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After over one long week after the terrorist attacks on New York's World Trade Center and Washington's Pentagon, the threat to international order by both the fanatical perpetrators and America's initial response is significant and ominous. Last night the US stock market performed a dramatic reversal from around 6% on the day to less than 2% in the space of a few hours as evidence that American forces were mobilizing fast reached the ears of investors. As we have seen in recent times with the invasion of Iraq, there is nothing like a good war to excite and unite the masses - and push the US stock market up. A united bi-lateral international effort against terrorism has been long overdue, and responsible globalized and advanced countries world wide must see it in their interest to join with a re-awakened US in fighting it. Besides, such a terrorist attack could occur in many countries - the more powerful and successful the more likely. Yet we doubt that it is globally appropriate to evoke the images of "war", "crusades", "the fight between good and evil" and "an alliance of civilized nations". We doubt that it is appropriate for a national prayer service to be concluded to the strains of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" as American political leaders marched out of a place of worship to a shocked and emotional real world outside. It was a world where being the biggest, most successful and powerful example of the new, brave and prosperous world is no longer a defence against tiny aggrieved and fanatical sects borne from alienation and exclusion from the new world's riches. Level heads may prevail, but shock and grief are not the stuff of the pragmatic and realistic level headedness. To strike back indiscriminately against amorphous "enemies" may quell a shocked public's thirst for revenge. To use wild west, warring and religious imagery to unite a country may work in a country where the closest the vast majority of the population have come to deadening and soul destroying violence is on the flickering, emotionalised and inevitably transient images on local cable networks and Hollywood drivel-controlled cinema screens is clearly disingenuous. We need to be very clear that America is fighting two "wars" here. One is a legitimate international offensive against terrorism. The other is a local campaign to regain face for surely America's strengths have proven this time to be their weaknesses. There is a strong concern that the latter domestic concern will weaken the former. Let's not get the two mixed up... Today, America asks the world "What side are you on?". The message is clear - work with us or you are our enemy. Yet the world is more complex than that. The world is not a movie script that defines a goodie and a baddie, provides an emotionally charged, brawny, illiterate hero with weapons that make a big bang and who singlemindedly and unbelievably defeats en enemy by putting hundreds of innocents at risk - all in 80 minutes including product placement advertising. In the past few days, USA President Bush seems to be slowly realised the challenges of leading a shocked and emotional nation. He has to his credit embarked on appearances in mosques, and appealed to his fellow Americans not to stereotype. Yet the real problem is still far from being publicly recognised. While America wants to prove to the rest of the world that they are still the biggest boy in the playground, by hitting back with traditional military muscle, that solution is short sighted in terms of defeating terrorism, though it must appease American's thirst for justice and revenge. Let's not confuse the two. The attack is evidence of a bigger malaise than the malevolent actions of a small group of fanatical religious zealots. Yes, it did not come from the Muslim civilization as a whole, just as the Oklahoma city bombing did not come from Osama Bin Laden as reported for 2 days after the event by cable networks. The Oklahoma City Bombing was from within - caused by a disaffected product of America's own military system. The Big Boy in the Playgound needs to be big enough to truly take a bigger view and ask, while fully accepting that the attack and indiscriminate wasting of innocent victims was a villainous attack, why, even a few, would want to do this. Terrorists feed on the hopelessness of their pawns of destruction - the rural boy who has nothing to live for but a promised glorious after-life, those who have probably never before traveled from their home and mixed with those with other religions, beliefs, and ethnicity - the young middle class easily-influenced intellectual. Their leaders saw the "New City" not as a symbol of the multicultural mass of humanity who came together to build it, nor of rationality and of achievement - but as a symbol of greed, avarice, and secularism where "self" is the new God, and prosperity is gained at the expense of the weak. It's a nasty and shocking appraisal, - but that is how America is perceived by many. The terrorist fringe is just the extreme sharp edge of the wedge. We may not like it, and we may not agree with it, but PERCEPTION IS REALITY, and just as real as the pain felt by those who lost their loved ones. Paradoxically, America's proud symbol of wealth and power became it's weakness. Those who felt aggrieved need not amass massive armies or arsenals of technology - they fought on their own ground, and directed a spear through the heart of the American Dream. We trust this time that America's leadership really do act as the world leaders they aspire to be. Email the Chao Phraya River Rat
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© Asian Business Strategy & Street Intelligence Ezine 2001
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