Tuesday, December 01, 2009

The war post-war

I have been asked an intriguing question: whether we are headed toward something that could be called a "post-war" era.

Well, in a way yes, in the same way in which we speak of a "post-modern" era: it's matter after all of the same "post-".

I beware of this "post-" jargon, that with theological overtones takes something as point of reference for a before and after; but it is true that our idea of "war" is modern, and as such no longer apt for thinking the wars of today.

In 1625 Hugo Grotius wrote his De jure belli ac pacis, usually described as the first treatise of "international law". What it deals with is the constitution of States and the relation among them. The treatment is general, but actually it concerns Europe, after that the unitary sense of a res publica Christiana had dissolved into a mosaic of self enclosed territorial realities, singularly defining a certain status rei publicae (hence, in short, status, "state"). War was then defined as the open conflict among the States of which Europe was made, and had to be regulated by international law, that a 20th century author could therefore call the "European public law".

One thing was in fact the war on the European territory, and another that on the open see beyond a certain meridian on the Atlantic ocean, and on the oversee lands. Let's think of all the sagas of corsairs and pirates.

With the expanding European hegemonic power, all the different political realities throughout the world came to be seen as "States", to which international law extended. But in this way international law, and with it the law of war, came to lose the cogency it had until it had been mainly an European affair. It held, more or less, through the two world wars, slowly losing afterwards any meaning. A decisive turning point, however, was the Iranian blitz at the American embassy in Teheran, and the inadequate reaction of President Carter.

According to international law, it was a deliberate act of war, and the lack of reaction from Carter was like a sanction of the end of that law.

And still, we keep on thinking of war in terms of an almost defunct international law, not wanting to realize in public debate that it doesn't fit today's world reality.

That's why we are uncertain in our judgments about war: much of what we actually see happening resembles rather to what happened beyond the famous meridian I spoke about.

This means that the definition of war was inadequate since the very beginning. It didn't take into account what happened beyond the borders of Europe, or inside the borders of the European States.

Originally the main European States were dynastic realities. Slowly grew out of them the idea that triumphed in the 19th Century of the "nation-state": i.e. the idea that States should coincide with a people, defined by a common sense of belonging, living on a certain territory.

Here the real trouble started: due to the difficulty to circumscribe the territory of a people, and, most of all, of identifying a people. A hard enterprise even in Europe, it is resulted impossible for the new States formed after the dissolution of empires that followed the two world wars.

In America as well as in Europe today we tend to think that what makes the people of a State is simply the fact of being born or naturalized in its territory. So we have abandoned the old idea that what makes a people is that combination of shared language, tradition, religion that we call "culture".

We have declared ourselves "multicultural". Which can only mean two things: either that we simply declare ourselves nonexistent as people; or rather that the tolerant relativizing of all traditions and religions is the only culture.

When this is the case, we have a hard time to understand that for other peoples this might not be so, and that in the name of their tradition and religion they are ready to wage war. So, when they are not people territorially circumscribed by a State, we don't know what to think anymore. So much more, when we are dealing with individuals who came legally into our country, or were even born in it, who burst into shooting, put bombs, or throw airplanes against towers.

In the face of terrorism, therefore, some of us tend to negate that they are dealing with acts of war. Especially when those acts appear due to "religious" reasons. That's because the monoculture of multiculturalism has declared that "religions" are all equally good. If this is the case with the present administration, not even the previous one escaped from some ambiguity when Bush spoke of "war on terror", with an hesitation to make clear who the enemy was that perhaps contributed to the final disaffection of the American people.

Some, by negating "religious wars", tend to embrace a pacifism that wants to negate any war. Being for them an axiom that no one can wage war for "religious" reasons, then war should be only due to the economic imperialism of the USA. And even murderous tyrants as Saddam Hussein end by appearing to them as victims of an unlawful (according to a doubtful international law) invasion; so that Al Qaedists appear to them as resistants.

Bull shit.

Intellectual confusion.

To make some clarity in our public debates, we need then to redefine what war is. And, to avoid war of words, we need to rethink what religion is.

HP

2 comments:

Maria said...

"Which can only mean two things: either that we simply declare ourselves nonexistent as people; or rather that the tolerant relativizing of all traditions and religions is the only culture." I think we Americans, as compared to say, Czechs or Slavs, are "nonexistent" as a "people". On the other hand, some parts of the States are more melting-pot - truly losing cultural distinction (I think of the Midwest as somewhat in this model), others more like what I have heard called a "kaleidescope" - the individual aspects of the culture stay the same, but the "peoples" themselves are moving and distributing and interacting without "blending." Queens, NY is one place that comes to mind, esp. the neighborhood Jackson Heights.

In my experience, knowing Muslim individuals in college and being close to a Muslim family, I understand that the acts of terrorism are, of course, not Islamic and very harmful to other Muslims because of the discrimination they dealt with after 9/11 (I started college in Manhattan, NYC, a year later, so it was still pretty hot.)

Having lived in the midwest, NYC, and now CT and working in an inner-city, I don't see monoculture everywhere. Even in white-bread Kansas we had a very large contingency of Mexican families who celebrated traditional masses, had big late-night masses and feasts for Our Lady of Guadelupe, etc. As for NYC and southwestern CT, even among Europeans there is still distinction - many all-Italian, all-Irish, all-Polish, all-Russian families who still have their individual distinctions even after having ancestors who immigrated here 3 or 4 generations back. Not to mention newer immigrants like Phillipino, West Indian, Indian, and Dominican.

"In the face of terrorism, therefore, some of us tend to negate that they are dealing with acts of war. Especially when those acts appear due to "religious" reasons. That's because the monoculture of multiculturalism has declared that "religions" are all equally good. If this is the case with the present administration, not even the previous one escaped from some ambiguity when Bush spoke of "war on terror", with an hesitation to make clear who the enemy was that perhaps contributed to the final disaffection of the American people."

I know the acts of terror are done in the name of religion, but I think people closer to that world - Muslim Americans and those from Middle Eastern states, know that this is not the case, and it has much more to do with a hatred of capitalism and Americans. The reason why they chose the World Trade Center, and not, say, the National Cathedral or a major bridge. I also think that there are less people that it would seem who think of religions as "equally good." Liberal thought such as that is, in my experience, not a general sentiment of the American people. I'm not saying it has to do with American's fault that they hate capitalism - it has everything to do with their own corrupt system, suppressing citizens, and keeping the warlords fat and happy. You're right, the American "economic imperialism" argument is so ridiculous it's maddening.

I have virtually no experience with people who think that Saddam Hussein was a victim, or that Al Qaeda's some sort of rebel movement. But I've not participated in this discussion in a few years.

I think you hit the nail on the head saying that our shriveling definition of war is hurting us. The "enemy" of each American war is getting increasingly elusive, its identity complex and changing. And meanwhile, while we fumble trying to figure out who to kill, we give Al Qaeda more persuasive reasons to recruit young men and women - boys and girls, even - who have lost family members and livelihoods.

Great post!

Humbly Presumptuous said...

Dear Maria,
just two or three short considerations.
I think that, in spite of all the enriching varieties you mentioned, Americans are a people, thanks to the profound way in which the Declaration of Indipendence was able to touch the right universal human cords.
I know that the "all religions are equally good" is the tenet of an intellectual elite, but it seems to have imposed itself as politically correct. As far as Muslims is concerned, we have a problem. Of course most of them are good law abiding people, who find in their tradition the consoling sense of the presence in life of a mercyful God. Unfortunately, the others who are led to terrorism can equally find in the Quran a basis for their positions. Besides, there is the question of poligamy, which I find quite demeaning for the personal dignity of women.
Coming to capitalism: there it is another thing we need seriously to rethink, to find the right way to conceptualize it. Some time I'll have to right a post about it, its meaning as monetary economy and its origins. It has a lot to do with the challenges of expanding comunications, with the difficulty they create for everybody to reconcile them with the sense of community. It is the problem of reconciling universalims and localism, which is also proper of religion.
Glad you liked the post.
HP