WTC.PAtriotism.Jonas

Some Thoughts on the World Trade Center Tragedy, Patriotism, and the Role of Progressive Forces in the United States (Version II)

by Steven Jonas, MD, MPH, MS. Copyright, 2001

Patriotism is love of country and its ideals, and devotion to its best interests. It is not unqualified support for a particular government or set of leaders in a particular situation. In considering what "American patriotism" is, then, what are our country's ideals?

- Our national purpose is set forth by the Declaration of Independence: to demonstrate unequivocally that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness . . . "
- The purpose of our national government is also made clear in the Declaration, that is: "to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men."
- The functions of our national government in achieving this purpose are spelled out in the preamble to the Constitution: "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
- The essential structural features of the Constitution, in terms of both what is in it and what is not, spell out the essential defining characteristics of our government: separation of powers, Federalism, checks and balances, democratically-determined representation, and separation state and church.
- The limits of national governmental authority, especially in relation to individuals and their rights, is spelled out in the Bill of Rights.

  What does all of this mean in practice? Among other things, that our nation is to be characterized by the rule of law, not of men and not by any individual's or group's conception of what "God's law" is; the democratic process; the recognition that men and women have certain inherent rights that may not be compromised by government action; equality of opportunity; tolerance and pluralism; and a major role for the national government in achieving our national purpose and in carrying out its functions as mandated by the Preamble.

  At this time, according to President Bush himself it is "American freedom" that has been attacked by the (Islamic) religious fundamentalists, led by Osama bin Laden and his al Q'aeda network. It is American freedom and American ideals that our country stands for, the focus of true patriotism, that our nation is out to protect and defend by going after these terrorists. Our country does not stand for the values of religious fundamentalism in any way shape or form, whether of the Islamic variety, as set forth by Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, the Christian variety, as illustrated by Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, or any other variety.

  Among the common characteristics of religious fundamentalism are: intolerance of differences; misogyny; the legally-mandated interjection of religious values into the "public square;" religious domination of education; racism; xenophobia; censorship; and most importantly, the rule of man or what some man says God says, rather than the rule of laws written without reference to "God."

  While in this case, the fundamentalism happens to be of the Islamic variety, the bin Ladens and the Talibans of the Muslim world indeed do have much in common with our own American Christian Fundamentalists, in addition to the above list. Their common concept of God is as a vengeful, angry, cruel force, whose "children" are only certain human beings, namely those who have the Falwell-Roberston (or the bin Laden-Taliban) stamp of approval or its equivalent. This concept of God was clearly presented in the famous Jerry Falwell-Pat Robertson exchange held shortly after the Tragedy. It was also presented in the bin Laden tape made a few days before the opening the American military action in Afghanistan. In it he characterized the World Trade Center Tragedy as "God's punishment of the America," using just the same phraseology used by Falwell and Robertson, and attributing to "God" the same motivation for exacting that punishment, of totally randomly selected people, by the way.

  The classic response by progressives in times of crisis when traditional civil liberties protections are being threatened is simply to come to their specific defense: "this one must not be compromised; that one must not be compromised." But the particular crisis we now face gives progressives a particular opportunity to go over onto the offensive against the enemies of civil liberties in general. In this context, it seems to this observer that it is time for progressive forces to stop defending and begin attacking. And President Bush's own words about what the battle is about, the "defense of American freedom," can and should be used in this campaign.

  An editorial in The Nation magazine of October 15, 2001 (p. 3) entitled "Rules of Engagement," gave a set of persuasive reasons for progressives to support a balanced, focussed, well-reasoned program for dealing with international terrorism. It includes: the employment of highly sophisticated international intelligence and police work; the highly focussed use of force as indicated by the results of this intelligence and police work; the application of the "how-would-this-change-have-prevented/how-can-it-prevent-future terrorist acts" criteria to the evaluation of any proposal to limit civil liberties; the building of an international coalition to support the US anti-terrorism campaign; and a strong attack on racism and xenophobia at home. However, progressives should not simply be in a position of supporting rationality and defending civil liberties. They should also be taking advantage of this situation to go onto the offensive against the most destructive ideological (that's ideological, not the most destructive economic) force active in the world today: religious fundamentalism. There are two reasons for advocating this policy.

  First, the current international wave of terrorism is indeed fostered by the most reactionary socio-political element active on the world stage today: religious fundamentalism. It is not an attack on "globalization." Although he certainly knows how to make use of anti-American feelings centered on globalization and its effects, bin Laden's enemy is not globalization per se. His family has happened to have made its fortune from it. But he is a good "spinmeister." Although in truth his "kill all Americans" doctrine (I guess he includes Muslim-Americans in that group, since a number of them were killed in the WTC bombing) is based in his far-right Fundamentalism, he does try to make it appear as if it is, at least in part, based on American oppression of the Muslim poor.

  Of course, if bin Laden were really interested in helping the Muslim poor, he would be using his money to organize everything from private charitable relief, to lobbying at the UN, to funding left-wing, but parliamentary, opposition parties in those countries, to funding left-wing revolutionaries (who happen not to practice mass, anti-civilian terror, by the way) in such countries as his own Saudi Arabia. Of course he doesn't do that, because he is a far-rightist, not a leftist in any sense. (Even Hitler, as evil as he was, did much for the white, non-Jewish, non-left German working class, that is until he brought the War down upon their heads, literally. But I don't notice any advantages for the Afghan people in the bin Laden/Taliban ruled Afghanistan.) Rather, bin Laden's declaration of war truly is a howl from right-wing reaction in its most hideous, misogynist, homophobic, censorious, feudal/theocratic, personal freedom-oppressing form against modern, Western, liberal (capitalist) democracy.

  Unfortunately, certain elements of the left in the developed countries hasn't figured this out yet. And so they fight the American campaign to get this man and destroy his network(s), using tired old, and in this case analytically incorrect, rhetoric. But the reality is the following. Rising from the ashes of the World Trade Center and the corpses of thousands of civilian dead, we progressives have been presented with a golden opportunity to light up the true nature of religious fundamentalism of all stripes. Is now not the time for progressives to use the Bush Administration's persistent rallying cry of "defending American freedom" against his own right-wing base?

  For example, if the right to hold one's personal belief on the philosophical question of when life begins does not fall under the rubric of "American freedom," what does? If the right to choose one's life-partner regardless of sexual preference or identity, without interference in that choice based on a certain interpretation of an ancient writing (as if Biblical proscriptions should be given legal sanction in any case), does not fall under the rubric of "American freedom," what does? If the right to be free of any church being granted special privileges in access to the "public square" beyond those which they already have in ample number does not fall under the American concept of religious freedom, what does? Is not the basis for a coordinated offensive against American religious fundamentalism to be found in these observations? This campaign should begin forthwith.

  Second, progressives should be in the forefront of promoting just the kind of balanced attack on terrorism that The Nation proposes (and which, for all intents and purposes the Bush Administration is following, to date at least, even challenging the irredentist and religious fundamentalist government of Arik Sharon in Israel), for another, even more fundamental reason (if I may use that term). For it is the progressive forces in the United States and the other liberal-democratic industrialized countries that have the most to lose if this brand of reactionary international terrorism is not brought under control, and soon. Historically, fascism arises in a climate of economic downturn and anti-civilian terrorism, whether real or manufactured. If this brand of mass terrorism were to continue unabated in the U.S., just think what the public at large could be lead to demand in terms of the limitations on civil liberties in return for some fatuous "guarantee of safety." In that case even the most far-reaching of the Ashcroft-type repression of civil liberties (which of course should be opposed) would seem mild compared with what would come in the wake of that awful prospect. In the US, the fascist forces, armed and dangerous, are waiting in the wings. The prospect of their possible emergence onto the center of the political stage makes even the WTC horror seem to be a walk in the park.

  Let's go progressives! Let us hoist our own Christian fundamentalists on the petard which the Muslim fundamentalists have created. Now is the time to act!