Comments
of Isolina Ballesteros
Assistant Professor of Spanish and Latin American
Studies, Barnard College
Patriotism
and the Language of War, Revenge and Arabphobia
I
come from a country where for a long time the
phrase "united under the same flag" meant intolerance
against the other flags, cultures and languages
that coexisted within its borders. That very
same repression of cultures and languages led
to the creation of a terrorist group in what
today is the Basque Country that, 40 years later,
is still at war against the Spanish Nation,
claiming its right to independence from what
they consider a tyrannical and oppressive central
government. In Spain, the enemy has a face and
has always claimed responsibility for its bloody
attacks. But the only serious --if wrong-- intent
to undermine the organization in its own terms
was the counter-terrorist action organized from
and financed by the Spanish government in the
1980's; a dismal failure that only led to more
killings. Inevitably, anti-Basque sentiments
have also increased in the country. People in
Spain know that not all Basques are terrorists,
but they still blame them for harboring terrorists
in their land and secretly tolerating their
actions. The victims are not members of the
military or the police anymore, but civilians
eating in restaurants, buying books in bookstores
or simply leaving their homes to go to work.
Scenes all too familiar to citizens of Israel
or Colombia, and many other countries, and now
to the United States. Global terrorism is deeply
ingrained in nationalism and its victims are
mainly "collateral."
The
conflict my country of adoption faces, in the
aftermath of the worst act of terrorism ever
perpetrated, deserves to be analyzed in more
complicated terms than the fight between Good
and Evil. I would use the term "absurd simplification"
to refer to the comments of television evangelists
Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, two of the
most prominent voices of the religious right.
"We deserve this deadly punishment from the
Almighty," they say, for harboring and institutionalizing
within our culture alternative lifestyles such
as paganism, homosexuality and lesbianism, civil
liberties, abortion, feminism and secularization
in education and the Judicial system.
President
Bush's repeated messages of strong retaliation
and war are also based on the same oversimplification
of the conflict. We live in a world of paradoxes:
the same people who shout for America's downfall
share a consuming passion for things American.
Those who now constitute the vague universe
inhabited by enemies of America were not so
long ago America's allies and friends during
the Cold War. Supporting wars around the world
has finally brought the war home. American's
backing and financing Islamic radicals in the
1980's, using them as a vehicle to fight Soviet
forces in Afghanistan, has backfired. We need
to remember that the US government accepted
the Talibans in 1996 and continued to affirm,
even after the oppression of women began, that
it might be the best government Afghanistan
could hope for. Various Latin American dictatorships
were backed up by different US governments.
On another Tuesday September 11, of 1973, Chile
woke up to the beginning of Pinochet's reign
of terror. Now in New York we are experiencing
the pain of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo.
The
combination of the Moral Majority's apocalyptic
finger pointing and the government's retaliatory
attitude is creating a dangerous kind of patriotism
that on the one hand calls for war in the name
of God and, on the other, for national repentance
for allowing sin to grow within the American
soil. Measure is required at this moment; acceptance
of contradiction and ambiguity, caution against
blind vengeance are paramount. I am not so sure
that flag waving, when attached to violence,
intolerance and prejudice, is healthy. What
my grandparents learnt during the Spanish Civil
War was that "Fraternity is the only possible
counterpart to the inevitability of Evil." New
Yorkers are showing that Patriotism at this
moment means solidarity, persistence, and resilience
to overcome the tragedy. Besides, how can the
national body, amputated and severely wounded,
cope with the threat of having more of its members
amputated, of more wounds inflicted?
Self-reflection
is needed. We need to take a long painful look
in the mirror and see what the American flag
symbolizes to so many people in the world. It
involves asking ourselves why we are in this
situation, why we are so hated not only in Arab
and Muslim countries, but across the developing
world, what we can do to understand the sources
of their hatred and try to reconcile with territories
holding a different kind of attitude. Warfare
is an easy way out. War against isolated terrorists
won't alter the difficult economic conditions
that help to produce them. For every "terror
network" that is rooted out, another will emerge
until the injustices and inequalities that produce
them are addressed.
A
set of questions expresses some of my worst
fears: Are there other options besides waving
the country's flag and praying? Does cheering
for America automatically mean a green light
for indiscriminate attacks? Will patriotism
set a pattern of collective blame and scapegoating
against Arab-Americans and Muslims? Are we going
to see the racial profiling already inflicted
upon Blacks and Hispanics extended to Arabs?
Is this the beginning of a long period of discrimination
against individuals and communities whose faces
and names resemble that of those who now are
being blamed for being anti-American or morally
decadent?
An
ex-Korean War veteran cried the other day on
some local news program because he also remembered
when the US dropped the nuclear bombs on Hiroshima
and Nagasaki and people in this country were
celebrating in the streets. The indiscriminate
act of judging a whole group of people for the
sins of a government also led to the internment
of Japanese-Americans in the West Coast. Most
of these people were American citizens who had
never been to Japan.
The crisp logos, "America under Attack, America's
new War," that have pervaded the media in the
last week only diminish the gravity of the events
and create an unrealistic scenario, contributing
to the increase of fear, paranoia and impatience
among the already terrified population. Oratory
in times of crisis is critical to create a sense
of unity, but the "an eye for an eye" rhetoric
should not serve as the sole consolation to
our tragedy. In Spanish, revenge is never "sweet,"
but a dish that "has to be eaten cold," or rather
"has to cool down before eating."
Success should be the result of overcoming the
economic difficulties and healing the collective
psyche, and perhaps of investigation and diplomacy;
victory will come with a better understanding
of the complexity of "the enemies" and the vested
interests that helped them organize. As educators
we share the responsibility to contribute with
the weapons of education and culture to the
recovery of the city and to a better understanding
of the politics of the world.
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