case ]] of the impotent [[acting out]]? Afghanistan
is already reduced to rubble, destroyed by continuous war during
the past two decades. The impending attack brings to mind the anecdote
about the madman who searches for his lost key beneath a street
light; asked why he searches there, when he actually lost the key
in a dark corner, he answers: “But it is easier to [[search ]] under
strong light!” Is it not the ultimate irony that Kabul already looks
like downtown Manhattan?</p>
<p> To succumb to the urge to retaliate now means precisely to avoid
confronting the [[true ]] dimensions of what occurred on September 11—it
means an act whose true aim is to lull us into the secure conviction
that [[nothing ]] has really changed. The true long-term [[threats ]] are further [[acts ]] of mass [[terror ]] in comparison to which the [[memory ]] of
the World Trade Center collapse will pale—acts less spectacular,
but much more horrifying. What about [[biological ]] warfare, the use of lethal gas or the prospect of DNA terrorism—the [[development ]] of poisons that will [[affect ]] only people who share a determinate
genome? Instead of a quick acting out, one should confront these
difficult questions: What will “war” mean in the 21st century? Who
will be “them”?</p>
<p> There is a [[partial ]] [[truth ]] in the [[notion ]] of a “clash of civilizations” attested here. [[Witness ]] the surprise of the average American: “How is it possible that these people display and [[practice ]] such a disregard
for their own lives?” Is the obverse of this surprise not the rather
sad fact that we, in the First World countries, find it more and
more difficult even to imagine a [[public ]] or [[universal ]] [[cause ]] for which
one would be ready to sacrifice one’s life?</p>
<p> But a brief look at the comparative [[history ]] of [[Islam ]] and [[Christianity ]] tells us that the “human “[[human]] rights record” (to use an anachronistic
term) of Islam is much better than that of Christianity: In past
centuries, Islam was significantly more tolerant toward [[other ]] [[religions ]]
than Christianity. It was through the Arabs that, in the Middle
Ages, Western Europeans regained access to the ancient Greek legacy.
We are not dealing with a feature inscribed into Islam as such,
but with the outcome of modern socio-[[political ]] [[conditions]]. This
notion of the “clash of civilizations” has to be thoroughly rejected:
What we are witnessing today are rather clashes within each [[civilization]].</p><p> Indeed, every feature attributed to the Outside is already [[present ]]
in the very heart of the United States. Murderous fanaticism? What
about the rightist, populist “fundamentalists” who also practice
a terror of their own, legitimized by (their [[understanding ]] of) Christianity? Since America is in a way “harboring” [[them]], should the U.S. [[Army ]]
have punished its own country after the Oklahoma City bombing? And
what about the way Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson reacted to the
attacks on September 11, perceiving them as a [[sign ]] that God had
lifted his protection because of the sinful lives of Americans,
putting the blame on hedonist [[materialism]], [[liberalism ]] and rampant [[sexuality]], and claiming that America got what it deserved?</p>
<p> It is still too early to tell how the events of September 11 will
be symbolized or what acts they will be evoked to justify. Even
now, in these moments of utmost tension, this link is not automatic
but [[contingent]]. We already see the first bad omens, like the sudden resurrection, in the public [[discourse]], of the old [[Cold War ]] term “free world”: The [[struggle ]] is now the one between the “free world”
and the forces of darkness and terror. The question to be asked
here is: Who then belongs to the unfree world? Are, say, China or
Egypt part of this free world?</p>
<p> The day after the attacks, I got a [[message ]] from a journal that was just about to publish a longer [[text ]] of mine on [[Lenin]], telling
me that they decided to postpone its publication—they considered
it inopportune to publish a text on Lenin immediately after the
terrorist attacks. Does this point toward ominous ideological rearticulations
to come, with a new Berufsverbot ([[prohibition ]] to employ radicals) much stronger and more widespread than the one in the [[Germany ]] of
the ’70s? </p>
<p> These days, one often hears the phrase that the struggle is now
the one for democracy—true, but not quite in the way this phrase
is usually meant. Already, some [[leftist ]] friends of mine have written
me that, in these difficult moments, we had better keep our heads
down and not push forward with our agenda. Against this temptation
to duck out the crisis, one should insist that now the [[left ]] should provide a better [[analysis]]. To not do so is to concede in advance the left’s political and [[ethical ]] defeat in the face of acts of quite
genuine heroism on the part of ordinary people—like the passengers
who, in a [[model ]] of [[rational ]] ethical [[action]], apparently overtook
the hijackers and provoked the early crash of the fourth plane over
Pennsylvania.</p>
<p> So what about the phrase that reverberates everywhere, “Nothing
will be the same after September 11”? Significantly, this phrase
is never further elaborated—it’s just an [[empty gesture ]] of saying something “deep” without really [[knowing ]] what we [[want ]] to say. So
our reaction to this phrase should be: Really? Or is it rather that
the only [[thing ]] effectively changed was that America was forced to
realize the kind of world it is part of?</p>
<p> Such changes in perception are never without consequences, since
the way we perceive our situation determines the way we act in it.
[[Recall ]] the [[processes ]] of collapse of a political regime—say, the collapse of the [[Communist ]] regimes in Eastern [[Europe]]. At a certain [[moment]], people all of a sudden became aware that the [[game ]] was over,
that the Communists had lost. The break was purely symbolic, nothing
changed “in reality”—and, nonetheless, from that moment on,
the final collapse of the [[regime ]] was just a question of days.</p>
<p> What if something of the same order did occur on September 11?
We don’t yet [[know ]] what consequences in [[economy]], [[ideology]], [[politics ]] and war this [[event ]] will have, but one thing is sure: The United
States, which, until now, perceived itself as an island exempted
from this kind of violence, witnessing these kind of things only
from the safe distance of a TV [[screen]], is now directly involved.
So the question is: Will Americans decide to further fortify their
sphere, or risk stepping out of it? America has two choices. It
can persist in or even amplify its deeply immoral attitude of “Why
should this happen to us? Things like this don’t happen here,” leading
to even more [[aggression ]] toward the Outside—just like a [[paranoiac ]]
acting out. Or America can finally risk stepping through the fantasmatic
screen separating it from the Outside world, accepting its arrival
ensure that it will not happen here again is to prevent it from
going on anywhere else. America should learn to humbly accept its
own vulnerability as part of this world, enacting the [[punishment ]] of those [[responsible ]] as a sad [[duty]], not as an exhilarating retaliation.
Even though America’s peace was bought by the catastrophes going
on elsewhere, the predominant point of view remains that of an innocent
[[gaze ]] confronting unspeakable evil that struck from the Outside. One [[needs ]] to gather the courage to recognize that the seed of evil
is within us too.</p>
<p> In his campaign for the presidency, George W. [[Bush ]] named [[Jesus ]] [[Christ ]] as the most important person in his life. Now he has a unique [[chance ]] to prove that he meant it seriously. For him, as for all Americans today, “Love “[[Love]] thy neighbor” means “Love the Muslims.” Or
it means nothing at all.
==Source==
* [[The Desert of the Real]]. ''In These [[Times]]''. October 29, 2001. <http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/1588/>
