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What Else Is Happening? Thoughts One Month after the
Events of 11 September
Ben Wisner
bwisner@igc.org
Visiting Research Fellow
Development Studies Institute
London School of Economics
October 17, 2001
Of Remembrance, Memory, and Imagination
Thoughtful and deeply felt remembrance has again taken place of the 5,000 plus lives lost
one month ago in the attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. This time, unlike the
three minutes of silence observed in many parts of the world -- the silence of a held
breath, silence of shocked waiting -- there is noise and distraction. The sky over
Afghanistan is full of military airplanes and missiles. Simultaneously there are protests
in many parts of the world against the bombing -- Pakistan, Indonesia, and Kenya -- and
anti-war demonstrations in Western cities, such as the 50,000 who marched last Saturday
from Hyde Park to Trafalgar Square in London.
The reverberations of 11 September are so loud, in the media and in the streets, that
little attention is being paid to the rest of humanity and what else is taking place on
planet earth. So, I ask, "What else is happening?". I do so for two reasons.
First, there may be important connections (historical, political, economic, social)
between these other events and processes and the terror and "war on terrorism"
that so preoccupy policy makers and opinion leaders at the moment.
The second reason is an innocent concern with the rest of humanity that was not killed or
injured in the calamity of 11 September, those who did not lose loved ones or colleagues,
whose livelihoods and neighborhoods were not disrupted. I say "innocent concern"
because in the current hypersensitive climate, I am likely to be misunderstood. Many
people, especially in the U.S. see any attempt to understand the causes of these attacks
as efforts to excuse or justify the terrorists. Salmon Rushdie recently wrote as a
"newest of New Yorkers" and condemned a "bien-pensant anti-American
onslaught" which he considers "appalling rubbish." He writes to remind us
that the terrorists are "against … free speech" but doesn't seem to allow
critics of U.S. policy to explain (not excuse) the attack in terms of prior U.S.
international actions. New York mayor Rudolf Giuliani reacted in a similar way when a
visiting Saudi Prince, in addition to expressing his sympathy with the victims, their
families, the city, also suggested in a very mild way that the U.S. should consider a more
balanced approach to the Israeli- Palestinian conflict.
There is a good deal of writing and talk about "moral equivalency". A questioner
after a roundtable at London School of Economics on the current crisis asked if one could
"equate" the deliberate use of civilian airlines as guided missiles to kill
thousands of innocent people with the U.S. bombing raids on Taliban targets in
Afghanistan. This was in response to the suggestion that bombing in Afghanistan is
delaying the last chance efforts by the World Food Programme to get the food necessary for
winter to millions of ordinary Afghanis in isolated parts of that country, thus putting
millions of innocent people at grave risk.
My answer is that there is no issue of moral equivalency here, simply condemnation of both
acts. I am concerned with "what else is happening" in the world because of my
adherence to three principles: one moral, one practical, and one historical.
Morally, I assert the equal importance of each and every human life. From a practical
point of view, human societies have rightly attended to the needs of survivors. In
addition, history tells us that human actions have consequences, just as, in the physical
world, every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
One basis for these three belief is historical memory, the fact that a 58 year old looking
out into a leafy fall afternoon in London can, with the help of archeology and history,
tap into perhaps 5,800 years of human experience. A deep act of remembrance for the dead
of 11 September includes applying the lessons of such collective human memory. The ability
to learn from previous generations may be uniquely human.
Another basis for my beliefs is the faculty of imagination and empathy. It allows an
aging, white, middle class, male academic to share the pain, anger, confusion of human
beings whose language I do not speak, whose bodies and life circumstances are not like
mine (though as I pause to warm a packet of soup for lunch, I remember being invited by a
total stranger, an old Muslim man, to break the fast of Ramadan with him on the veranda of
his mud walled house in Pemba, a coastal city in Northern Mozambique: both Schiller and
Buddha said that love and hunger are universals).
It is thus with no disrespect meant for the five to six thousand who perished on 11
September that some commentators as diverse as Barbara Kingslover, Thich Nhat Hahn, and
Ariel Dorfman have seen this as a chance for people in the U.S. finally to see things from
the point of view of many people who have lived with terror.
This includes terror past: Pinochet's dark shadow over a generation in Chile, the lives
wiped out by the atom bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and those lived in silent terror of
radiation sickness. It includes terror in the present: civilians still hiding and dying in
the bush in Congo, caught among warring factions and mercenary armies, civilians in
Colombia who live in fear that their next rural bus ride can end in death as victims in
the "war on drugs".
There is a double standard at work. Judging by the amount of media coverage and the vast
mobilization of military, diplomatic, and prosecutorial resources, the impression cannot
be avoided that these five to six thousand U.S. lives "count" far more than the
hundreds of thousands who have been killed in political violence since World War II by the
generals and their death squads in Greece, Turkey, Philippines, Indonesia, Guatemala, El
Salvador, Argentina, Chile, the "contras" in Nicaragua, Angola, Mozambique, just
to begin a very long list.
One million are displaced and thousands of civilians have died of injuries, hunger and
disease in eastern Congo while fleeing the fighting there over the last three years. The
break down of order in this part of Africa can be traced directly back to its European
colonial history, as can the Hutu- Tutsi antagonism that finally led to the genocide in
Rwanda in 1994. Mr. Blair made brief reference in his speech to the Labor Party Conference
to Africa as a "scar on the conscience of the world." However, the media has
provided little follow up.
The drums of war have nearly drowned out news of the ongoing crisis of HIV/AIDS in South
Africa, of lawlessness and political violence in Zimbabwe despite the Abuja agreement
reached just prior to 11 September, continuing low level warfare in Congo, Sudan, Burundi,
and Somalia; the fragile peace in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Where have been the follow-ups
on the question of "blood diamonds" that finance civil war in Africa just as the
heroin trade funds both Taliban and Northern Alliance? Where have been the follow-ups on
allegations of child slavery in the cocoa farms of Ivory Coast? What news has there been
of food crisis in Malawi?
More than a million and a half face starvation in Central America, where the impacts of
hurricane Mitch in 1998 had not yet been resolved and repaired before drought hit the
region. In Gujarat millions seek to reconstruct their lives following the most deadly
earthquake in Indian history. Sixty thousand lives lost in the earthquake in Gujarat are
not worth ten times MORE attention than the victims of 11 September. Nor are they worth
ten times LESS. Moreover the needs of the survivors provide not only the opportunity for
acts of compassion, but acts that help to prevent future disasters.
Recovery in Gujarat, if done well, could ensure that fewer lives are lost in the next
earthquake, cyclone, drought, or flood. Recovery in Afghanistan, after years of war and
now this punishing drought, could hold the key to future stability in the region, and the
key to livelihoods and forms of governance that will not only prevent future conflict but
make the Afghani people more resilient against future droughts and other natural hazards.
So, What Else Is Happening?
We should be paying attention to a series of large-scale events, but also some smaller
incidents that may provide forewarning.
Large Scale Events
The large scale events include on-going wars and conflicts, the ups and downs of
critically important recovery processes, economic and political crises that pre-date 11
September, continuing efforts to reform or to put in place institutions capable of coping
with immensely complex global risks.
CONFLICTS
These include international and internal conflicts in Somalia, Sudan, Uganda, Burundi,
Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe, Congo, and Angola. Refugee crisis is Africa
remains serious although it has been eclipsed as the largest refugee crisis by the exodus
of Afghanis to border areas in Iran, Pakistan, and to some extent the former Soviet
Republics to the North.
Conflict also continues in Kashmir, Israel/ Palestine, Philippines, Chechnya, Abkhazia,
and Colombia.
One possible consequence of a prolonged military campaign in Afghanistan is that
resources, especially logistical means such as heavy cargo planes, will remain tied up and
unavailable for support of peace keeping in some of these other conflicts, or that
diplomatic energy will not be available in sufficient quantity to assist in resolving
others.
RECOVERY
Post conflict recovery, assisted by the UN or other multilateral body, is taking place in
Bosnia, Serbia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Guatemala, East Timor, Sri Lanka, Mozambique, parts of
Somalia, Eritrea, parts of Ethiopia, Sierra Leone and Liberia.
A partial list of post disaster recovery would include Gujarat and El Salvador (both
situations following earthquakes earlier this year) and West Virginia (following repeated
floods and landslides during May-July, 2001. I wonder if American Red Cross and FEMA
resources have been reallocated from West Virginia to New York and Washington following 11
September? Having been a neglected area that yielded cheap coal and cheap labor for a
century, will the miners' widows left behind in this part of West Virginia be forgotten
again? Will southern West Virginia's most recent disaster be left unhealed in an
additional ironic social consequence of the attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon?
One clear lesson on post war and post disaster recovery over the past twenty years is that
there are no short cuts. Recovery is a very slow process and does not take place according
to neat and programmable "phases." Human and economic development resources had
already been massively diverted during the 1990s into relief and recovery. This was a
commonly heard complaint of development agencies. Will the "war on terrorism"
now make that situation even worse by further diverting the limited resources for
recovery?
OTHER NEW HUMANITARIAN CRISES
Since 11 September:
· North Korea has suffered a prolonged famine over the past six years.
The World Food Programme provides assistance to 7.6 million out of a population of 22
million. Eastern provinces of North Korea have just been devastated by the heaviest rains
for a century which have wiped out food crops, destroyed roads and bridges.
· Belize has lost its banana crop (a principle export and key to many
livelihoods) as the result of hurricane Iris that also affected Jamaica and northern
Guatemala.
· Flooding in the Mekong river region has affected Cambodia and Vietnam
with loss of lives, displacement of tens of thousands, and loss of crops.
POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC CRISES
A worldwide recession is very likely. Political and economic crises were already taking
place pre 11 September in Russia and many of the former Soviet/ CIS countries, the
Balkans, Argentina, Central America, Philippines, Indonesia, a number of small island
states in the Pacific and Caribbean, and throughout much of Africa. Recession in the US
and Europe can only exacerbate economic (and political) crisis in these other parts of the
world.
In addition, recession will reduce tax revenues. At the same time government spending for
the military and security services in many countries (beginning with the U.S. and U.K.)
will increase in the climate produced by a "war on terrorism". In the U.S.,
Europe, and elsewhere, the airlines will be bailed out with huge commitment of public
money. Less and less will be available for international development assistance in Latin
America and Africa, in small island states, and in some Asian countries, where the effects
of world recession will be amplified by weak economies.
Is it not likely that application of so-called structural adjustment programs (SAPs) in
scores of countries receiving World Bank and IMF loans in the 1980s fueled the discontent
that eventually gave rise to militant fundamentalism of many kinds (e.g. the Shining Path
guerrillas in Peru, FARC in Colombia, militant Islamic groups in Egypt and Algeria, and Al
Qaida)? Will world recession at in 2001-2002 further nourish the seedbed of discontent and
discord?
INSTITUTION BUILIDNG
There has been some speculation that the events since 11 September must cause a collapse
of U.S. exceptionalism and G.W. Bush's isolationism and unilateralism. The price for an
international coalition in the "war on terrorism" might be that the U.S.
reconsider a variety of international initiatives such as the Kyoto treaty on global
warming and its unilateral abrogation of the Strategic Arms Agreement.
Whether or not the U.S. "rejoins the fold" on these issues and others (the U.S.
and Afghanistan are the only two nations in the world refusing to ratify the Convention to
Combat All Forms of Discrimination Against Women), future stability in the world demands
that we not lose sight international efforts including (a partial list):
· Follow up to the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction
(1990-99)
· Continuing work by the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change and
the Kyoto signatories
· Establishment of an International Criminal Court
· Efforts to democratize the World Trade Organization and to make it
and such international bodies as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund more
accountable to ordinary people
· Continuing efforts to promote the rights of women, rights of
children, and rights of ethnic, cultural, and religious minorities
Small Scale Events
Some other discrete events that would have gotten more in depth coverage have been
eclipsed by the "war on terrorism." In the light of the structural collapse of
the World Trade Towers, the impossibility of timely escape from these huge structures,
these events should have received comment. They point to continually growing technological
vulnerability due to the combination of arrogant overconfidence and complexity.
· The Russian atomic submarine, Kursk, has finally been lifted to the
surface, and is on its way to harbor, where an analysis of the causes of its failure will
be undertaken. This was the largest and newest of the Russian fleet. It was considered
very safe.
· A Ukrainian surface to air missile appears accidentally to have shot
down a civilian airliner bound from Tel Aviv to Novosibirsk.
· At Milan airport a Scandinavian Airlines jet collided with small
private plane on the ground, skidding into a baggage warehouse, exploded and burned,
killing everyone on both planes. There was fog and the airport's ground radar was turned
off for maintenance.
· BA and Air France announced that the Concorde, the supersonic
airliner that has been grounded for 16 months since a disastrous crash in Paris, would
begin to fly the trans Atlantic route again in November.
· The British government has cleared the Sellafield nuclear facility in
Cumbria on the coast of the Irish Sea for the commercial reprocessing of spent nuclear
fuel rods from overseas. This will mean more international shipments of plutonium. This is
the facility where safety data was falsified, leading to the rejection of a shipment of
reprocessed fuel by Japan. Before it's name change, the plant at this site was called,
Windscale, where a near melt down took place even before Three Mile Island in the US, and,
Chernobyl finally alerted the world to the hazards of nuclear power. The governments of
Eire and Iceland will be objecting to the British decision in court.
· The US announced that security for its 103 nuclear power stations is
probably inadequate to prevent future terrorist attacks.
· In the midst of a flurry of 2,000 reports and investigations of
possible anthrax contamination over the past few days in the US (all but five false alarms
or hoaxes), the ability of the US public health system to cope with bio-terrorism has been
called into question.
As this array of "smart" technology fails, the so-called "smart"
weaponry used by the U.S. military has already managed to kill four UN workers engaged in
de-mining in Afghanistan, demolish a food warehouse belonging to the World Food Program
and another operated by the International Committee of the Red Cross, destroy a village
with the loss of two hundred civilian lives and, with sad echoes of Kosovo, target a
civilian truck carrying Afghanis fleeing toward the Pakistan border.
Conclusions? Beginnings?
Only a few months ago officials dismissed the threat of resurgence of
diseases such as malaria and yellow fever in the US due to global warming and increased
immigration. They were the latest, and perhaps, now, the last, to assume that Fortress
America could hold the world at bay. Yet isolationism dies hard, together with the
technological optimism (some might say arrogance) and exceptionalism that have been
notable public attitudes in the US for decades.
Alas, another characteristic of the US mentality seems to be social amnesia, a disinterest
in history and disrespect for politics. Each of the humanitarian, political, and economic
crisis mentioned carries with it the potential for exploding into large-scale violence.
The cycle of violence has been playing out its dreadful logic for at least 500 years
(during the modern era) in much of the world. To break that cycle, generous and
self-sacrificial policies of economic aid and recovery are required.
The smoke of the bombs in Afghanistan, like the smoke that hung over New York for many
weeks, obscures our vision, notes Latin American writer Eduardo Galeano. It seems at the
moment that the political leadership in Washington and London cannot see that bombing is
not the answer. Diplomacy, law enforcement, support for the U.N. and such institutions as
the newly established International Criminal Court, full commitment to humanitarian
assistance (not the charade of fluttering, bright yellow food packs) provide at least a
chance at future stability and justice - justice for the victims of 11 September and the
people of Afghanistan and its region.
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