The Symantics of Fear

Having been in the Czech Republic when the Mumbai attacks began, I watched BBC World and CNN International, which blathered hour after hour with rumors and unconfirmed reports to fill up air time. Perhaps it was the European accents that made their reporting a bit less hysterical than what we have come up against upon our return home.

But I expect more from NPR, National Public Radio. Saturday morning, Juan Williams, not my favorite conservative African American news analyst, was filling in for Daniel Schorr, one of the best. Williams spoke about "the terrorists" generically, as if all of the attacks in all of the countries across the planet have been coordinated by one organization. That assumption is wrong; there are dissatisfied people in every country and the more unstable a country's economic, social, and political system, the more likely it is that there will be civil unrest. However, to imply that all of these discontents are connected is reminiscent of the "Red Scares" of the 1930s and 1950s. Rebels are notoriously isolated, because they are forced into hiding. Every discontent is not Al Qaeda.

This assumption that there is a singular enemy merely accelerates fear and makes repression by governments not just feasible but acceptable. Remember what Bush-Cheney got away with post-911? Considering that George Washington set the precedent for "no torture" of captured British soldiers and Tories, it saddened all of us who believe in American ideals that the President, Vice President, and Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department were spending their time justifying the use of torture and enhanced interrogation techniques on human beings captured as suspects in the amorphous "war on terror."

There is no such thing as "we" and "them." Our way to make the world safer is not to create false enemies, but to understand how we are connected, what we need for dignified and sustainable lives.