WHY DO WE HATE OURSELVES

by Stanko Cerovic

Born in Podjorica in 1951, Stanko Cerovic is the director of the Serbo-Croatian editorial department of Radio France Internationale.

Why Do We Hate Ourselves?

Somewhere a rift appeared when on September 11th, 2001, the towers of the World Trade Center collapsed. A terrible rift, judging by the global shock to which it gave rise in every country of the world and across all social strata. But it was a strange fissure, too, impossible to place. Where was it? At the center of the global empire? At the heart of modern history? In the foundation of human consciousness or even its unconsciousness? Was it undermining the religion of the elites or that of the masses? Eradicating the eternity of the market or the eternity of entertainment? Indescribable and indefinable but, for a few days at least, undeniable and more real than the world that surrounds us, calling our personal perception of the world into question.

From this rift emanated an extraordinary force that was transforming world, faces, and souls. The powerful were stunned by it, the weak consoled. One did not notice, or rather did not want to notice, the new light it threw on the division between winners and losers in the world. A new world materialized, both more united and more divided than ever before - never were the losers all across the planet so unified by sardonic joy, never were the winners so unified by fear. Thus, some emotions, and perhaps not the best ones, were becoming globalized.

The events that most shock us are not surprises such as natural disasters that are beyond the realm of human history. True shock is provoked when an event occurs that we have been dreading, hoping all along that it will not happen, or that we have been dreaming about without truly believing in it.

On September 11th a visitor we had been awaiting for a long time, convincing ourselves all the while that he would not come, came back to our attention. He had been announced in Hiroshima. Since that day we knew that the technological demon had escaped from human control, that man could henceforth blow up the planet. Indeed, weapons exist only to be used, the only uncertainty is the moment when. In addition, during the Second World War the borders our conscience had set were crossed. In the post-war years an omnipresent anxiety held sway; philosophers and writers were wondering how mankind was going to be able to live in the awareness of the imminence of the apocalypse. Since they were incapable of providing an answer, and following a basic rule of human behavior, helpless reflection made way for entertainment. Anxiety postponed the apocalypse artificially and during the Cold War entertainment covered up the technological horror. As for the void the Second World War left in human consciousness, it was filled with the hope that behind the great confrontation between capitalism and socialism must lie the promise of a better society. Why else would such an unrelenting planetary battle be taking place? Moreover, capitalism, terrified of revolution, had adopted its most human, moderate, and tolerant mask, taking the social demands within its frontiers into account and keeping its imperial tendencies abroad in check.

Thus we had become accustomed to believing that the dreadful visitor with whom we had made an appointment at the end of the Second World War had forgotten us. Then, one fine September morning, he knocked on the door in the most anodyne possible manner, arriving by means of the most ordinary transportation. But everyone grasped the message: whether nuclear, biological or chemical, catastrophe can arrive at any moment, no matter when, and the freedom to choose that moment is no longer ours. The explosion of a single nuclear power station would make Europe uninhabitable. It is as simple as that.

Was there something surprising in this? The most reasonable predictions had imagined such an attack. To tell the truth, it was a risk that the policy of the United States and their European allies had taken into account since the end of the Cold War. What we are concerned with here is the political process known first as “the new world order”, then as “globalization” because today imperialism is not the proper classification. In any event, it pertains to an effort that has been mobilizing the American elite for ten years as no other in its history has done before, namely the building of a planetary empire, the first and perhaps the last one in history, to the extent that one cannot see how the power of American weapons could ever be contested.

This is a rather strange moment: practically the entire planet is sinking into helplessness, people are lacking in political and cultural plans, their traditions and a sometimes thousand-year old order are falling apart, and everywhere one sees a financial elite emerge that is linked to the United States, drawing its legitimacy from their support and their social model. In the everlasting New World the sun is shining and will never set again.

If we forget our preferences, our desires or our fears, we can admire History’s mystery: who will ever know why so many great peoples are brought down, why the most admirable civilizations are humbled to the advantage of a single one, the one that best represents L'homme sans qualité? [1] Why has the elite of countries with the most brilliant cultures so enthusiastically embraced the transformation of humanity into market value? Is that a coincidence? Is that a mirage?

As the Greeks said with their love for the cruel beauty of truth, one should not condemn those who wish to reign but rather those who accept being subjugated.

In the euphoria of triumph over the Soviet Union, Washington spent much time groping for the definition of its imperial strategy, as all those know who followed what was happening in the center of the world thus invested with well-nigh divine powers. But today the great lines of its action are clear. They had to act quickly to profit from the supremacy of power and to prevent another power from emerging in the world. This was aimed at Russia, the European Union, and China - it was a question of destroying the first one, preventing political unification of the second, and destabilizing and isolating the third. The destruction of Russia was almost completed when Putin came to power and demonized in the West only because he had taken it upon himself to save his country.

Controlling the European Union was the easiest part thanks to the wars in Yugoslavia and the expansion of NATO. Accepting the United States as a kind of universal homeland of capital posed no problem whatsoever to the European financial elite while the political elite had already been well under control since the Cold War. China was isolated but it resisted and therefore had the right to a kind of privileged status: it threw the West a mighty challenge that was going to justify the mobilization of our peoples in the decades to come while China stands no chance of catching up with us in any way at all. This policy was accompanied by the dominance over every strategic place in the world, whether it be of political interest or have energy resources. This transformed the Caucasus, a key point, into a battlefield. The rest of the world was treated both brutally and indifferently: it was necessary to break the economic competition in Asia, to keep the Arab world in a state of paralysis because of the impossible choice between corrupt regimes under Washington’s control and movements of desperate extremists, and finally to allow no openness in South America, all the while maintaining small enemies here and there, the famous “rogue states”, to justify our interventions. The world is of no interest to America although the latter, nevertheless, considers itself as the quasi-absolute master of this world. Hence this mixture of brutality and indifference that characterizes its foreign policy.

Success in all of these areas is the source of the immense economic boom in America and, more generally, of the prosperity of financial capitalism’s global elite, which during the last decade of the century made any criticism of this policy impossible. Impossible, of course, in the privileged sectors. But further down, in other parts of society, bitterness, despair, and hatred were growing. Since success intoxicates and attracts sycophants, one might have the impression that at the end of the century American power was unfailing. It had swept away any serious form of opposition in the Western countries in such a way that the adjective “democratic” had become merely a synonym of propaganda.

The ideology imposed by the propaganda everywhere in the world was summarized in three ideas: democracy, human rights, and the market. Washington was deciding who could enter this protective framework, because remaining outside of it meant being exposed to sanctions, isolation, and bombings. The status of countries changed depending on the degree of their obedience to Washington: thus, the Ukraine was first a good student needing support and then a rotten state to be punished, depending on whether it was distancing itself from Russia or growing closer to it. During the decade of its destruction, “the plundering of the century”, Russia itself was flattered for being a good democracy, the greatest swindlers were supported by the West as pillars of democracy, and when Putin began to put an end to this horror he was accused of Stalinism.

All this seemed to be impeccable and, according to the Greek maxim quoted above, could inspire admiration. Never had such an immense empire been built so quickly and so easily. Seeing with what sort of men and what values this undertaking was brought to its completion, one might have been engulfed in dark thoughts about the human species, but at whom should one point the finger? At ourselves, at the stars, at God, at the Devil, at the end of the millennium?

From the point of view of political skill, Washington’s great success consists of having accomplished the alliance between brute force and all-powerful propaganda. On the one hand weapons and money, on the other the media, Hollywood and the NGO’s, and all of it manipulated to perfection.

At the end of the Cold War there were very few serious conflicts in the world. Hope was enormous. They spoke of the “springtime of peoples”, while people were going to be facing threats against their very identity. They were hoping for the end of the arms race, the ban on nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, the strengthening of the UN, the creation of an international court of law, and the initiation of a policy that would prevent the destruction of soil and climate. The USA opposed any initiative in that direction, entered upon an arms race against themselves at a more maddening speed than ever before in such a way that their military budget is far greater than that of all the other large nations together and continues to increase from year to year. And since the world itself is not enough for an unrestricted power, they have moved on to the militarization of outer space. The United Nations have been practically eliminated from the international scene and Washington was able to provoke or sustain a few small wars, always with disastrous results for entire regions and without the slightest opposition or even objection, and with the unfailing complicity of the major Western media. For ten years it has been this way in Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Yugoslavia or Macedonia. Sometimes the goal was not even a strategic one but rather just a tactic to frighten people, to show who is boss and that the one with the power can do what it wants, including making the most serious mistakes because, as the Washington strategists put it, “it is important that people be afraid of us, that they know we are unpredictable and sometimes act arbitrarily”. The lessons that the empire’s strategists had drawn from history are these: this is how one breaks the will to resist, this is how one becomes a true master, how one educates slaves, for after decolonization and during the Cold War, while benefiting from the balancing act between the superpowers, the peoples of the world had forgotten that their freedom was merely conditional.

The brutality of the Realpolitik was accompanied by fantastic feats of propaganda. In order to cover up the militaristic policy of the United States - whether it was a question of unjustifiably arming itself, of military interventions against irksome nations or the expansion of NATO toward the Russian border - the major media were advancing one single subject in all directions and with clearly racist highlights. This subject stated that we, the United States and our allies (the G7, in fact), are the best in the world in every domain, the richest, the strongest, the most generous, the most free, the finest, and all our successes are made legitimate by the quality of our work and our honesty, and if someone somewhere happens to disagree it is only because he is envious, sick, crazy, extremist, and so on. With the imperatives “zero dead” and “war without risk” they were bombing civilians in Iraq, Yugoslavia, Sudan, just as it was not so long ago that they were civilizing Negroes with cannons, calling this “our humanitarian duty”. In Yugoslavia someone found a more seemly expression: humanitarian racism.

Sometimes it was a true defamation of the world but with the following subliminal message: the world is calling us (we must control it, generosité oblige), we must liberate the people, help them to become like us in the name of democracy and human rights. It was the decade of the worst cynicism, the triumph of arrogance and contempt on the part of the United States and their allies, the decade of imperialism’s return in its most brutal forms, the decade of disenchantment and despair of nations as in the darkest moments of colonialism. Thus, it was the decade in which the United States conquered the world and paid the price for that. America, the name that was on the lips of generations of poor, oppressed, and rejected people, America has become the curse of the poor and the oppressed, the country that arouses universal hatred, the Evil Empire if ever there was one.

The New World has grown old, heavy, ugly, is synonymous with prison and the enemy of mankind. Perhaps that is one of the historical lessons of September 11th.

It should be said that the American political strategists were expecting it. From the early nineties on, Washington anticipated that the policy of the conquest of the world would provoke a wave of anti-Americanism and hate. The toughest among them stated openly that they should be feared and detested like all conquerors, that people should be aware of their powerlessness in the face of America, for one does not dominate the world with goodness but with force.

But by far the largest majority of the American people was not aware of this.

Thanks to the corruption of the major media, Americans to this day are not familiar with the policy practiced in their name. It was a kind of plot of the American elite (and, in some way even more obviously so, the European one) against its own people. It only shows what is left of democracy in the West today. Herein lies perhaps its implicit justification: these folks want privileges and ever more wealth; the domination of the world being the only way to be assured of this, in the final analysis they can only agree with the most barbarous policy on the condition that they are not openly told so. This is the foundation of the market society: greed and fear. Give us money and lies. Its human ideal is the kleptomaniac.

This model established itself as the norm for American behavior after September 11th: 90% of the Americans supported all kinds of military strikes (including nuclear strikes) against no matter whom and at the same time in their own media they attacked all those who dared flirt with reality and speak of “our” responsibility or “our” brutality. That is why Orwellian descriptions are quoted more than ever with regard to the present state of Western society. “War is peace. Liberty is slavery. Ignorance is power”, and so on. Almost every Orwellian idea is topical.

Let us now get back to the key question posed over and over again after September 11th: “Why do they hate us?”

What strikes us first of all is that the answer to this question is obvious. We knew what hate America aroused in the world, including in the West. We knew that one day this hate would find a way to express itself. The problem lay rather in the embarrassment of choices - it could happen anywhere, there was too much resentment and despair all across the world. Some experts were expecting a blow from the direction of Asia, those who turned out to be right were turning toward the Arab world and, as for me, I thought that the true challenge would come from Europe or even the United States, because I didn’t believe it would be possible to corrupt such a large number of people in the West. Nor do I believe that the Orwellian model is psychologically tolerable, for all the money in the world cannot cure the ills of this society. Besides, the anti-globalization movement and the events in Genoa have proven me right. I think that the attention of the empire’s police has been partly captured by the growing opposition of the West.

Even the technique of the terrorists was not a surprise, since the possible use of airplanes diverted to strike at civilian targets had been mentioned many times. To tell the truth, the realistic fears and predictions went well beyond this attack: nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons seemed to be a natural choice for those who have lost all hope, especially for the kamikazes. In one sense, then, this attack is a relief to the extent that one should be pleased the worst was avoided.

That is why I said earlier that the visitor with whom we had made an appointment has merely indicated he had not forgotten us and now it is our task to understand the consequences.

Truth to tell, there was only one real surprise and that one was unfounded - people were surprised at the ease with which the attacks were carried out, defying the American Secret Service. This was an unfounded surprise because we were well aware of the giant’s failings: too much technology, too much oversimplification, weaknesses - when it is a question of human beings - to which must be added a blind confidence in its invulnerability. Then the debacle seems natural.

Why then this nagging question “Why do they hate us?” Underlying it is another question that was, in fact, soon formulated, “Should our policy be implicated? Should we admit that it is that which is responsible for the hate directed at us?” The answer to this inquiry would determine the historical meaning of the attacks. Were they going to influence American policy, the fate of the world and, therefore, our future?

At first, right after the attacks, there was a kind of hesitation, the hope that the shock would impel the Americans to reexamine their relationship with the rest of the world, to look at themselves in the mirror that history was holding up for them and to seriously try - since it was a question of life and death - to understand why the face reflected there had become the object of global hate. If they had taken that road the attacks would have changed history. In no way would that have prevented a radical assault on the terrorists. It would not even have shaken American domination, because the large majority of nations has and will need the support of the United States. But it would have set limits for American political, economic, military, and moral power. In the framework of these limits, American power could have continued growing - because every single thing, individual, civilization, soul, and economy needs clear boundaries within which it can truly develop - instead of being dissipated in vanity, arrogance, and corruption for corruption’s sake with the risk for the USA of becoming at one and the same time both the most powerful and the most ephemeral empire in history.

Obviously, this possibility was not even considered by the Washington elite. The answer came quickly and, because it was absurd, it was presented as a dogma that may not be discussed: whatever had been done, it could have no connection to the attacks and those who think this way are enemies of the nation! As the Los Angeles Times, one of the few media in the USA that still permits itself the luxury of freedom, wrote very shortly after the attacks, those who thought that unilateralism would be abandoned were dreamers, that, on the contrary, it would be practiced more radically than ever. Since then this analysis has been confirmed in many ways.

Nevertheless, thanks to the event, fears could be glimpsed of an elite that knows itself to be responsible if not downright guilty. Washington’s excessive reactions after the attacks (we are at war, whoever is not with us is against us, the use of an atomic weapon is not excluded, etc.) are signs of this. They were meant to forbid any criticism and even any thinking: war is war no matter what the mistakes, and every citizen should support the government in place. The vehemence of the words also aimed at making people believe that this very patriotic elite was ready to sacrifice itself to save its people.

They were afraid that the Americans were going to ask them for explanations: Why do they hate us? Why are they targeting us? What is this policy you are carrying out in our name? What are we doing to the Palestinians? What is this business about half a million Iraqi children having died because of our policies? Why are we supporting terrorist movements across the globe? Why are we bombing civilians? And so forth. The risk was cut off at the root: there were no questions to be asked, we have al the answers, we are the Good and they are the Evil, and all who ask questions are accomplices of the terrorists and, besides, these are serious times - think of the victims, let us unite for the love of these people.

Therein lay a possibility that the USA might catch a glimpse of reality, but the breach was closed immediately. The fear was too great.

If anyone dared to mention the evidence, that is to say the responsibility of the American policy, which had “asked for it” as people with good sense stated, then the official propaganda would instantly throw the following dreadful reproach in their face: they are accusing the victims of being guilty! That may resemble a very moral indignation but in reality it is its refusal.

I suppose that nobody, not even Bin Laden, could possibly think that the victims of the WTC towers were responsible for anything at all and no one can ever dream of denying their innocence and the horror of their death. In spite of their anonymity, these victims carry a certain tragic grandeur because of the circumstances that made their death into an historic and fantastic phenomenon. Therefore, their dignity must be respected to the end and the identity of those responsible for their tragedy must be established even against our own interests, even if the truth leads us to accusing the most powerful and most respectable of citizens. It seems to me that seeking this truth is the only way of being faithful to the memory of the victims. On the other hand, it is the most pure and cynical betrayal to use them not only to hide the responsibilities of a part of those who prepared the terrain for these attacks but also to aggrandize the same policy that led to these attacks. And yet that is exactly what happens when the victims of the WTC are used to advance the present policy of George Bush and Ariel Sharon. There is something scandalous about seeing Donald Rumsfeld, who represents the most aggressive face of the imperialistic policy, symbolizing the victims’ revenge. He, more than anyone, incarnates the policy that is responsible for their tragedy.

One may justify telling lies in the name of the living by confirming that it is in their own interests, but one owes the truth to the dead. Otherwise what will happen is what has already happened: we are using corpses to advance our interests, we stretch the laws of the market society to the kingdom of the dead, and in some way we become cannibals. And if I am not mistaken when observing the people around me, we are excluding them from the range of our finest emotions - it is becoming difficult to lament them. There are too many official lies surrounding them, they serve to justify too base a policy. They have already been used to attack the anti-globalization movement by asserting that this movement, with its criticism of the “capitalism of thieves” (as official humanism is now beginning called) opened the way for the attacks. The victims are being invoked to justify waging war on some “forty or fifty countries” as the vice-president of the USA has stated. It would seem that they are fated to justify this policy for several decades. Their loss is without reason and their tragedy complete, but henceforth there stand between them and us the kleptomaniacs who took over as soon as they understood that these dead souls could serve as profitable goods in order to increase their fortune and power.

The contemplation of the fate of those who died is not a gratuitous digression, it sheds light on the way in which we are all changed into merchandise almost every day with one exacerbating factor - we actively participate in this.

However, probably from a desire to allow those awakened by the legitimate fear of a possible apocalypse to sleep again, the media were speaking incessantly of Bush’s wisdom and skill and transforming him into a great statesman watching over humanity. But Washington’s policy was more than ever lacking any moderation and thoughtfulness. It continued to be what it has been since the end of the Cold War, only with more inhumanity by caring even less about the world outside of the USA. It is probably less effective as well. In Afghanistan a “fine” operation so to speak was carried out, a demonstration of the mightiest military power against the poorest people on earth. But it has almost nothing to do with terrorism. The Taliban regime, which never bothered Washington before, did fall and, where the terrorists are concerned, nobody can say for sure whether this operation has strengthened or weakened them. On the other hand, the unconditional support for Israel - primary cause of the resentment of the Muslim world against the USA - is more important than ever since the offensive that Sharon has been authorized to conduct since September 11th. As for anti-Americanism and hate, there is no doubt that even the greatest friends of the USA are now having a hard time controlling them. The friendships were more stable before and the hatred less intense than after the war in Afghanistan, and the dangers today are the same or greater. What to say about this policy?

It is based on a blind faith in two words: power and lying. We have the strongest army in the world and the most powerful media, we control bodies and minds so why be burdened with nuances? Nuances are weaknesses.

Why this great fear of the truth? Why is it impossible to state that “they” hate us for what we do to them, that the world hates us for what we are? In order for people to hate America, despite all the hopes it has conveyed for so long, despite the supreme power of its popular culture and its media, it must be bad and irritating, and it must represent a true and great Evil to be reckoned with. The greatest good one can do for the USA today is to endlessly repeat the truth it wants to avoid at all costs, namely that through its policy the American government has sought this hatred. Yes, the attacks are the answer to this policy, a logical and predictable answer, and as dreadful as the policy itself. Official propaganda speaks of madmen who don’t exist, who supposedly had been planning suicidal operations for months out of pure insanity, while they simply are the natural products of extreme despair in the face of an untouchable enemy. In fact, what else could they have done? Go before the United Nations? They are under Washington’s control. Seek the support of the media? They are under Washington’s control. Revolt openly? Against a country whose air force is able to bomb any country at all for months on end?

In a way, the most irrational answer is the only possible answer to appraisals that are too rational. When the appraisal is so perfect that it eliminates any possibility of dissent, one plays with rules other than those of appraisal and reason.

The imperialistic strategy of the USA rests on a flawless assessment: force is law in the relationship between peoples; we are by far the strongest country; no one has the slightest chance against us; therefore, everyone must be aware of this relationship and keep it in mind. It is an iron logic that pushes those who cannot tolerate subjugation toward the most irrational forms of rebellion. When they cross over to the other side of life, they discover freedom and the chains of logic and power no longer carry any weight. In the absence of any choice the suicidal rebellions are a perfect response to the situation. There is nothing peculiar about this behavior - throughout all of history, those who rebelled against a great power have always accepted death. From a logical and rational point of view they did not have a chance. But everyone admires the courage of these men and women, except for those in power who do not tolerate finding themselves faced with people against whom their power cannot stand up. Spartacus, Joan of Arc, Pugatchev, Jean Moulin, and innumerable legendary figures who stood up against all odds, are people who have crossed over to the other side. Without, of course, comparing them to Bin Laden, I mean to say that death is part of the choices men make when they are driven by despair. Is life to be lived at any price or should life granted on conditions that are too humiliating be refused? Every person has to answer for him- or herself, but to me it seems narrow-minded to see the “madmen” of our history as heroes and the “madmen” of our adversaries’ history as losers. If the powerful choose the weapons of the all-powerful, the desperate choose the weapons of despair. And since modern technology is accessible to all, there is a strong risk that everyone has the same weapons.

The official American propaganda declares that expressing these obvious truths encourages the violence of the desperate. Perhaps. But silence encourages the violence of the USA in the world. The choice is as always a difficult one for a people that sets out to conquer the world. We are going to plunder, kill, and subjugate at the other end of the world through pure selfishness, it is terrible, but it is still “we”. We are much stronger, the others do not stand a chance, and that is terrible as well, but it is still “we”. And, of course, we share no values and no experience with the savages before us. So, if we put ourselves in the shoes of a white man in the United States during the period of the extermination of the Indians, what choice is there?

Because it is a difficult choice, people adamantly flee from the truth as the Americans are doing today and admire all those - obviously huge numbers - who tell them tall tales about their innocence, their goodness, their generosity and humanism, their sense of justice, their vocation to fight evil in the world, while in the wings they bring “business” to a successful conclusion.

One may retort that it has always been this way, that all of history is a cycle of violence and telling lies. That is partly true, but it should not be forgotten that if evil is eternal, the battle against evil is so as well, in spite of history. This “in spite of”, against resignation, is important, and is a sign of a higher hope - indeed, if we cannot change history we can find a way out by fighting it. In fact, the true enigma of history is not the existence of evil, but the persistence of good. The one is logical and natural, it helps efficiency, but the other is absurd from every point of view. Especially from the point of view of the market. And yet.

There is something new in the present situation: never until today has the cycle of violence been guided by the Devil himself, never have the means to destroy the planet been available. That changes the rules of the game. That must change them.

This imperative absolutely requires that in the hallway of death a window be opened to allow the light of truth to filter in: one has to be firm when facing the enemy, one has the right to be so, but only on the condition that one publicly accepts the truth about oneself and that, to the extent possible, our policy be adapted to the limits this truth imposes.

Without that, the answer to the question “Why do they hate us?” is awful: they hate us precisely for what we are and we hate ourselves as much as they do for what we are. Without which we would not try so hard to hide the truth about ourselves, before our enemies, our friends, our children, and ourselves. This behavior indicates, it seems to me, that there must be something very hateful in our society.

The fact remains that the power of this truth is very strange. It appears that, if one were to let it out on a public square, the empire would crumble instantly, the Stock Markets would crash and entire peoples would be overtaken by violent convulsions. Fantastic means are used to hide it. At the same time, everyone loves to pride himself on being always truthful. By these same means, truth is sought in the past and, when we contemplate it from very far away, we are overjoyed at the idea of having discovered the essence of life. But perhaps the essence of life lies in the present as well? Can it really introduce more danger into the world’s present situation than the aggressive, militaristic, and perverse policy, hiding beneath the loftiest moral concepts, the United States and their allies have practiced since the end of the Cold War?

In fact, it is believed to be such a lethal poison that we try hard to state it to our enemies and require that they accept it: reexamine your conscience, judge yourselves, and please speak the truth publicly! One can be sure that it would all be over for them if they were to fall in the trap of truth. Thus, something could have been learned about the United States and about the terrorists in spite of their fantastic lies about their respective missions. The description by Bush of the terrorists and the one Bin Laden has given of the United States are not very far removed from reality. It is possible that they each have precisely the enemies they deserve.

Who knows, if one could see reality in a disinterested way, without fear, without hope, without interests, one might find it fair, equitable, magnificent, full of the Greek logos, and it would appear to us that the madmen of the empire and the madmen of God could do nothing other than meet up. Those who think that the world is for sale really deserve kamikazes for enemies, and those who think that it is God’s hand bringing planes to crash over Wall Street really deserve a visit by B52 bombers. They sought each other, they found each other, they loved each other, they fought each other, they have become inseparable… The world refuses to become the reflection of our lies, it is rather the perfect reflection of what we are. This may disturb our ego, but it reassures us about the world: it is in better hands than ours…

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Notes:

1. L'homme sans qualité, Robert Musil

Translated from French by Marjolijn de Jager

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