An attack on the world, Francesco Grillo

Tue, 12 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0100

They are attacking London. But, four years after New York, sixteen months after Madrid, this is no longer a war against a particular enemy – the United States, or global capitalism. Nor is it a war with defined combatants: east against west, Islam against everybody else, even “them” against “us”. Rather, it is a war on the world. And the world’s greatest mistake has been to apply obsolete intellectual categories and formulaic modes of thought (geopolitics, economics, militarism, even oil-based finance) incapable of understanding this mutation.

openDemocracy writers examine the democratic, security, and human aspects of the London bombs on 7 July 2005:

Isabel Hilton, “Letter from wounded London”

Paul Rogers, “The London bombs in the wider war”

Mary Kaldor,
“London lives”

Tom Nairn, “After the G8 and 7/7: an age of ‘democratic warming’”

If you find this material valuable please consider supporting openDemocracy by sending us a donation so that we can continue our work and keep it free for all

Such traditional expertise has already produced at least six different arguments attempting to make sense of London (as of New York, Madrid, Istanbul, Casablanca, and of the many other incidents which preceded it):

that the middle east’s political problems, especially Palestine, must be addressed if we want to stop the carnage
that the world’s oil-based energy model must be drastically modified
that extreme social inequality is creating desperation among its victims
that Britain’s involvement in the Iraq war and the presence of its troops there has caused anger
that this is a “clash of civilisations”
that the invisibility and lack of recognition of Muslims, their social exclusion in western societies, and the violence they endure in their homelands is intolerable.

These, no doubt, are all relevant factors – though, equally, all can be contested (why for many decades did the middle east not generate this kind of escalation; where does a young Muslim bank worker on the London underground fit in a clash of civilisations?). The policy initiatives they imply – conflict resolution, greater social integration, more sustainable energy systems – are also essential to escaping the trap we seem to have ended up in.

Yes, we need to engage in a titanic battle to make the world more just and to reduce opportunities for the anger that inspired the London attacks to be created and nurtured. But I believe that none of these six arguments capture the real nature of the problem – or, more precisely, the “discontinuity” – the world is facing.

The symbols of empire

It is not a new situation that enemies of the world’s dominant economic and political system view it as an empire and that some of them spend their entire life trying to inflict as much damage on it as possible. What is distinctive today is that the current manifestation of this reality is small in “logistical” terms yet has potentially huge political consequences: the enemy can hit at any time, anywhere and its favoured targets are the symbols the empire choose to celebrate its strength, its values, and its vision. The “centre of world trade” and thus of globalisation (New York), the capital of the European land “reconquered” from Muslims in 1492 (Madrid), the city that bridges east and west (Istanbul), and now the city selected to host the 2012 Olympic Games (London) – the assailants choose the target to show that the heart of the world, wherever it is defined at any one time, can be attacked.

Their strategy is a “propaganda of the deed” attempting to force the world to accept that it cannot have a centre any longer, and that its global “information society” (or “network society”) must live without symbols; and so to push it underground, making it invisible like these desperate anti-heroes themselves.

The modern American empire, part of the wider global empire, has often been compared with the Roman. The contrast between its military power and that of other nations (even in combination) has in the last fifteen years become greater than in any other period of history. But there is a key difference between the United States and Rome which owes more to the technological context of the respective empires than to their nature.

Also by Francesco Grillo of Vision on openDemocracy:

“Think-tanks in the global marketplace of ideas” (September 2001)

“From catastrophe to global governance” (October 2001)

“The mother of all questions: how to reform global governance?” (May 2003) with Simona Milio.

It took decades for the “barbarians” to put imperial Rome physically under threat and to damage or destroy its symbols, by gradually assembling their army and slowly descending on the capital. Today, an empire can be symbolically brought to its knees while at its point of highest glory. The cornerstone of the system can dematerialise if hit with the right energy, at the right moment – it is only a matter of half a morning. This is the message emitted by the frighteningly empty space that has replaced the most beautiful towers in New York since 11 September 2001.

Symbols matter. Empires, civilisations, societies, communities, individual existences and everyday routines and normalities could not even be recognised without them. Today, we have entered an age of vulnerability where symbols and what they represent are placed under a new kind of threat. This threat has emphasised society’s technological reality, its fundamental interconnectedness. The conceptual paradox it imposes is that the information or network society learns to adapt by living “in hiding” from itself – operating on information that denies its own circulation.

The age of vulnerability

But is this the only way? Can the world not devise another, better strategy that addresses this new vulnerability, one that unites technological sophistication and democratic practice?

The new age of vulnerability requires some form of global capability of intelligence, risk-prevention and counter-terrorism, enabling the world to fight this dangerous enemy. But such a body would in turn require some form of global politics to which such a “police” infrastructure is accountable. This means transnational policy-making processes regulated by and answerable to a democratic international political arena.

Not enough has been done on this front since 9/11. The political and security reactions have been too nation-state based. Such media discussion and political resources that are dedicated to issues of global governance (including a modest attempt to reform the United Nations) focus on symptoms and details rather than wider, systemic reforms.

I believe that the attack on an extraordinary city like London may prove, even in its own terms, to be a huge political mistake in the terrorists’ strategy. But it presents the world with a reminder of the scale of the challenge it faces. It is a challenge that can be won by combining the American problem-solving obsession with the European propensity to understand complexity. London, this wounded city, is the latest frontline of a battle that can and must be won.

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An attack on the world, Francesco Grillo