But something deeper is also taking place within the policy closure Anthony Barnett describes. The debate over American strategy needs to extend beyond rational assessments of its real self-interest. A set of emotional and psychological claims is being reinforced as the US re-asserts its right to be the one country in the world that refuses to recognise its vulnerability.
The horrific reality of its actual vulnerability demonstrated on 11 September 2001 gave the people of the United States a terrible opportunity to reflect on and to think about their country’s changing position in the world. Instead, the Bush administration’s rhetoric of bellicosity has turned all thoughts to war. Psychological distress has been hijacked into a tough-guy, ‘we’ll get em’ stance. It has turned what might have been a period of self-reflection over the pain, anger, humility and horror, into a mobilisation against a series of invisible yet growing enemies (the ‘axis of evil’).
The fear that people quite understandably experienced on 11 September 2001 is being used to justify a US foreign policy that attempts to dominate and control foreign powers – the same kind of policies that, in indirect ways, led to the 11 September outrages. Certainly the world remains a dangerous place one year on. But the actions and rhetoric of the US government, now supported by the UK government, inflames alarm and dread.
Price of the ‘special relationship’
The anniversary of 11 September also highlights another unwelcome political and emotional relationship, which we might have hoped a right-wing Bush presidency would have scuttled – the augmenting of the ‘special relationship’ between the US and the UK.
A year ago, many in the UK looked forward to Britain making closer links with Europe. Shared social democratic programmes and foreign policy objectives, which arise out of the necessary cooperation between common yet differentiated European interests, appeared promising. In the wake of an illegitimate Republican presidency, it looked as if Britain might have stepped that bit away from the conceit of borrowed power that its ‘special’ alliance with the US pretends to confer. Instead, we’ve seen an even tighter relationship – despite the fact that, from trade to the environment, there is much less in common. The consequence of this ‘deeper’ alliance is an ever-shallower political dialogue. Pre-scripted rhetoric, banal demonisation, fundamentalist and even evangelical pronouncements, stand in where political conversation urgently needs to be. By aligning with the US in this manner, Prime Minister Tony Blair has rendered those who disagree with him as ‘other’: as naive and suspect rather than as people whose voices need to be heard.
The sop offered to liberals and those on the Left is that Blair is the most effective tempering influence on Bush. Without Blair’s ‘shoulder to shoulder’ position, the US would be more hasty in its belligerence. But a heavy price has to be paid for such alleged moderating influence. In return for trusting a wholly private argument that in its nature cannot be made public, we see the political literacy that has started to inform European politics being replaced by a controlling paternalism whose aim is to stifle dissent.
This kind of authoritative knowing reached what many of us assumed would be its high point in the bully days of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her conviction politics. Tragically, a drift back towards this kind of public discourse has marked the Blair administration since 1997. The beginning of Labour’s second term hinted that New Labour might move away from this particular Thatcherite legacy towards something more thoughtful and inclusive. But 11 September, despite Blair’s powerful speech immediately following the event, has toughened a leadership style that insists it knows what’s right, it knows who and what theories are right, what is outside the pale whether in education, in medical and scientific practice, in relation to social unrest, refugees or mothering and work and, of course, foreign policy.
Cold-war thinking
Contempt and disdain have been the psychological weapons used to belittle and neutralise opposing voices. A year on from 11 September, lively and thoughtful political conversations and reflections (of the kind carried by openDemocracy) are written off and ignored by Britain’s political administration. By echoing Bush in this way, Blair is also drawing the whole culture of Western government towards the kind of absolutist mentality that turns millions off politics.
Many have used 11 September to question their assumptions, to think anew and more deeply about political power and political process and to learn about struggles of which they were unaware. In contrast, an exceptional and unnecessary dumbing down and denuding of official politics is taking place.
Perhaps I could say we are seeing the reinstitution of a cold-war mentality that casts all political challenges into ‘us’ and ‘them’. As many have observed, all sorts of groups in Western countries, who thought they were not ‘them’ and wanted, on their own reasonable terms, to be with ‘us’, are now finding an increasing internal friction and tension as lines are drawn that coincide with religion and ethnic origin.
There is also resistance to the closure, which the declared ‘war on terror’ reinforces with its simplistic binary attitude to nations, ethnic groups, unknown religions and strangers. There are numerous petitions circulating over both Iraq and Israel. In the UK, there is a demand for a recall of Parliament (and Britain’s Chief Rabbi has refused to be silenced). There are columnists and some politicians urging the need to learn and activists demanding joined-up-thinking – so in evidence in Johannesburg.
All this offers a certain relief those of us still attempting to come to terms with rather than retaliate for 11 September. It will not be an easy ride. We are facing an enormous challenge to keep thinking alive while those in power opt for the silencing metaphors they overused during the cold war. But in this fight, which is also waged around ideologies, the insistence on debate and complexity must not be closed out. Official attitudes will use the emotions and feelings generated by the 9/11 to subvert wonder and reflection into a narrow prism where ‘otherness’ becomes the strategic answer. The job of progressives is to refuse such cheap emotional blackmail and intimidation as we explore how best to move forward.
