Author: Salman Rushdie
Publication: The Hindustan Times
Date: October 9, 2001
Introduction: There must be an examination
by all Muslims why their faith breeds so many violent mutant strains
In January 2000, I wrote that "the
defining struggle of the new age would be between terrorism and security,"
and fretted that to live by the security experts' worst-case scenarios
might be to surrender too many of our liberties to the invisible shadow-warriors
of the secret world. Democracy requires visibility, I argued, and in the
struggle between security and freedom we must always err on the side of
freedom.
On Tuesday, September 11, however,
the worst-case scenario came true. They broke our city. I'm among the newest
of New Yorkers, but even people who have never set foot in Manhattan have
felt its wounds deeply, because New York is the beating heart of the visible
world - tough-talking, spirit-dazzling, Walt Whitman's "city of orgies,
walks and joys", his "proud and passionate city - mettlesome, mad, extravagant
city!"
To this bright capital of the visible,
the forces of invisibility have dealt a dreadful blow. No need to say how
dreadful; we all saw it, are all changed by it. Now we must ensure that
the wound is not mortal, that the world of what is seen triumphs over what
is cloaked, what is perceptible only through the effects of its awful deeds.
In making free societies safe -
safer - from terrorism, our civil liberties will inevitably be compromised.
But in return for freedom's partial erosion, we have a right to expect
that our cities, water, planes and children really will be better protected
than they have been. The West's response to the September 11 attacks will
be judged in large measure by whether people begin to feel safe once again
in their homes, their workplaces, their daily lives. This is the confidence
we have lost, and must regain.
Next: the question of the counter-attack.
Yes, we must send our shadow-warriors against theirs, and hope that ours
prevail. But this secret war alone cannot bring victory. We will also need
a public, political and diplomatic offensive whose aim must be the early
resolution of some of the world's thorniest problems: above all the battle
between Israel and the Palestinian people for space, dignity, recognition
and survival.
Better judgment will be required
on all sides in future. No more Sudanese aspirin factories to be bombed,
please. And now that wise American heads appear to have understood that
it would be wrong to bomb the impoverished, oppressed Afghan people in
retaliation for their tyrannous masters' misdeeds, they might apply that
wisdom, retrospectively, to what was done to the impoverished, oppressed
people of Iraq. It's time to stop making enemies and start making friends.
To say this is in no way to join
in the savaging of America by sections of the Left that has been among
the most unpleasant consequences of the terrorists' attacks on the United
States. "The problem with Americans is..." "What America needs to understand..."
There has been a lot of sanctimonious moral relativism around lately, usually
prefaced by such phrases as these. A country which has just suffered the
most devastating terrorist attack in history, a country in a state of deep
mourning and horrible grief, is being told, heartlessly, that it is to
blame for its own citizens' deaths. ("Did we deserve this, sir?" a bewildered
worker at 'Ground Zero' asked a visiting British journalist recently. I
find the grave courtesy of that "sir" quite astonishing.
Let's be clear about why this bien-pensant
anti-American onslaught is such appalling rubbish. Terrorism is the murder
of the innocent; this time, it was mass murder. To excuse such an atrocity
by blaming US government policies is to deny the basic idea of all morality:
that individuals are responsible for their actions.
Furthermore, terrorism is not the
pursuit of legitimate complaints by illegitimate means. The terrorist wraps
himself in the world's grievances to cloak his true motives. Whatever the
killers were trying to achieve, it seems improbable that building a better
world was part of it. The fundamentalist seeks to bring down a great deal
more than buildings. Such people are against, to offer just a brief list,
freedom of speech, a multi-party political system, universal adult suffrage,
accountable government, Jews, homosexuals, women's rights, pluralism, secularism,
short skirts, dancing, beardlessness, evolution theory, sex. These are
tyrants, not Muslims.
(Islam is tough on suicides, who
are doomed to repeat their deaths through all eternity. However, there
needs to be a thorough examination, by Muslims everywhere, of why it is
that the faith they love breeds so many violent mutant strains. If the
West needs to understand its Unabombers and McVeighs, Islam needs to face
up to its Bin Ladens.)
United Nations Secretary-General
Kofi Annan has said that we should now define ourselves not only by what
we are for, but by what we are against. I would reverse that proposition,
because in the present instance what we are against is a no-brainer. Suicidist
assassins ram wide-bodied aircraft into the World Trade Center and Pentagon
and kill thousands of people: um, I'm against that. But what are we for?
What will we risk our lives to defend? Can we unanimously concur that all
the items in the above list - yes, even the short skirts and dancing -
are worth dying for?
The fundamentalist believes that
we believe in nothing. In his world view, he has his absolute certainties,
while we are sunk in sybaritic indulgences. To prove him wrong, we must
first know that he is wrong. We must agree on what matters: kissing in
public places, bacon sandwiches, disagreement, cutting-edge fashion, literature,
generosity, water, a more equitable distribution of the world's resources,
movies, music, freedom of thought, beauty, love. These will be our weapons.
Not by making war, but by the unafraid way we choose to live shall we defeat
them.
How to defeat terrorism? Don't be
terrorised. Don't let fear rule your life. Even if you are scared.
(The Guardian)
