An In-concluded Modernity Project (i)

 

One feature of thinking based on Cold War habits is that sees the world in opposites. Worldviews are those of East versus West –the U.S.S.R. and its satellites on one hand and the U.S. on the other; the wealthy countries of the North against the poor, colonized or neo-colonized countries of the South.

Discourses on these kind of oppositions permeated international forums such as U.N. and UNESCO during  the 1960’s and 70’s and started to dwindle after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Today Cold War rhetoric still remains as the bad buried corpse of a long forgotten era to be revived by outmoded regimes such as Cuba and Venezuela.

As much as we would like to announce oppositional worldviews to be gone we have to come to terms with the reality of a different kind of oppositional worldview. The East versus West and North vs. South contingency has been replaced by one that, without totally erasing the geographical differentiation, makes up for a difference that doesn’t separate outside form inside as clearly as it used to be.

Let me use the image of the aircraft carrier to make more explicit what I’m trying to say. In order to reach and destroy its enemies the U.S. built aircraft carriers to use jet fighters across the seas of the world. Whether in Viet Nam or Iran the boundaries of clear-cut enemy lines were easily accessible and destroyable. Not so much today since the enemy either comes from within or from a blurred nowhere. The enemy is blended among us or comes from the ranks of a population that is mostly innocent though it carries within the seed of threat.

If we were asked to stretch and put a name to the antagonistic forces of the world today we would put in one side that extreme forms of violence and destruction called terrorism and on the other those who oppose their victory at any price --including the price of civilian victims—the anti-terrorism humanity.

When we think about cities and places victims of terrorist attacks the first thing that comes to mind are cities and places of Europe and the U.S., also Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, A quick look at Wikipedia will shed names out the list of usual suspects such as India, Russia, Israel, Greece, Philippines, Serbia, Rwanda, Colombia, Thailand, Burma, Turkey, Yemen, Algeria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Argentina, Oman, North Ireland, North Ossetia, West Bank, Denmark and Nigeria. Victims of terrorism belong as much to the wealthy countries of the First World as to the poor countries of the Third world.

Terrorism is blind; it doesn’t care who eliminates because people are only tools of disruption. Thus, worldviews based on opposition make sense only conceptually but not geographically. Poor people are as much as victims of terrorism as wealthy people. I could venture further and say that the real victims of terrorism are from the ranks of the poor since they are the ones that fly in commercial airlines or ride trains and buses to commute to work or go home. The rich doesn’t take the subway, they fly in their private airplanes or ride in the comfort of their chauffeured vehicles and helicopters; they are oblivious to terrorist attacks.

A look at a chart from the University of Maryland Start database on global terrorism will tell us that the since 1970 to 2008 the major proportion of terrorist attacks have occurred in Iraq. In second place comes India and in third place Sri Lanka; followed by Colombia, Peru, El Salvador, Pakistan, Phillipines, Guatemala, Turkey, United States, Lebanon, North Ireland, Spain and Chile.

The relation between attacks and number of victims achieve the highest contrast in Iraq, Sri Lanka, India, Colombia, Peru, Salvador, Pakistan and Guatemala, all of them third world countries. In a rich countries such as the U.S. there are few victims in proportion to the number of attacks. The reason for this is that places and cities with high population density are more likely to be more efficient target for terrorist attacks. The ratio of person by square meter determines the outcome of an explosion. It is not the same to detonate a bomb in Time Square during a Friday evening or Grand Central Station at 5 pm than in the morning in the first case or at noon in the second. By the same token increased security and anti-terrorist measures in cities like New York and London would make less likely the event of a terrorist attack than in a city such as El Salvador, Ciudad Guatemala or Belgrade, to name a few. Density of population, time and security are factors that determine the effectiveness of a terrorist attack.

http://www.start.umd.edu/start/

The period between 2004 and 2007 has seen a worldwide spike in terrorist incidents  --although not at the levels of 1995. The main burden of increase on terrorist attacks has been carried by the South Asia region with approximately 1600 incidents in 2007 and the Middle East and North Africa region with around 1400 cases in the same year; followed by the U.S.S.R. and the newly independent states with 215; Western Europe with 190; and at the end of the sad trail North America and Eastern Europe with approximately 40 incidents each in 2007 and the region of Australia Oceania with 7 cases. The great majority of terrorism cases have occurred and are occurring among the population of third world countries, especially those of the South Asia, Middle East and North African regions. In short, terrorism is feeding upon the poor of the world, not the wealthy ones.

Based on this data, the opposition rich versus poor; North versus South; East versus West doesn’t hold any longer. Terrorism is a movement of the poor against the poor. Terrorism is self-cannibalistic.

Sure, terrorism aims to disrupt the cycle of production and appropriation of wealth by the rich, but in doing so it has no other choice than to attack the foundations of the production of wealth and with it its most vulnerable objects, the producers. Workers that produce the wealth of the first world and the third world elites are easy to reach in the public transportation systems, in the places were people gather to buy food or clothes they need; in the buildings that give place to the bureaucracies of the state and in the resorts where workers and proletarians of all kind seek relaxation after a whole year of intense labor.

The sad truth is that since labor force is available everywhere, by destroying the producer, terrorism is not interrupting the appropriation of wealth by the capitalist, it is simply creating a way to replace it, the most dramatic way for sure, but one among the others such as lay off, accident and retirement.

To look at rich third world countries as enemies of third world countries is at least a distorted look at reality, at most a plain lie. To state that the oppressor and destroyer of the working class and humanity is capitalism and its relations of production is ironic since the real oppressors and destroyers of the proletariat in the big cities are the terrorists that use them in order to overthrow the capitalist elites and the status-quo.

Our aim is: To rise out of the distortions of reality and re-orient ourselves in search of realization of an in-concluded modernity.

 To look at the world with unbiased eyes, untainted by the pre-figurations of ideology and the ire of planted emotional impulses.

To disrupt the workings of political propaganda and settled worldviews.

To look in the eyes of the true enemy: terrorism.

To force a deal with productivity and distribution of wealth upon capitalism and state.