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A revolting confession
by Kevin Potvin
The Republic
This and the article following it were originally
written in October of 2001, five weeks after the terrorist
attacks in New York and Washington. It seemed prudent at that
time to stuff it in the back of the drawer for when things
lightened up again. But it seems that's not going to happen.
I have a terrible confession to make. When I saw the first
tower cascade down into that enormous plume of dust and paper,
there was a little voice inside me that said, "Yeah!"
When the second tower came down the same way, that little
voice said, "Beautiful!" When the visage of the
Pentagon appeared on the TV with a gaping and smoking hole
in its side, that little voice had nearly taken me over, and
I felt an urge to pump my fist in the air.
This is a revolting confession, I know. But it's what happened.
I know lots of people were killed. But then again, I see
lots of people getting killed whenever I turn the TV news
on, and frankly, it doesn't really get me anymore. Plenty
more people are killed without my knowledge. A million Rwandans
were killed in the space of 100 days a few years ago. That's
a rate of six whole World Trade Center tower catastrophes
every day for over three straight months running--and the
whole thing barely registered on my radar.
Let's face facts. If the news on the morning of September
11 was that 3,000 Tanzanians or Burmese had been killed, they
wouldn't have broken in on regularly scheduled programming,
or cancelled football games, and there'd be no conversation
about it the next day. No one would say the world changed.
It's been a long time since lots of people getting killed
is, in itself, news, and we all know this, and we all live
comfortably with it.
The fact it was Americans who got killed is also not the
reason this event gets so much play. As many Americans die
from murder in any month as died on September 11, and hardly
anyone notices this either, or cares.
The only reason September 11 merits so much attention is
because the targets were so supremely symbolic. Corporatism
and militarism were struck that morning, and that's why it's
such big news. New York is not just home to American corporate
headquarters, it is home to global corporate headquarters.
It is the centre of global corporatism, and the twin towers
were constructed precisely to celebrate this very fact.
The Pentagon is likewise not just home to the American military.
The American military is so overwhelmingly dominant in the
world, with a reach giving it ultimate power in every corner
of the planet, that the Pentagon is really the home of the
global military. The US supplies so much of the world's arms
and commands so much of the world's force, either directly
or through proxies in every nation on the planet, that the
Pentagon is, to put it plainly, militarism itself.
I recognized these facts on that fateful day and so did a
lot of other people, and I know I wasn't alone when I heard
that little voice inside me say, "Yeah, beautiful!"
Nor was I alone, I know for a fact, whenever I passed a TV
or newspaper with a report on the ensuing US war to capture
Osama bin Laden, and I secretly said to myself, "Go,
Osama, Go!" I am happy he has eluded capture by the Americans.
I am in love with those Afghans who, whenever asked, said,
"He went that-a-way," and their fifty hands pointed
in fifty different directions.
There is a war on. US President Bush and Secretary of Defense
Rumsfeld call it "a war on terrorism." But is war
not terrifying? And is terrorism not war, waged by those who
can't afford tanks and airplanes? If someone wanted to wage
war on the US, with all its satellites and drone bombers and
smart missiles, what other form could it possibly take besides
terrorism? To call it "a war on terrorism" is like
calling it a war on war–surely an absurdity.
This is not a war against terrorism. It is a war against
unbridled corporatism and militarism. And I'm not sure which
side my heart is on.
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