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Terror vs. Democracy
by Will Foreman
The curse that we
should live in interesting times
is visited upon us once more, though this time truly unlike any time
before.....
To wit: within the half–century it appears
likely that weapons of mass destruction will be possessed by many nations—and by terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda. Unless an effective global regime for controlling these
weapons can be established, there is a high probability they will be used and
that human survival will be seriously threatened.
The prospect of that danger may not now seem sufficient to warrant immediate action, but whether it does or not, other threats loom almost as large.
Terrorists willing to use biological, chemical, nuclear and other highly destructive
weapons have announced plans to destroy the United States and allied
nations. The earth’s carrying
capacity will almost certainly be exceeded within fifty years. Indeed, we
may already be using up our vital, natural resources. When it finally becomes obvious to
everyone that some of our essential resources are near depletion, there will already have been a massive toll in human
suffering from shortages of food, clean water, clean air, and fertile soils.
In addition, it is
clear to many that global warming is now likely to accelerate until it wreaks
considerable havoc. Most sadly, there is not sufficient political will to stop it in the world’s most powerful nation and the planet’s principal polluter—the United States. The Earth’s atmosphere may eventually reach runaway levels beyond which it
cannot be stopped. It may even approach temperatures incompatible
with life, such as now exist on the planet Venus (800° F).
But wait! If we go on describing disasters that
appear probable in the next twenty-five to fifty years, we begin to
sound like those preachers of apocalyptic damnation—or like the
Marxist ideologues that regularly predicted the collapse of Western
imperialism but never that of socialist imperialism.
The
expectations mentioned above, however, are not based on the certainties of
religious or political dogma, but rather on studies done
within open systems of scientific inquiry. Confirmation or disconfirmation of these studies by a large number of
scientifically trained observers, operating in separate and far–flung research projects on Earth and in space, is an ongoing process. Sophisticated modeling of the world system, anecdotal observations by people living close to nature, and the mathematics of measurement can add considerable validity to
scientific expectations.
During the Second
World War and its aftermath, it could easily have been fatal for democracy if
Franklin D. Roosevelt had ignored the scientists who predicted the development
of atomic power. It could be
fatal to a much larger portion of humanity if we reject the scientific
consensus regarding global warming, population and environmental resource
trends, and the global arms race.
Unfortunately, because of information overload, corporate control of mass media, and the lack of a global political process for sorting priorities, the most decisive moment in human history, our moment of environmental overshoot, may pass without notice except by a few, highly–trained specialists.
The Human Story
To help make sense of
this particular moment, let’s summarize the story outlined in the book Creating
Democracy In Time (Will Foreman, 1994).
The
human family was born in Africa, spread out across the world, evolved into
distinct branches, and is now growing back together. As we come “home” to one another, we have sometimes hardly recognized one another as human. Nevertheless, the interpenetration
of races, cultures, and economic processes gives rise to highly creative exchanges. It
also leads to potentially fatal conflicts. At this point in the process of our global
family reunion, we find ourselves at an impasse. Some of our conflicts are
based on mutually exclusive claims upon the people and resources of the earth. Competing nations and religions, trying to outnumber one another, push excessive population growth—intensifying all other problems and hastening humanity toward a premature end.
Battles
for the allegiance of individuals pose the most immediate danger. It is impossible, for example, to
reconcile the claims of rigid, totalitarian systems with those of the still expanding,
secular democracies. Under the cover of secular democracies, large multi–national corporations often do considerable harm to people and the environment—diminishing the credibility of democratic process and giving the enemies of democracy fuel for extremist opposition. Extremists,
who are willing to use terrorism (as defined below) to spread their totalistic
world views, are driving the world toward a state of continuous war. This violent struggle is already global, though not
yet total—except insofar as the extremists are willing to sacrifice everything
and everybody. If not stopped this
war will eventually resemble a globalization of such localized conflicts as those in
Kashmir and in Israel/Palestine, i.e., we will be in a permanent state of
terror, destroying families, economies, governments, the environment, and eventually, dragging a major part of the human race into a whirlpool of death and destruction.
The “Evil Axes” of
Dialectics
The early 21st
century is uniquely characterized by seven major dialectical conflicts, each
global in character: (1) the reintegration of the human species
versus disintegrative separatism, (2) the successful rise of secular
democracy—opposed by totalitarians and religious fundamentalists, (3) the
preservation of the environment versus forces now destroying it, (4) the
increasing opposition of interests between rich and poor, (5) the expanding
unipolar superpower system opposed by those who seek to limit or transform it, (6) the struggle for racial and gender equality vs. those who exploit inequalities, and (7) the spread of weapons of mass destruction versus the political forces
trying to contain them.
The appropriate response to these challenges, I shall argue, is a rapid globalization of secular democracy. The considerable powers of the modern, unfinished democracies will ultimately have to be brought together to coordinate an answer to each of the above–named unresolved issues and to the terrorism that arises from them. Large, multi–national corporations will have to relinquish their disproportionate influence over democratic processes. Rich nations, in turn, will have to apply their wealth in a global education and reconstruction project.
Our strategy can no longer be one of containment such as employed during the Cold War. The sciences of weaponry have so progressed that, given a little time, small closed societies or secret organizations will soon be able to develop enough destructive power to trigger the destruction of large parts of the world. Thus the means to detect secret weapons programs and the power to stop them must be in the hands of a coalition of advanced, secular democracies. By “advanced, secular democracies,” I mean democracies that (1) control the power and greed of corporations, (2) recognize both terrorism and totalitarianism as the principal enemies of civilization, and (3) explicitly proclaim the goal of achieving authentic, global democracy.
The confrontation with terrorism must be pre-emptive, i.e.,
it must take place at the doorstep of the terrorist. A significant part of the task will have to be the elimination of all militaristic, anti-democratic, nation–state systems. Parallel with action toward that goal, terrorists must be arrested and the causes of terrorism eliminated.
The stakes are nothing less than the preservation of freedom, democracy,
and human life on the planet Earth.
This is a call to action, not a call to arms. It should be understood, however, that war is an occasionally necessary part of a much larger strategy.
Totalitarian
Fundamentalism versus Open Systems
Democracy…is
also a better opening to the rest of the Universe, to a deeper understanding of
the human spirit, or even to the “mind of God.”
Creating Democracy In Time, ch. 2
Fundamentalists
accurately perceive that since the European Enlightenment, secular democratic
movements have been wildly successful.
Wealth and power, even spiritual enlightenment, accrues in those
societies that are open and free.
They invite innovation and progress in human thought, advances in modern
science, thoughtful re-analysis of ancient scriptures, and a new understanding of the relationship of socio–economic process to the environment. That this progress has been uneven,
sometimes crassly materialistic, even at times cruel and inhuman, has opened
the gates to periodic floods of outrage and now, to global terrorism. The aberrations of secular, democratic
evolution, however, do not invalidate the progressive nature of evolutionary
democracy.
Stalinism was a
relatively short-lived form of seclular opposition to democracy that was
totalitarian and pretended to follow on the Marxist ideal of “from each according to ability, to each according to need” and to the view of economic determinism, i.e., to the idea that economic structure
determines most everything else in the human experience. It seems safe now to point out that the anti-humanistic
aberrations of all
non-democratic systems, including those based on the noblest of ideals, are
generally much more damaging to the lives of human beings than are those of the
evolving democratic systems.
It should also be obvious that the old
single–axis logic of left vs. right is not sufficient to guide us
through the present world dilemma.
Bin Laden, Hezbollah (the “Party of God”), the Taliban, Hamas, Fatah,
Islamic Jihad, and other jihad terrorist organizations provoke some sympathy in
traditionally leftist peace movements, because they seem to be for the poor and against American
imperialism. Yet they do not
couch their propaganda primarily in terms of a war against economic
imperialism nor exclusively against the United States. Rather, they assert
the necessity of defending the “holy land” and enforcing “God’s will,” with “praise
be to Allah” being the signature phrase. The schools of their movements focus,
when not teaching weaponry or terror tactics, almost exclusively on memorizing
selected passages of ancient texts.
And when they take power, as did the Taliban in Afghanistan or the
Shiite fundamentalists in Iran, they govern as totalitarians.
The religious
terrorists have achieved a degree of success within certain spheres, primarily
because other approaches to modernization and power have failed. Marxist and Arab Nationalist movements
were either stifled by Western forces or channeled into feudalistic or
military elites. These elites have dominated states that often persist largely at the behest of the United States government which plays them against one another. Although formal
democratic structures have been established on a secular basis in some parts of
the Islamic world, most notably Turkey and Kurdistan in Northern Iraq, neither
the practice of democracy nor its stability have been wholly satisfying yet
because of cultural and economic difficulties. Thus religious extremists are able to associate their
apocalyptic values with the essential “goodness” at the core of most religions, and by the alchemy of their privileged knowledge of “God’s Will,” they are able to justify murder, suicide-bombing, and war against those whom they successfully target.
Their hatred of Jews,
Christians, and of the United States rivals that of the Nazi progrom. For example, we have the imam of the Al
Harram mosque in Mecca, Sheikh Abd al-Rahman al-Sudais, recently quoted as saying: “Read history and you will understand
that the Jews of yesterday are the evil forefathers of the even more evil Jews
of today: infidels, falsifiers of words, calf worshippers, prophet murderers,
deniers of prophecies…the scum of the human race, accursed by Allah.” The Palestinian Authority imam, Sheikh
Ibrahim Madhi, prays as follows:
“Oh, Allah, accept our martyrs in the highest Heaven…Oh, Allah,
annihilate the Jews and their supporters.” (The New Yorker, Oct 14 & 21, 2002)
Ayatollah Khomeini
labelled the U.S. “the Great Satan,” i.e., the enemy of God, not the great
“exploiter,” “the great dictator,”
nor even the “great cultural imperialist.” Bin Laden’s most telling accusation is that U.S. troops
“defile the Holy Land” of Saudi Arabia, and of course, he has called upon all
Muslims to defend the people of Iraq and to stop the U.S. from making Tel Aviv the capital of the Middle East.
Sadly however, he did not call for the removal of the Iraqis’ principal enemy,
Saddam Hussein.
Bin Laden’s messages are superficially popular in Islamic countries, primarily for four reasons: (1) Historical resentment of the West is magnified by politicians and imams who use the mass media and schools to exploit anger for their own special interest purposes, (2) Islamic peoples generally suffer under the strains of authoritarianism, (3) many people in Islamic countries are severely stressed economically, and (4) their justifiable resentment is often misdirected toward the concept of secular democracy rather than toward the multi–national corporations that have been largely responsible for abuse from the West. Even so, the terrorist threats come from extremists who advocate war or presently wage war, not from the average Muslim who, I believe, would prefer to selectively ignore the militaristic passages in the Koran and to choose the more humanistic paths of negotiation, peace, and tolerance of other belief systems. This, of course, implies a desire to participate in world society under the rules of an authentic, secular democracy—not a “democracy” dominated by either wealthy special interests or totalitarian theocrats.
The extremists drive
conflict toward apocalyptic conclusions, however, and when called upon to
choose sides, most people are loathe to disavow those compatriots with whom they share an
overlap of well-inculcated beliefs.
Thus Saddam Hussein, though a secular totalitarian, rewards the
religious families of suicide bombers with a standard gift of twenty-five
thousand dollars. Both the
theocratic government of Iran and the secular dictatorship of Syria support the
Party of God (Hezbollah), which the Koran says will be victorious over non-believers,
with millions of dollars and with gifts of military arms.
The absolute certainty
of religious extremists is even less appealing than that of National
Socialists, Ba’athists (from the Arabic ba’t, revival; and ba’ata, to send,
evoke, awaken), or Communists.
When God gives the marching orders, anything can be justified. While crimes of the magnitude of the
Holocaust, of Stalin’s paranoid slaughter of some twenty-five million real or
imagined opponents, or of Pal Pot’s killing of a third of the people of his
country, haven’t had time to unfold in the twenty-first century, they are
certainly threatened. Saddam, who
has already gassed whole villages and slaughtered hundreds of thousands in his
own country has, together with other extremists of the religiously–based Islamic umma,
promised to obliterate the nearly six million Jews of Israel.
Further examples? They are legion. Women in Afghanistan
have testified that, among other accomplishments of the parties of God, the
Taliban once surrounded a group of women marching for their rights, burned
their leader alive, and threw acid on the remaining marchers. And coffeehouse philosophers, to the
contrary, it does make a difference to relatives of the dead, to community
memories of the dead, and to our thoughts about the future whether such
assaults on human lives are the result of deliberate, vicious policy or an
acceptance with regret of the inevitable accidents of war.
Vast numbers of people
around the world were chilled, for example, as they watched Bin Laden smile
proudly, having just been congratulated for burning nearly three thousand
Americans alive. “Praise be to
Allah,” he said with millions of disbelievers listening intently. He was even disappointed that more of
his intended targets were not killed.
All American civilians are guilty, he has assured us, and all,
presumably, deserve to die. There
are people, as every compulsive serial killer has reminded us, whose inner
logic is antithetical to life and with whom one cannot negotiate.
It is true that the
above list of crimes is one-sided.
I have not mentioned specific atrocities committed by Christians, Jews,
Hindus, Buddhists, patriotic nationalists, and the half-evolved secular
democracies. There are
fundamentalist extremists and imperfect adherents to every human system of
belief. One could even fall back on
relativistic moral schemata to assert that no one system is morally superior to
another. The ideal of an authentic, global democracy, however,
offers the most practical hope of
human survival and this is, or should be, a universal human value. The
questioning and open self-examination, the non–violent problem–solving that is intrinsic to democratic society offers
the only viable path out of the primitive state of competing absolutisms.
Democracy is the only system
that offers every religion, and every system of ideas, protection from every
other religion (or system of ideas)—so long as each religion (or political
party) recognizes the right of every people to form and maintain a secular,
democratic government. When a
religious or other dogmatic party does not grant human society this right, then
we have the serious problem of mutual exclusivity.
Democracy’s
Spiritual Quest
Authentic
democracy’s unique role in history is to lift human life to a higher level of
adaptive intelligence.
Creating Democracy In Time, ch. 2
The spiritual facet of
democracy, so rarely enunciated, may be simply this: that we must be open to the search for truth; that each of
us has a right to receive, interpret, and contribute information relevant to
this search; that we shall always have more to learn about nature and
ourselves, that we cannot close any avenue of our search except by temporary
necessity, that we must use the factual truth as we know it to enhance human
lives and the evolution of human life, and that we cannot continue our search
unless we also learn how to survive.
Religious extremists, on the other hand, put their particular
interpretations of service to God above human life itself—a self-serving and,
ultimately, a self-extinguishing belief system.
The Intrusion of
the Imperfect
To realistically
pursue the democratic vision we must be clear about certain features of today’s
world: the secular bloc of
humanity that aspires to democracy is under siege by radical fundamentalists
who have openly declared war, and have been waging war, against us. Nor is this a phase in their growth
toward maturity. Absolutism knows
no age nor even time. They intend
war without end. Only total purity
of purpose and dedication will unite them with their beloved Prophet.
Our partially realized
democratic systems do have serious defects. Modern democracies are made inauthentic by special interests who seriously undermine the electoral process with their purchase of influence and by privately owned mass media that are also controlled by special interests. The result is a significant distortion of the informational field upon which democratic process is completely dependent. The sane response to these defects
is to organize and correct them nonviolently, using means available to citizens
even in defective democracies.
Though slowed by special interest distortion of the flow of information, major obstacles or contradictions in evolving democratic societies do
eventually spawn movements that can lead with a minimum
of violence to greater democracy.
Unfortunately, this only further aggravates those who fear the progress
of secular government and the reciprocal loss of their own domain of religious
control.
By their natures,
totalitarian and fundamentalist parties cannot tolerate the danger of dissent,
and democratic systems cannot tolerate totalitarian, i.e., dissent-free,
parties within the body politic.
For this reason, political parties that advocate theocratic rule cannot
be allowed to compete in a democratic system. All parties and organizations must, therefore, accept the
permanent separation of religion and government, and they must officially
recognize a secular, democratic system of law that shall be guarantor of the
right of each citizen to choose a religious belief as a function of the
relationship between the individual and his or her understanding of the
supernatural. They must also agree that never shall secular government
interpret, encourage, or enforce a particular view of God or “God’s Will.”
Absolute confidence in
one’s cause can excuse all manner of hideous crimes. When one’s cause is
believed to be by direct order of God, then all else must be sacrificed to that
cause. This, in turn, encourages self-sacrifice that is based on a universal
human instinct, that of the altruistic impulse to risk great danger or even to
sacrifice oneself for the benefit of one’s identity group. This almost universally admired act
lies at the heart of the Christian religion, the Islamic religion, the practice
of every nation in awarding its Medals of Honor, and in the rituals annually
practiced at the numerous Tombs of the Unknown Soldier. It is so deep within us that it evokes
the sense that if someone has committed such a selfless act, he or she must
have had a compelling and noble cause.
Sadly, it is also a commonly and cruelly exploited instinct by all
manner of nefarious forces—even by the self–governments of present day, secular
democracies.
To summarize, today we
face these practical manifestations of the dialectical opposites mentioned
above: (1) the proliferation of
terrorism and persistence of closed, dictatorial societies; (2) proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weaponry—most
recently to the totalitarian state of North Korea; (3) a grave mistrust of the present U.S. administration and of any ostensibly democratic government that is dominated by special interests, (4)
a fulminating gap between rich and poor with billions of people trying to
scratch out a living on less than US$2 a day, (5) global warming, (6) control of the flow of information by special interests and an
information explosion that makes it difficult for electorates to sort out priorities, (7)
nuclear powers at odds in Kashmir
and soon in Israel/Palestine, and (8) the challenge of completing the great
project of the Enlightenment, i.e., creating secular, democratic societies globally.
On the Semantics of
“War”
“It is far better to kill an innocent man
rather than to let a guilty man survive.”
Saddam Hussein
Most people in modern democratic societies cannot even imagine living within a system of law based on the legal logic of Saddam Hussein. Thus they oppose war with Iraq, assuming that war is the worst imaginable crime against humanity. Without going into a taxonomy of possible meanings of war, including daily low–level wars of extermination by a dictatorial government against its perceived internal opposition, it should suffice here to say that “war” is a very relative term. The word “war” ought neither be mistaken for reflex hammer nor taken as a cue to protest in the streets. It does signal on occasion, of course, a need for serious study.
That study should be begin with the idea that authentic democracy is the only legitimate form of government. Every other system of government places
excessive power in the hands of a privileged few, who history suggests, will sooner or later use that power primarily in service to their own interests. Even if they are momentarily a
wise and benevolent few, their wise beneficence is not sustainable over generations. Democracy, as I have extensively argued elsewhere [see Creating
Democracy In Time and The
Universal Model] is an evolving
process. It should be self-evident
that we have yet to achieve the ideal of a fully democratic system. At this point in our evolution, the
appropriate course for those dedicated to authentic democracy as a universal
value is not just to oppose regressive and unjust policies of the U.S.
government but also to oppose the much more regressive forces that promote
totalitarianism and religious terrorism.
Modern peace movements notwithstanding, the real issue is never “war”
per se, but rather human life and its value. War at some level will most likely be part of the human
condition for a long time. Whether
war is ever justifiable depends on whether waging a particular war would be
more likely to reduce the cost to human life than if the war were not waged.
The United Nations,
despite its Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is itself not a democracy
designed to defend human rights but rather an organization of sovereign states
that primarily exists to defend the principle of sovereignty. If a state
government is exercising its “sovereign right” to carry out an internal policy
of slaughtering an unarmed, oppositional minority, say with a massive and
decisive use of machete knives, we don’t call it “war,” and we’re told that it
would be an “immoral contradiction” to “wage war to stop the killing,” especially if doing so
were to violate the offending nation’s sovereignty.
Thus the UN did not intervene in Rwanda, and the United States and NATO
had to act outside of the UN to stop the killing of Muslims by Serbian Christians in Kosovo. Likewise, the daily dribble of torture
and selective execution of political dissidents by any sovereign state that
over time kills more people than would die in a quick war, while at the same
time concentrating the capital necessary to create weapons of mass destruction
and to support terrorist movements, is apparently acceptable to peace movements
that often seem to regard sovereignty as more sacred than life itself.
As a further,
thinly–disguised hypothetical argument, suppose a wealthy sovereign nation
governed by an absolutist dictatorship that provides funds and training to
international terrorist groups is actually beneficial to a majority of its own
people but exceptionally cruel to dissenters who die by the thousands year in
year out. Suppose then that it
develops a capacity for delivering weapons of mass destruction. Suppose again further that it threatens
to use them against neighboring countries and then proceeds to use them against
one neighbor and even against its own minority opposition. Such a nation would loudly object to
the UN if someone were to violate its sovereignty, would it not? And to violate that sovereignty would
likely be considered an act of war.
Yet it might save many lives.
At what point, and under what circumstances, would war with this regime
be likely to result in fewer casualties than would its continued buildup or its
chronic support of international terrorism? A policy based on simple slogans such as “War is not healthy
for children and other living things” is clearly not adequate for some
situations. It is not true that
“war now” is always more destructive to humanity than “peace now,” or for that
matter, “war later on” when the stakes are higher.
We should, I believe,
(1) oppose the Bush administration on the several domestic and international
issues mentioned in the next paragraph, (2) oppose the Bush wars on the environment,
civil rights, the middle class, and the poor; (3) support the Bush
administration’s war against terrorism with reservations, (4) support a
“pre-emptive” strike against the regime of Saddam Hussein, preferably by an
international alliance but by the U.S. alone if necessary, (5) denounce the
various dictatorships around the world whether they have been supported for
strategic reasons by the U.S. government or not, (6) put all anti-democratic
governments on notice that it is time to democratize or give up power, (7) back
a global reconstruction program that would reduce the tragic gap between the
rich and poor nations of the Earth, (8) seek a strong and assertive alliance
with proponents of secular democracy in every part of the world, and (9) support
the view that only democratically–controlled, international peacekeeping forces can stop the killing in
places like Kashmir and Israel/Palestine.
I will also argue, while I’m at it, that we should support radical
reform of capital markets while preserving a “free market.”
Not Just the Bushes
Let us also oppose the following
U.S. administration policies, several of which are long-standing: (1) the method of achieving power
through corporate–financed election campaigns, (2) arrogance toward other
nations and peoples, (3) channeling of tax revenues through faith–based
organizations, (4) tax cuts favoring the rich and leading us back into the
massive deficit spending characteristic of the earlier Reagan–Bush years, (5)
unilateral withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, (6) unilateral
withdrawal from the ABM treaty, the International Criminal Court, and the negotiations for the treaty to prohibit land mines, (7)
unilateral withdrawal of funds from Third World family planning programs, (8)
restrictions on stem cell research, (9) agribusiness price supports, (10)
protectionism, import quotas, and export subsidies, i.e., unfair trade
practices; (11) weakening or destroying fundamental civil rights, numerous
environmental programs, and consumer protections, (12) lack of support for
public financing of campaigns, (13) lack of support for single-payer universal
health insurance, (14) lack of support for the UN Johannesburg Summit on
Sustainable Development and Poverty, (15) lack of initiative in much needed
mass media reform, (16) strengthening corporate power over the democratic
process, and especially, [(17) did
I mention mass media reform and campaign finance reform(?)] the (18) lack of
adequate support for conversion to sustainable energy policies.
Evil Empires and
Their Twins: The Terrorists
“Evil must be confronted in its womb and, if
there is no other way
to do it, then it has to be dealt with by the
use of force.”
Vaclav Havel
Sept. 19, 2002
Although I find myself using the word sardonically, I think the
term “evil” has no seriously valid use in modern, political discourse. Nevertheless, it seems to fall
like a dark sediment out of the waters of today’s chief crisis: the clash of democracy
with religious fundamentalism. The definition of
“evil” may, for the moment, depend on whose side one is on, and ultimately, on
which side wins. If we define
“evil” not in terms of religious belief but in secular humanistic terms, then
it is simply the unjust and unnecessary destruction of human life caused by
elevating special interests above human life itself. “Terrorism” I would define as the policy of direct, surprise
attacks aimed at unarmed civilians or civilian property with the intent to kill
or destroy and create fear in order to achieve a political or religious
objective.
It is not a terrible surprise
that terrorists arise largely from authoritarian rather than democratic,
post–Enlightenment traditions. Out
of the tribal regions of Afghanistan, mountainous borders of Pakistan, deserts
of Yemen and Western Asia, the urban areas of Guatemala, and the Bible Belt of
North America terrorism seems to appear almost inevitably. Absolutism is the strain that runs
through all these cultures or subcultures, and it is the common enemy of both
science and democratic society. Absolutism, terrorism, and the death sentence have
thrived on organized religion and other authoritarian hierarchies even longer than the period during which witches and heretics had to be burned at the stake.
True it is, also, that
oppressed and impoverished people have much legitimate anger. Feeding off that
justifiable resentment, however, some nationalist and religious fanatics have
become convinced that bombing large numbers of strangers into little pieces of raw flesh is God’s choice of a healthy outlet for pent–up frustration. (Of course, it may also be their ticket to the 7th level of heaven.)
Such people are typically raised in the context of a learned deficiency
in nonviolent, problem–solving skills.
Sadly, much of what
passes for commentary on these subjects in the corporate–owned mass media, as
well as in critical responses to the mass media, arises from some form of
prejudice. The fact that the credibility of the U.S. government is seriously damaged by virtue of its being dominated by wealthy elites does not make the U.S. government wrong on every single one of its policies. There are those who
have already decided that the United States and/or Israel is always wrong
or always right—that nonviolence is always the best way to respond
to violence, that the borders of every sovereign nation–state are more sacred
than the lives within it, and there are those who cope with the complexity of today’s conflicts
by simplifying in the extreme, i.e., “just nuke them.”
Historical vs. Absolute Terror
Terrorism in one form
or another may have existed since the dawn of man, but modern political
terrorism evolved out of secret, closed societies such as the Illuminati, the
Jacobins, and the Carbonari. The
Carbonari in Italy, led by Count Filippo Buanarotti, initiated the Risorgimento
movement in the early 1800s and developed the strategy of systematically
assassinating key individuals in order to achieve political objectives. That was new. However, the phenomenon of weapons of mass destruction in
the hands of terrorists—who operate in secret, constantly moving, cells with no
national base and who have little regard for their own lives—is something new
again. The observed actions and
declared plans of Al Qaeda create a level of terrorism which I will refer to as
“absolute” to distinguish it from earlier, or “relative,” forms of
terrorism.
Absolute terrorism
requires dramatic changes in the way we think about democracy, social order,
“just wars,” sacred texts, and the future of life. Because of absolute terrorism,
Descartes’ “I think, therefore, I am” is now writ large as “We think well, or
we will not be.” The new sacred
“texts,” i.e., democratic constitutions and perhaps even human DNA, must now
change more quickly in order to intelligently adapt to the changing
environment—and to prevent acts of terror that could lead to the destruction of our species.
During the Cold War,
technologies of destruction and policies of mutually assured destruction kept
pace with each other to deter nuclear aggression. Near the end of that era, a warning time of approximately 7
plus or minus 2 minutes enabled the victim of an attack to respond in kind,
thus destruction of the self as well as the aggressor was certain regardless of
who attacked first. The logic of
this dynamic, which assumed a desire by both sides to live and to preserve
humanity, was effective in preventing a global holocaust. September 11, 2001, moved us beyond
that logic forever.
With “absolute
terrorism” there is (1) no
warning time, (2) no identifiable target toward which to return the attack, and
(3) no enemy with a will to live; hence, no deterrent. The whole “game of life,” if 21st
century terrorism is to be absolutist, is short–circuited.
Absolute terrorism can
only be eliminated by pre–emptive action on the minds of potential
terrorists—unless, of course, terrorism exists in the mind of God and is from
God continually infused into the minds of the “chosen ones.” Such a source of terrorism would be
very difficult to eliminate. And
if either religious texts or nation–states are the support systems that sustain
absolute terrorists, it will always be defined by someone as “morally or legally
indefensible” to attack them. Yet, for the intended target of absolute
terrorists, pre–emptive attack is the only viable strategy.
This, of course,
presents secular democracy with a serious dilemma.
(See the Congressional
Record for Senator Byrd’s defense of the U.S. Constitution and argument opposing
the doctrine of pre–emptive strikes)
Under the old rules, democracies cannot use
force pre–emptively and be fully consistent with their own principles unless
“war” has first been declared against democracy. The inner contradiction, the Achilles’ Heel of democracy has
been revealed, and fittingly, it was the agents of God who discovered it after
years of failure by such “rationalistic” systems as facism, naciism,
capitalism, Leninism, Stalinism, and Maoism. The answer to the problem of democracy was all along so very
simple: all one had to do was (1)
stop valuing human life, (2) place economic or religious values ahead of human
values, and/or (3) do God’s work which is chiefly to elevate sacred texts above
secular constitutions, and imams, rabbis, or priests over all the institutions of
society. The methods would then
follow naturally from combining God’s sacred word with modern
weapons of mass destruction.
The Contradiction
at the Heart of Every System
The apparent paradox
of a nonviolent decision–making system resorting to violence to resolve its
differences is neither a precise paradox nor a contradiction. There is, however, a contradiction at
the core of democratic systems that has to do with voting procedures.
Arrow’s Impossibility
Theorem laid out the basic contradiction in the liberal, democratic process
long ago. The syntropic solution
was proposed in 1994. More
information about both can be found in Creating Democracy In Time.
A society of any kind,
of course, is not simply an abstract system of logic but a living system which
cannot survive without strategies for both defense and, though less frequently,
for pre–emptive attack. Moments of
“authoritarian decision” are inevitable—even in authentically democratic society. Like it or not, “pre–emptive attack” is
a strategy of nature that has survived for millennia, and neither international
law nor human rationality has ever been able to do away with it. Unfortunately, in the minds of some of
those people, usually privileged, who think within the box of competitive game
theory, it is the only viable
strategy.
Life on planet Earth,
however, evolved as a mutual–causal, positive–sum game that is both competitive
and cooperative. The puzzle of the
Prisoner’s Dilemma is a puzzle only if prior cooperation toward a mutually beneficial
end is ruled out. [See Creating Democracy In Time.] Humans, in particular, evolved neither as separated
individuals nor as groups of automaton–like game players. Likewise, we survive not by behaving
strictly according to the dictates of competing myths of creation, but rather
as living, constantly adapting communities within ecological contexts.
Would early human
communities have survived if they had possessed weapons of mass
destruction? Not likely. But we, the modern living, have muddled
through the first half century of life in the presence of weapons that could
have destroyed us, though did not probably because of such deterrents as
touched on above. Will we survive
without those deterrents?
[We may be forgiven for reminding
ourselves here that the Syntropic Communities are the only communities of human
beings explicitly formed with the goal of preserving and enhancing human
evolution by democratic means…Well, ok, maybe one of its more powerful
progenitors will have to take command…for now.]
Without those
deterrents, we are all in effect delivered over to the Bush administration, the
quasi–elected government of the world’s foremost, half–evolved democracy and
the only force on Earth capable of stopping absolute terrorism and its sources
of support. It is a tragedy that
the aspirations of billions of people yearning for a free and authentically
democratic society have come to be represented at this moment of history by the
Bush team and that they have the opportunity to exploit the terrorist attacks to hide their own regressive agenda. Despite my distaste for most of the Bush government’s political values, however, I applaud and support their willingness to confront terrorists and to take the fight to them rather than simply waiting for them to attack us. I encourage the Bush administration to broaden their understanding of the phenomena of terrorism and to also confront the sources of terrorism.
Novus Ordo mal–Seclorum
It is possible, of
course, to construct a persuasive argument for a democratic world government as
a replacement for the present world system based on national sovereignty. After all, behind those “sacred
national boundaries” have hidden the most powerful and inhumane criminals in
the world, eg., Pal Pot, Milosovic, Hitler, Stalin, Hussein, to name just a
few. Realistically, however, our
world system has not yet evolved to the point of coping with such notions, and
the Bush forces are intrinsically incapable of recognizing the necessity of making an
argument for global democracy. We
are thus left with the option of supporting relatively more democratic forces,
eg., the U.S. and United Kingdom, when they are threatened or attacked by
relatively more authoritarian powers, eg., religious fanatics and/or despotic
governments.
I believe that we must
actively support the more progressive forces and the policy of pre–emptive
action against agents of absolute terrorism, but always with simultaneous
support for the proviso that (a) global poverty must be ameliorated with a plan
for global reconstruction, funded by the wealthy nations in proportion to their
consumption of fossil fuels, and (b) programs that support the evolution of
secular democracy must be implemented globally, including in those
quasi–democracies of the world where special interests have been allowed to
co–opt the democratic process. If
these conditions are not attached, the war against both absolute and relative
terrorism will, in the long run, be lost.
Before advocating
violent action, however, we ought to consider every realistic, nonviolent means
of stopping terrorism and righting the wrongs—real or ideologically
imagined—that contribute to the justification of terrorism. How could we peacefully address the issues
and avoid war? The historical
context of this question must also be considered. How did we avoid war with Hitler for so many years? How did we avoid war while the
Interahamwe in Rwanda were butchering over 700,000 men, women, and children
with machete knives? How much of
our humanity do we sacrifice in order to avoid war? Are there assaults on humanity that are worse than war? How much do we sacrifice if we choose
to fight terroristic violence with militaristic violence? In other words, to be fair, we must ask
what crimes of omission we might commit if we do not go to war as well as what
crimes of commission we might engage in if we do go to war.
Most of the proposals
for a peaceful response to religious terrorism and/or to the proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction call for the U.S. to first put its own house in
order, i.e., stop the unjust, arrogant, and cynical exploitation of other
peoples, etc. Next, adopt a
nonviolent or low–profile approach to defense, and don’t interfere with, or intimidate,
other peoples. Then, become more
self–sufficient—especially with regard to energy and reduced dependence on
fossil fuels. Finally, work with
other nations and international organizations to solve problems diplomatically. Except for the last item it sounds like
an improved version of the idealistic isolationism familiar to previous
generations but now suggested for the world’s only superpower at a time when the
world system is starving for more democratic leadership.
All the above
proposals sound good, if somewhat magical, as if we lived in a world where
everything would straighten itself out were the United States to first purify
itself. Will Al Qaeda, after seeing the U.S. reform, disarm itself and re–dedicate it’s considerable resources to the development of democratic reform in Islamic countries? I also have trouble believing that the Saddam Husseins and Kim Jong Ils of the world will undertake
a magical change of character or that the trajectory toward all–out
war in Kashmir and Israel/Palestine will develop similar, self–righting
tendencies. Yes, of course, we
must clean up our own act, but that will take time, and to assume in the first place that the U.S. is responsible for the
growth of terrorism in the world overlooks a good many other causes. Further,
to me, it is not nonviolence to say nothing and do nothing while totalitarian
groups and governments mutilate, murder, rape, and torture people: it is callous and cowardly—especially
if we have the power to stop such brutality yet don’t use it.
Now let's ask
ourselves: Why haven’t the rich
and powerful nations of the West been pushing (1) global reconstruction and (2)
the spread of secular democracy?
The answer, I think, is clear:
these nations are dominated by wealthy special interests who simply
don’t want to share their wealth and either don’t want, or don’t know how to achieve, an authentically
democratic world. That, of course,
is the crucial obstacle to the further evolution of democratic systems and the
reason for which we designed Syntropic Communities. Change must be accomplished nonviolently where nonviolence
is an effective approach, in other words, by democratic parties working within
a relatively democratic context—not by religious terrorists from other parts of
the world.
With regard to the
current debate over whether the U.S. should act unilaterally against Iraq, I
believe that Saddam Hussein should have been removed from power and replaced by
an indigenous, democratic government long ago. This would preferably be brought
about by the U.N., but if not by them, then by a coalition of democratic forces
or, if necessary, by the U.S. acting alone. Saddam’s crimes against his own people and against
neighboring countries are sufficient justification. I doubt that the human cost of removing him will be as great
as the cost to the people of Iraq if he is left in power.
Peace movements
everywhere seem opposed to such policies.
I have usually supported the politics of these movements, but I would
remind my friends in the peace movement that dogmatic adherence to nonviolence
under all circumstances was not what either Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr.
taught. In fact, one can make a
strong argument that, in today’s world, anyone committed to nonviolence under
all conditions would not be fit to govern. Twenty–two hundred years of history in Buddhist Sri Lanka
and thirteen hundred years in Buddhist Tibet demonstrate rather convincingly
that even the most peace–loving of peoples cannot sustain nonviolence under all
conditions. There is obviously room for honest disagreement as to how to proceed in the present world context. Sometimes, however, absolute steadfastness
in support of nonviolence seems admirable; sometimes it reeks of
narcissistic purity, an attitude of moral superiority, an excessively narrow worldview, or detachment from the
suffering of those who live under the heavy boot of dictatorship.
The apparently sincere claim by Samdhong
Rinpoche, elected head of the secular, Tibetan government-in-exile, that belief
in the inevitability of violence replaces the idea of cooperation also misses
the mark. Ecological science and
studies in the structure of games
make it clear that the two opposites are not absolute, neither in nature nor in
the human mind. Rather, they exist
side by side as clusters of probability,
not as inevitabilities. But most importantly, it cannot be seen as
“peace-loving“ to sit passively and watch (or turn one’s head) while people are
tortured, poisoned, gassed, or executed for advocating human rights. Nor can we regard the lives of American
soldiers as inherently more valuable than the lives of men, women and children
suffering and dying under the oppressive regimes that oppose secular democracy.
Capital Markets/Environmental Support Systems
I have already written
extensively on corporate governance for preventing corporate crime. For stock market exchanges and the
regulation of brokerages and clearing houses, I propose: (a) that a directly elected Securities
and Exchange Commission with seven members, each from a Special District, be
established with the resources to regulate these institutions, and (b) that
nonprofit exchanges, brokerages, and clearing houses be legally encouraged and
initially funded with supervision by this new Commission, and (c) that a
separate branch of the Federal Reserve Bank be created specifically to support
the nonprofit sector of the economy.
The Special Districts mentioned above ought to be bio–democratic in concept, i.e., based on the application of democratic process to the study, inventory, and sustaining of natural resources. We simply have no choice but reform the economic process so as to stop the destruction of the environment. Since we cannot survive outside of a supporting environmental context, it is essential to ensure that the struggle to end terrorism not be allowed to so capture the public mind that we forget that our roots are planted in the Earth. We must block and outlaw economic practices that seriously damage the environment. A global coalition of secular democratic states that have achieved a sufficient understanding of the threats to the natural environment shall have to be formed to lead an aggressive campaign of information dispersal about: (1) democracy and the environment, (2) economic sanctions against countries and corporations that violate international environmental law (especially those which are yet to be passed), and (3) immediate democratization of international trade organizations and multi–national corporations.
Regional Conflict
Finally: the vexing problem of localized, chronic,
conflict that cannot be resolved by local parties, eg., Serbs vs. Muslims in
Kosovo, Hindus vs. Muslims in Kashmir, and Israel vs. Palestinians and the
Muslim “umma,” i.e., the Islamic world “community.” These extremist–driven wars must be understood as requiring suprasystemic solutions, because the people living within these zones have lost the ability to determine who has the right to make the necessary decisions. The concept of an umma presents the same grave danger as does the concept of any community, ethnicity, economic class, movement, public opinion, or God: Who defines or interprets it? Whose self–interest is connected to it? What is it’s structure and decision–making process? Who can legitimately speak or act on its behalf? The present world system is notable for its failure to address such questions. The consequences of not doing so are the failure (except finally in Serbia) to end the killing in all the local wars of genocidal attrition. The only solution is for a democratically–controlled, international peacekeeping force to occupy these territories, enforce a compromise judged as fair by neutral parties, enforce the clear separation of religion and political structure, and begin the long process of constructing local, sustainable economic and cultural systems, regulated by secular democratic governments, that can one day represent their people in a fully democratic world community.
Again, if there is no
democratically organized world community, as at present, the responsibility
falls on the surviving, relatively democratic superpower. Continued delay adds only to the great
shame of those world powers that could have acted long ago but didn’t.
Related reflections
can be found in the essay “On the Meaning of Terrorism” at http://www.syntropix.net and in the online books accessible from this web–page..
Other Syntropic Solutions
Several years ago, in
the books Creating Democracy In Time and The Universal Model: A Democratic Constitution for the Third
Millennium, I presented models for democratizing religious organizations
and corporations that, if implemented, would almost certainly have prevented
such crimes as have recently been committed by these organizations. Neither the Catholic church’s response
to sexual abuse by priests nor the U.S. corporate accounting scandals would be
likely within the system of laws and democratic processes that I proposed
nearly a decade ago. Even Al Qaeda
and Hamas might well have sought solutions by less disgusting means than they
currently employ.
I and our Syntropic
Community colleagues also clearly defined procedures for ensuring equality of
women in politics long before the French passed laws requiring equity for women
in the selection of party candidates.
We outlined structures
to provide for proportional representation of racial and ethnic minorities in
government and for legalizing gay marriage contracts—way before Vermont
liberalized it’s laws regarding same–sex couples in 2000.
We made term limits
and campaign finance reforms fundamental to our organizational goals years
before the state of Maine enacted similar changes.
We specified new laws
for media reform, lobby reform, education reform, gun ownership, universal
health care, and we suggested ways of putting an end to the death penalty—all
more advanced than those now discussed in the U.S. media.
We described UN reform
and new, global political structures that could easily have prevented the
nuclear standoff that has developed between Pakistan and India and would most
likely have resolved the Middle East crisis before now, thus nipping terrorist
organizations before they could have developed sufficient support to carry out
their vicious attacks.
Long ago, we proposed
energy policies that would be far more effective in reducing greenhouse gases
and saving forests than either the Kyoto Protocol or the bill that Gray Davis
recently signed to reduce CO2 emissions in California.
And finally, we proclaimed to the
world in writing that socialism, capitalism, and bureaucracy are all
theoretically dead, that an authentic democracy is fundamental to a healthy
economy, that the syntropic way of extending democracy, constructing society
not on the basis of ideological beliefs or absolutisms but utilizing
evolutionary strategies of modeling, testing, and valuing living systems above
all else is vital to the future.
Now we need your support to carry out and extend our agenda. Money is presently being donated by thousands of people to religious terrorist groups. Sooner or later, if you are human, you must take sides. If you want to support an organization dedicated to the values and vision outlined above, please send a check for any amount, made payable to:
Alternatively, you can help by joining one of our investment clubs—and please stay tuned!