A member from Ireland who was in the USA on 11 September records the atmosphere there
I wasn’t alive during the summer of 1914 but I think I may have got a sense of what it felt like as a result of my recent holiday in the United States. We were staying with a relation in Los Angeles when we were awoken by him on the morning of Tuesday the 11 September to the continuous coverage on all the TV and radio channels of the terrorist bombing in New York or “Attack on America” as the news anchormen quickly deemed it. It was shocking to see the footage of those planes crashing into the World Trade Center and to imagine the gruesome deaths that so many on the planes and in the buildings must have suffered.
What was particularly upsetting was the sight of people forced to jump off the building to their deaths rather than tolerate the fireball. For me though as a socialist, what was most dispiriting, that in addition to the knowledge of so many innocent dead, was the whole way that the media and the establishment in general so quickly took control of how the incident should be interpreted. It was a powerful example of the socialist critique of what’s called liberal or parliamentary democracy; although we elect our leaders by periodical mass voting the context in which they operate and their agenda somehow seem to be set by others beyond our control.
Even before President Bush made his first announcement “today we saw an attack on freedom”, and only a number of hours after the suicide bombings, grief for the victims and hope for the survivors was already being pushed aside by talk of retribution and revenge. Almost instantaneously an endless series of retired State Department and Pentagon officials from the Reagan and Bush (Senior) era, together with innumerable academics, (styling themselves as “terrorism experts”) were paraded across the screens offering their two-pence worth on who was behind it and what form the military response should take. It was evident that a large number of these were aching for a war with Iraq/Iran/Libya etc. and any other ‘rogue state’ that could be tied into the conspiracy.
The papers were just as bad and the coverage even in supposedly liberal papers such as the New York and Los Angeles Times was equally strident. They carried stories on the role that the “Special Forces” would undertake which read like the worst excesses of tabloid jingoism that we’ve come to expect from the Murdoch Sun. It wasn’t just the media who were uncritical in their judgements. The Friday after the bombings had been designated as an official “Day of Mourning” for the country. The President and a number of ex-Presidents plus the leaders of Congress all gathered in the National Cathedral in Washington for “prayer”. Representatives of the Protestant, Catholic, Jewish and Muslim faiths (in that order!) duly said their piece to be followed immediately by the President on the podium. Bush’s warlike comments on the actions that the US would undertake were clearly at variance with the supposedly religious ethos of the service though unsurprisingly provoked no adverse comments from the clerics present. Indeed the whole affair ended with a stirring rendition of Battle Hymn of the Republic by a Marine choir.
The effect of this on public opinion was quickly apparent. The ‘Stars and Stripes’ flew everywhere. Reputable billboards in Shopping Malls carried the slogan “God Bless America” while their more uncouth cousins (located close to offices of the National Rifle Association or similar organisations) promised all sorts of unprintable vengeance to Osama bin Laden. On the radio talk shows people wanted the borders closed, immigration halted, “racial profiling of people of Middle Eastern appearance” and a multitude of other measures. For some even this wasn’t enough; “it was time this country got serious” and the mass expulsion or detention of Arab-Americans was the only solution. This provoked a response and “helpful” listeners rang in and urged Arab-Americans to place the US flag prominently on their houses to demonstrate to their neighbours where their true loyalties lay.
Of course Wall Street wasn’t going to take the attack lying down; radio and newspaper advertisements, sponsored by the major banks and investment houses, soon appeared urging Americans to buy shares as it was their patriotic duty to push the Dow Jones index up. In a vague way it was suggested that the World Trade Center was singled out because as a symbol of capitalism it captured America’s true spirit. Hollywood too (where correctly sensing the public mood and identifying with it is a key requirement for success) went to war and a “galaxy” of A-list celebrities hosted a “Tribute to Heroes” television special. Raising money for the victims of the atrocity is an entirely praiseworthy event of course; the irony that some of the big names involved such as Sylvester Stallone had made films in the 1980s extolling the Mujaheddin as freedom fighters will register with some of us.
Very importantly though it must be pointed out though that not all American workers were taken in by this frenzy; within days after the event I passed small groups of anti-war protestors in different towns who were pointing out the fallacy of equating justice with revenge. It took some courage to do so in that heated environment. Their small stand highlighted the complete absence in the mainstream media of any attempt to ask the question of why this attack took place and what the suicide bombers intended to achieve by their act. The role of the US in the Middle East in terms of its support for Israel in its conflict with the Palestinian Authority and its propping up of autocratic, reactionary states in the Gulf was not referred to. While the Taliban regime in Kabul owe their origin and rise to power to a complex series of events in Afghanistan’s recent history, the not-so-covert actions of the CIA in supplying the Afghan resistance to Soviet occupation with a plentiful supply of weaponry cannot be glossed over. George Bush now has a 90 percent popularity rating in the polls and may find himself in the trap that unless forthcoming US deeds match his rhetoric then his credibility and re-election hopes will be damaged. It may be that many more people across South Asia will join the 5,000-plus fatalities in New York and Washington as victims of 11 September.
Kevin Cronin
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