By Kollengode S Venkataraman (October 30, 2001)
Living our busy lives, we want to reduce complex issues to a manageable size. The media condenses this for us into blurbs, 15-or 30-second news segments, or neat 12″x3″ bumper stickers, whether it is issues relating to abortion, fetal tissues, nuclear umbrella, WTO, or terrorism. That we set aside countless hours to watch the gladiatorial sports of our choice and temple fights is beside the point.
We also live in a society built on individual responsibility; so, we want people to be accountable. No matter how complex the issues are, we pillory people for failures or deify them for successes, often ignoring other factors/players contributing to the unfolding of events.
Take sports talk shows. Listeners and the hosts alike berate individual players for the failures of their teams, or shower confetti on them for successes. I pity Michael Jordan’s basketball teammates. In spite of their high-caliber talents, they all go unnoticed.
The corporate world is no different. Chrysler’s Lee Iacocca was, and GE’s John Welch is, deified as demigods. The other Michael Jordan of Westinghouse, under whose regime the mighty Westinghouse Corporation was reduced to a tombstone along the parkway, is vilified. How many people know that a series of missteps by Jordan’s predecessors led to the company’s slow, but inevitable death.
In politics too, the story is the same. President Reagan was glorified for destroying the Soviet “Evil Empire.” But the USSR had already deteriorated from within because of the Marxist theology that unsuccessfully tried to refashion society defying human psychology. As they say in India, as the crow perched on the tree, the overripe fruits just fell. The crow had nothing to do with the fruits’ ripening.
Mao Tse Tung, Ho Chi Minh, Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gadhafi were demonized by the media as incarnations of evil. Eliminate them, and we’ll have peace. The latest in this list is Osama bin Laden.
But Osama and the Taliban are partly America’s creation. So much in context are drowned in public discourse. These voices try to say Osama is only a figurehead for a network of people maniacally committed to their irrational beliefs. One has to be patient to understand the issues these voice raise. Bumper stickers and glitzy graphics-laden war stories oversimplify — even trivialize — the issues.
To counter terrorism, the Bush administration has invoked two extraordinary egal powers: The first one allows the Justice Department to tape, under clearly defined conditions, conversations between attorneys and their clients accused in certain criminal cases. The parties would be informed that their conversation would be taped, and the information thus gathered cannot be used against the accused (but can be used in prosecuting others). The second seeks powers to institute military tribunals to prosecute terrorists as in wars. These have ignited a heated debate among lawyers, even among traditional conservatives.
US seeking these extraordinary powers has ominous forebodings for those risking their lives fighting for democracy in repressive regimes that are now allied with US against terrorism.
During the Cold War, the US was hell-bent on defeating Communists all over the place. Using the litmus test of anticommunism, the US forged political alliances and rewarded certain governments with economic goodies and military cover.
Many despotic regimes used their anticommunist bogey to get L support during the Cold War. Examples: The regimes of South Korea, South Vietnam, Taiwan, the Philippines, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Argentina… … These countries’ despots never hesitated to use their anticommunist planks and the accompanying US support to quell all legitimate internal dissent. The rulers brutalized their citizenry for decades and continue to do so.
Now, in the post-9-11 world, the US has declared a global war on terrorism that may well go into the next decade. In the altered new world order, President Bush has asked countries to decide “whether you’re with us, or with the terrorists.” In this eerie this-or-that-but-nothing-in-between world reminiscent of the Cold War, totalitarian countries-Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan, Cold War enemies China, and Russia (!) for example-have joined the US’s anti-terrorism coalition.
These repressive nations can, and will, use their antiterrorism bogey freely to scuttle legitimate internal dissent. These societies are feudal to begin with, and the absence of a long tradition of civil liberties in these countries makes it even easier for their rulers. Now, they would also say, “Look, even the US is doing this.” They would foist “terrorist” labels on their domestic dissenters to summarily execute them, the same way repressive Cold War allies dealt with dissenters by foisting “Communist” labels on them.
If this happens, as is likely, it would be deja vu all over again. END