Date: Mon, 01 Oct 2001 21:14:15 +0100
Subject: Re: the event


Eric,

I hesitated to respoind to this as a European voice, a driftwork rolling 
in from the east...

The differend between Bush and Bin-Laden remains drawn out increasingly 
in the public realm. However there is still no public evidence that Bin 
Laden's terroist gang(s) did the appalling act, perhaps a trial will be 
required to publish the evidence. I await this with interest... The 
criminal act does not justify a war...I read the following through the 
mirror of Lyotard's anti-colonialist work on Algeria. The tragedy is 
that he writes of the USA as if it was anti-colonial, history makes 
fools of us all. Whilst the situation is not quite the same as the 
Algerian situation as the struggle then was engaged in the liberation of 
the Algerian nation-state. The post-modern colonialist struggles are 
related, assuming it is Bin-Laden's  'fascists', because they seem to be 
struggling against the activities of the post-modern globalisers.

some comments below;

>Media commentators have certainly made a point of insisting how this
>changes everything in America.  There is now no turning back.  We will
>never return again to the way things were before.
>
$$ Media hysteria of course - what changes of G8 policy are being 
negotiated at present - none. On a personal level there is always a 
tendency to retreat to the irrationality of the positions inscribed into 
our social imaginaries at time like these.  Hence the recent upsuge in 
racist attacks and the dispatch of the G8 War Machines to the middle east.

>This is understandable, but hardly sufficient, given the great needs of
>the world today.  Beyond the denial, we must come to recognize that what
>has truly died in this tragedy is the isolation, the unilateralism, the
>immunity fantasies of Star Wars and SDI - the entire dream that America
>could live as a kind of gated community in ignorance of the rest of the
>world. 
>
$$ Except that you are reading this as an American event - it is not. 
The days of the Pax-Americana have been over for some time. In these 
days of post-modern globalisation no country can stand alone - the 
attack on america was an attack on globalisation - confusedly 
'Bin-Laden' theorises that the G8 globalisation process is irrelevant 
this is possibly because he hates America on a personal basis. But his 
attack was on globalisation - hence the near global response.

>Now the deeper understanding has arrived belatedly that we are not alone
>and we must embrace instead our wider role within the global world. The
>time has come for each one of us to accept our responsibility for the
>condition of the world as it exists today.
>
$$ Agreed... How could I not?

>My hope is that eventually as a result of this terrible shock and the
>suffering that has occurred we will emerge into a greater realization, a
>new consciousness and a global ethic that honors diversity as it allows
>the world to heal and become whole.
>
>The task is for us to assist the rest of humanity as it enters into this
>new perspective.  As we rush towards globalism the dangers become
>intensified, but so does the need for a greater awareness.  We have all
>become postmodern now.
>
$$ Yes even the terroists it would seem as they refuse to claim 'credit' 
for the events, curious that.

>Hardt and Negri have written that the primary danger of colonialism is
>the fear of disease or contagion.  They write:
>
>"The contemporary processes of globalization have torn down many of the
>boundaries of the colonial world. Along with the common celebrations of
>the unbounded flows in our new global village, one can still sense also
>an anxiety about increased contact and a certain nostalgia for
>colonialist hygiene. The dark side of the consciousness of globalization
>is the fear of contagion."
>
$$ It is also the fear of memory - the dark history of colonialisation 
remains hidden, the memories and histories remain suppressed and are 
scarcely discussed, in the context of this event it seems to have been 
more spoken of in Europe than in the USA which is regrettable.

>There is no question that the media and the government now see the
>global village as overtaken by a plague, the virus of terrorism.  But
>there is also the possibility that this event may yet prove to have a
>greater significance for history than merely that of terror.  911 is
>calling us.
>
I assume that this is a US media response....

>regards
>
sdv

>