But absent from Friedman's article (let us see what the four remaining parts bring) is a realization of how close-run President Bush's effort is. He forgets that the natural conclusion from the premise of intractable Islamic hatred is that the West may be forced not so much to befriend its tormentors as destroy them utterly. Friedman's own article is proof of how steadily, yet imperceptibly, the tides have risen in the course of the war itself. What would have been unprintable in any major American newspaper in November, 2001 -- immediately after the attack on New York city -- now seems so hopelessly weak that one cannot but wonder how close the crisis point is. And it is Islam, not the West, that is skirting the edge of the abyss. Unlike the reluctant Friedman, many Islamists, caught up in their invincible ignorance and the fantasy engendered by controlled media, will never know how paper-thin is the wall that stands between them and the roaring waves they have conjured until it bursts in on their poor world, upon unfortunate children in their evil playhouse. Now has the last race between the requirements of humanity and urgings of necessity begun. Let every man do his utmost. -- (Wretchard at the Belmont Club, reflecting on Tom Friedman's NYT piece)Is this too alarmist? Perhaps, but just barely.
I could take exception to the opinion that Friedman would not have written such a piece in November, 2001. I'm pretty sure this article is not a radical departure from his long term position, in spite of the fact that he once called the Iraq War "optional." But I did write an Op Ed for the Washington Post on Sept. 11, 2002 that was never published. In retrospect it seems slightly naive to have written such a piece back then, but I post it here in the interest of "doing my utmost."
Before the Wave Scott Talkington - September 11, 2002 DRAFT Perhaps mainstream Americans have become blind to the appeal of what Jerrold Post calls "the psychology of political paranoia" because we tend to treat our social ills as projects, rather than sources of shame demanding a "total solution." Or perhaps it is the confusing association with an unfamiliar religion that gives familiar pathological patterns religious camouflage? Or maybe by its very nature totalitarianism looks cartoonish and trivial, until it becomes a full-blown nightmare? But whatever the reason, a conspicuous silence emanates from US decision makers on what could easily become the most important issue in the War on Terrorism: the broad appeal of a malignant panacea in Islamic culture. Beneath the camouflage this may be less a "clash of civilizations" than a sequel to an old familiar problem, seen most recently in the Balkans and Rwanda.
Why are we always astonished that a wounded society can be so vulnerable to paranoid totalitarian "therapy," or that the compulsion to look outward for causes that lie within can become so irresistible? More than 70 years ago National Socialism made its debut. But not until Kristallnacht, almost a decade later, did many understand that Germany, one of the most highly educated and diverse societies in the world, would prove to be so vulnerable to a concept as superficial, immoral and simplistic as: 'If we rid ourselves of the scum known as Jews, we will have solved the social problems of the nation." The difference now is that the seduction could involve a culture with a quarter of the world's population... and the scapegoat is the US.
The term "Islamic World" implies a uniformity that isn't entirely an illusion. Even though the "Caliphate" exists only in a romanticized and distant past, more than any other religious or cultural tradition Islam sees itself as a "community" that transcends the enormous ethnic, geographical, and even sectarian diversity it embraces. This Islamic World has a growing gap between expectation and reality that could be larger than any since German hyperinflation gave Adolf Hitler his golden opportunity. And in the midst of looming economic and social crises, the Middle East has little tolerance for self-criticism, and a growing appetite for blame.
Fawaz Gerges, a leading Middle Eastern Studies scholar at Sarah Lawrence, suggests that even though the terrorists are a miniscule proportion of Islamists, who are themselves not yet a majority in any nation, complacency is dangerous: "I have yet to meet a person in the Middle East who doesn't say that Osama bin Laden makes sense." He goes on to emphasize: "I can't tell you how difficult it is for an Arab or Muslim intellectual to say anything positive about America. To be politically conscious in the Arab and the Muslim world today is to be anti-American, to be suspicious of American motives, desires, even American culture and society." So ultimately, why do they hate us? Because it's convenient and easy... and the alternative isn't.
The implication of our inability to locate many of bin Laden's intimate operatives (if not the dark lord himself) is simple and ominous: they have disappeared into a sea of sympathetic souls. [We have, since this was written, made a number of "high value" arrests, but the largest fishes in that sea still elude us.] And like a tidal wave that remains imperceptible as it flashes across the open ocean, the speculative paranoid associations already exist in the minds of many mainstream Muslims; awaiting landfall before the wave breaks and the ideas entertained more or less privately and tentatively fuse into a mass movement.
It is difficult or impossible to imagine a realistic "war on terrorism" that doesn't start from this premise, frankly acknowledging the fact that we are not merely losing the war of ideas, but losing it spectacularly. And it ought to be equally obvious that what we need to do is make the alternative a bit easier, and contempt for the US a little less convenient. Fortunately, beneath an intimidating socio-political context permeated by Islamist anti-American discourse lies a silent fascination with, if not admiration for, the US. As Bernard Lewis has observed, this is clearest in Iran, where the "state institution" is not friendly toward the US. And this anomaly suggests that decoupling US policy and rhetoric from support of the autocratic regimes that people so despise may be the only way to cancel the impending wave, in time.
In this context our deliberate confrontation with Iraq is surprisingly "on message" but probably not compelling for many Muslims, given the fact that we appear to say little about human rights abuses by the so-called "friendly" regimes. Worse, if we aren't able to engage in a direct conversation with the "community of the faithful" the discourse will surely be dominated by those willing to sew sympathy for Saddam and hatred for the US. It may be time to just bypass the conventional foreign policy intermediaries, addressing the Islamists' audience directly, with a respect and deference that they clearly don't expect, and that even their own governments appear to lack. We can do that.
As a culture we're still pretty good at plain talk. And there's a pretty straightforward message to deliver. Furthermore, since access to telecommunications is more unavailable in the Arab world than in many parts of Africa it may not be advisable to wait for the full resources of the fancy new Office of Global Communications to get things rolling. It is not the sophistication of the medium but the content and clarity (and moral consistency) of the message that's important, and such a message can be delivered convincingly through relatively crude means. Certainly the challenge is enormous, but this is war isn't it?
Yes, I know it was a bit naive. But even at the time I had little inkling that we'd have come as far as we have in transforming Iraq into a demonstration project for the "counter-wave." While imperfect, that process has been spectacular (and little reported). What's disappointing is the extent to which the US has been unable to utilize media to send its message. And now I agree with Wretchard that the most important message we need to send to this constituency in the short term is how close they are to the abyss.
Posted by Demosophist at January 10, 2004 12:32 PM | TrackBack