Dædalus coming up in Dædalus: Dædalus on sex Joan Roughgarden, Terry Castle, Steven Marcus, Elizabeth Benedict, Brian Charlesworth, Lawrence Cohen, Anne Fausto-Sterling, Tim Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Birkhead, Catharine MacKinnon, Margo Jefferson, and Stanley A. Corngold Winter 2007

on capitalism Joyce Appleby, John C. Bogle, Lucian Bebchuk, Robert W. Fogel, Winter 2007: on nonviolence & violence & democracy Jerry Z. Muller, Richard Epstein, Benjamin M. Friedman, John Dunn, Robin Blackburn, and Gerhard Loewenberg on William H. McNeill Violence & its historical limits 5 nonviolence Steven A. LeBlanc Why warfare? 13 & violence on life Anthony Kenny, Thomas Laqueur, Shai Lavi, Lorraine Daston, Paul Jonathan Schell Rabinow, Robert P. George, Robert J. Richards, Nikolas Rose, John & Robert S. Boynton People’s power vs. nuclear power 22 Broome, Jeff McMahan, and Adrian Woolfson Mark Juergensmeyer Gandhi vs. terrorism 30 Neil L. Whitehead Violence & the cultural order 40 on the public interest William Galston, E. J. Dionne, Jr., Seyla Benhabib, Jagdish Bhagwati, Adam Wolfson, Lance Taylor, Gary Hart, Nathan Glazer, Robert N. Tzvetan Todorov Avant-gardes & totalitarianism 51 Bellah, Nancy Rosenblum, Amy Gutmann, and Christine Todd Adam Michnik The Ultras of moral revolution 67 Whitman Cindy D. Ness The rise in female violence 84 Mia Bloom Female suicide bombers 94 on nature Leo Marx, William Cronon, Cass Sunstein, Daniel Kevles, Bill Robert H. Mnookin Negotiating conflict: Belgium & Israel 103 McKibben, Harriet Ritvo, Gordon Orians, Camille Parmesan, Margaret Schabas, and Philip Tetlock & Michael Oppenheimer James G. Blight & janet M. Lang Robert McNamara: then & now 120 on cosmopolitanism Martha C. Nussbaum, Stanley Hoffmann, Margaret C. Jacob, A. A. Long, Pheng Cheah, Darrin McMahon, Helena Rosenblatt, Samuel annals David Jewitt & Jane X. Luu Pluto, perception & politics 132 Scheffler, Arjun Appadurai, Rogers Smith, Peter Brooks, and Craig Calhoun Owen Gingerich Planetary perils in Prague 137

poetry John Kinsella Into the Sun 141 plus poetry by Charles Simic, Lawrence Dugan, Molly McQuade, Ted Richer &c.; ½ction by Peggy Newland &c.; and notes by Omer ½ction Peggy Shinner Life is Adequate 143 Bartov, Samuel Weber, Susan Goldin-Meadow, William F. Baker, Harriet Ritvo, Phyllis Coley &c. notes Robert I. Rotberg on improving governance 152 Susan T. Fiske on prejudice & the brain 156 Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson on the economic roots of democracy 160

U.S. $13; www.amacad.org

Inside front cover: Mahatma Gandhi, April 5, 1930, leading a march to the sea to make salt in de½- ance of the British salt monopoly. A living sym- bol of his nation’s indomitable will, Gandhi pre- ferred peaceful demonstrations of popular senti- ment to a violent show of force: “You can chain me,” he said, “you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.” In the struggle to free India from Brit- ish rule, Gandhi favored large displays of “people power” to any recourse to violence, including the use of torture against the movement’s enemies. See Mark Juergensmeyer on Gandhi vs. terrorism, pages 30–39: “Torture, from Gandhi’s point of view, is ineffective . . . because it corrupts the moral character of a society that allows it to be used.” Image © Bettmann/Corbis. James Miller, Editor of Dædalus Phyllis S. Bendell, Managing Editor and Director of Publications Esther Y. Chen, Assistant Editor

Board of editors Steven Marcus, Editor of the Academy Russell Banks, Fiction Adviser Rosanna Warren, Poetry Adviser Joyce Appleby (u.s. history, ucla), Stanley Hoffmann (government, Harvard), Donald Kennedy (environmental science, Stanford), Martha C. Nussbaum (law and philosophy, Chicago), Neil J. Smelser (sociology, Berkeley), Steven Weinberg (physics, University of Texas at Austin); ex of½cio: Emilio Bizzi (President of the Academy), Leslie Cohen Berlowitz (Chief Executive Of½cer) Editorial advisers

Daniel Bell (sociology, Harvard), Michael Boudin (law, u.s. Court of Appeals), Wendy Doniger (religion, Chicago), Howard Gardner (education, Harvard), Carol Gluck (Asian history, Columbia), Stephen Greenblatt (English, Harvard), Thomas Laqueur (European history, Berkeley), Alan Lightman (English and physics, mit), Steven Pinker (psychology, Harvard), Diane Ravitch (education, nyu), Amartya Sen (economics, Harvard), Richard Shweder (human development, Chicago), Frank Wilczek (physics, mit)

Contributing Editors Robert S. Boynton, D. Graham Burnett, Peter Pesic, Danny Postel

Dædalus is designed by Alvin Eisenman Dædalus

Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences

The labyrinth designed by Daedalus for King Minos of Crete, on a silver tetradrachma from Cnossos, Crete, c. 350–300 b.c. (35 mm, Cabinet des Médailles, Bibliothèque National, Paris). “Such was the work, so intricate the place, / That scarce the workman all its turns cou’d trace; / And Daedalus was puzzled how to ½nd / The secret ways of what himself design’d.”–Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book 8

Dædalus was founded in 1955 and established as a quarterly in 1958. The journal’s namesake was renowned in ancient Greece as an inventor, scientist, and unriddler of riddles. Its emblem, a maze seen from above, symbolizes the aspiration of its founders to “lift each of us above his cell in the labyrinth of learning in order that he may see the entire structure as if from above, where each separate part loses its comfortable separateness.” The American Academy of Arts & Sciences, like its journal, brings together distinguished individuals from every ½eld of human endeavor. It was chartered in 1780 as a forum “to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honour, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people.” Now in its third century, the Academy, with its more than four thousand elected members, continues to provide intellectual leadership to meet the critical challenges facing our world. Dædalus Winter 2007 Subscription rates: Electronic only for non- Issued as Volume 136, Number 1 member individuals–$40; institutions–$92. Canadians add 6% gst. Print and electronic © 2007 by the American Academy for nonmember individuals–$44; institu- of Arts & Sciences tions–$102. Canadians add 6% gst. Outside Female suicide bombers: a global trend the United States and Canada add $20 for © 2007 by Mia Bloom postage and handling. Prices subject to change Ethnic conflicts: Flemings & Walloons, without notice. Palestinians & Israelis © 2007 by Robert H. Mnookin Institutional subscriptions are on a volume- Into the Sun year basis. All other subscriptions begin with © 2007 by John Kinsella the next available issue. Life is Adequate Single issues: current issues–$13; back issues © 2007 by Peggy Shinner for individuals–$13; back issues for institu- Editorial of½ces: Dædalus, Norton’s Woods, tions–$26. Outside the United States and 136 Irving Street, Cambridge ma 02138. Canada add $5 per issue for postage and han- Phone: 617 491 2600. Fax: 617 576 5088. dling. Prices subject to change without notice. Email: [email protected]. Newsstand distribution by Ingram Periodicals Library of Congress Catalog No. 12-30299 Inc., 18 Ingram Blvd., La Vergne tn 37086. Phone: 800 627 6247. isbn 0-87724-061-2 Claims for missing issues will be honored free Dædalus publishes by invitation only and as- of charge if made within three months of the sumes no responsibility for unsolicited manu- publication date of the issue. Claims may be scripts. The views expressed are those of the submitted to [email protected]. Mem- author of each article, and not necessarily of bers of the American Academy please direct all the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. questions and claims to [email protected]. issn e-issn Dædalus ( 0011-5266; 1548-6192) Advertising and mailing-list inquiries may be is published quarterly (winter, spring, summer, mit mit ma addressed to Marketing Department, fall) by The Press, Cambridge 02142, Press Journals, 238 Main Street, Suite 500, for the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Cambridge ma 02142. Phone: 617 253 2866. An electronic full-text version of Dædalus is mit Fax: 617 258 5028. Email: journals-info@ available from The Press. Subscription mit.edu. and address changes should be addressed to mit Press Journals, 238 Main Street, Suite 500, Permission to photocopy articles for internal Cambridge ma 02142. Phone: 617 253 2889; or personal use is granted by the copyright us/Canada 800 207 8354. Fax: 617 577 1545. owner for users registered with the Copyright Email: [email protected]. Clearance Center (ccc) Transactional Report- ing Service, provided that the per copy fee Printed in the United States of America by of $10 per article is paid directly to the ccc, Cadmus Professional Communications, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers ma 01923. The Science Press Division, 300 West Chestnut pa fee code for users of the Transactional Report- Street, Ephrata 17522. ing Service is 0011-5266/07. Address all other Postmaster: Send address changes to Dædalus, inquiries to the Subsidiary Rights Manager, 238 Main Street, Suite 500, Cambridge ma mit Press Journals, 238 Main Street, Suite 500, 02142. Periodicals postage paid at Boston ma Cambridge ma 02142. Phone: 617 253 2864. and at additional mailing of½ces. Fax: 617 258 5028. Email: journals-rights@ mit.edu. The typeface is Cycles, designed by Sumner Stone at the Stone Type Foundry of Guinda ca. Each size of Cycles has been separately designed in the tradition of metal types. William H. McNeill

Violence & submission in the human past

The retreat of Gandhian ‘nonviolence’ viously, the art of shaping public opinion in public affairs from its high points in by managing the news has become a far the 1930s when the might of the British more potent ally of established authori- Raj in India was so seriously challenged ty, even (or especially) in the exercise of by Gandhi and his followers, and since violence, than it used to be. the 1950s and 1960s when Martin Luther Yet it is still true that violence has seri- King, Jr., led civil-rights demonstrators ous limits and that command of superi- in facing police dogs and truncheons in or force is a very precarious basis for the American South, is obvious today. government. As Napoleon is supposed That is scarcely surprising. It takes enor- to have remarked, one can do anything mous self-discipline to invite attack and with bayonets except sit on them. Effec- refrain from retaliation, and the moral tive and sustained public action requires effect of nonviolence depends on who at least tacit consent of the governed; ac- witnesses such confrontations and how tive support is much more effective, if it that larger public reacts. Violence exer- can be contrived. More generally, human cised in secret against helpless victims, society depends on perpetual interaction as at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, es- between leaders and followers, and the capes the price of public disapproval as exercise of violence and the threat of vi- long as it remains secret. And all too ob- olence is part of that interaction. So is submission and obedience; and in prac- tice the great majority of humankind William H. McNeill, a Fellow of the American has always submitted for very good rea- Academy since 1964, is Robert A. Milikan Dis- sons. Only so can collective action be ef- tinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Histo- ½ciently exercised, only so can home ter- ry at the University of Chicago. Among his nu- ritory be effectually defended, and, in a merous publications are “The Rise of the West” word, only so can conditions for group (1963), “Plagues and Peoples” (1976), “The survival be optimized. Pursuit of Power” (1982), “Keeping Together In all probability, violence and threats in Time” (1995), and, most recently, “The Pur- of violence played a prominent part in suit of Truth: A Historian’s Memoir” (2005). de½ning which of several competing males achieved leadership of the proto- © 2007 by the American Academy of Arts human, and then the ½rst fully human, & Sciences bands of foragers from whom we all de-

Dædalus Winter 2007 5 William H. scend. Recent studies of “chimpanzee to that result. No one can be sure, but McNeill politics” by Franz de Waal and others since 99 percent of human time was on nonviolence offer a plausible model for what proba- spent in such foraging bands, we can be & violence bly existed among our remote ancestors. reasonably con½dent that human in- Among chimps, careful observation stincts and proclivities were shaped by showed that the alpha male maintains that experience. his position only by facing down repeat- And how amazingly successful they ed challenges from one or more of his were, rising to the top of the food chain subordinates–encounters usually limit- and spreading around the habitable ed to gestures of de½ance before the globe as no species before them had ev- challenger backs away without engaging er done. To all appearance, ready resort in actual combat. But every so often, af- to violence against other humans–as ter years of backing down, a challenger well as killing animals for food–played does ½ght, and sooner or later one of a large part in that success. them displaces the older alpha male, But settled village life, starting per- thus assuring a succession of physical- haps as much as (or more than) eight ly vigorous leaders. Moreover, male thousand years ago, altered life patterns chimpanzees guard their home territo- profoundly–as did the subsequent rise ry against intruders from neighboring of cities and civilizations. In general, bands and, when unopposed, cross those the effective scale of human societies borders to pick up extra food. As a result, expanded so that ½rst hundreds, then band territories are elastic, widening or thousands, and presently hundreds of shrinking with population growth or thousands and millions, of individual collapse, and with the corresponding persons began to interact within a loose vigor of local defense and aggression. and, at ½rst, very slenderly integrated Effective local defense requires coop- web. Older patterns of violence altered. eration. That means subordination of Hierarchies of command and obedience most males to their established leader. embraced larger and larger numbers Rivalry only goes so far: the common of persons, and age-old alternatives be- defense, on which the band’s food sup- tween violent self-assertion and submis- ply depends, requires everyone’s readi- sion became correspondingly complicat- ness to ½ght against intruders to the ed, compelling the same individual and death if need be, using hands and teeth. local groups to shift back and forth be- Females are different; they migrate tween the two roles when encountering across band boundaries to mate, thus strangers, depending on who the partic- assuring dissemination of genes across ular strangers might be and where they longer distances and among larger popu- ranked in the larger web. lations. Again, every such encounter was what Contemporary chimpanzee behavior, it was, often beset by uncertainties on especially mating patterns, may not be both sides. Generalization becomes the same as what prevailed among our more reckless as complication increased. human ancestors; but ef½cient cooper- Yet it seems to me that some general ob- ation in defense of territory, especially servations about the changing roles of against fellow humans, was surely essen- violence are plausible or at least interest- tial for them, and the subordination of ing and worth suggesting in print. other males to a single leader seems a First of all, early agricultural settle- very likely–almost necessary–means ments were of two contrasting kinds.

6 Dædalus Winter 2007 Tropical gardening may well have been The necessary restraint was presumably Violence & older than grain agriculture, but it left achieved by trial and error. submission in the hu- only scant archaeological traces that still The basic fact was that exposure to man past remain almost entirely unexplored. The natural disasters–hail, drought, flood, reason so little is known about the histo- and blight–as well as the risk of total ry of tropical gardeners is that they did con½scation by human predators might not support cities and civilizations: they bring death by starvation to grain farm- simply left their crops in the ground un- ers. Separate, isolated villages of a few til they were ready to consume them. As hundred persons could not hope to safe- a result, outsiders could not carry stored guard their harvests unless a larger poli- harvests away by force or threat of force. ty, supporting specialists both in the su- It follows that new forms of human par- pernatural and in violence, were avail- asitism that grain farmers submitted to able to help protect them. That, in turn, could not arise among tropical garden- required feeding such specialists by sub- ers, who therefore remained in small, mitting to rents and taxes. comparatively dense, but independent, Both parties gained if custom regulat- village communities, like those discov- ed the transfer of food from producer ered in interior New Guinea as recent- to consumer so as to allow both to sur- ly as the 1930s. Cities and civilization vive. Villagers had to work harder and passed them by; and local forms of vio- consume less than they produced; urban lence, though real enough, conformed specialists in protection–priests and closely to the hypothetical patterns of warriors–probably consumed more violence among ancestral foraging per capita than rural dwellers did from bands. That is to say, local defense of ter- the start, and protected themselves and ritory played the central role: choice of their rural dependents as best they local leaders was tied to the conduct of could. That partnership is what we call armed clashes with neighbors, and all civilization, and civilized partnerships adult males were expected to take part soon proved capable of raising monu- in such exercises. Costs as measured by mental buildings and leaving other con- death in battle varied widely, and we spicuous archaeological traces wherever have too little information to make grain agriculture prevailed, in western worthwhile generalizations. Asia, Egypt, India, China, and Mexico. By contrast, grain agriculture and the Overall, this arrangement meant that stored harvests it required provoked far the great majority of persons ceased to more social diversity and, in the long take an active part in defending their run, sustained amazing transformations home territory. Submission to powerful of human life. The whole trajectory of outsiders who carried off part of the har- what we think of as human history de- vest every year was a heavy price to pay, pended on an initial differentiation be- but early grain farmers had no choice tween subjected villagers and urban and, in western Asia, soon found ways of dwellers, who lived on rents and taxes producing more grain than they needed collected forcibly in kind from those for their own consumption by harness- who raised the food city folk consumed. ing animals to plows, thus expanding the Such an inequity could only be sustained area of cultivation per capita substantial- if rent- and tax-takers allowed villagers ly. In effect a new sort of symbiosis be- to keep enough grain to feed themselves tween draught animals and humans sup- and leave enough for next year’s seed. plemented and sustained the emerging

Dædalus Winter 2007 7 William H. symbiosis between village dwellers and goods, thanks to specialization and life- McNeill city folk. Domesticated animals also long practice. Equipping suitably splen- on nonviolence supplemented human food supplies by did rituals for pleasing and appeasing & violence giving milk (and eggs); their bodies con- the gods constituted an insatiable mar- stituted a sort of food bank in times of ket for artisan skills–so did the manu- famine when grain was short. On top facture of superior weapons and armor. of that, domesticated animals could be Hence, growing numbers of skilled arti- made to carry heavy loads, both for short sans could and did claim a share of the distances between ½eld and barnyard, food coming from the countryside as and cross-country for trading or military rent and taxes. purposes. Merchants were just as important, for The West Asian pattern of human and it was they who traveled far and wide, animal symbiosis eventually spread very supplying artisans with the rare and pre- widely through the Old World. As a re- cious goods they needed–raw materi- sult, in most of Eurasia and in parts of als, like metals, gems, pigments, timber, Africa, urban exploitation of rural peas- and much else. But securing raw materi- antries was much facilitated by the par- als peaceably from afar required giving allel and harsher exploitation of domes- something in return that local persons ticated animals by village farmers. It wanted and could not produce for them- was different in the Americas, where selves. To be sure, violent seizure was pre-Columbian civilizations flourished an alternative, and to judge by the Baby- without much in the way of large-bod- lonian Epic of Gilgamesh, which describes ied domesticated animals–a difference an armed foray into the forests of Leb- that eventually made Spanish conquest anon in search of timber, military expe- easier than it would otherwise have ditions in search of strategic raw mate- been. rials were sometimes launched when To begin with, it looks as though in all cities were new in the land of Sumer. parts of the world, protection from natu- But just as agreed arrangements be- ral disasters by experts in the supernatu- tween local payers and receivers of rent ral was what mattered most. But priests and taxes were more conducive to sur- were supplemented from the start by vival than violent seizure, so it was in military leaders, and even the most pow- interregional encounters. Both parties erful priesthoods were eventually subor- gained if local people could be induced dinated to military rulers when protec- to part with raw materials–or, better tion against outside human attack be- yet, prepare them for transport to dis- came more critical for local survival. tant urban markets–and accept manu- Hence, it is not surprising that warriors factured goods in return. This created or their descendants remained in charge yet another elastic demand for the hand- of civilized governments until recent iwork of urban artisans. As both sides times. came to recognize the advantages of Yet the polarity between specialized such peaceful exchanges, regional spe- protectors against destructive violence cialization slowly assumed signi½cant and rural rent-payers and taxpayers was proportions throughout urban hinter- complicated from the beginning by new lands. Large-scale efforts to mine metals, scope that civilized societies gave to ar- fell timber, dive for pearls, and ½nd other tisans and merchants. Professional ar- specially attractive commodities allowed tisans were able to produce superior local elites, who organized such efforts,

8 Dædalus Winter 2007 to acquire luxury goods manufactured in gifting still plays a central role in Amer- Violence & distant urban workshops. ican politics in the form of political submission in the hu- Resulting networks of exchange trans- contributions, where the old rule–the man past mitted ideas and skills in both direc- greater the gift, the greater the return– tions, as well as distributed material ob- still prevails. jects, thus hastening the civilizing pro- With respect to violence, raid and cess whereby more and more people trade were and remain alternative ways over widening areas began to share in of getting hold of someone else’s goods. a common evolutionary process of dif- But resort to violence was always cost- ferentiation and specialization that ran ly. It was dif½cult to sustain, since rob- across political, linguistic, and cultural bery discouraged other merchants from boundaries. That process eventually showing up and did not usually yield a linked most of the Old World into a far suitable array of goods. Hence, pirates more closely interacting whole than had and robbers often had to seek out peace- prevailed when only foraging bands col- able markets in some special, well- lided and peacefully exchanged preciosi- guarded location, where they could sell ties with one another on festival occa- their booty and buy the things that ½tted sions. A similar but weaker web of ex- their actual needs. change also arose in the Americas, ham- Parallel ambiguity prevailed in the pered by the absence of pack animals metropolitan centers where merchants capable of carrying burdens as heavy as clustered together, forming marginal, those that donkeys, mules, and camels often unstable, and semiautonomous did in the Old World. Flotation was al- communities of their own. To tax or not ways more capacious and sometimes to tax–and, if so, how much–was a safer than overland transport. Conse- question local rulers always had to ask. quently, as rafts, boats, and ships be- A ready supply of goods–later of money came more elaborate, river and overseas –levied on visiting merchants was a wel- trade routes grew in importance, and come source of revenue; but charging eventually connected the entire globe too much discouraged visitors and re- into a single web after 1500 ce. duced total revenue. Those rulers who Traveling merchants were the most charged least often gained most by at- prominent instruments of long-range tracting larger numbers of richer mer- human interactions. They often faced chants to their cities. ambiguous situations when encounter- Merchants were also capable of be- ing strangers with respect both to prices coming rulers of independent city- and to violence. Prices were set in two states, like Venice, and of forming influ- different ways: by generous gifting, with ential interest groups within territorial expectation of spontaneous, honorable states, like medieval and early modern reciprocity; or by bargaining between England. As such they sometimes exer- buyer and seller for the lowest price. cised political and military force for Economists commonly concentrate their own purposes rather than submit- wholly on bargaining, but gifting played ting to armed superiors, as was more (and continues to play) a larger role in commonly the case. human affairs than we often realize. Overall, one can safely say that mer- Gift-giving was what carried the gem chants were a disturbing, quicksilver ele- dealer, Marco Polo, across Asia in the ment in civilized society–upsetting old thirteenth century, for example. And ways by bringing novelties from afar to

Dædalus Winter 2007 9 William H. new places and peoples. Inhabitants missionaries of alien faiths. More or less McNeill of remote urban hinterlands suffered settled alliances between throne and al- on nonviolence most. Local ways and traditions regular- tar usually prevailed, but there was a de- & violence ly crumbled as such populations were ½ciency built into the human experience folded into the larger human web, and of life in large cities that recurrently up- their new roles as suppliers of raw ma- set such arrangements among the privi- terials and manpower to distant urban leged leaders of society. markets were usually unattractive at It took a long while for attachment best. Metropolitan centers also suffered between a population and local divini- strains when adjusting to novelties, since ties to give way to universal faiths, and changing markets could destroy urban longer still for the new universal faiths livelihoods without always creating new to accommodate sectarian variation. The ones. so-called higher religions–Buddhism, Above all, merchants made a living by Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and (more crossing political and other boundaries, ambiguously) Confucianism–mark the exposing themselves and those they arrival of universal faiths between about dealt with to ambiguous situations in 550 bce and 634 ce. They were applica- which resort to violence was often near ble in principle to every human being; the surface. Over time, recognition of but despite all the missionary effort they the high cost of violence accumulated, exhibited, these faiths divided most of and legal systems capable of settling dis- humankind along new religious lines, putes peaceably extended their jurisdic- and a wide variety of more local reli- tion over wider and wider territories. gions also continued to command de- But crossing jurisdictional boundaries voted followings. remained precarious, and merchants Propagation of the higher religions who did so reaped correspondingly certainly helped innumerable human swollen pro½ts when they did not suffer beings to adjust to urban living. That crippling loss. Everywhere and always was what made these religions so suc- change and instability followed in their cessful. Yet their teaching, rituals, and footsteps, interdependence of distant institutional expression in monasteries, populations increased, as well as vulner- congregations, churches, mosques, and ability to catastrophe whenever sudden schools did not bring anything like reli- breakdown of exchanges interrupted the gious stability. Instead, heresy and sec- generation of increasing wealth that tarianism continued to thrive and divide drove the entire civilizing process. urban populations. What I have referred to as the civiliz- The problem was this. Most human ing process also brought far-reaching beings need to belong to small primary changes to religion. From the time mil- groups. Only so does everyday personal itary commanders began to compete life have meaning; only so are questions with priestly leaders of civilized society, of what to do and when to do it unam- compromise of some sort between the biguous. Our descent from members of two kinds of leaders prevailed. They foraging bands, where everybody knew needed each other. Supernatural sanc- everyone else and also knew how to be- tion, con½rmed and certi½ed by priests, have in everyday situations, undoubted- legitimated military rule, while priests ly explains this fact. Agricultural villages needed military protection against out- of a few hundred people were not too side raiders as well as heretics and/or large to satisfy that need, and the conser-

10 Dædalus Winter 2007 vative stability of village life in most of ately, but mostly without admitting or Violence & the world until very recently reflects realizing they were doing so. When submission in the hu- that circumstance. But cities where wisely done, such adjustments kept the man past thousands congregated, where special- faith alive and vigorous across genera- ized occupations multiplied, and where tions and centuries. different expectations and rules of be- Second, these religions dealt directly havior prevailed among different social with the standard human crises–birth, classes could not do so. Smaller, subordi- marriage, sickness, and death–offering nate groups were necessary, and among solace and ritual resolution for the hopes the variety of such groups, religiously and fears such events provoke. Life with- de½ned linkages proved to be the most out such support was dif½cult and unsat- enduring, most flexible, and most pow- isfying. With it, ordinary persons could erful. carry on even in time of extreme distress By de½nition, a functioning primary and endure yet another day. Tight-knit group has to be small so everyone can communities sustained by sectarian know everyone else. Markers distin- faiths, in short, contributed to survival guishing ‘us’ from ‘them’ help to de½ne within big cities just as much as protec- and con½rm group boundaries. Details tion by military specialists did; these of clothing–especially headgear–and faiths were even more effective because physical bearing or appearance com- they were more immediately personal monly serve that purpose. Cities, ac- than more splendid rituals conducted by cordingly, became an uneasy amalgam priests of of½cial, state-supported forms of separate, self-aware groups, often liv- of religion. ing close together in distinct neighbor- But religious differences also invited hoods and treating outsiders differently violent persecution. Minority religious from the way they treated fellow mem- groups normally submitted. Some, like bers of the particular group to which Quakers and Jains, made nonviolence they belonged. an article of faith. Sometimes, however, One can think of such urban group- new winds of doctrine attracted so much ings as quasi-villages, with enough in enthusiasm that followers attempted to common to sustain meaningful person- overthrow the established forms of wor- al life and channel everyday behavior ship, either by conversion or by force. along ½rm customary lines. Occupation- Consequently, reform movements in al convergence and/or ethnic common- Jewish, Christian, and Muslim history ality was often a factor. But, as I said, have frequently provoked large-scale the most flexible, enduring, and pow- violence; and religiously justi½ed or in- erful cement for such groups was a reli- spired militancy remains active in sev- gion that differed from other, especially eral parts of the world today, as the so- of½cial, forms of worship. called war on terror surely suggests. The power of sectarian religion rested Peaceable coexistence of separate reli- on two realities. First and foremost, gious groups, and legal toleration of di- such faiths had priests or teachers who verse practices and belief, is always pre- de½ned, propagated, and defended it carious. In proportion to the emotional against challenges of every kind–for- attachment to a particular form of reli- cible, logical, or merely snobbish. Such gion, the cohesion of fellow-believers specialists also adjusted details to ever- is strengthened. Encounters with unbe- changing circumstances, partly deliber- lievers become correspondingly pricklier

Dædalus Winter 2007 11 William H. and at least potentially violent. To be of human numbers seems sure before McNeill on sure, the weaker normally submit to the much longer; but whether wealth and nonviolence stronger, enduring whatever hardships comfort will collapse as violence spreads & violence and indignities may be imposed upon more widely, or whether means for con- them. But the gain from belonging to straining destructive violence and sus- a small, incandescent community of be- taining collaboration on a global scale lievers is always countered by the costs will be found, seems still an open ques- of collision with outsiders, together with tion. ever-present possibilities for hurtful vio- It has been an open question through- lence. out the past, so I see no need to despair but much need for ingenuity and wis- It seems clear that human proclivity dom, together with the common sense for violent action will always be with that stubbornly prefers survival to de- us. Violence was essential to survival struction, and compromise, even sub- among our remote ancestors–it is iron- mission, to victory by enforcing our will ic that self-destruction on a global scale (whoever ‘we’ may be) on everyone else. is now within human capability, thanks to atomic bombs and other forms of mass destruction. It is equally true that, since the invention of agriculture, most human beings submitted to others and seldom even tried to kill anyone else, though killing domesticated animals re- mained essential to most farming popu- lations. Specialization and peaceable ex- changes have gradually enriched human- kind over millennia, and recently did so beyond the imagination of older times. But violence, magni½ed by modern wea- ponry, has also increased beyond any- thing our ancestors ever thought possi- ble. How the civilizing process will stum- ble or advance under such circumstances –complicated by increasingly obvious environmental constraints–remains to be seen. But human ingenuity is enor- mous, and new ways of satisfying our wishes and needs are contagious and tend to spread. They can do so very rap- idly today when instantaneous commu- nication assaults our ears and eyes every day. Mighty states and rich corporations crumble precipitously when old attach- ments yield to new; and so far, at least, human numbers and wealth have con- tinued to grow. An end to the increase

12 Dædalus Winter 2007 Steven A. LeBlanc

Why warfare? Lessons from the past

If we ever hope to end warfare we must Most people tend to think that com- ½rst understand why it occurs. Because mon sense is adequate for solving them. this is trivially obvious, it is surprising But we abandoned the commonsense how poorly studied warfare is. Consider- approach to problems in physics and bi- able work has been done on the details ology long ago, with the result that we of particular wars and the events leading have made great progress in these sci- up to them, but little has been done to ences. Despite its obvious importance, ½nd the underlying reasons for warfare there has been little application of the in general. My colleague Kevin Hill and scienti½c method of hypothesis, com- I recently undertook a brief survey of parison, and testing to unearthing the courses on warfare taught at ½fteen ma- causes of warfare. jor research universities. We found nu- One approach to understanding the merous courses on speci½c wars, eigh- reasons for warfare is to study deep his- teen on the concepts and methods of tory. Archaeology, anthropology, ethno- war, and only six that we could construe history, and related disciplines provide as examinations of the general causes of great time depth for studying war. They warfare–and even those were based in also provide information on how and a single discipline. why warfare took place in a wide array This lack is probably due in part to our of cultures. Yet this highly relevant in- approach to social problems in general. formation is often ignored. Most politi- cal scientists and historians who consid- Steven A. LeBlanc is director of collections at the er the reasons for warfare start with the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology modern era, or even the 1800s; fewer at Harvard University. He is the author of numer- go back to the ancient Greeks. And al- ous publications, including “Prehistoric Warfare most all consider only the cultures of in the American Southwest” (1999), “Constant Europe and other state-level societies Battles: The Myth of the Peaceful, Noble Sav- such as China. These studies are rele- age” (2003), and “Painted by a Distant Hand: vant, but they are too limited to exhibit Mimbres Pottery from the American Southwest” general patterns over the entire span of (2004). human history and prehistory. Discern- ing whether or not human warfare has a © 2007 by the American Academy of Arts genetic base, for instance, is an impossi- & Sciences ble task to accomplish with such limited

Dædalus Winter 2007 13 Steven A. scope; instead, we must examine evi- This generalization is clearly established LeBlanc dence from deep history and worldwide by Lawrence Keeley in War Before Civi- on nonviolence ethnography, which represent most of lization, and was also discussed recently & violence human history and most of human cul- by Richard Wrangham and Raymond C. tural variability. Kelly.1 The global study of warfare is neces- Such warfare was chronic, virtually sary to determine whether war has a sin- annual. Few societies experienced even gle cause or many different causes. If the one generation without signi½cant war- causes of war have varied over time, then fare. Regardless of its frequency, almost we must discern how and why this is the all societies lived in fear of attack. Great case. Prima facie, it appears that some efforts, often at considerable costs, were modern wars, particularly in the West, made to live in protected places–such are different from wars before the twen- as on the tops of windswept hills and tieth century, whereas recent regional on the faces of cliffs far from water sup- wars in Africa and Asia appear to have plies–and to build forti½cations. Some the same causes as ancient wars. If sig- groups lived in settlements that were ni½cant changes in the nature of warfare larger or more compact than optimum, took place in the modern era, knowing simply for defense. The deadliness of how and why such changes arose is nec- war made these measures inevitable. Es- essary for understanding modern wars. timates of around 25 percent of males dying from warfare are derived for virtu- One problem with studying warfare ally all continents, for foragers and egali- is how to de½ne it. Use of such criteria tarian farmers alike. The probability of as the presence of standing armies and dying as a result of warfare was, in fact, professional soldiers eliminates consid- much higher in the past than it is today. eration of warfare during most of hu- Even those few societies described as man history. On the other hand, includ- peaceful were neither inherently nor his- ing homicide and intragroup feuding, torically peaceful. For example, archaeo- while relevant to the study of violence, logical evidence now shows that the Sal- makes the study of war dif½cult because ishian tribes of the Plateau area of west- it mixes behaviors that have very differ- ern North America, who had no remem- ent causes. bered history of warfare when studied De½nitions of war must not be depen- by anthropologists in the nineteenth dent on group size or methods of ½ght- and early twentieth centuries, had had ing if they are to be useful in studying signi½cant warfare a few centuries ear- past warfare. One productive approach lier. One class of so-called peaceful soci- is to view warfare simply as socially eties consists of those that underwent sanctioned conflict between indepen- demographic collapse and radical subsis- dent groups or polities. This enables us tence deprivation as the result of West- to include warfare in all types of human ern expansion. This is an important societies throughout history. group from whom we can learn a great Quite a bit is known about warfare in deal about the causes of warfare and of the deep past, and about warfare in non- state societies that have not been affect- 1 Richard Wrangham, “Killer species,” Dædalus 133 (4) (Fall 2004): 25–35; Raymond C. Kelly, ed by nation-states. One obvious conclu- “The Evolution of Lethal Intergroup Violence,” sion is that warfare was frequent long Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences before complex societies developed. 102 (43) (October 25, 2005): 15294–15298.

14 Dædalus Winter 2007 peace, but they do not provide evidence optima, such as the so-called Medieval Why for societies that have learned to avoid Warm Interval preceding the Little Ice warfare? war. Other so-called peaceful societies Age, correlate with less warfare than typ- are foragers who have become symbiot- ically found at other times. ic with nearby farmers, such as the Pyg- Resource competition is a very plau- mies of Central Africa or the Semang sible stimulus for warfare. Human so- of Malaysia. In both cases, the farmers cieties do not have natural mechanisms ½ght intensively with each other while for keeping their populations within ter- the foragers stand by outside of the con- ritorial carrying capacities: Malthus was flict. Again, this is not proof of inherent- correct in saying that population exceeds ly peaceful societies. resources in the long run, which today In fact, I have been unable to ½nd evi- means resources and population on a dence of societies that were peaceful for planetary scale. While regional resource more than three hundred to four hun- bases are sometimes expanded, popu- dred years. And even those societies that lations invariably grow more rapidly existed peacefully for that long were thereafter; for example, the result of the very rare. Furthermore, most archae- so-called Green Revolution, which in- ologists do not regard three hundred creased grain production, was signi½cant to four hundred years as a very lengthy population growth. Malthusian limits time span for a society. And even these changed regionally during the Industri- societies eventually became involved in al-Scienti½c Revolution; but, again, on a signi½cant warfare. Thus, stories that worldwide scale, even if it were techno- depict an age of peace in antiquity, or logically possible to feed everyone, eco- peaceful foragers, or warfare as a disease nomics and politics would contribute to of modern society, or the ideal that hu- prevent this from happening. man evolution took place in a peaceful Particularly clear examples of resource environment are all erroneous. These stress leading to warfare are found on beliefs are myths, and quite dangerous the Polynesian islands. Because farm- ones. So long as we believe them, we will ers occupied them only recently, they be prevented from comprehending the provide well-documented examples of real reasons for warfare. initial colonization, rapid population growth, resource stress, intense warfare, Here is a basic fact about past warfare and, in some cases, societal and popula- that we can substantiate with ample, un- tion collapse. This process has character- equivocal evidence: much warfare in the ized even the very small islands, such as past was over scarce resources. Substan- Tikopia and Easter Island, where there tial data from North and South America should have been considerable poten- point to the strong correlation between tial for developing social mechanisms to the intensity of ancient warfare and cli- control growth and warfare. So, wheth- mate change. Not surprisingly, whenev- er the societies and areas they live in are er the climate deteriorated, with resul- large or small, humans have not been tant disturbance of the resource base, able to solve peacefully problems of pop- there was often a marked increase in the ulation growth in conditions of scarce frequency, intensity, and deadliness of and diminishing resources. warfare. Especially good examples corre- And since intense warfare goes back late with the onset of the Little Ice Age to our prehuman ancestors, we can rea- around ad 1400. Conversely, climatic sonably surmise that there has been am-

Dædalus Winter 2007 15 Steven A. ple time for selection for war-related wars. For example, in the past, people LeBlanc behaviors. This conclusion directly con- fought against people they knew. That on nonviolence tradicts a long tradition of saying that is, they fought their neighbors. Only & violence biology is irrelevant to discovering the when states formed empires did people causes of warfare because warfare is a ½ght with people signi½cantly different recent phenomenon. Given warfare’s from themselves. This is important be- long presence in human history, we can cause, in a nonimperial conflict, the an- no longer reject the hypothesis that it tagonists had a reasonable chance of does have a biological basis, just because predicting the responses of their oppo- large-scale warfare appeared only recent- nents, such as how hard their opponents ly. Of course, I do not mean to suggest might ½ght or when they might negoti- that warfare is genetically programmed ate for peace. In modern warfare, these in human beings, only that it makes are often dif½cult to determine. sense that humans may have evolved Moreover, warfare was seen as a strong tendencies toward defensive, and long-term process. Thus, groups pre- even offensive, behavior, under the im- ferred to use surprise attacks and treach- pact of increasing numbers of people ery against their enemy because these and decreasing resources–behavior that tactics reduced risk. A successful am- can be characterized as warfare. bush every few months could weaken, and ultimately defeat, an enemy. Pitched Other general rules about warfare battles, in contrast, were, more often crosscut time and culture. For instance, than not, shows of force and a means to all cultures–not just nation-states–in- assess the enemy’s strength, rather than stitutionalize the process of war. Con- attempts to annihilate that enemy. sidering the advantage of being better Modern wars, on the other hand, with than one’s neighbors at waging war, it their mass armies and pitched battles, makes sense to cultivate practices of re- force soldiers into much more dangerous warding good warriors and good leaders, situations than was once the case. True, building concepts of ‘us versus them,’ the probability of dying in a war is much and developing means of maximizing lower for someone living in an industrial societal participation in war. Moreover, society than it was for foragers and feu- once institutionalized, these behavioral dal or egalitarian farmers. Considerable patterns are not easily changed. Deter- evidence shows that more than 20 per- mining the extent to which warfare con- cent of adult males in nonstate societies tinues because of prior development of would die from warfare, while perhaps such behavior is a very dif½cult problem. a tenth of that ½gure of adult males in Also, most societies require consen- modern states die in war (with the ex- sus decisions about whom and when to ception of a few nations for short inter- ½ght. Recognizing that wars are far too vals). However, the likelihood of a sol- dangerous to allow a few hotheads to in- dier being killed in a single battle is vast- itiate them, most societies exert strong ly greater today. In the past, one side controls over intergroup aggression. For would retire after a few deaths, which example, women are sometimes key de- usually took place not on the battle½eld, cision makers in whether or not to go to but during surprise attacks on resi- war. dences. However, there are considerable dif- So, until recently, war in much of the ferences between ancient and modern world was attritional. There was no con-

16 Dædalus Winter 2007 cept of the decisive battle, and battles and the Polynesians, stopped when pop- Why were not the primary means of winning ulation decline, combined with new warfare? wars. Long-term persistent weakening crops and technology, greatly drove up of the enemy was the path to victory. We carrying capacity. describe this today as guerrilla warfare, These examples point to the surpris- and we are well aware of its effective- ing existence of rational behavior in ness. Attritional war requires constant past warfare. When viewing warfare in defensive vigilance and, thus, constant general across time, one can correlate it anxiety. The ancient world was not a safe with climatic and technological trans- place. formations that led to changes in the Since almost all wars in the past lasted level of resource stress. Thus, war is for a long time, they usually resulted in less likely when the global human pop- the formation of buffer zones between ulation is in balance with, or below, the polities. As much as half of a region’s world’s environmental carrying capac- territory could consist of sparsely popu- ity. War starts and stops in patterned lated or empty zones. Such buffer zones ways that are most generally determined greatly decreased overall regional pro- by people’s need to secure a livelihood ductivity, but they also greatly reduced in a world where increasing populations the chance of being surprised by one’s make conflict over vital resources inev- enemies. Today, there are essentially itable. I will now examine various spe- no buffer zones between nations, other ci½c explanations for warfare in light of than oceans. Again, this is a radical de- evidence about intergroup hostilities in parture from the past, and one with im- the past. portant consequences for civilian–col- lateral–casualties. Religion is the ½rst and probably most While the duration of past warfare widespread source of explanations for was generally long, it could end abrupt- warfare. For example, at one level or ly, too, sometimes in a single day. One another, Christians accept that The Fall striking example is the Battle of Poitiers of Man–the belief that because Adam, in France. On October 17, 732, the Arab the ½rst man, disobeyed God in the general Abd-er-Rahman ibn-Abdullah Garden of Eden, God has cursed all of was killed, and the Arab forces withdrew Adam’s progeny to be born into sin and that night, leaving Charles Martel the to be naturally evil–accounts for why victor of the last battle against Muslim humans are prone to violence and war, forces, at the northwestern limit of Arab not to mention doomed to an afterlife penetration into the Christian world. in hell. For Christians, this curse extends Other examples of virtually instanta- to all of humankind, among whom only neous cease½re have occurred all over those individuals who take Jesus Christ the world and at all levels of social com- as their Savior can be redeemed. For plexity. These include Eskimos (not just Muslims, God forgave Adam, but all hu- the Inuit), Salishians, New Guinea High- man beings suffer from the sin of pride, landers, various Polynesian groups, Am- which leads to war and eventually to azonian tribes, and Australian Aborig- punishment in the afterlife. To attain ines. Some, such as the Inuit, stopped Paradise, people must submit to Allah ½ghting each other when the bene½ts of and follow his commandments. cooperation increased. Others, such as I cannot evaluate the truth of such su- the Amazonian tribes, the Salishians, pernatural explanations for warfare, but

Dædalus Winter 2007 17 Steven A. remark only that, among Christians and intelligence. Reason came to play a cen- LeBlanc Muslims, belief in these religious doc- tral role in deciding when to start or stop on nonviolence trines has long been a contributing, if warfare. As I mentioned before, both & violence not a major, reason for ‘us’–de½ned the initiation and cessation of warfare in here as believers–to go to war against the past correlated strongly with climate ‘them’–the heathens. Still, the question change (and, thus, changes in environ- remains whether these beliefs constitute mental carrying capacity), giving us rea- the ultimate reasons, or are themselves son to see warfare as a rational response a response to other more fundamental to a change, like a severe restriction in reasons, for warfare. the food supply, and less as a result of ge- Nor do I intend to critique all of the netic propensities alone. The speed with prevalent naturalistic explanations for which switches were made from war to warfare. The most obvious, and perhaps peace in improved circumstances pro- most misunderstood, naturalistic expla- vides further support of this. nation for warfare is that it has a genetic Rational competition over scarce re- basis. This suggestion is often categori- sources is the best explanation for war- cally rejected, sometimes because of a fare we have. But note that warfare is broad-based refusal to consider genet- usually rational for only a portion of a ic bases for any human behavior at all. group or complex society. For instance, There is also perhaps a religious basis from the point of view of an individual for such blanket rejection, a denial of family among foragers and egalitarian the fact that human beings are animals, farmers, it may be rational to take the whose basic behavior may be genetically chance of losing a son to save the family. determined as is the behavior of all other And in more complex societies, it may animals. But whether or not human be- be rational from the elites’ point of view havior in general–and engagement in to risk losing the lives of many common- warfare in particular–has genetic roots ers in order to protect their own lives must be objectively investigated and not and privileges. Even were some of them ruled out a priori. also likely to lose sons, it would still be In reality, it is not dif½cult to show that rational for elites to initiate warfare be- merely saying we are genetically predis- cause they have the resources to have posed to engage in warfare is not suf½- large families and to replace lost sons. cient to explain why warfare is univer- What is considered to be scarcity is sal. There is, however, considerable evi- also quite variable. The perception of dence of selection for aggressive behav- needing more living space that inspired ior and the desire to dominate, especially the Germans to go to war in both World in male primates. For example, the evo- War I and World War II would baffle the lution of coalitional killing among chim- crowded masses of some Eastern soci- panzees, and its probable genetic source, eties. Nevertheless, archaeological and has been clearly and carefully dealt with historical evidence throughout history by Richard Wrangham. Warfare also re- and prehistory indicates that most wars quires cooperation, however, for which involved competition over resources. there is also ample evidence in evolu- tionary history. The institutionalization of warfare I argue that, through evolution, both complicates the direct relationship of cooperation and aggression in humans warfare to scarcity. Such institutional- came increasingly under the control of ization is a rational response to the need

18 Dædalus Winter 2007 to prepare for the threat of warfare, but require an additional motive such as Why once established the institution itself competition for resources. There may warfare? can lead to the instigation of warfare. be, for example, a genetic basis for male Recall, for example, the practice of status competition, but can this alone building a concept of ‘us versus them.’ set the stage for males to ½ght each oth- Such a concept usually includes loyalty er without a speci½c reason? In fact, to, and love of, the nation-state, as well there is evidence for genetic bases for as defensive dislike of foreigners. These both competitive and cooperative be- culturally shaped attitudes are often havior among mammals, but neither of strengthened to the point that they can- these propensities as such is adequate not be readily altered when no longer for explaining the incidence of war or needed. of peace. Thus, it is possible that some wars do Given the variation in cases of war not make rational or ecological sense, and of peace, it seems obvious that ge- but result from archaic cultural patterns netic foundations, while a primary influ- that have outlived their original rational ence on human behavior, are far from bases. Records reveal examples of raids determinative. For one thing, genetical- against people far too distant to have ly driven propensities are very speci½c, been competitors for resources. Several for example, for such things as eye color. generations earlier, these same groups Furthermore, there is not one gene that may have been in competition with each determines the production of a thing as other over scarce resources. The scar- complicated as the eye. Likewise, we city may have ended, but the ‘us versus have no support whatsoever that genes them’ attitude, the desire for revenge for for such complicated human activities ancestral deaths, and the social mecha- as warfare exist. nisms that expedited earlier warfare may still be in place several generations lat- There are several alternatives to my er. The culturally maintained proximal explanation of war, as arising from causes of such warfare then are no lon- conflict over resources. One is the idea ger rational, although the original ances- that expanding state-level societies in- tral cause was. troduced warfare to inherently peaceful This may help explain why we have peoples. The problem is that no inher- religious and ethnic wars, in which the ently peaceful peoples are known. True, enemy is categorically assumed to be there are many cases of states–in the evil or alien. Such warfare seems irra- West, in ancient China, among the Ro- tional. But the root cause of this type of mans, and among the Moguls–that, in warfare is seldom mere hatred of reli- attempting to subjugate or exterminate gious or ethnic differences. Rather, the tribal and forager societies, have set off conflicts between the two groups prob- some of the most devastating wars ever ably arose in the ½rst instance from pop- recorded. But the notion that warfare ulation pressure and competition for is like a disease that infects otherwise scarce resources. peaceful societies is nonsense. There is Natural fear of strangers is another no case where people impinged upon popular explanation for the hatred be- by expanding states have not been in- tween ethnic or other groups. But even volved in signi½cant warfare prior to the if hatred or fear of others were found to impact. In effect, not only is Rousseau’s have a genetic basis, warfare still could notion of noble savages in the childhood

Dædalus Winter 2007 19 Steven A. of man wrong, it is dangerous. Belief in democracies are more broadly based LeBlanc on Hobbes’s notion of the primal war of all than they are in authoritarian states? nonviolence against all is also wrong, but less so than Or perhaps it is because democracies & violence that of a prelapsarian Garden of Eden in do a better job solving critical resource which the lion lies down with the lamb. problems by means other than war. This Human beings have always been danger- is a fruitful line of investigation, but in ous animals that can, in proper circum- determining the root causes of warfare stances (usually circumstances of plen- knowledge concerning the behavior of ty), also be very nice. recent democracies and authoritarian Another postulated explanation for states is both inconclusive and second- warfare is that it is the result of imper- ary. To the extent that this knowledge fect knowledge. If you know you will exposes the role of resource needs and lose a war, you will probably prefer to availability, however, comparative exam- negotiate rather than to ½ght. Similar- ination of the relation between warfare ly, if you know you are sure to win, you and these forms of government should may prefer to negotiate at the outset be quite useful. rather than bear the cost of war. The Other empirical evidence shows a cor- theory here is that only because they relation between large numbers of un- have imperfect knowledge do sure los- married young males in a society and a ers and sure winners ½ght. While this high probability that the society will go may or may not be true for the recent to war. Why might this be so? Perhaps past, it does not explain warfare in the young men cannot marry because the distant past. Imperfect knowledge resource shortages leave them too poor about the enemy is irrelevant for wars to support families, and thus warfare that correlate with climate change and results from resource stress. Or the sit- scarcity of resources. If the ultimate uation might be culturally driven, with long-term goal in such wars is control older males causing the imbalance by over critical scarce resources–without taking multiple wives. Or perhaps there which you starve–then neither surren- is a severely uneven distribution of re- der nor negotiation is a viable option. sources between elites and commoners. Thus, many ancient wars were long, In any case, the correlation between high drawn-out affairs with many stagnant proportions of unmarried men and high intervals, in which allies and enemies probability of warfare is another promis- came and went. The hope was that your ing line of investigation that supports side would get lucky, even if the odds the suggestion that war has more causal were against you. factors than hatred based on racial, eth- Another culturally based explanation nic, or religious differences. Finally, it of warfare focuses on the type of govern- has been suggested that some groups ment. Some empirical evidence shows engage in raids or war for sport, but no that democratic states have fewer wars pure case of this is known–there is al- than do authoritarian states, especially ways booty or grudges involved. if the potential conflict is between dem- Misjudgment is a major factor in war- ocratic states. Is this because democra- fare today, despite or perhaps because of cies are more open than authoritarian worldwide television reporting. When regimes, which results in more wide- a nation’s leaders commit the nation to spread knowledge of circumstances? war with a people halfway around the Or is it because decision processes in world, it is virtually certain that they do

20 Dædalus Winter 2007 not know or understand their opponents know much more today about why hu- Why very well. As war becomes global, the mans go to war than we did a century warfare? potential for misunderstanding and mis- ago. Recent advances in biology show judgment increases signi½cantly. This that there are primary genetic compo- is a big and very dangerous change from nents leading to aggressive, competitive the past where one knew one’s enemy behavior, but we also know about genet- well. Moreover, even long-standing ic components leading to cooperative democratic nation-states can quite eas- behavior. ily supersede the process of achieving The knowledge that most warfare consensus for decisions concerning war- is ultimately rational competition for fare. One of the most troubling issues scarce resources should also give us about the war in Iraq, for example, was some hope for eliminating war. A third the lack of informed open debate about or more of the world’s peoples are so why, and whether or not, we should go well-off and so interconnected that war- to war in the ½rst place. fare is not a rational option for them. Another crucial problem today is The bases for rational warfare will de- the absence of territorial buffer zones, cline to the extent that this elite can cur- which reduced warfare in the past. tail warfare among the remainder of There may be no realistic substitute the world’s peoples by increasing these for this lack, but we must keep in mind peoples’ wealth and well-being. This is what we lost when these zones disap- not an easy solution to effect, given that peared. Finally, another very general the elite’s way of life grossly wastes the lesson from the past is how much the world’s resources. rate of change in human lives has in- The study of warfare throughout hu- creased. Sociopolitical fluctuations are man history and prehistory also pro- so rapid today that coping mechanisms vides grounds for pessimism, however. cannot always catch up. For example, If an ultimate cause of warfare is com- there are multiple examples of wars to- petition over scarce resources, and en- day in which ten- and twelve-year-old ergy is the major scarce resource today, children are armed with Kalashnikovs. then the wealthy nations are not shel- These children are deadly and often tered from the destruction of war and, completely out of adult control. Anoth- in fact, are especially vulnerable to it. er frightening fact is that over 35 mil- The world has also evolved groups that lion ak-47s (and subsequent models) thrive on religious and ideological differ- have been distributed around the world. ences, leading to blind hatreds, democ- Nothing like this distribution of lethal racies that abrogate the need for making weaponry ever happened in the past. collective decisions about going to war, and religious extremists actively work- Despite the extensive and intensive ing for the destruction of modern (sin- levels of warfare today, we have some ful) industrial society. reasons for optimism. Warfare kills a far Nevertheless, our current knowledge smaller percentage of the total popula- about the causes and features of warfare tion than it used to; hence the probabili- in the past provides some hope that for ty that any individual will die from war- the ½rst time in human history we have fare is much smaller than was the case in the potential to eliminate warfare. There the past. Most people do not realize this, has not been a world war now for sixty and are unduly terri½ed of war. We also years and counting.

Dædalus Winter 2007 21 Jonathan Schell & Robert S. Boynton

People’s power vs. nuclear power: a conversation

robert s. boynton: When did you force. The United States won almost all ½rst start thinking about the idea of the battles, but it didn’t matter. It won cooperative power and people’s war? itself to defeat. The process was observ- able on a day-to-day basis. The ½ghting, jonathan schell: In the late 1980s, with its indiscriminate destruction, was shortly before the collapse of Commu- driving the population into the hands of nism. I’d been a reporter in Vietnam in the adversary. You didn’t have to be a the mid-1960s, an experience that had geopolitican to see it. In fact, geopolitics led me to reflect on the extraordinary got in the way of seeing it. power that local peoples have to expel Then, in the early 1970s, I got to know invaders wielding superior military some Polish folks, Jan and Irena Gross, who had been driven out of their coun- Jonathan Schell is the Harold Willens Peace Fel- try in 1968 for protesting censorship by low at the Nation Institute and the peace and dis- the Communist regime. They were send- armament correspondent at “The Nation.” His ing care packages–practical articles, in- numerous publications include “The Time of Il- cluding consumables, plus subversive lusion” (1976), “The Fate of the Earth” (1982), literature–to their high school friends “The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, in Poland who were continuing to op- and the Will of the People” (2003), and “A Hole pose the regime. Over the years these in the World” (2004), a compilation of his “Let- friends became some of the intellectual ter From Ground Zero” columns. leaders of the Worker’s Defense Com- mittee, the predecessor to Solidarity. Robert S. Boynton is the director of the graduate Among them were Adam Michnik and magazine journalism program at New York Uni- Jacek Kuron. So, through that personal versity. He is the author of “The New New Jour- connection, I gained a vicarious experi- nalism” (2005). His profiles and essays have ap- ence of the events in Poland. At the time, peared in “The New Yorker,” “The New York I had little inkling of the global impor- Times Magazine,” “The Atlantic Monthly,” and tance of what was afoot. It was only lat- “Lingua Franca,” among other publications. His er that it became clear that these more conversation with Schell took place on July 28, or less accidental personal experiences 2006. had opened up a small window for me on what turned out to be a pivot of late © 2007 by the American Academy of Arts twentieth-century history, namely, the & Sciences dissolution of the Soviet Union.

22 Dædalus Winter 2007 In 1985, I was invited by Irena Gross to much to say that, perhaps, one was the People’s power vs. write an introduction to a wonderful col- condition for the fruition of the other? nuclear lection of essays, called Letters from Pris- power on, by Michnik. That introduction gave js: The two were especially close in the me my ½rst chance to reflect on people’s trajectory of the cold war. Of course, movements more generally. By now, I the nonviolent people’s movements of had had a taste of imperial defeats in the twentieth century got going long be- two parts of the world. The empires– fore there was any nuclear standoff, or American and Soviet–were very differ- even before the start of either of the two ent, and so were the movements, but world wars. So you can’t really say that they had something in common: the the people’s struggles depended on the power of politics was beating the pow- nuclear standoff, but the two phenome- er of superior arms. In Vietnam, even na did seem to intersect in ways that are as I admired the spectacular courage of still not clear to me and that are worth the resistance, I did not admire the one- thinking about. party system they seemed bent on es- For example, in both the revolution- tablishing and did establish. In Poland, ary theater of people’s movements and where the resistance was democratic, the geostrategic theater of nuclear war, my admiration was unreserved. violence seems to be transcended. It Both experiences also gave me occa- falls into a certain irrelevance. That is, sion to reflect on the relationship of im- it loses its deciding character, its histor- perial control to nuclear arms, some- ic role as the ‘½nal arbiter.’ In people’s thing that had become a strong interest struggles violence doesn’t decide be- of mine. In Vietnam, the whole concept cause it’s overmatched by other positive of ‘limited war’ had been born out of expressions of popular will, often called the paradoxical requirements of nuclear political. In nuclear war, violence can’t strategy. The idea was that although you decide anything because nuclear war could not ½ght a ‘general’–i.e., nucle- blows up everything that people might ar–war, you could ½ght a ‘limited’ war. ½ght about. In both cases, there occurs When it came to Poland, it seemed to what I call a dematerialization of power. me that perhaps it was because of nucle- But why power should have lost its ma- ar paralysis that enough time was avail- terial basis in these two very different able for the slow process of nonviolent ways at the same time is not clear to me. resistance to take root and succeed. All I can suggest is that the fantastic These events made me wonder whether, rise in the twentieth century of violence if other totalitarian regimes, including to a point where it defeated itself creat- Hitler’s, had not been smashed by mili- ed a need for something else, and that tary force, they might also eventually– something turned out to be political unlikely as it may seem–have fallen in struggle. The colonized peoples of the the face of a people’s movement. We’ll great Western empires were faced with never know. an awesome disparity in power. People like Gandhi realized that they weren’t rsb: The Unconquerable World does seem going to win against the empire if they to alternate between your long-standing tried to do it with an army. So the ques- concerns over nuclear weapons, and tion of how to act in what we today call your exploration of the role of people’s an ‘asymmetrical situation’ was present movements in history. Would it be too as soon as Western imperialism was

Dædalus Winter 2007 23 Jonathan launched upon the world. In these set- over some ½ve hundred years or more. Schell & Robert S. tings, the people’s movements began as But it is quite a different thing to identi- Boynton a solution to the problem of the over- fy even a long-term trend as the working on whelming material power–military and of History, as if history were a person nonviolence & violence economic–of the imperial states. The that did things itself. The development colonies responded by developing the of cooperative power does, at the very immaterial power of people’s will ex- least, seem to constitute one of the very pressed politically. long-term trends. It is certainly striking how long that development has already rsb: So nuclear weapons were less the been taking shape, if you date its begin- condition for the possibility of a people’s ning, as I do, with the American Revolu- war than they were the circumstances tion. under which people’s war found its most potent expression? rsb: Your concept of people’s power is very suggestive, especially when you js: I believe so. At that point, force be- use it to narrate an alternative history of came self-paralyzing, and therefore the the past few hundred years. Is it robust invitation to make something happen in enough to help you understand those this world through other strategies be- occasions in which people’s power has came stronger than ever. The remarkable been stymied, such as the 1989 uprising thing is that these strategies were found. in Tiananmen Square?

rsb: You chart the various waves dur- js: A people’s movement is much more ing which people have assumed their likely to work if it is directed against a ‘rightful stations’: following the Ameri- foreign power, and less likely if it is a re- can War of Independence, from 1905 to bellion against an authentic, domestic the mid-1970s, and then 1989 to the pres- regime, such as the Chinese government. ent. Do you believe that the emergence It is hard to ½nd many failures when the of what you call cooperative power is program has been to kick out the foreign something historically foreordained, or invader. Foreign rule seems to be some- do you believe history is simply “one thing that people ½nd especially offen- damned thing after another”? Do you sive, that galvanizes them into action, believe, like Francis Fukuyama, that a and that has an incredible staying power. tendency toward freedom is working its It seems that domestic tyranny is harder way through history in a Hegelian man- to ½ght. ner? The Soviet Union is an interesting case in this regard. The movements js: I’m agnostic about it. It’s conceivable were strongest in such places as Poland that one day we’ll look back and see that or Hungary or Czechoslovakia, where history was developing in a certain di- Soviet power was most clearly felt to rection, but I’m rather doubtful about it. be imperial power. And the movement I certainly don’t believe in necessity in was paradoxically the weakest in the so- history. It is one thing to detect a phe- called center, in Russia itself. The differ- nomenon that has developed over a very ence in the revolutions corresponds to long period of time–I certainly see ex- a difference in the outcomes. The stron- amples of that. Consider, for instance, ger the nonviolent resistance movement the development of market economics was, the more likely it was to produce a

24 Dædalus Winter 2007 democratic regime. For example, Czech- js: I’m not sure how to understand it, People’s power vs. oslovakia, Hungary, and Poland still have but it is a historically observable fact nuclear democratic regimes, whereas Russia that the storming of the Bastille in 1789 power seems to be slipping back in an authori- and the initial moments of the Bolshe- tarian direction. And in Central Asia, vik Revolution involved relatively little where the anti-Soviet movements were violence. Yet, in both cases, the revolu- perhaps weakest, you have many out- tionaries then brought to power were right dictatorships. Resistance was pres- quite willing to shed rivers of blood. Of ent in Russia, but it wasn’t like Poland’s course, in neither case did they have any Solidarity, which had something on the philosophical commitment to nonvio- order of 10 million members. lence. Quite the contrary: When Trotsky was masterminding the Bolshevik take- rsb: But doesn’t the presence of an anti- over, Lenin was actually disappointed imperial movement often lead to surges to see so little violence occurring. How of destructive nationalism, which is a bi- could it really be a revolution if it didn’t zarre form of ‘cooperative people’s pow- spill blood, he wondered. er,’ isn’t it? You could make the argu- It seems that the following stage, ment, then, that Yugoslavia was cursed where the factions of the new regime by not having been suf½ciently under ½ght with one another to de½ne the new the boot of the Soviet Union–the result arrangement, often becomes the occa- being that their rebellion was against it- sion when the blood starts to flow most self, not the Soviet oppressors. copiously. Certainly, Lenin saw to that in the Russian case. js: I think that’s right. If you look at One fascinating study would be to in- the American Revolution, you see that vestigate why certain nonviolent revo- it was both a democratic movement lutions produce violent regimes while and a movement for independence and, other nonviolent revolutions produce therefore, a nationalistic movement. In comparatively gentle, peaceful regimes. that respect, there can be a dark side to You’d certainly want to look at the Iran- these movements. Nationalism hasn’t ian Revolution. There was very little vio- always been a positive force, to put it lence at the time of rebellion, but once mildly. I was dismayed to discover that in power the new government unleashed many of the techniques for acquiring oppression against its opposition in the power that were deployed by democrat- French and Russian style. ic movements–techniques such as cre- Another paradox that struck me was ating parallel structures of governance the fact that the people in power when –were also used by Hitler before his revolution is developing–even those takeover in 1933. with a history of violence–often fail to fully unleash the violence at their dispos- rsb: You make a provocative argument al. That was true of the Tsar’s regime that contrary to the common under- and even of the Shah of Iran. Most no- standing of the revolutions of the past tably, it was true of the Soviet Union, few hundred years–the French, the Rus- which had more violence at its ½nger- sian–the rebellion phase actually came tips, perhaps, than any regime on the off with very little violence and the face of the earth, yet did not unleash it. founding phase is when violence actual- It is a great moral and intellectual puz- ly occurred. Why do you think this is? zle how a system as violent as the Soviet

Dædalus Winter 2007 25 Jonathan government was capable of producing rsb: In The Unconquerable World you Schell & Robert S. a man like Gorbachev, who exercised quote Lawrence Freedman as saying, Boynton such remarkable restraint. There must “The Emperor Deterrence may have on have been something that we misunder- nonviolence no clothes, but he is still emperor,” in & violence stood about that system that prevented making a convincing argument that the us from seeing that such a man and such threat of nuclear weapons has created a an act were conceivable. situation in which all-out war is virtually unthinkable. This position, though not rsb: The peaceful collapse of the Soviet identical to the theory of nuclear deter- Union seems like the paradigmatic act rence that shaped the cold-war period, is of nonviolent people’s power for you. certainly compatible with it. How would How do you respond to critics who say you distinguish your position from the that this analysis gives insuf½cient cred- traditional deterrence argument? it to the military expenditures pushed by the Thatcher and Reagan governments, js: The question is very complicated. which allegedly crippled the Soviet eco- First, it is indisputable that the pres- nomy? ence of nuclear weapons in the arsen- als of the great powers gave them a tre- js: I don’t think the Soviets were spent mendous, perhaps a decisive, reason not into bankruptcy by the Reagan military to go to war. The whole deterrence doc- buildup. In fact, if you look at the ½gures trine is a sort of a fantastic overelabora- for the Reagan period, you ½nd that the tion of the elemental fact that two coun- rate at which the Soviets increased their tries with nuclear weapons are unlikely military spending stayed constant. Still, to ½ght each other for fear of annihilat- there is an element of truth in this analy- ing one another and even the whole sis. The technical success of the West– world. When you consider that today economically and militarily–provided tiny little North Korea with its putative a devastating point of comparison for nuclear arsenal can probably deter the the Soviet people and government. They mighty United States, you can see the saw that they were losing both races, and power in the idea of nuclear deterrence. that was very important to them. Not to So I do think that there is a solid core of mention the lure of Western consumer truth in it. culture for people who had so much less The question, rather, is whether it’s a than we did. Soviet leaders were certain- good plan to constantly threaten annihi- ly unnerved by Reagan’s Star Wars proj- lation, more or less in perpetuity, as your ect, and would have gone to consider- means of avoiding conventional war. My able lengths to stop it. Yet even before answer is that the bargain is a senseless Reagan left of½ce, they concluded that and terrible one. It commits even the the system would not work, and could most supposedly civilized countries to be countered easily and inexpensively. executing genocidal policies, in the strict de½nition of the term, in certain circum- rsb: Now all we have to do is overcome stances. Surely there has to be a better– our belief in it! shall I say, a more civilized–way of as- suring civilization’s survival than living js: Yes, we have to learn the same lesson with the unremitting threat to pull the the Russians learned twenty-½ve years trigger on that same civilization. And, ago. human beings being what they are, it

26 Dædalus Winter 2007 must one day fail. For that reason alone, ularly in the 1970s. Is “appearance” more People’s power vs. deterrence cries out to be replaced by a or less important in politics today? nuclear better system. power js: Well, terrorism, for one, is a form of rsb: What about the Cuban missile cri- warfare that depends utterly on appear- sis? ances. Think of September 11. It was an attack designed for the maximum spec- js: It is easy to see that a war could have tacle. It was almost an enactment of broken out. I believe that both Khru- what you might see in a disaster movie, shchev and Kennedy were keenly aware and it was picked up by television sta- of the danger, and for that reason both tions all over the world. In a sense, the pulled back. On the other hand, the Cu- United States, and the whole world, fell ban missile crisis was caused in the ½rst into a trap that bin Laden deliberately place by nuclear weapons! laid, and invested what he had done– which of course has a terrible intrinsic rsb: In this case one might say about importance–with an apocalyptic impor- nuclear weapons what Karl Kraus said tance that neither he nor his deeds actu- about psychoanalysis: that they are a ally have. disease for which they pretend to be a The United States waged actual war in treatment. Vietnam for the sake of the credibility of American power–in order to create js: Yes, that was exactly the situation in an appearance that would be so fear- the Cuban missile crisis. some to other countries that they would do what we wanted them to do. Terror- rsb: You do an excellent job of showing ists are involved in the same thing in the how nuclear weapons have supplanted sense that they, too, are using violence conventional war. Nonviolent people’s to send a message. It seems to me that wars are one by-product of this state of this is another sense in which violence affairs, but isn’t terrorism as well? in general has become dematerialized: people are using it to create a psycholog- js: Yes, although I think you have to ical impression more than to actually draw a very sharp distinction between blow up objects or kill people. The real terrorists who actually represent a mass power of bin Laden was not to defeat the movement, which is the case of Hezbol- United States–which would be absurd– lah in Lebanon, and the less serious case but to precipitate something like a large- –despite all the damage they can cause scale transformation in the way the U.S. –of terrorists who are, essentially, out government and its political system there freelancing. Bin Laden may be in works, which is happening. That is real that category. For all his popularity in power: to be able to change radically the certain parts of the world, you can’t behavior of the most powerful country point to any speci½c population whose in the world. interests he represents. rsb: Liberals are often faulted for hav- rsb: In The Time of Illusion you describe ing an insuf½ciently developed sense of the increasing role of “appearance” both evil. That isn’t something one could say in politics and in nuclear politics partic- about you because of your ½xation on the dangers of nuclear weapons. What

Dædalus Winter 2007 27 Jonathan is the role of the nuclear threat in your to persist, in the name of the credibility Schell & Robert S. thinking? of American power. Boynton There is another, more elemental way on js that Vietnam led me to think about nu- nonviolence : It is at the center of a stream of & violence thinking that started with the Vietnam clear weapons. I got to Vietnam when War. When I returned from Vietnam, I I was twenty-three, and like all of us I started looking at the question of why had seen the apparatus of American America had gotten involved in Viet- economy and life used largely for ordi- nam, and why it was having such trou- nary bene½cial purposes: taking kids to ble getting out. I came to understand schools, putting food in the supermar- that the answer to both these questions kets, and so forth. When I got to Viet- was deeply bound up with nuclear poli- nam I saw all that wealth and power cy. Vietnam was conceived as a limited turned to a senselessly destructive pur- war; and limited war was the alterna- pose. I came to understand that a few tive to general war, which meant nucle- bad decisions could turn the world up- ar war. The policymakers at that time side down, that all powers and talents were beginning to realize that nuclear could be systematically devoted to ab- weapons were not the instruments of surd or evil ends. The experience opened power they had hoped they would be my mind to the idea that the disposition at the beginning of the nuclear era: nu- of nuclear arms might be equally mis- clear weapons paralyzed war rather than guided, equally perverse. That is what enabled military action; they, in fact, I came to believe and still believe. bound you hand in foot. In their search for usable military instruments, people rsb: Do you think Americans have like Henry Kissinger and General Max- come around to your way of thinking well Taylor hit upon the idea that the about nuclear weapons since, say, 1982, United States still had freedom of action when you published The Fate of the on the so-called periphery, in places like Earth? Vietnam. But the solution had unexpected costs js: No, on the contrary. I was just read- attached to it. First, it pushed the United ing Adam Michnik’s essay, “The Ultras States into the buzz saw of the anti-im- of moral revolution,” on the dangers perial movement, as we discussed. But, of the extremes of the left and right. second, just because ‘limited war’ was an Those dangers are real enough. But alternative to nuclear war, it was caught what strikes me most forcibly now is up in the obsession with the ‘credibility’ the extremism of the center. Consider of American power that bedeviled nucle- global warming. It is the product of ar policy. The problem was that if limit- business as usual, yet it threatens a slow ed wars like Vietnam were the only ones devastation of the only planet we know you could ½ght, then you had to win of that is ½t for human habitation. You them because you had staked the whole don’t have to do anything ‘extreme’ or credibility of American power on them. ‘fanatical’ or ‘crazy’ to ruin the planet; Therefore, no matter how crazy your you only have to go on living the life war turned out to be in itself, no matter that is set before all of us. how costly, no matter how worthless Nuclear arms are in the same catego- the speci½c objectives might be on the ry. The idea of abolishing nuclear arms ground, you felt you had no choice but is called ‘extreme.’ But these weapons

28 Dædalus Winter 2007 themselves have conducted us all to the any other enthusiasm. They, too, grow People’s power vs. brink of the utmost extreme–the anni- quietly out of business as usual. nuclear hilation of cities, nations, even the spe- power cies. Yet, today, the nuclear-armed na- rsb: Do you see any possibility that the tions, including the latest ones in South neglect of nuclear danger will end? Asia, consider nuclear weapons entire- ly normal, as if they were just one more js: I do. Whereas in the 1990s the issue appliance in the home, like a dishwash- was forgotten completely, it has now at er or a toaster, something that every self- least moved back into our conscious- respecting nation should possess. ness. If you stop and think about it, you Another example is the war in Iraq, realize that nuclear danger–and, more which, from my point of view, was from broadly, weapons of mass destruction the very outset an outlandish, fantastical –has been at the center at least of the project, doomed from the start to failure declaratory policies of the Bush adminis- and worse. I feel entitled to say this now tration. We went into Iraq to head off ‘a because I said it all before the war even mushroom cloud over an American city.’ began. Note, by the way, that the war is And the entire Bush Doctrine built up a product of the untenable global double about September 11 really put the dan- standard regarding nuclear weapons. It ger of nuclear weapons and other weap- is a ½rst application of the radical new ons of mass destruction at its center. Bush policy of using force to oppose pro- And most of the crises–with North Ko- liferation–a reversal of ½fty years of rean and Iran–have to do with this. So American policy that cannot possibly it has once again returned to the center succeed and, indeed, has already failed. of policy. Today, support for nuclear arsenals is a centrist tenet, rarely questioned, even though those weapons threaten us with our complete annihilation. The ‘center’ is extreme in another sense. Almost wherever we look, it seems to me, we are seeing new con- centrations of power–joining political power, money power, military power, and media power into huge combines that are proving more and more dif½cult for ordinary people to ½ght. You see this concentration of power–the very thing the checks and balances of the Constitu- tion were designed to prevent–in one form in the United States, and you see it in another, more entrenched form in Russia and China. Italy’s Berlusconi, for- tunately now out of of½ce though his in- fluence remains great, personi½ed this trend. These concentrations, so danger- ous to freedom, likewise are not the product of fanaticism of right or left or

Dædalus Winter 2007 29 Mark Juergensmeyer

Gandhi vs. terrorism

Immediately after the September 11, knowing that this image of Gandhi is 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center quite different from what most West- and the Pentagon, the idea of taking a erners have in mind when they think nonviolent stance in response to terror- of him. The popular view in Europe and ism would have been dismissed out of the United States is the one a circle of hand. But now, after the invasion and Western paci½sts writing in the 1920s occupation of two Muslim countries by promoted–the image of Gandhi as a the U.S. military, the loss of thousands saint. of American soldiers and tens of thou- In a 1921 lecture on “Who is the Great- sands of innocent Afghanis and Iraqis, est Man in the World Today?” John and the start of a global jihadi war that Haynes Holmes, the pastor of New York seems unending, virtually any alterna- City’s largest liberal congregation, ex- tive seems worth considering. It is in this tolled not Lenin or Woodrow Wilson context that various forms of less mili- or Sun Yat-sen but someone whom tant response, including the methods of most of the crowd thronging the hall conflict resolution adopted by India’s that day had never heard of–Mohandas nationalist leader, Mohandas Gandhi, Gandhi.1 Holmes, who was later credit- deserve a second look. ed with being the West’s discoverer of Like us, Gandhi had to deal with ter- Gandhi, described him as his “seer and rorism, and his responses show that he saint.”2 was a tough-minded realist. I say this In fact, the term ‘Mahatma,’ or ‘great soul,’ which is often appended to Gan- Mark Juergensmeyer is professor of sociology and dhi’s name, probably came not from ad- global studies and director of the Orfalea Center mirers in India but from the West. Be- for Global and International Studies at the Uni- versity of California, Santa Barbara. He is the 1 John Haynes Holmes, “Who is the Greatest author of numerous publications, including “The Man in the World Today?” a pamphlet pub- New Cold War?” (1993), “Terror in the Mind lished in 1921 and reprinted in Charles Chat- of God” (revised edition, 2003), and “Gandhi’s ½eld, ed., The Americanization of Gandhi: Images of the Mahatma (New York and London: Gar- Way” (revised edition, 2005). land Publishing, 1976), 98.

© 2007 by the American Academy of Arts 2 John Haynes Holmes, My Gandhi (New York: & Sciences Harper and Brothers, 1953), 9.

30 Dædalus Winter 2007 fore the Indian philosopher Rabindra- States. These Indian anarchists and mili- Gandhi vs. nath Tagore used the term in his letter tant Hindi nationalists saw violence as terrorism welcoming Gandhi to India in 1914, the only solution to break the power of members of an American and European the British over India. mystical movement, the Theosophists, Gandhi’s views about violent struggle had applied this name to Gandhi. Most were sharpened in response to Indian likely, they were the ones who conveyed activists who had defended a terrorist it to Tagore, and since then the term has attack on a British of½cial. The incident persisted, even though it was Westerners occurred in London in 1909, shortly be- rather than Indians who ½rst regarded fore Gandhi arrived there to lobby the Gandhi in such a saintly mien. British Parliament on behalf of South In India, Gandhi was seen as a nation- African Indian immigrants. An Indian alist leader who, though greatly revered, student in London, Madan Lal Dhingra, was very much a politician. Though had attacked an of½cial in Britain’s India Gandhi was nominated for a Nobel of½ce, Sir William H. Curzon-Wylie, in Peace Prize on several occasions, the protest against Britain’s colonial control selection committee hesitated, thinking over India. At a formal function, Dhin- that the choice of an activist rather than gra pulled out a gun and, at close range, an idealist would stoke political contro- ½red ½ve shots in his face. The British versies. Gandhi was indeed in the midst of½cial died on the spot. Dhingra was of political battle, and in the process he immediately apprehended by the police; had to address the violence of both his when people in the crowd called him a side and the opponents, acts that looked murderer, he said that he was only ½ght- very much like the terrorism of today. ing for India’s freedom. India was on the verge of a violent Several weeks after Gandhi arrived in confrontation with Britain when, in 1915, London, he was asked to debate this is- Gandhi was brought into India’s inde- sue of violence with several of London’s pendence movement from South Africa, expatriate Indian nationalists. His chief where as a lawyer he had been a leader opponent was Vinayak Savarkar, a mili- in the struggle for social equality for im- tant Hindu who would later found the migrant Indians. In India, as in South Af- political movement known as the Hindu rica, the British had overwhelming mili- Mahasabha, a precursor to the present- tary superiority and were not afraid to day Hindu nationalist party, the Bharati- use it. In 1919, in the North Indian city of ya Janata Party. At the time of the 1909 Amritsar, an irate British brigadier-gen- assassination Savarkar was reputed to eral slaughtered almost four hundred In- have supplied the weapons and ammuni- dians who had come to the plaza of Jal- tion for the act, and to have instructed lianwala Bagh to protest peacefully. the ardent Hindu assassin in what to say But the nationalist side was countering in his ½nal statement as he was led to the with violence of its own. In Bengal, Sub- gallows. The young killer said that he has Chandra Bose organized an Indian was “prepared to die, glorying in martyr- National Army, and, in Punjab, leaders dom.”3 of the Ghadar movement–supported by immigrant Punjabis in California–plot- 3 Indian Sociologist, September 1909, quoted in ted a violent revolution that anticipated James D. Hunt, Gandhi in London (New Delhi: Promilla and Co., Publishers, 1973), 134. My boatloads of weapons and revolutionar- thanks to Lloyd Rudolph for reminding me of ies transported to India from the United this incident.

Dædalus Winter 2007 31 Mark Shortly before the debate, Gandhi boat to Durban in 1909 (writing ½rst Juergens- wrote to a friend that in London he had with one hand and then the other to meyer on met practically no Indian who believed avoid getting cramps), set forth an nonviolence “India can ever become free without re- approach to conflict resolution that he & violence sorting to violence.”4 He described the would pursue the rest of his life. The position of the militant activists as one book, Hind Swaraj, or, Indian Home Rule, in which terrorism would precede a gen- went to some lengths to describe both eral revolution: Their plans were ½rst to the goals of India’s emerging indepen- “assassinate a few Englishmen and strike dence movement and the appropriate terror,” after which “a few men who methods to achieve it. He agreed with will have been armed will ½ght openly.” the Indian radicals in London that Brit- Then, they calculated, eventually they ain should have no place in ruling India might have to lose “a quarter of a million and exploiting its economy. Moreover, men, more or less,” but the militant In- he thought that India should not try to dian nationalists thought this effort at emulate the materialism of Western civi- guerilla warfare would “defeat the Eng- lization, which he described as a kind of lish” and “regain our land.”5 “sickness.” During the debate, Gandhi challenged The thrust of the book, however, was the logic of the militants on the grounds to counter terrorism. Gandhi sketched of political realism. They could hardly out a nonviolent approach, beginning expect to defeat the might of the British with an examination of the nature of military through sporadic acts of terror- conflict. He insisted on looking beyond ism and guerilla warfare. More impor- a speci½c clash between individuals to tant, however, was the effect that violent the larger issues for which they were tactics would have on the emerging In- ½ghting. Every conflict, Gandhi rea- dian nationalist movement. He feared soned, was a contestation on two levels that the methods they used to combat –between persons and between princi- the British would become part of India’s ples. Behind every ½ghter was the issue national character. for which the ½ghter was ½ghting. Every ½ght, Gandhi explained in a later essay, Several weeks later Gandhi was still was on some level an encounter between thinking about these things as he board- differing “angles of vision” illuminating ed a steamship to return to South Afri- the same truth.6 ca. He penned his response to the Indi- It was this difference in positions– an activists in London in the form of a sometimes even in worldviews–that book. In a preliminary way, this essay, needed to be resolved in order for a ½ght which Gandhi wrote hurriedly on the to be ½nished and the ½ghters recon- ciled. In that sense Gandhi’s methods were more than a way of confronting an 4 Gandhi’s letter to Ampthill, October 30, in enemy; they were a way of dealing with Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 9 (Del- hi: Publications Division, Ministry of Informa- conflict itself. For this reason he grew tion and Broadcasting, Government of India, 1958), 509. 6 Gandhi, writing in Young India, September 23, 5 Mohandas Gandhi, Hind Swaraj, or, Indian 1926. I explore Gandhi’s ideas further in my Home Rule, 2nd ed. (Ahmedabad, India: Nava- book, Gandhi’s Way: A Handbook of Conflict Reso- jivan Publishing House, 1938; originally pub- lution, rev. ed. (Berkeley: University of Califor- lished in 1910), 69. nia Press, 2005).

32 Dædalus Winter 2007 unhappy with the label, ‘passive resist- place for the British to be was Britain. Gandhi vs. ance,’ that had been attached to the Yet at the same time he openly appreci- terrorism methods used by his protest movement ated the many positive things that Brit- in South Africa. There was nothing pas- ish rule had brought to the Indian sub- sive about it–in fact, Gandhi had led the continent, from roads to administrative movement into stormy confrontations of½ces. with government authorities–and it was After a solution was imagined, the sec- more than just resistance. It was also a ond stage of a struggle was to achieve it. way of searching for what was right and This meant ½ghting–but in a way that standing up for it, of speaking truth to was consistent with the solution itself. power. Gandhi adamantly rejected the notion In 1906 Gandhi decided to ½nd a new that the goal justi½es the means. Gandhi term for his method of engaging in con- argued that the ends and the means were flict. He invited readers of his journal, ultimately the same. If you fought vio- Indian Opinion, to offer suggestions, and lently you would establish a pattern of he offered a book prize for the winning violence that would be part of any solu- entry. The one that most intrigued him tion to the conflict, no matter how noble came from his own cousin, Maganlal, it was supposed to be. Even if terrorists which Gandhi re½ned into the term, were successful in ousting the British satyagraha. The neologism is a conjunct from India, Gandhi asked, “Who will of two Sanskrit words, satya, ‘truth,’ and then rule in their place?” His answer agraha, ‘to grasp ½rmly.’ Hence it could was that it would be the ones who had be translated as ‘grasping onto truth,’ or killed in order to liberate India, adding, as Gandhi liked to call it, “truth force.” “India can gain nothing from the rule of What Gandhi found appealing about murderers.”7 the winning phrase was its focus on A struggle could be forceful–often it truth. Gandhi reasoned that no one would begin with a demonstration and possesses a complete view of it. The “a refusal to cooperate with anything very existence of a conflict indicates a humiliating.” But it could not be violent, deep difference over what is right. The Gandhi reasoned, for these destructive ½rst task of a conflict, then, is to try to means would negate any positive bene- see the conflict from both sides of an ½ts of a struggle’s victory. If a ½ght is issue. This requires an effort to under- waged in the right way it could enlarge stand an opponent’s position as well as one’s vision of the truth and enhance one’s own–or, as former U.S. Secretary one’s character in the process. What of Defense Robert McNamara advised Gandhi disdained was the notion that in the documentary ½lm The Fog of War, one had to stoop to the lowest levels of “Empathize with the enemy.” human demeanor in ½ghting for some- The ability to cast an empathetic eye thing worthwhile. was central to Gandhi’s view of conflict. It made it possible to imagine a solution This brings us to the way that Gandhi that both sides could accept, at least in would respond to terrorism. To begin part–though Gandhi also recognized with, Gandhi insisted on some kind of that sometimes the other side had very response. He never recommended do- little worth respecting. In his campaign for the British to ‘quit India,’ for in- 7 Indian Sociologist, September 1909, quoted in stance, he regarded the only righteous Hunt, Gandhi in London, 134.

Dædalus Winter 2007 33 Mark ing nothing at all. “Inaction at a time of Responding to terrorism after the Juergens- meyer conflagration is inexcusable,” he once fact, however, is quite a different mat- on wrote.8 He regarded cowardice as be- ter. What Gandhi argued in Hind Swaraj nonviolence neath contempt. Fighting–if it is non- was that violence never works as a re- & violence violent–is “never demoralizing,” Gan- sponse to violence. It usually generates dhi said, while “cowardice always is.”9 more violence as a result, and precipi- And perhaps Gandhi’s most memora- tates a seemingly endless litany of tit- ble statement against a tepid response: for-tat militant engagements. “Where there is only a choice between Gandhi was adamantly opposed to the cowardice and violence, I would advise political positions that justi½ed terror- violence.”10 ism, but he was remarkably lenient to- Occasionally violence does indeed ward the terrorists themselves. In the seem to be the only response available. case of the assassination that occurred Gandhi provided some examples. One when Gandhi was in London in 1909, he was the mad dog. On confronting a dog did not blame Dhingra, the assassin of with rabies, one must stop it by any Curzon-Wyllie. He said that Dhingra as a means possible, including maiming or person was not the main problem. Rath- killing it.11 Another case that Gandhi er, Gandhi said, he was like a drunkard, offered was a brutal rapist caught in in the grip of “a mad idea.”13 the act. To do nothing in that situation, The dif½culty was the “mad idea,” not Gandhi said, makes the observer “a part- the terrorists. Though he might have jus- ner in violence.” Hence violence could ti½ed killing them if he had caught them be used to counter it. Gandhi thus con- in the act, after their tragic mission was cluded, “Heroic violence is less sinful over, Gandhi’s attitude toward those than cowardly nonviolence.”12 who carried out terrorist acts was more By extension, one could imagine Gan- of pity than of revenge. He would not let dhi justifying an act of violence to halt them go free, of course, but he treated an act of terrorism in progress. If Gan- them as misguided soldiers rather than dhi had been sitting next to the suicide as monsters. bomber in the London subway during Moreover, Gandhi thought it quite the 2005 attack, for instance, he would possible that the ideas for which the have been justi½ed in wrestling the man violent activists were ½ghting could to the floor and subduing him. If no oth- be worthy ones. In the case of Dhingra er means were available than a physical and the Indian militants in 1909, for in- assault–even one that led to the man’s stance, they were championing a cause death–it would have been preferable to that Gandhi himself af½rmed. Hence it the awful event that transpired when the would be an enormous mistake–fool- bomb exploded. ish, from a Gandhian point of view–to ½xate on terrorist acts solely as deviant behavior without taking seriously the 8 Harijan, April 7, 1946. causes for which these passionate sol- 9 Young India, October 31, 1929. diers were laboring. A Gandhian strategy for confronting 10 Young India, August 11, 1920. terrorism, therefore, would consist of the following: 11 Gandhi, Collected Works, vol. 14, 505. 13 Indian Sociologist, September 1909, quoted in 12 Gandhi, Collected Works, vol. 51, 17. Hunt, Gandhi in London, 134.

34 Dædalus Winter 2007 Stop an act of violence in its tracks. The case of Northern Ireland, a region Gandhi vs. effort to do so should be nonviolent plagued by violence for decades. terrorism but forceful. Gandhi made a distinc- The troubles of Northern Ireland tion between detentive force–the use could be traced back to the British es- of physical control in order to halt vio- tablishment of the Ulster Plantation lence in progress–and coercive force. in 1610, though the most recent round The latter is meant to intimidate and of violence began after a free Irish state destroy, and hinders a Gandhian ½ght was established in 1921. Catholics in aimed at a resolution of principles at the Northern Ireland counties felt mar- stake. ginalized in what they claimed to be Address the issues behind the terrorism. To Irish territory. Protestants feared they focus solely on acts of terrorism, Gandhi would become overwhelmed and ban- argued, would be like being concerned ished from what they regarded as a part with weapons in an effort to stop the of Britain. spread of racial hatred. Gandhi thought Violence erupted in the summer of the sensible approach would be to con- 1969 in the Bogside area of the city of front the ideas and alleviate the condi- Londonderry. Following the clash, Prot- tions that motivated people to under- estants revived an old militia, the Ulster take such desperate operations in the Volunteer Force, and militant Catholics ½rst place. created a ‘provisional’ version of the Maintain the moral high ground. A belli- Irish Republican Army that would be cose stance, Gandhi thought, debased more militant than the old ira. those who adopted it. A violent posture In 1971, Northern Ireland of½cials adopted by public authorities could lead adopted a preemptive stance and be- to a civil order based on coercion. For gan rounding up Catholic activists this reason Gandhi insisted on means whom they regarded as potential ter- consistent with the moral goals of those rorists. The activists were detained engaged in the conflict. without charges. Within hours, rioting and shooting broke out in the Catholic These are worthy principles, but do neighborhoods of Belfast and adjacent they work? This question is often raised towns. The government, rather than about nonviolent methods as a response retreating from its hard line, pressed to terrorism–as if the violent ones have on, declaring a war against terrorism. been so effective. In Israel, a harsh re- The suspects were beaten and tortured sponse to Palestinian violence has often in an attempt to elicit information. They led to a surge of support for Hamas and were forced to lie spread-eagle on the an increase in terrorist violence. The floor with hoods over their heads, and U.S. responses to jihadi movements af- subjected to disorienting electronic ter the September 11 attacks have not sounds. diminished support for the movements The government’s attempt to end the nor reduced the number of terrorist in- violence by harshly treating those it sus- cidents worldwide. Militant responses pected of perpetrating violence back- to terrorism do not possess a particular- ½red. The Catholic community united ly good record of success. solidly behind the insurgency, and the Yet there is a recent example of a suc- violence mounted. Later the Home Min- cessful end to terrorism that was forged ister who sanctioned the crackdown ad- through nonviolent means. This is the mitted that the hard-line approach was

Dædalus Winter 2007 35 Mark “by almost universal consent an unmiti- and the policies of police, and supplied Juergens- gated disaster.” funds to help the victims of violence. It meyer on The violence of the early 1970s came also addressed the problem of balanced nonviolence to a head on what came to be called governance by setting up a parliament & violence ‘Bloody Sunday,’ when a peaceful pro- with proportional representation, an ex- test march against the internment of ecutive branch that guaranteed repre- Catholic activists turned ugly. British sentation from both communities, and troops ½red on the crowd, killing thir- a consultative Civic Forum that allowed teen. for community concerns to be expressed For over twenty years the violence directly from the people. The Agreement continued. Tit-for-tat acts of terrorism also dealt with relations among the three became a routine affair. The British em- key states involved–Ireland, Great Brit- bassy in Dublin was burned, British sol- ain, and Northern Ireland–by establish- diers were attacked, police stations were ing several councils and mediating bod- bombed, and individual Catholics and ies. Protestants were captured by opposing Prior to the Agreement, the British sides and sometimes hideously tortured government and the paramilitary forces and killed. on both the Unionist and ira sides had In 1988 an internal dialogue began to found themselves in a situation similar take place within the Catholic side be- to many violent confrontations. Their tween a moderate leader, John Hume, positions had been staked out in ex- and the activist leader, Gerry Adams. In treme and uncompromising terms, and 1995, former U.S. Senator George Mitch- the methods used by all sides were so ell was invited to Northern Ireland to harsh as to be virtually unforgivable. Ul- help broker the peace talks. Initially they timately they were able to break through were unsuccessful, but then Mitchell re- this impasse by employing several basic turned for eight months of intensive ne- nonviolent techniques: gotiations. The talks involved members Seeing the other side’s point of view. When of Irish and British governments and the British began to open lines of com- eight political parties on both Catholic munication to the radical leaders on and Protestant sides of the Northern both sides, they began to break through Irish divide. They reached an agreement the ‘we-they’ attitude that vexes most on April 10, 1998–a day that happened hostile confrontations. to be Good Friday, the Christian holiday Not responding to violence in kind. A se- that precedes Easter. ries of cease½res–including unilateral The Good Friday Agreement is a re- cease½res by the ira–were critical in markable document. It attempted to helping to break the spiral of violence. provide structural resolutions to sever- Even as severe an incident as the Omagh al different problems at the same time. terrorist bombing on August 15, 1998, To respond to the public mistrust and did not elicit retaliatory attacks. insecurity brought on by years of vio- Letting moderate voices surface. Once the lence, the Agreement set up Human spiral of violence had been broken, and Rights and Equality Commissions. It both sides no longer felt under siege, called for an early release of political there was room for moderate voices to prisoners, required the decommission- surface within the warring camps. ing of paramilitary weapons, prescribed Isolating radical voices. The peace nego- reforms of the criminal justice system tiators did not try to change what could

36 Dædalus Winter 2007 not be changed. Hence they did not join him in “correcting what had hap- Gandhi vs. waste time in trying to reason with the pened to the Islamic world in general” terrorism militant Protestant leader, Reverend since the end of the Ottoman Empire. Ian Paisley, who had opted out of the The aim, according to bin Laden, was process. “to return to the people their own rights, Setting up channels of communication. particularly after the large damages and They involved an outsider–Senator the great aggression on the life and the Mitchell–to play a mediating role, and religion of the people.”14 set up impartial frameworks of commu- Groups sharing an Al Qaeda perspec- nication for the two sides, which had tive have attacked the very centers of been deeply mistrustful of one another. Western power in New York, Madrid, Peace in Northern Ireland was not in- and London, but their struggle is not evitable, and there is no assurance that in any simple sense about territory. It the agreement will last forever. Violence is a war without a frontline and without may again return to that troubled area clear geographic lines of control. On the of Ireland. Yet for a time the bombs have jihadi side it is a war without a conven- been silenced. At least in one case in re- tional army and without the apparatus of cent political history terrorism has come a political state. For that matter, the jiha- to an end–through nonviolent means. di movement seems to be without much centralized control at all. It is reasonable to ask whether the With no one clearly in charge, nego- approach taken in Northern Ireland tiation is a dif½cult affair. It is unlikely could work in other situations. Could that U.S. of½cials would hike into the it work in Kashmir, for instance, a re- mountains of Pakistan to chat with bin gion that is also claimed by two reli- Laden, if indeed he could be found. And gious communities backed by powerful even if there were such conversations, governments? It would not take a huge what would be the point? He has no real stretch of imagination to think that In- control over the policies of the Middle dia and Pakistan could join in a settle- East and is in no position to negotiate ment surprisingly similar to the Good a settlement of the underlying issues Friday Agreement. The Israeli-Palestin- of Western influence that his fatwa de- ian conflict is more complex, but like scribes. To acknowledge bin Laden as Northern Ireland it is essentially a con- a representative of the Muslim people flict over territory in which both sides would be to magnify his importance and have a moral and political claim. Since reward his terrorism with political legiti- the Oslo Agreement in 1993 a negotiated macy. The United States has already ex- settlement in the region has seemed a aggerated his importance–and unwit- realistic though still elusive possibility. tingly enlarged his support within the But what about the global jihadi war? Muslim world–by singling him out as This is the global conflict that President the global enemy of the United States. George W. Bush designated “the war on Negotiations with renegade extremists terror” shortly after September 11, 2001, like bin Laden would not achieve any and relabeled “the struggle against radi- cal Islam” in July 2005. Osama bin Laden 14 Osama bin Laden, “Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of enunciated his own proclamation of this the Two Holy Places,” ½rst published in Arabic war in a fatwa against the United States in Al Quds Al Arabi, a London-based newspaper, in 1996. Bin Laden called on Muslims to August 1996.

Dædalus Winter 2007 37 Mark changes in underlying policy positions Even those measures that seem to be Juergens- that would lessen tensions in the Middle aimed only at giving the appearance meyer on East. of security have a certain utility, since nonviolence Behind the jihadi war is a conflict be- they diminish the prime effects of ter- & violence tween ideas and worldviews. In saying rorism–fear and intimidation. But even this I do not mean to belittle the impor- though Gandhi occasionally supported tance of the struggle, for ideas can have military action, including the British de- enormous power. But because the con- fense against Hitler in World War II, it test is between differing ways of per- is doubtful that he would have accepted ceiving the world and the relationship large-scale military operations as a re- between political and moral order, the sponse to terrorist acts, especially if they struggle has had a remarkably moralis- left large numbers of casualties in their tic tone. The enemies are not really in- wake. Nor would he have approved of dividuals as much as they are ways of changes in the legal system that would thinking. deprive the public of its rights. Both sides de½ne their goal as free- Address the issues behind the violence. The dom. On one side it is the liberty to crucial part of nonviolent resolution is choose a nation’s own of½cials through to look behind the violence at the issues democratic elections. On the other side that are at stake. Gandhi’s goal was to it is liberation from outside influence form a resolution with the best features and control. On both sides these posi- of both sides of a dispute. In the case of tions have been magni½ed into a moral the global jihadi war, this would mean contest of such proportions that it has af½rming the positive principles of both become a sacred struggle. The enemies sides–though the ‘sides’ in this case are have become cosmic foes. Large num- not only state and non-state organiza- bers of innocent people have been killed tions but also the concerned publics that with moral indifference–or worse, with stand behind them. Gandhi might have the self-righteous thinking that God is approved of the principles of both sides: on one’s side. the desire of many traditional Muslims Is a nonviolent approach to conflict in the Middle East to be free from Amer- resolution relevant to the global jihadi ican and European domination, and the war? Consider the guidelines that Gan- expectation of those who hold modern dhi enunciated in response to the terror- social values that all societies should re- ism of the Indian activists in London in spect peoples of diverse cultures and be 1909. They might be applied to the cur- democratically governed. Since these rent situation in the following way: goals are not necessarily incompatible, a Stop a situation of violence in its tracks. resolution that accepts them both is con- The ½rst rule of nonviolence is to stop ceivable. an act of violence as it occurs–or better, Ultimately, tensions might not be ful- to prevent it before it happens. Gandhi ly resolved until there are signi½cant would have approved of efforts to cap- changes in the political culture of Mid- ture those involved in acts of terrorism dle Eastern countries and dramatic re- and bring them to justice, and he would versals of the West’s military and eco- have applauded attempts to ward off fu- nomic role in the Middle East. But in the ture terrorist assaults through the legal meantime small steps can make a large forms of surveillance and detection that difference. Any indication that either or have been adopted after September 11. both sides accept both sets of principles

38 Dædalus Winter 2007 would be a positive shift toward recon- new idea, but rather a strand of public Gandhi vs. ciling the underlying differences and thinking that deserves attention and, terrorism diminishing the support for extremists’ Gandhi might argue, respect. As a prag- positions. matic idealist, Gandhi would be pleased Maintain the moral high ground. As to know that nonviolent approaches to Gandhi remarked to the Indian activ- terrorism were taken seriously, not only ists in London who proposed a violent because they invariably were the right overthrow of British control of India, thing to do, but also because on more violence begets violence. Proclaiming than one occasion they have worked. a ‘war on terrorism,’ from Gandhi’s point of view, is tantamount to sinking to the terrorists’ level. The very idea of war suggests an absolutism of conflict, where reason and negotiation have no place and where opponents are enemies. Though violent extremists are indeed dif½cult opponents, and Gandhi would not expect one to negotiate with them, he would be mindful that the more im- portant struggle is the one for public support. This support could shift either way, and it would be a tragic error–and perhaps a self-ful½lling prophecy–to re- gard potential supporters as enemies. Mistreatment of those suspected of being involved in terrorist acts can al- so lead to a loss of public support. Gan- dhi urged that the assassin, Dhingra, be treated with caution but also with respect, as any suspect in a crime would be treated. Torture, from Gandhi’s point of view, is ineffective not just because it rarely produces useful information but also because it corrupts the moral character of a society that allows it to be used. This was the point he made in Hind Swaraj when he stressed that the means of freeing India from British con- trol should be consistent with the goals a free Indian society would want to achieve. Many of these guidelines have been part of the public debate in the United States in the years following the Sep- tember 11 attacks. Thus a nonviolent response to terrorism is already an ele- ment of political discourse. It is not a

Dædalus Winter 2007 39 Neil L. Whitehead

Violence & the cultural order

Almost all theoretical and research indicates that orthodox solutions or re- approaches to violence begin with the sponses to the problem of violence can assumption that, at its core, violence only envisage its suppression, as a beha- represents the breakdown of meaning, vior inappropriate or misjudged to its the advent of the irrational, and the ends. But what if violence is considered commission of physical harm. Certain- ennobling, redeeming, and necessary to ly the violence of language, representa- the continuance of life itself? In other tion, and the structures of everyday life words, the legitimacy of violent acts is are acknowledged as relevant examples part of how they are constituted in the of harm, but these are peripheral phe- minds of observers, victims, and the per- nomena and dependent on the existence petrators of such acts; and matters of of bodily damage and vicious attack as legitimacy are not at all separate from a substrate to these more ethereal exam- the way in which given acts and behav- ples of violence. A similar ambiguity ex- iors are themselves considered violent ists with regard to the way in which nat- in the ½rst place. ural processes or zoological behaviors Consonant with the recognition that exhibit damage of a fleshy kind, but here violence is not a natural fact but a mor- the supposed reign of instinct and sur- al one, current anthropological thinking vival invites not only repugnance but al- has moved steadily away from the no- so an absence of ethical evaluation. tion that it is a given category of human This informal cartography of the idea behavior, easily identi½ed through its of violence in modern Western thinking physical consequences and understood as emerging from the inadequacies of in- Neil L. Whitehead is professor of anthropology dividual moral or social political systems at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is of restraint, or from underlying genetic the author of numerous books, including “Lords proclivities. In the light of not only en- of the Tiger Spirit” (1988), “War in the Tribal countering violence more frequently as Zone” (1992), “Dark Shamans” (2002), and part of ethnographic ½eldwork, but also “Violence: Poetics, Performance and Expression” through more properly understanding (2004). the historical importance of colonialism and neocolonialism in establishing cer- © 2007 by the American Academy of Arts tain codes of violent practice, anthropol- & Sciences ogy has now moved toward ideas that

40 Dædalus Winter 2007 stress the centrality of bodily and emo- of the archaeological data, which are Violence & tive experiences of violence to the nor- certainly punctuated through time with the cultural order mal functioning of any given cultural examples of organized killing, surpris- order, including that of the West. The ingly reveals a starkly less violent record problem now is not how to end violence when contrasted to the bloody historical but to understand why it occurs in the and ethnographic accounts of the past ways it does. This involves recognition few centuries. that violence is as much a part of mean- No one is suggesting that we cling to ingful and constructive human living as a Rousseau-like image of the peaceful, it is an imagination of the absence and noble savage, but many others2 who destruction of all cultural and social or- have carefully studied the archaeologi- der. cal record have come to a very different This essay is intended to outline the conclusion about the incidence of vio- role violence can play as meaningful cul- lence and war. Basically, they have con- tural expression, whatever its apparent cluded that war leaves archaeologically senselessness and destructive potential. recoverable traces. And with few excep- This exercise entails a questioning of as- tions, the evidence is consistent with a sumptions as to the self-evident nature relatively recent development of war as of ‘violence.’ It also involves asking how regular practice–after the transition to issues of legitimacy critically influence sedentary existence (though not neces- understandings of violent acts, and how sarily to agriculture), or, to put a date such acts themselves are often complex and place on it, around 6000 bc in Turk- social performances expressive of key ish Anatolia. From then and there war cultural values. It also implies a critique developed in and spread from other lo- of analyses that suggest historically tran- cales, such that, by ad 1500, war was scendent biological and evolutionary quite common around the world, in all homologies in human violence, as well kinds of societies. But with the impor- as of Hobbesian analogies drawn be- tant codicil that the intensity and lethal- tween a ‘primitive,’ savage past and con- ity of warfare then spiked strongly as a temporary ‘tribalism’ and ‘terrorism.’ direct consequence of European imperi- alism.3 In archaeology, controversy as to the Certainly then, archaeology can play origins of, and reasons for, human vio- a key role by focusing on the indicators lence and warfare is intense. Some ar- of ancient violence. But it has no logical gue that the archaeological record shows endemic warfare going back inde½nite- the Peaceful, Noble Savage (New York: St. Mar- ly in time. However, the archaeological tin’s Press, 2003). data to support such arguments appear 2 See, for example, Debra Martin and David to have been deliberately assembled to Frayer, Troubled Times: Violence and Warfare illustrate prehistoric violence, with the in the Past (Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach, worst cases being given rhetorical prom- 1997), or Raymond C. Kelly, Warless Societies inence.1 In fact, the overall distribution and the Origin of War (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000).

1 See, for example, Lawrence H. Keeley, War 3 See R. Brian Ferguson and Neil L. White- Before Civilization (New York: Oxford Universi- head, eds., War in the Tribal Zone–Expanding ty Press, 1997), or Steven A. LeBlanc and Kath- States and Indigenous Warfare, 2nd ed. (Santa erine E. Register, Constant Battles: The Myth of Fe: School of American Research Press, 1999).

Dædalus Winter 2007 41 Neil L. priority in understanding violence and of ‘warfare’ by chimpanzees and other Whitehead war, since locating the temporal origins primates.5 These are indeed very influ- on nonviolence of such cultural patterns do not explain ential views, reportedly even reaching & violence their persistence. There is, of course, into the White House.6 But in fact, the a wider cultural meaning in this debate chimpanzee comparison, and much oth- as the more strident advocates of a er work on the comparative genetics and Hobbesian scenario are obsessively con- evolution of violence, is based on two cerned to explode ideas of a ‘noble sav- defective premises: the ½rst one, which age’ who ‘lives in harmony with the nat- I have already discussed, is that war has ural world.’ Their agenda relates more to been continuously present throughout a need to discover ourselves in the past, humanity’s evolutionary and archaeo- as a means to evade the hard questions logical past; the second is that the record about the persistence and increasing in- of recent ethnography is a valid reflec- tensity of our own violence and warfare, tion of that past level of violence. The than it does to the actual distributions latter premise does not hold when one of archaeological data.4 However, this considers the fact that local state expan- debate is without end and beyond reso- sion and imperial domination, especially lution through archaeological evidence, in the last ½ve hundred years, have been since it is an attempt to limit the mean- critical in intensifying patterns of tribal ings of past violence to the political conflict–much as is true of the spread of agendas of the present day. high-tech weapons into contemporary In a similar way, recent speculations regional conflicts with an ‘ethnic’ com- about humanity’s warlike nature have ponent, such as in the Horn of Africa. been fueled by supposed observations Moreover, if primatologists clamor to have their insights applied to human- ity, they must recognize that it is a two- 4 Such presentations also miss the point that way street: they, in turn, must consid- the presence of violence in the archaeological er anthropological theory on collective record is not the same as the presence of war- violence when interpreting chimpan- fare. For example, recent attempts to ‘prove’ zee violence. In just this vein, many pri- Anasazi cannibalism in the Southwest, as in 7 Christy G. Turner II and Jacqueline Turner, matologists have argued that both ob- Man Corn: Cannibalism and Violence in the Pre- historic American Southwest (Salt Lake City: 5 See, for example, Michael Ghiglieri, The Dark University of Utah Press, 1998), or Steven A. Side of Man: Tracing the Origins of Male Violence LeBlanc, Prehistoric Warfare in the American (Reading, Mass.: Perseus Books, 1999), and Southwest (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Richard Wrangham and Dale Peterson, Demon- Press, 1999), simply ignore the logical possibil- ic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence ities of many other kinds of violent behavior (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1996). to produce the skeletal and coprolitic evidence trumpeted as demonstrations of cannibalism, 6 See Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and and instead blithely assume a relation to expan- the Last Man (New York: Free Press, 1992). sive warfare. Likewise, claims as to the ‘Cauca- sian’ form of skeletal remains more than nine 7 See Margaret Power, The Egalitarians–Hu- thousand years old found in the Northwest also man and Chimpanzee: An Anthropological View exploit a persistent cultural need to barbarize of Social Organization (Cambridge: Cambridge and question the status of Native American cul- University Press, 1991), or Frans B. M. de ture; see David Hurst Thomas, Skull Wars: Ken- Waal, Peacemaking Among Primates (Cambridge, newick Man, Archaeology, and the Battle for Na- Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990), and tive American Identity (New York: Basic Books, most recently, Christopher Boehm, Hierarchy 2001). in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior

42 Dædalus Winter 2007 served collective violence and extreme In contrast to all of these approaches, Violence & hierarchical behavior among chim- the recent work of cultural anthropolo- the cultural order panzees is a manifestation of change gists can provide a markedly more so- brought on by an intensifying human phisticated frame of reference, in which presence. Notably, those primatologists8 identity and violence are understood who argue that lethal chimpanzee vio- as being historically and culturally con- lence occurs in the absence of major hu- structed. As is patent even to the casual man disruption have asked to have this observer, ethnic conflict emerges from characterization accepted on faith. But complex and highly variable processes; as with tribal warfare and with ethnic it is anything but the eruption of some violence more widely, if these claims primitive and ½xed group loyalty so be- are to be taken seriously, their defend- loved of the sociobiologists and their ar- ers must publish thorough descriptions chaeologist supporters. of historical contexts illustrating an ab- sence of exogenous stimulation of such After the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib violence. was revealed, many wondered whether Antedating but reinforced by prima- individual psychopathology or systemat- tologists’ claims, sociobiologists and ic military policy was at fault. Few un- evolutionary psychologists, and indeed derstood that the revelations also under- Social Darwinists before them, claim lined the importance of understanding that our evolutionary heritage has en- how violence works as part of our cultur- dowed or cursed us with an inherent al order. Since the form of abuse prac- tendency for in-group amity and out- ticed by the U.S. soldiers seemed to em- group enmity. These tendencies–to phasize sexual humiliation and religious cling to those close to us and to react desecration rather than gross forms of with unreasoning hostility to those who physical injury, and since it is widely un- are different–are then taken to explain derstood–including by the interrogators ‘ethnic violence’ in the modern world.9 themselves–that torture is not an effec- These views, in reality, often propound tive means of intelligence gathering, the naive caricatures of contemporary con- purpose of such abuse clearly requires flict, as with Michael Ghiglieri’s sugges- further thought. In particular, we need tion of a three-way association among to examine the relationship of the abuse cultural difference, genetic distance, and to the cultural meaning of the war in proclivity to violence. Iraq and to the place of the military in American society.10 In this light, ‘home- (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, land security,’ and preparedness for bio- 1999). logical attack, is no less a part of a per- formance of our own violent sociocultu- 8 As in Wrangham and Peterson, Demonic ral order than tanks, guns, and bombs Males, or Ghiglieri, The Dark Side of Man. are. 9 See, for example, Vernon Reynold, Vincent Unfortunately, the Western media, in Falger, and Ian Vine, The Sociobiology of Eth- automatically locating the bases for ‘vio- nocentrism: Evolutionary Dimensions of Xeno- lence’ and ‘terrorism’ in ‘radical Islam’ phobia, Discrimination, Racism, and Nationalism and other unfamiliar political ideologies, (London: Croom Helm, 1987), or R. Paul Shaw and Yuwa Wong, Genetic Seeds of Warfare: Evo- lution, Nationalism, and Patriotism (Boston: Un- 10 See, for example, John Conroy, Unspeakable win Hyman, 1989). Acts, Ordinary People (New York: Knopf, 2000).

Dædalus Winter 2007 43 Neil L. has obscured this need to understand And while various theoretical approach- Whitehead the role of violence in our own cultural es to the anthropology of war have cer- on nonviolence order. The dominance of this commen- tainly emphasized the relevance of & violence tary is part of the reason we consider changing global conditions to the vio- only the violence perpetrated by liberal lent contestation of nationalism, eth- democracies as ‘legitimate.’ However, nicity, and state control, the question of the Abu-Ghraib revelations destabilized why such violence might take particular these presumptions to some degree, cultural forms–such as speci½c kinds of leading to the broader questions of how mutilation, ‘ethnic cleansing,’ or other and when does our society regard vio- modes of community terror–has not lence, or at least torture and prisoner been adequately integrated into anthro- abuse, justi½able.11 pological theory, despite the pioneering Anthropology offers the best method work of a few authors. of exploring these questions. But under- As a result, anthropology has been standing violence through anthropol- unable to counter the commentary of ogy’s standard approach to human re- the popular media, which stresses the search–ethnography–is fraught with ‘primitive’ or ‘tribal’ nature of many of intellectual and personal risks. Witness- these conflicts by repeatedly referring ing violent acts is problematic in itself, to the culturally opaque violent prac- to say nothing of the challenge present- tices observed in these clashes. These ed by the fact that ethnography is a pseudoanthropological attempts at ex- method of participant observation.12 planation only recapitulate colonial ideas about the inherent savagery of 11 See Mark Danner, Torture and Truth: Amer- the non-Western world and, as such, ica, Abu Ghraib, and the War on Terror (New proffer no hope for better understand- York: New York Review of Books, 2004). ing. In policy terms, the failure to appre- ciate the connection between cultural 12 See accounts of such entanglements with af½rmation and violence often leads to witchcraft and sorcery by Paul Stoller, In Sor- cery’s Shadow: A Memoir of Apprenticeship Among intractable quagmires–such as in Iraq the Songhay of Niger (Chicago: University of or Afghanistan, Ireland or Israel–where Chicago Press, 1989), or Neil L. Whitehead, the violent insertion of external politi- Dark Shamans: Kanaimà and the Poetics of Violent cal ‘solutions’ has only served to induce Death (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, even ½ercer opposition. Of course, such 2002), as well as Carolyn Nordstrom and An- resistance is then linked again to the dis- tonius C. G. M. Robben, eds., Fieldwork Under Fire: Contemporary Studies of Violence and Survi- course on tribalism and savagery by ref- val (Berkeley: University of California Press, erence to the ‘religious’ (or antimodern) 1995). In more general terms, such topics are a nature of the insurgents’ motivations. dif½cult and possibly deadly subject for ethno- Understanding violence as a discursive graphic research. Moreover, cultural anthropol- practice–whose symbols and rituals are ogists are apt to elect more positive topics for research, justly fearing that to discuss violent as relevant to its enactment as its instru- cultural practices with our informants can lead mental aspects–is an indispensable as- to a negative and deadly stereotyping, as was pect of being able to interpret, and not clearly demonstrated by the recent controver- just condemn, violent acts. In order for sy over ethnographic practices in Amazonia. an act of violence to be considered legiti- See Patrick Tierney, Darkness in El Dorado: How Scientists and Journalists Devastated the Amazon (New York: Norton, 2000), and Robert Borof- troversy and What We Can Learn from It (Berke- sky and Bruce Albert, Yanomami: The Fierce Con- ley: University of California Press, 2005).

44 Dædalus Winter 2007 mate, it needs not only to have the ex- precisely what is meant by the ‘poetics’ Violence & pected pragmatic consequences but al- of violent practice.)14 the cultural order so to be judged appropriate. Therefore, Instead, the study of violence has among the key questions we must ad- tended to focus on the political and eco- dress are how and when violence is cul- nomic conditions under which it is gen- turally appropriate, why it is only ap- erated, the suffering of victims, and the propriate for certain individuals, and psychology of its interpersonal dynam- the signi½cance of those enabling ideas ics. Such work has vastly improved our of appropriateness to a cultural tradi- conceptualizations of violence, but it ig- tion as a whole. In addition, it is neces- nores the role of perpetrators, their mo- sary to ask how a reevaluation of vio- tivations, and the social conditions un- lent cultural expression affects the con- der which they are able to operate. How- cept of ‘culture’ and to consider wheth- ever, this imbalance in theorizing vic- er ‘violence’ is itself a cross-cultural cat- tims rather than perpetrators is just be- egory.13 ginning to receive better attention from We therefore need to pay more atten- both anthropologists and others work- tion to the generative schemes for cul- ing on humanistic approaches to vio- turally appropriate behavior–as well lence.15 as the historically constituted matrix Also, until recently, the anthropology of symbolic and ideational forms upon of violence was principally concerned which cultural representations, expres- with the birth of war, the political econ- sions, and performances are based. This omy of small-scale conflicts, or with critical ½eld of analysis has largely been the general context of the encounter be- ignored. As a result, there have been few tween tribal and colonial military tradi- attempts to map how cultural concep- tions. This approach certainly provides tions of violence are used discursively an important material context for under- to amplify the cultural force of violent standing the development of cultural acts, or how those acts themselves can forms of violence. But new domains of produce a shared idiom for violent anthropological analysis–state violence death. (This discursive ampli½cation is and death squads, postcolonial ethnic conflicts, serial killings, and revitalized 13 As Christopher Taylor points out in his 1999 forms of ‘traditional’ killing, such as as- study of the Rwandan genocide, Sacri½ce as Ter- sault sorcery and witchcraft–have re- ror: The Rwandan Genocide of 1994 (New York: Berg, 1999), this does not mean that ‘culture,’ quired a much closer consideration of conceived of in a simplistic way as in Daniel the symbolic, ritual, and performative Goldhagen’s controversial analysis of the Na- qualities of violent acts in order to con- zi genocide, Hitler’s Willing Executioners (New ceptualize cultural variety in the discur- York: Vintage Books, 1997), can simply be cited sive practice of violence more fully. as a cause of violence. Moreover, even the most careful analyses of Western forms of violence, such as of the Nazi genocide, are not necessari- 14 See Whitehead, Dark Shamans, and Neil L. ly relevant to the understanding of postcolonial Whitehead, ed., Violence (Santa Fe: School of ethnic violence, such as the genocide in Cambo- American Research Press, 2004). dia, precisely because ‘genocide’ is here mediat- ed through cultural forms with which we are 15 The website for the Legacies of Violence re- often unfamiliar. See Alexander Laban Hinton, search circle at the University of Wisconsin- Why Did They Kill? Cambodia in the Shadow of Madison illustrates many of these approaches, Genocide (Berkeley: University of California http://www.internationalresearch.wisc.edu/ Press, 2005). lov/.

Dædalus Winter 2007 45 Neil L. In any case, violence is becoming an tations and seek new principles for rep- Whitehead unavoidable fact of anthropological re- resenting and studying violence as a cul- on nonviolence search. We face burgeoning ethnic and tural practice. & violence community violence in many of the tra- ditional ½eld sites for anthropological Violent acts embody complex aspects analysis, even in those locations that of symbolism that relate to both order seemed to have already peacefully nego- and disorder in a given social context. tiated their postcolonial economic and Because of these symbolic aspects, vio- political conditions. Research on vio- lence has many potential cultural mean- lence has also become an important ings. This is particularly important to part of anthropology’s understanding remember when we consider the violent of globalization. In the economically acts committed in the name of a particu- and politically marginal spaces of the lar religion, or in a belief that these acts global ethnoscape, violence has become conform to a set of ‘moral’ or ‘patriotic’ a forceful, if not inevitable, form of cul- teachings directly linked to speci½c ide- tural af½rmation in the face of a loss of ologies. ‘tradition’ and a dislocation of ethnicity. When an atrocity or murder takes Violence here is often engendered not place, it feeds into the world of the icon- simply by adherence to globalized ide- ic imagination. Imagination transcends ologies, such as communism or Islam, reality and its rational articulation, but but also by the complexities of local in doing so it can bring more violent re- political history and cultural practices. alities into being. We should not under- This is true even where global ideologies estimate the signi½cance of this phe- do come into play, since it is the local nomenon. Under early modern Europe- meaning of those ideologies that drives an regimes, simply showing torture in- conflicts. struments to a prisoner was often suf½- In tandem with this changing context cient to produce the required confession for ethnographic research is the resur- of heresy or apostasy from him or her. gent debate within anthropology as to So, today, simply seeing the aftermath of the existence and meaning of ‘tradition- terrorism is enough to induce each citi- al’ violence, which cannot be charac- zen to rehearse complex political com- terized simply as a ‘return to barbarity.’ mitments to ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy.’ A growing body of ethnographic and These pledges, in turn, sustain those pol- historical work is seeking to develop itical regimes that locate the terrorist aspects of cultural theory in a way that threat at the very gates of society. overcomes these problems: work exam- In many popular presentations of in- ining the Rwandan/Burundian genocide digenous, or ‘tribal,’ ways of life, the and the destruction of Liberia; studies message is usually that the lives being of the resurgence of ‘traditional witch- portrayed are subject to the kinds of craft’ as a political force in various glo- arbitrary violence that Western liberal bal contexts; studies of the discursive democracy has banished from everyday practice of violence in the South and existence. Accordingly, we are repeated- Southeast Asian contexts; or material ly exposed to the notion that these so- concerning state terror from Central and cieties face the pervasive threat of the South America. Such studies, and oth- Hobbesian condition, a war of all men ers, clearly suggest that the moment is against all men–with the inevitable right to compare ethnographic interpre- consequence that the lives of most men

46 Dædalus Winter 2007 are nasty, brutish, and short. This mode al in the face of, or prospect of, the ex- Violence & of representation, and the imagination ercise of violence. We sit entranced by the cultural order of others’ subjectivities it entails, is par- the sights and sounds of ‘terrorist vio- ticularly evident in the treatment of top- lence’–the twisted piles of metal and ics such as sorcery and witchcraft, and rubble, the wailing of women, the shout- in the televisual dioramas of ‘tradition- ing of men, and the telltale pools of al’ violent rituals, such as initiation cere- blood–which con½rm the overriding monies, mystical practices of self-muti- importance of this kind of violence as lation or pain endurance, and so forth.16 a token of the perpetrators’ barbarity What such portrayals neglect in their and an occasion for our condemnation. urgent concern to convince us of the de- Implicitly, we are invited to infer the rel- gree to which such lives are immured in ative insigni½cance of our own counter- superstition and fear is that we, too, live violence, which is rarely itself so starkly in a state of constant fear, kept active presented, in defeating the monstrous in the public consciousness by such de- perpetrators of such acts. We also learn vices as government-issued threat levels, that we are dependent on the profession- civic exercises in disaster preparedness, als of violence to achieve that end. and the nightly news bulletins and tele- This is partly why the visual materi- vision dramas. For these measures imply als emanating from Abu Ghraib were that, even if we are somewhat defended so shocking to, and incommensurable against the terrorist of yesterday, the po- with, our understanding of the violence tential for similar violent disruptions al- we deploy. Although American cultural ways exists.17 values were overtly shaping the forms These representations overlook not of violence–all of the torturers wore only the way in which states of terror plastic gloves, focused on sexual humili- and acts of violence are entangled with ation, and generally gave off the impres- the social and political order, but also sion that this was merely a frat party or how those apparently undesirable con- hazing–the automatic responses of an- ditions are nonetheless valorized as the alysts were either that the individual of- contexts for the expression of desirable fenders were psychopathic or that the cultural values–be they heroism and higher authority was aberrant (albeit un- self-sacri½ce, or physical endurance and derstandably so, since the aim of defeat- indifference to pain. ing terror is far more important). Even Moreover, the televisual contrasts be- liberal-inspired commentary sought to tween savage, violent others and our validate the U.S. government and the paci½c, sophisticated selves are not just nation’s body-politic by suggesting that implicit endorsements of ‘Western’ cul- free journalistic inquiry, and a Freedom ture. They also efface our own capacities of Information Act that would help jour- for, and institutions of, violence, with a nalists uncover the ‘truth’ of such abuse, resulting enfeeblement of the individu- balances out the ‘mistakes’ of Abu Ghraib. Presumably, then, the detainees 18 16 A recent series of programs on such topics, at Guantánamo Bay are doing just ½ne. made for the U.S. Discovery Channel, was thus entitled “Culture Shock Week.”

17 Carolyn Nordstrom has aptly named this 18 See the review of Mark Danner’s Torture and “the tomorrow of violence”; see her chapter Truth by Andrew Sullivan in the New York Sun- in Whitehead, ed., Violence. day Book Review, January 23, 2005.

Dædalus Winter 2007 47 Neil L. Of course, the latest terrorist pande- gesting a useful comparison between Whitehead monium is in many ways just a rein- the discourses surrounding sorcery and on nonviolence scription of the pervasive threats that witchcraft and our current conceptions & violence were earlier evident during the cold war. of terrorism.21 ‘Weapons of mass destruction’ are back In the contemporary West, the ½gure in vogue, again suggesting the imminent of the suicide bomber has replaced that possibility of another terrorist catastro- of the sorcerer in our cultural imaginary. phe in the vein of the September 11 at- The suicide bomber evokes the image tacks, if not the emergence of a cold of an irrational violence whose motiva- war–style stand off with North Korea tions are buried in the obscurity of reli- or Iran.19 gious cultism. It is important to note In the imagination of terror and vio- that the ‘suicide bomber’ is a formula- lence, there is no limitation on how far tion of the Western media. For the per- such discourses can travel, or at least petrators, martyrdom and self-sacri½ce, on the mediums in which they are ex- or ‘½ghting to the death,’ are much clos- pressed.20 Such discourses, however, er renderings of the ideas that motivate often proliferate locally through gossip them. Moreover, recent studies are be- to constitute a cultural imaginary, sug- ginning to reveal the multiple cultural imaginaries from which such acts actu- 22 19 Clearly, though, certain forms of violent ally emerge. In Japan, Iraq, Chechnya, ‘terrorist’ action cannot serve this cultural pur- Sri Lanka, and Palestine, such acts ac- pose, as shown by the way in which responses quire meaning from quite distinct ethi- to Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of a federal cal traditions and practices of violence. building in Oklahoma have been noted but not Just as was the case for an older idea of introduced into the wider public discourse on the ‘war on terror.’ This precisely highlights exotic terror, cannibalism, the apparent the difference between personal safety and na- behavioral similarity of these acts belies tional security as relating to different realms their distinct cultural meanings and tra- of political thinking and priority. Security is jectories.23 the politico-military prerogative of government while safety remains a culturally diverse and in- dividualized idea. ‘Safety’ in this sense can on- 21 See Andrew Strathern, Pamela Stewart, and ly be realized by the occupation of a different Neil L. Whitehead, eds., Terror and Violence: kind of space to that of threat and terror. Per- Imagination and the Unimaginable (Ann Arbor, haps a nostalgic retreat, as in the sudden popu- Mich.: Pluto, 2005), and Peter Geschiere, The larity of American folk music and the movie O Modernity of Witchcraft: Politics and the Occult Brother Where Art Thou? in the immediate wake in Postcolonial Africa (Charlottesville: Universi- of September 11, or the current vogue for re- ty of Virginia Press, 1997). making and recycling movie/tv formats from, or about, the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. 22 See Christoph Reuter, My Life is a Weapon: A Modern History of Suicide Bombing, trans. Helena 20 My own discussions in Dark Shamans of Ragg-Kirkby (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Uni- a regional form of terror, the kanaimà, under- versity Press, 2004), and Nasser Abufarha, The scores this delocation, since, despite regional Making of a Human Bomb (Ph.D. thesis, Univer- use of the idea in Brazilian and Venezuelan sity of Wisconsin-Madison). ½lm and literature, it has not connected with a global discourse of terror in the way that 23 This is very strikingly born out by Emiko other local imaginings, such as vampires, zom- Ohnuki-Tierney’s study of Japanese kamikaze, bies, or werewolves, have done; see also Luise whose motivations were more the result of an White, Speaking With Vampires: Rumor and His- admiring contemplation of Western moderni- tory in East and Central Africa (Berkeley: Univer- ty than a remnant of anachronistic and tradi- sity of California Press, 2000). tional samurai ethics; see Emiko Ohnuki-Tier-

48 Dædalus Winter 2007 The ½gure of the suicide bomber and illustrators would repeatedly allude Violence & also makes dramatically overt the iden- to the participation of women and chil- the cultural order ti½cation of the human body with the dren in the cannibal moment–as a way body-politic: through the social order of emphasizing the barbarity of the ritu- our bodies are shaped. The body is al- al exercise of cannibalism. It is striking so joined to locations and landscapes, that this community participation in the such that the destruction of sites of incorporating cannibal moment, not its civic identity are felt as bodily inva- cruelties and torments, shocked the ear- sions, from which the invader must be ly modern Europeans. repelled, purged, cleansed. So, too, in By contrast, an exclusion, not inclu- the absence of speci½c kinds of bodies sion, of the victim is envisaged in the –suspects, offenders, terrorists–or European tradition of torture and exe- physically distinguishing features for cution as an adjunct to judicial process. such categories, the site of a war on ‘ter- Such is now the fate of detainees at ror’ or other kinds of ‘enemies within’ Guantánamo, whose marked bodies and must become internalized as an aspect tortured minds leave them in a limbo of ‘mind’ and ‘attitude.’ It is obvious of nonbeing, excluded from the society now that acts of violence are acted out of human rights and law. British anthro- necessarily, and sometimes only, in the pologist Sir Edmund Leach noted in re- imagination. sponse to the ira terrorist campaigns Earlier colonial commentators on sor- nearly thirty years ago: cery were no less aware of the signi½- We see ourselves as threatened . . . by law- cance of the imaginative order in under- less terrorists of all kinds . . . . [W]e feel standing sorcery’s cultural influence.24 ourselves to be in the position of the Eu- Just as the modern-day expansion of ropean Christians after the withdrawal global media can ½ll many more minds of the Mongol hordes rather than in the with a conviction of the reality of pres- position of the unfortunate Caribs . . . at ent terror, an elaborate theater of pub- the hands of the Spanish invaders . . . . We lic punishment and execution imbued now know that the dog-headed cannibals people in the colonial era with the be- against whom Pope Gregory ix preached lief that the destruction of the bodies his crusade were representatives of a far of the condemned was integral to the more sophisticated civilization than any- reproduction of society–paradoxically thing that existed in Europe at the time achieving the incorporation of society . . . . However incomprehensible the acts through the exclusion of its victims. of terrorism may seem to be, our judges, It is signi½cant then that colonial de- our policemen, and our politicians must pictions of other rituals of public bodily never be allowed to forget that terrorism destruction, particularly cannibalistic is an activity of fellow human beings and human sacri½ce, put great stress on the not of dog-headed cannibals.25 collective-participation aspect of the vic- tim’s destruction–both commentators Control over bodies–both alive and dead, imaginatively and physically–is a ney, Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms, and National- way of engendering political power. And isms: The Militarization of Aesthetics in Japanese History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002). 25 In Edmund Ronald Leach, Custom, Law and Terrorist Violence (Edinburgh: University Press, 24 See Whitehead, Dark Shamans. 1977), 36.

Dædalus Winter 2007 49 Neil L. of all the modes of controlling bodies Whitehead the violence of physical assault is an on nonviolence irresistible mode of domination. But & violence even as we contemplate the shock and awe of attacks on terrorist hideaways, or the systems of secret cia prisons and torture camps that have most recently surfaced in the nightly news, we are re- minded that a war on terror of all kinds should also confront our own deep tra- ditions of violence, which persist as part of a quasi-mystical and deeply imagina- tive search for the ½nal triumph of dem- ocratic progress over the terror, violence, and barbarity of others.

50 Dædalus Winter 2007 Tzvetan Todorov

Avant-gardes & totalitarianism Translated by Arthur Goldhammer

The history of modernity is character- Those who did not wish to turn back ized by an immense transformation: the the clock but were still dissatis½ed with transition from a world structured by re- the present then sought a second way, ligion to a world organized exclusively in that of an absolute accessible to the au- terms of human beings and worldly val- tonomous individual. The search for this ues. This process of emancipation and second way itself took several forms; humanization, which has been going on the most influential of these identi½ed for several centuries, has taken two main the individual absolute with beauty and forms. First came the project of replac- favored what Friedrich Schiller would ing the divine absolute with a collective call the aesthetic education of man. human absolute, what revolutionaries This doctrine was Romanticism, adopt- in France called ‘the Nation.’ Initial en- ed ½rst in Germany and then through- thusiasm for this project began to wane, out Europe; it glori½ed the poet in place however, from the moment the Revolu- of the prophet and the work of art in tion engendered the Terror. The struggle place of prayer. “Beauty in its absolute for liberty had ended in the suppression essence is God,” declared a spokesman of liberty: was this not proof that the for the movement. project itself had been ill-conceived The fact that Romanticism reserved from the beginning? such a role for art and poetry, exempla- ry incarnations of the beautiful, did not mean that it neglected other human ac- Tzvetan Todorov is Directeur de Recherche hono- tivities: for Schiller and his successors, raire at the Centre National de la Recherche Sci- aesthetic education and political vision enti½que in Paris. He is the author of numerous went hand in hand. One of the best ex- publications, including “The Conquest of Amer- amples we have of the desire to improve ica” (1984), “On Human Diversity” (1993), the human condition by action in both “Facing the Extreme” (1996), “Imperfect Gar- spheres is that of the German composer den: The Legacy of Humanism” (2002), “Hope Richard Wagner. Influenced by the rev- and Memory” (2004), and “The New World olutionary ideas of Mikhail Bakunin, Disorder” (2005). Wagner took part in political agitation in Dresden in 1848–1849. Forced into exile © 2007 by the American Academy of Arts by the ensuing repression, he sought ref- & Sciences uge in Switzerland, where he produced

Dædalus Winter 2007 51 Tzvetan two texts setting forth his ideas about art rather the culmination of life. ‘Artistic Todorov and its relation to society: Art and Revolu- humanity’ was synonymous with ‘free on nonviolence tion and The Art Work of the Future, both human dignity.’ Craft was to become & violence written in 1849. art; the proletarian was to transform These texts make clear that Wagner himself into an artist; the industrial aspired to the absolute but did not seek slave was to metamorphose into a pro- it in traditional religion. Art seemed to ducer of beauty. The society of the fu- him the absolute’s best incarnation: it ture would no longer exist to serve art, was “living religion represented.”1 On as Wagner demanded for the present, this basis, he suggested, a two-way rela- because all life would have become artis- tionship between artistic activity and so- tic. Here art became the ideal model of cial life is established. If art was to flour- society. There would no longer be any ish, society must have the most favorable need to celebrate artists because every- conditions for it. Now, Wagner’s world, one would be an artist. To be more pre- as de½ned by the Germanic states of his cise, the community as a whole would day, was far from satisfying those condi- freely decide how it was to live, thus tions. Hence, that world had to be trans- adopting the attitude of the creator. “But formed; revolution was essential. Wag- who will be the artist of the future? The ner was interested in politics only to the poet? The actor? The musician? The extent that politics enabled art to flour- sculptor? Let us put it in a nutshell: the ish. For him, social revolution was not people.”2 Because this could be achieved an end in itself but a means to artistic only by a common effort, Wagner opted revolution, the foundation of a new edi- for the opposite of egoism, namely, com- ½ce of the arts. munism–whose Manifesto had been pub- Why bestow such honor on artists? lished the year before by Karl Marx and This is where the second part of the Frederick Engels. relationship between art and society The failure of the revolutions of 1848 comes in: “The supreme goal of man throughout Europe would sound the is the artistic goal,” Wagner declared, death knell of such dreams. Thereafter and “art is the highest activity of man,” began a second major period in the his- that which crowns his earthly existence. tory of the worldly absolute, from 1848 “Genuine art is the highest form of to World War I, during which the two freedom.” Wagner shared the dream paths, the collective and the individual, of the Saint-Simonians, who believed the political and the aesthetic, diverged. that machines would soon take over Baudelaire, though an enthusiastic com- man’s most arduous labors. Freed from mentator on Wagner, saw the hope that exhausting chores, all would turn their art might influence the world as an illu- attention to artistic creation in freedom sion. Meanwhile, Marx showed little and joy. concern for the aesthetic education of Art was not opposed to life, as another the individual. The two proudly ignored version of Romantic doctrine held, but each other, though neither dreamed of renouncing the absolute. Things changed again between the two 1 Richard Wagner, Œuvres en prose, vol. 3 (Par- world wars–the period to which I now is: Éditions d’Aujourd’hui, 1976), 91; English translation by William Ashton Ellis, Richard turn. Two trends can be discerned, but Wagner’s Prose Works, vol. 1 (New York: Broude Bros., 1966). 2 Ibid., 19, 16, 243.

52 Dædalus Winter 2007 each can be described as an actualiza- The new turn took the name ‘Con- Avant- tion of the Wagnerian project of a total structivism’ because its adherents es- gardes & totalitar- work of art, one that would be coexten- chewed artistic creation in favor of ianism sive with life itself and with the world constructing objects and artifacts in- as a whole. On one hand, avant-garde tended to become part of the environ- groups, such as the Futurists and Con- ment. Their ½rst group show was held structivists, differentiated themselves in 1921, but the ½rst manifestations of from the modernist movement in gener- the movement date from 1915, when al by attempting to expand the limits of Vladimir Tatlin presented his “Coun- the work of art so as to act on society at ter-Reliefs” at the same time that Kaz- large. On the other hand, extremist po- imir Malevich unveiled his “Black litical movements modeled their plans Square.” The “Counter-Reliefs” were for transforming society and humanity assembled from a variety of materials; on the creative activity of the artist. This and the artist’s goal was not to reveal to was true of Communism, Fascism, and the world the existence of a ‘work’ but Nazism. rather to bring out the intrinsic qualities Both avant-garde artists and political of the materials used in the construc- extremists saw violence as a legitimate tion. means of achieving their ends more rap- The difference between Construc- idly. They knew they were promoting tivism and earlier avant-garde move- revolution, which might well provoke ments was not political: all enthusias- resistance. That resistance had to be ov- tically supported the ongoing revolu- ercome–if necessary, by force. We see tion. It was rather in the relation be- signs of this rapprochement of the two tween the work of art and its social major forms of the worldly absolute– context. According to one Construc- the political and the artistic–in Russia, tivist theoretician, Boris Arvatov, even Italy, and Germany. The convergence when earlier artists took nothing from persisted until the end of World War II. life but its spiritual content or other es- sential elements, as in the case of Wassi- Avant-garde movements appeared in ly Kandinsky and Malevich, they still Russia around 1910 with the ½rst glim- “placed art above life and sought to ren- merings of abstraction in painting and der life in the form of art.” By contrast, Futurist experimentation in poetry. Ini- Constructivism “placed life above art” tially, however, the gulf between art and and gave primacy to function at the ex- society widened rather than narrowed. pense of form. “Not the creation of Painters were exhorted to forget the ma- forms of great ‘aesthetic’ value but utili- terial world and to obey no laws other tarian construction from basic materi- than the intrinsic laws of their art. Later, als,” he wrote. “Not autonomy of the however, people began to question this thing as such, but richness of content.”3 divorce of art from the visible world of In concrete terms, Constructivism objects and the intelligible world of the transformed all forms of expression. senses–and therefore to question as well the quest for the absolute in the 3 Boris Arvatov quoted in J.-Cl. Marcadé, work of art as opposed to society. Some L’avant-garde russe 1907–1927 (Paris: Flammar- of those who questioned this divorce ion, 1995), 19; “L’utopie objectalisée,” 1923, in were the same people who had advocat- G. Conio, Le constructivisme russe, vol. 2 (Lau- ed it earlier. sanne: L’Age d’Homme, 1986), 46.

Dædalus Winter 2007 53 Tzvetan Instead of producing literary works, Here, too, reality was preferable to the Todorov writers were urged to focus on the utili- imagination–Rodchenko devoted him- on nonviolence tarian value of language. For example, self more and more to photography. Tat- & violence Vladimir Mayakovsky would eventually lin, meanwhile, went from “Counter- turn to the production of political slo- Reliefs” to architectural constructions, gans and advertising. In his autobiogra- such as his (proposed but never-built) phy, he de½ned his group’s position as tower intended as a “Monument to the being “against ½ction and aestheticism, Third International.” Architecture was for propaganda, for quali½ed journalism, the logical culmination of the Construc- and for opinion writing.” Indeed, the tivists’ plastic experiments: inspired by materials he had in mind were not only artistic principles, the architect shapes language but also real events evoked by the world by building real houses, life- language: rather than imaginative liter- sized cities, and landscapes. ature, Constructivists preferred what The performing arts followed the same they called ‘factual literature,’ drawn course. Arvatov spoke of the “fusion of from the world in which the writer lived. theater with life in socialist society” as Thus, literature no longer existed in a though it were self-evident. But what separate sphere; everyone could partici- form was this fusion to take? In his view, pate in its creation. “In the Commune, the goal was no longer to stage plays in everyone was a creator,” wrote another the traditional manner, even if the audi- Constructivist theoretician, Osip Brik,4 ence were expanded to a broad segment who was repeating, perhaps unwittingly, of the population. It was rather to give an idea of Novalis: “Every man should form to life itself, “to construct our way be an artist. Everything can become ½ne of life rationally.”7 This was the best way art.”5 for the theater to ful½ll its propaganda The same could be said of the visual function. In ½lm, Dziga Vertov’s theories arts: their goal was no longer to produce of montage similarly reflected Construc- paintings or sculptures but rather to tivist aims. Merely by ½lming what exist- transform the world through artistic ac- ed and then proceeding to an audacious tion. Alexander Rodchenko, the leader montage, Vertov created beautiful ½lms of the plastic Constructivists, was as without inventing anything: he simply fervently opposed to easel painting as reorganized the visible world. The ma- Mayakovsky was to ½ction. “Non-½gu- terial itself acted on the viewer, provid- rative painting has left the museum,” ed the ½lmmaker knew how to put it to- he declared in the course of a 1920 show gether in the right way. Thus, everything of his work. “Non-½gurative painting is in the world became potential material the street itself, the town square, the city, and for the artist. the entire world.”6 He chose to make post- The Constructivist theoretical project ers and to design wallpaper and fabrics. was pushed to its ultimate limit by yet another theoretician, Nikolai Chuzhak, 4 Quoted in Conio, Le constructivisme russe, 153; who explicitly proposed “the construc- Osip Brik, “L’artiste et la Commune,” in Conio, tion of life” as the movement’s goal. In Le constructivisme russe, vol. 1. articles published in the journal lef, edited by Mayakovsky, in 1923 and 1929, 5 Foi et Amour in Novalis, Œuvres, vol. 1, 341.

6 Quoted in Conio, Le constructivisme russe, vol. 7 Arvatov, “Utopie ou science?” in Conio, Le 1, 44. constructivisme russe, vol. 2, 65–66.

54 Dædalus Winter 2007 he drew the consequences of this exten- intrinsic quality of existing materials, Avant- sion of artistic experimentation’s ben- which he assembled according to pre- gardes & totalitar- e½ts to all of life. As he saw it, two con- established rules. Instead of creating ianism ceptions of art were in contention. One works for disinterested contemplation, of these, the bourgeois conception, saw he placed them in service of society, sub- “art as a method for obtaining knowledge ject to “social command.” But his sub- of life.” The other, the proletarian con- mission was also a kind of victory, and ception, perceived “art as a method for his humility stemmed from a higher am- the construction of life.” The ½rst view bition: the artist now identi½ed with the limits art to representation and invites political actor who shapes society, the us to contemplate the world; the sec- people, and individuals, in accordance ond seeks to dominate and transform with a preconceived design. The Con- the material. In this we hear echoes of structivist project thus represented, at Marx’s celebrated formula concerning the same time, a death sentence for art the status of knowledge: “Until now and its apotheosis, since the artist no philosophers have only interpreted the longer worked solely with words or col- world; the point, however, is to change ors but rather with human beings: he it.”8 Now it was the frontier between the became an artist, engineer, and demi- artist and the political activist that was urge all rolled into one. being crossed. Art in the old-fashioned If the dream was to become reality, style might, at best, serve as a kind of however, politicians would have to agree preparation, a “timid apprenticeship in to share their power with artists. This the formidable creation of a new way of did not happen: none of these grandiose life now under way.” Chuzhak believed utopian conceptions was realized. By the that the moment had come to “declare end of the 1920s, the last vestiges of the war on artistic literature,” or belles-lettres, avant-garde in Russia were reduced to that is, on literature based on opposing silence. The leaders of the movement literature to life when in fact the two were either punished–victims of the ought to merge to the point of indistin- revolution they themselves had wanted guishability. It was high time, he argued, –or else turned into obedient propagan- to dispatch “belles-lettres to rot on the dists for the regime. rubbish heap of outmoded art.”9 The new art was simply to be one more At the end of World War I, Germany method of constructing life. experienced political upheaval similar At ½rst sight, art emerged the loser to Russia’s but with the opposite result: from its conflict with life. Instead of The revolution was crushed in bloody delving into his imagination, the art- repression. The uprising of the (commu- ist now borrowed his materials ready- nist) Spartacists in early 1919 ended in made. Instead of creating original arti- failure; its leaders, Karl Liebknecht and facts, he settled for demonstrating the Rosa Luxemburg, were executed; and the liberal Weimar Republic was estab- lished. Yet a transformation of the arts 8 Karl Marx, “Theses on Feuerbach,” in K. had begun even as the political revolu- Marx and F. Engels, Etudes philosophiques (Par- is: Editions Socials, 1947), 11. tion was being prepared: a “council (so- viet) for the arts” was established, and 9 Conio, Le constructivisme russe, vol. 2, 39, 23, the architect Walter Gropius became its 170, 178; Marx, “Theses on Feuerbach.” codirector. The council declared that

Dædalus Winter 2007 55 Tzvetan “art and the people must be one” and Thus, the work envisioned by the Todorov that “art will henceforth be not for the founders of the Bauhaus gradually drew on nonviolence pleasure of a few but for the welfare and closer to everyday life. The goal was not & violence life of the masses.”10 only to build homes for people but also Once again, this project was reminis- to transform their entire environment, cent of Wagner’s some seventy years from furniture and utensils to cities and earlier. Like Wagner, Gropius seemed to landscapes. Such a program required want to compensate for the failure of the knowledge of the ‘people’ for whom political revolution by launching a proj- the artist worked: Gropius introduced ect in the arts (whereas, in Russia, the courses in sociology and even biology at victory of the revolution had for a time the Bauhaus. By transforming the setting facilitated progress in the arts). And in which people lived, one could perfect again, like Wagner, Gropius dreamed the people themselves. By producing ob- of unifying the arts, though not in op- jects for everyday use, artists could influ- era but rather in architecture, which he ence individual and collective ways of envisioned as absorbing painting and life. sculpture. In this period the Russians and Ger- One week after the inauguration of the mans maintained constant contact. Weimar Republic in 1919, the Bauhaus Kandinsky began teaching at the Bau- was founded. This was a group of archi- haus in 1922. The arrival of the Hungar- tects led by Gropius and committed to ian artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy in 1923 the same principles as the council. Art introduced a signi½cant new influence, does not coincide with life, according to as he was steeped in the ideas of the the Bauhaus manifesto, but rather aims Constructivists. The goal, he declared to create a total work of art, an edi½ce in 1925, should not be to create a total “that will one day rise toward the sky, work of art à la Wagner but rather “to the crystalline symbol of a new faith.” synthesize all the moments of life, which This edi½ce would resemble a cathedral is itself a total work of art encompassing more than anything else: like the old everything else and annihilating all sepa- religion, the new faith would need a ration.”12 The aim was no longer to pro- temple. Both were incarnations of the duce art but to shape life. To build hous- absolute. But this project, with its reli- es and cities was to organize a vital pro- gious overtones, was not maintained for cess. Thus architect-artists would hence- long. Bauhaus theoreticians could not forth fashion a new mankind. ignore the fact that the religious absolute Once again, however, Constructivist had been brought down to earth. Mod- ambitions would run up against politi- ern man’s temple was no longer a cathe- cal power. The founders of the Bauhaus dral. “Man has become God–his house would not have been unhappy to carry is his church.”11 out the architectural plans of the Nazis, who came to power in 1933, but the Na- 10 In Anthologie du Bauhaus (Brussels: Didier Devillez, 1995), 51–54; quoted in E. Michaud, “L’oeuvre d’art totale et le totalitarisme,” in d’art totale, 47; Anthologie du Bauhaus, 110; Mi- L’oeuvre d’art totale (Paris: Gallimard, 2003), chaud, L’oeuvre d’art totale, 53. 43, whose analysis I am following here. 12 Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Peinture, photographie, 11 Bauhaus 1919–1969, Musée National d’Art ½lm (Nîmes: J. Chambon, 1993), 78; Michaud, Moderne, 1969, 13; quoted in Michaud, L’oeuvre L’oeuvre d’art totale, 54.

56 Dædalus Winter 2007 zis chose to implement their own ‘total duce the metaphor to its literal meaning. Avant- work of art.’ The political revolution did Once political religions supplanted tra- gardes & totalitar- not need the support of revolutionary ditional beliefs, the transformation of ianism art. the individual and that of the state could In fact, there was a deep reason why be promoted in parallel. The new man the role of demiurge was not accorded and the new society both became works to artists: political leaders reserved it of art to be produced by the leader of the for themselves. The identi½cation of nation. the political leader with the artist, each working with different material but in Mussolini was quick to seize on the a similar spirit, reflected a long tradition parallel between political action and cre- but had yet to be transformed into a ative work. In November 1917, he wrote program of action. Plato compared the in Popolo d’Italia that “the Italian people statesman to the painter, whose gestures is now a deposit of precious mineral. A mimicked those of the divine creator. work of art is still possible. It requires a “[N]o city could ever be blessed unless government. A man. A man who com- its lineaments were traced by artists who bines the delicate touch of an artist with used the heavenly model . . . . They will the iron ½st of a warrior.” In 1922 he de- take the city and the characters of men, scribed himself as the “sculptor of the as they might a table, and ½rst wipe it Italian nation” and declared that “poli- clean.” Elsewhere he compares the leg- tics works with the most dif½cult and islator to the poet: “We are ourselves obdurate of materials, man.” The politi- authors of a tragedy, . . . the ½nest and cian, like the artist, must create the per- best we know how to make. In fact, our fect work out of the most refractory ma- whole polity has been constructed as a terial: marble in the one case, man in dramatization of a noble and perfect life the other. To anyone who would listen, . . . . [W]e also are poets in the ½nest of Mussolini explained that his goal was all dramas.”13 The German Romantics, to create new Italians, to transform the inspired by Platonic concepts of beau- Italian soul, to shape the masses, to mold ty, rediscovered this comparison of the an entire people. “The whole problem,” statesman with the artist–an artist who as he put it some years later to Emil Lud- works with an entire country as his raw wig, “is to dominate the masses as an material. artist does,”14 to turn a shapeless raw In any case, whether in Plato, in material into a masterpiece. To achieve French revolutionary discourse, or in this goal, he may use physical means Romantic doctrine, the idea of applying (Mussolini embraced various eugenicist artistic creation to social life remained ideas that were in the air) or spiritual just an idea rather than becoming a con- ones: the Great War had been a formida- crete project. The situation did not really ble educator, without which the new fas- change until the advent of the modern cist man would have been inconceivable. totalitarian state, in which the supreme leader wields the means necessary to re- 14 Quoted in L’homme nouveau dans l’Europe fasciste (Paris: Fayard, 2004), 7; quoted in E. 13 Republic, 500e–501a; Laws, 817b. Quoted Michaud, Un art de l’éternité (Paris: Gallimard, from The Collected Dialogues of Plato, ed. Edith 1996), 17; Emil Ludwig, Colloqui con Mussoli- Hamilton and Huntington Cairns (New York: ni (Milan: A. Mondadori, 1932); quoted in Pantheon Bollingen Series, 1963). L’homme nouveau, 284.

Dædalus Winter 2007 57 Tzvetan In peacetime, mass organizations, espe- exercise their influence over all aspects Todorov on cially youth groups, would play an essen- of society. Both bore the hallmarks of nonviolence tial role and help transform the whole political religions. The Futurists recog- & violence country into a vast laboratory of human nized themselves in Mussolini and were experimentation. pleased that he reserved an important Mussolini’s project had one distinctive role for cultural action in the fabrication feature: il Duce was not content simply of the new man. In this respect, Filippo to be the artisan of Italy’s renewal but Tommaso Marinetti, the Italian Futurist, portrayed himself as its most consum- resembled Mayakovsky, the Russian Fu- mate product. He was both artist and turist: both sought to place their talent work of art. In seeking to fashion a new at the service of the revolution. man, he took his inspiration from his Fascism relied on artistic action to own image. In the beginning he sculpted transform society, to make it a spectacle his own image, as if he were a statue; worthy of admiration. Foreign observers the child of modest background trans- noted the aesthetic aspects of Fascist formed himself by a conscious effort of political action. The French writer Rob- the will, so as to appear to his compatri- ert Brasillach wrote that Fascism was “a ots as a perfect man, an example for oth- kind of poetry, the distinctive poetry of ers. Mussolini never missed an opportu- the twentieth century (along with Com- nity to demonstrate that he was capable munism, to be sure).”16 Particular atten- of doing the work of both peasant and tion was devoted to anything susceptible worker. He also liked to demonstrate his of being turned into a spectacle for the mastery of sports, such as swimming masses–holidays, parades, and indeed and skiing, as well as his ability to write architecture, which was regarded as the philosophy and literature. An editorial in supreme art because it encompassed all Critica fascista flatly stated, “For now the individuals and was available for all to regime’s only great artist is its founder, admire. But the aestheticization of the Mussolini. All the speeches he has given political never became an end in itself; and all the political articles and essays it always remained subordinate to the he has written suf½ce to show that he political objective. What became sacred is our greatest contemporary writer of under Fascism was not the beautiful but prose.”15 This was more than just flat- the state. tery. Once again, the association of art It has to be said that, in the eyes of il with politics was not fortuitous. Duce himself, his project ended in fail- Mussolini found both inspiration and ure: he did not succeed in transforming support in the contemporary avant- the Italians into new men or valiant Fas- garde, especially the Futurists. The ideo- cists, and he therefore believed that Italy logical proximity of the artistic and the would lose the war. He formulated even political movements is obvious. To be- this failure in artistic terms, however: gin, both were fond of the military meta- the problem lay in the material, too soft phor ‘avant-garde,’ the forerunner her- for its intended purpose. “What I lacked alding the coming of the revolution and was good material,” he told Galeazzo a new day. Both believed in the regener- Ciano a few months before his death. ative virtues of violence. Both sought to “Michelangelo himself needed marble

15 February 15, 1927; quoted in L’homme nou- 16 “Lettre à un soldat de la classe 60,” in Ecrit à veau, 82. Fresne (Paris: Plon, 1967), 140.

58 Dædalus Winter 2007 to make statues. If he had had only clay, Art and Revolution.”19 Hitler himself Avant- he would have been a potter and nothing claimed to have seen Tristan and Isolde gardes & 17 totalitar- more.” thirty or forty times. ianism The special place accorded to Wag- With Hitler, the relation between po- ner’s youthful opera Rienzi suggests a litical action and artistic activity was no possible explanation for Hitler’s atti- less powerful, but it took a somewhat tude, particularly since his devotion to different form. As is well known, der that work persisted throughout his life. Führer reserved a special place for Wag- Years later, the overture to Rienzi was ner, whose very name stands, in Ger- regularly played at Nazi Party conven- man-speaking countries, for the idea of tions. When Hitler visited the compos- the artist–not as one ½gure among oth- er’s daughter-in-law, Winifred Wag- ers in society but as the very model of ner, in 1939, he spoke to her of the im- what society ought to be. Hermann pact this opera had had on him. Kubi- Rauschning, in his book Hitler Told Me, zek, who witnessed the conversation, reports, “Hitler refused to admit that he reports what Hitler said about hearing had precursors. He made only one ex- the work for the ½rst time: “It was at ception to this rule: Richard Wagner.” that moment that it all began.” Hitler This acknowledgment of Wagner was said much the same thing to his other not an isolated act. On May 5, 1924, friend (and favorite architect), Albert while in prison following an abortive Speer: “While still a young man, listen- attempt to seize power, Hitler wrote to ing to this inspired music at the Linz Wagner’s son Siegfried to say that he opera, I had the vision of a German found in Siegfried’s father “the spiritu- Reich, which I would unify and make al sword with which we are ½ghting to- great.”20 day.”18 Later he established a special re- One might therefore assume that Hit- lationship with the inhabitants of Bay- ler’s attraction to this opera was deter- reuth. mined, above all, by its subject: how a What accounts for this dubious priv- powerful orator can capture the atten- ilege accorded to Wagner? Hitler had tion of a people and what dangers he been fascinated by Wagner’s music from ought to anticipate. But this explana- his youth in Austria. Rienzi, in particular, tion does not go far enough, as we can plunged him into a state of stupor and see from Hitler’s familiarity with Wag- ecstasy. But his worship of Wagner did ner’s other musical works as well as with not end there. His best friend from this his writings. Hitler, who in his youth period, August Kubizek, reports that dreamed of becoming a painter, could “Adolf sometimes recited by heart . . . not have been unaware of Wagner’s the text of a letter or note of Wagner’s general notions about the relationship or read to me out loud from his writing, such as the The Art Work of the Future or 19 August Kubizek, Adolf Hitler. Mein Jugendfre- und (Graz: L. Stocker, 1953), 101; quoted in B. 17 Galeazzo Ciano, Diario 1939–1943 (Milan: Hamann, La Vienne d’Hitler (Paris: Editions des Rizzoli, 1963), 445; quoted in E. Gentile, Qu’est- Syrtes, 2001), 88. ce que la fascisme? (Paris: Gallimard, 2004), 393. 20 Kubizek, Adolf Hitler, 343; quoted in Ha- 18 Hermann Rauschning, Hitler m’a dit (Par- mann, La Vienne d’Hitler, 77; Albert Speer, Jour- is: Coopération, 1939), 255; Musique en jeu 23 nal de Spandau (Paris: Robert Laffont, 1975), (1976): 60. 108; quoted in Michaud, Un art de l’éternité, 86.

Dædalus Winter 2007 59 Tzvetan between art and society. What attract- published a front-page article entitled Todorov ed him was precisely the continuity be- “Art as the Basis of Creative Political on nonviolence tween the two, the possibility that each Power,” which stated, “There exists an & violence might support the other. Though Wag- intimate and indissoluble connection ner gave up on revolution in the streets between the Führer’s artistic works and to devote himself to the creation of a his great political work . . . . His artistic total work of art, his opera, the goal re- endeavors . . . were the prerequisite for mained the same: to act on his people, his creative idea of the totality.”21 It was to make his country great and prosper- because he had been an artist that Hitler ous. Similarly, Hitler, having experi- knew how to lead his people. It is worth enced not revolution but war, gave up noting, moreover, that a good half of the the practice of painting and committed members of Hitler’s ½rst government himself to producing an even more ‘to- had previously been involved in the arts. tal’ work of art: the new German people. In 1937, Goebbels concluded: “All of Hit- Unlike Mussolini, however, he did not ler’s work is proof of his artistic spirit: put himself forward as an example of a his state is truly an edi½ce of classical successful ‘work.’ In his case, the gap composition. The artistic creation of his between the guide and the masses was political work establishes his preemi- unbreachable. Hitler was an artist, not nence among German artists, a position a work of art. he has earned by his character and na- The resemblance of the two postures, ture.”22 Wagner’s dream seemed to be that of the artist and that of the states- coming true at last. man, can be found in the work of oth- Why is the artistic model so attrac- er Nazi theoreticians. In 1929, Joseph tive to politicians? We know that since Goebbels, who thought of himself as a the Romantic crisis, artists, especially writer and therefore an artist, wrote a poets, have sought to occupy the place novel entitled Michael, in which he bor- of priests, of being guides and educators rowed Mussolini’s simile: the people of the people. In the eyes of Nazi leaders, were like the sculptor’s stone, material artists also enjoyed this advantage over to be shaped. Two years later he insisted: the servants of the old religions: they “For us the mass is but shapeless materi- were not obedient to an independent al. Only the hand of the artist can bring Book or law but were free to de½ne their forth a people from the mass and a na- own goals and their own ways of achiev- tion from the people.” After coming to ing them. This is the privilege of genius, power, he wrote an open letter to orches- the model of every artist: it spurns all tra conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler in rules so as to be totally free to create. By April 1933: “We who are giving shape to the end of the nineteenth century, liber- modern German politics think of our- ation from the weight of tradition had selves as artists entrusted with the lofty responsibility of taking the brute mass 21 Combat pour Berlin, ed. Saint-Just (Paris, and shaping it into a solid and complete 1966, original 1931), 38; quoted in Michaud, image of the people.” No work of art Un art de l’éternité, 20, 62. could be more total or more ambitious. And the best preparation for the role 22 Quoted by Franz Dröge and Michael Müller, Die Macht der Schönheit, Avangarde of statesman was none other than prac- und Faschismis oder die Geburt der Massenkul- tice in the arts. In April 1936, the Nazi tur (Hamburg: Europäische Verlangsanstalt, party newspaper Völkischer Beobachter 1995), 57.

60 Dædalus Winter 2007 become the rallying cry of avant-garde stone or wood a perfect form, if not to Avant- movements in the arts. Cubists, Futur- shape clay or plaster in accordance with gardes & totalitar- ists, Dadaists, and abstract painters out- an idea of perfection? ianism spokenly asserted their right to shape Thus, what mattered was not so much the world according to their will. art as such, although Hitler invariably Thus, for Hitler it was no longer emphasized its exemplary role; it was enough simply to aestheticize politics, rather art in the service of life. Hermann to stage triumphal marches and funeral von Keyserling, a Nazi fellow-traveler, processions, to combine dazzling light- said as much in the title of a speech he ing with stirring music. He had to fuse gave in 1936: “Life is an Art.” Germanic politics and aesthetics, subordinating all myths and legends of the sort that Wag- institutions and actions to the ultimate ner had exploited were invaluable, but objective of producing a Volk, a new peo- it was, above all, the everyday life of the ple–new in both a spiritual and a physi- German people that would bene½t from cal sense. The artist had become demi- an infusion of myth and legend. Every urge. “Anyone who fails to see that Na- individual would behave as an artist, tional Socialism is a religion doesn’t at the appropriate level. Work must be- know anything about it,” Hitler said to come creative; utilitarian activities must Rauschning. “It is more than a religion: respect norms of beauty. it is the will to create a new man.”23 He conceived of this as a deliberate effort, Hitler seized power in Germany after like that of an artist in his studio or an gaining a foothold in the 1932 elections. inventor in a laboratory, on the scale of At almost the same time, Stalin, having an entire nation. defeated his rivals within the Commu- The two principal means of carrying nist Party, consolidated his absolute out this vast project were propaganda power and began to devote some of his and eugenics. The propaganda effort attention to the situation of the arts in could well pro½t from the example of the Soviet Union. Previously, various artists, while the eugenics effort would schools had competed for the right to be depend on scienti½c progress. Both art seen as the foremost representative of and science were to be enlisted in sup- the Communist Revolution. Stalin put port of the Nazi program. Eugenics an end to this squabbling by replacing a meant eliminating defective individuals range of arts organizations with a single and inferior races as well as selecting the centralized ‘union’ per profession: a best individuals and controlling their re- Writers’ Union, a Painters’ Union, and production. No longer was science con- so on. tent to interpret the world; now, in keep- At the same time the slogan ‘socialist ing with Marx’s dictum, it aimed to realism’ was imposed as the de½ning change it, to bring it closer to the desired goal of Soviet art. At ½rst sight a danger ideal–an ideal that science claimed to of incompatibility between the two have deduced rigorously from empirical terms seems to exist, since ‘realism’ ap- observation. In this it resembled art: pears to involve the relation of represen- what was the work of the sculptor if not tation to reality and therefore to belong to bring forth from a shapeless mass of to the category of truth, whereas ‘social- ist’ refers to an ideal and therefore in- 23 Dröge and Müller, Die Macht der Schönheit, volves the power of a work to promote 273. the good. What if truth and goodness,

Dædalus Winter 2007 61 Tzvetan ‘is’ and ‘ought,’ proved not to be so placed by the engineer, and the methods Todorov harmonious? What if realism did not of the humble craftsman were to give on nonviolence lead to the defense of socialism? Sta- way to scienti½c knowledge of reality & violence lin, who liked to discuss such questions and of the masses whose soul it was the with writers, believed such incompati- writer’s task to shape. bility to be inconceivable. “If a writer However, unlike the Constructivists, honestly reflects the truth of life, he who toyed with the same image, Stalin will inevitably come to Marxism,” he denied all initiative to the specialists insisted.24 of the spirit. The Party was in charge Andrei Zhdanov, a Party theoretician, of construction, the master builder; provided the explanation of this inevi- the writer-engineer had only to follow table solidarity, in a speech to the First orders. The need to observe reality and Congress of Soviet Writers in 1934. So- describe it faithfully was not even men- cialism was the Soviet future, he said, tioned. The role of the writer, like that and the seed of that future already exist- of the Marxist philosopher, was not to ed in the present. Writers who realisti- interpret the world but to change it. The cally reported what they saw around works of the 1930s that adhered most them must therefore include the social- closely to this program were narratives ist future. “Soviet literature must learn of individual or collective education. By to show our heroes, must learn to project describing the promise of the present, itself into our future. That future is no the writer helped bring the future into mere utopian ideal, because the ground- being. As the Romantics had hoped, life work for it is already being laid today as imitated art. Thus, Nikolai Ostrovsky’s a result of conscious planned effort.”25 How the Steel Was Tempered was the story But was that future so certain that it of a man whose Bolshevik faith enabled could be described as present? Yes, be- him to overcome paralysis and blind- cause progress is no accident: the future ness, while Anton Makarenko’s Peda- will unfold according to both the laws of gogical Poem told of the transformation history and the will of the Party (as set of a group of young vagabonds. Litera- forth in its of½cial plans). Hence, it is ture therefore ceased to search for an perfectly predictable. absolute of its own and subordinated Zhdanov also reminded the Congress itself to the propaganda needs of the that during a 1932 meeting with writers Party, which stood alone in possession Stalin had bestowed a new de½nition on of a worldly absolute. them: they were “engineers of the hu- Much the same can be said of the oth- man soul.” In the Russian tradition, it er arts, which were denied any autono- was commonplace for the great writer mous objective. Looking for an appro- to be awarded the role of teacher of the priate form, artists turned, as in Nazi nation. Now the teacher was to be re- Germany, to the pompous bourgeois styles of the nineteenth century rath- 24 Report by S. I. Sechukov, Neistovye revniteli er than to the revolutionary art of the (Moscow: Moskovskij rabochij•∨, 1970), 339; twentieth, which was deemed less ef- quoted in V. Strada, “Le réalisme socialiste,” in fective. In practice, however, even such xx Histoire de la littérature russe. Le e siècle, vol. 3 zealous propagandists as Mayakovsky, (Paris: Fayard, 1990), 20. Vsevolod Meyerhold, and Sergei Eisen- 25 Pervyj vsesojuznyj s’ezd sovetskikh pisatelej stein tangled with the Party, with the re- (Moscow, 1934), 5. sult that the ½rst committed suicide, the

62 Dædalus Winter 2007 second was shot, and the third knuckled tion a fourth. The state security organs, Avant- under and toed the party line. known successively as the Cheka, gpu, gardes & totalitar- When Stalin called Soviet writers nkvd, and kgb, had every imaginable ianism “engineers of the human soul,” he was means of coercion at their disposal. flattering them. In reality, they were Might they not turn out to be better mere technicians. The true creator of “engineers of the human soul” than new souls, the blacksmith who ham- writers? Indeed, Maxim Gorky, the lead- mered out a new nation, was of course ing Soviet writer, described their agents Stalin himself, backed by his closest in just those terms: “The gpu is not on- collaborators. The only true artist was ly the keen sword of the dictatorship of the dictator–an artist close to God– the proletariat but also a school for the since his work was the entire nation, reeducation of tens of thousands of peo- with millions of people as his raw mate- ple who are hostile to us.” After a visit rial. Paradoxically, we ½nd con½rmation to the White Sea-Baltic Canal, a gigan- of this idea in a text written by the great- tic project built by the labor of zeks from est Soviet poet of the period, Boris Pas- Soviet prison camps, he described it as ternak. In a poem signi½cantly entitled a “miracle of reeducation,”27 a success- “The Artist” and published in a Mos- ful transformation of human beings cow newspaper on January 1, 1936, Pas- through labor, conveniently forgetting ternak drew a contrast between the soli- the fact that the canal bed was littered tary poet, who stays home and contem- with the corpses of prisoners. Under to- plates his soul, and the man in the Krem- talitarianism, in Russia as in Germany, lin, Stalin, who was bringing to life the “work makes free.” most audacious of dreams and who daily The physical transformation of the hu- performed “a fugue in two voices,” com- man race was not as important a part of bining “two extreme principles that the Communist project as it was of the know everything there is to know about Nazi project, but it did play a role. Evi- each other,” poetry and power. He did dence of this can be seen in Leon Trot- not act as an individual would act be- sky’s Literature and Revolution, published cause he was “a genius of action,” “an in Moscow in 1924. In the conclusion of act of global dimension.”26 What the that work, Trotsky tried to imagine the traditional poet accomplished in his socialist society of the future. The fron- imagination, Stalin would accomplish tier between art and industry would be on the scale of world history: altering abolished–everyone would be an artist the destiny of mankind. –and so would the boundary between From this standpoint, art in the nar- art and nature. Indeed, the man of the row sense was merely one of the means future would not be content simply to available to the artist-dictator. To be reshape society; he would also trans- sure, it was a particularly effective form nature to suit his desires. “The cur- means, as Communist theoreticians rent location of mountains, rivers, ½eld noted and Nazi propagandists agreed. and meadows, steppes, forests, and Education was another means of action, coasts cannot be regarded as de½nitive.” social pressure exerted through the fam- The human demiurge was truly the ily a third, and manipulation of informa- 27 Belomorsko-Baltijskij kanal imeni Stalina (Mos- 26 O. Ivinskaya, Mes années avec Pasternak (Par- cow, 1934), 397; quoted in M. Heller, “Maxime is: Fayard, 1978). Gorki,” in Histoire de la littérature russe, 78–82.

Dædalus Winter 2007 63 Tzvetan equal of God: he would create a world It should be said, however, that the Todorov to suit his own convenience. It was in dictator was alone in identifying his on nonviolence this context that Trotsky envisioned the work with artistic creation. The subju- & violence transformation of the human element of gated masses, whether in Stalin’s Rus- the universe. This task would be entrust- sia, Hitler’s Germany, or Mussolini’s ed, as we have seen, to educators, both of Italy, failed to perceive the fusion of pol- individuals and of society as a whole. It itics and art and were unaware that their would also be shared by the organizers lives were being shaped in accordance of communal life. “At the initiative of with a canon of beauty. The absolute in society, the family will be relieved of the the name of which the state subjugated tedious chore of feeding and raising chil- them, and which they were supposed to dren.” Life in communist society could worship, wore a very different visage; it then advance not blindly but in a fully appeared as a collective, not an individ- planned and controlled way. ual, ideal. In Fascist Italy, this new god But that was not all. Trotsky envi- was called the nation or the state; in Na- sioned an even more radical way of zi Germany, it was the people; in Soviet obtaining the humanity he wanted: Russia, Communism. In all three places, eugenics. Why should one shrink from the high priests of the cult organized changing the human race through selec- themselves as a political party. The aver- tion and organic action, or what would age citizen of these states was not at lib- today be called genetic manipulation? erty to shape his own life as a work of Scienti½c arti½cial selection would sup- art, according to his own conception of plement natural selection: “Should the beauty. He was obliged to conform to the human race, which no longer grovels common ideal. Where the dictator saw before God, the Czar, or Capital, capitu- the fusion of two modern approaches to late to the obscure laws of heredity and the absolute, the political and the artis- blind sexual selection? When man be- tic, the people saw only the imposition comes free, he will seek to achieve a bet- of a political absolute: the revolution, ter equilibrium in the functioning of his the party, the guide. The role of beauty organs and a more harmonious develop- was quite minor. ment of his tissues.” After a successful physical transformation, human beings How are we to interpret this parallel “will achieve a higher level and create between the ideas and forces that in- a superior biological and social type, a spired both avant-garde artists and total- superman if you will.”28 itarian dictators in the period between Trotsky would later be deprived of the two world wars? Following Walter power by Stalin and never have the op- Benjamin, it has often been noted that portunity to put his ideas into practice, extremist political movements had a though the Nazis did. In pursuit of the tendency to combine aesthetic and po- goal of creating a new man and a new so- litical considerations in two different ciety, Stalin made do with more familiar ways: “Fascism naturally tends to aes- levers of power, among them the party, theticize politics . . . . The response of the police, educators, writers, and art- communism is to politicize art.”29 ists. 29 Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the 28 Leon Trotsky, Littérature et révolution (Paris: Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” in Illumina- Julliard, 1964), 213, 215, 217. tions (New York: Schocken, 1986).

64 Dædalus Winter 2007 What we see here, however, is a prox- salvation, whether of all mankind or of a Avant- gardes & imity that cannot be reduced to an in- particular people. Political and aesthetic totalitar- strumentalization of one project by the Manichaeanism may ½nd themselves at ianism other. Rather, it shows us how to under- odds in certain circumstances, yet they stand both as stemming from the same share similar worldviews. Proponents of matrix. What dictators and avant-garde totalitarian doctrine may have been con- artists have in common is their radical- temptuous of Romantic thinkers, just as ism, their fundamentalism. Both are Romantic thinkers may have spurned prepared to start ex nihilo, to take no political engagement of any kind, yet account of what already exists, in order both were caught up in the same histor- to construct a work based solely on their ical movement. Karl Popper, who was own criteria. What differentiates them, aware of the similarity between politi- by contrast, is the scale on which they cal extremism and aesthetic extremism, work: that of an entire country, includ- ended his analysis of the origins of total- ing its people, in one case; that of a itarianism with these words: “The en- book, a canvas, a stage, a house, a street, chanting dream of a marvelous world is or, at most, a neighborhood in the other. nothing more than a romantic vision.”30 What they have in common is their to- We now know the damage the dream talizing ambition, which recognizes no of total revolution can do when the ideal sacred boundary: the artist does not re- that inspires it is political in nature. The spect existing aesthetic canons; the dic- utopian visions that proposed a radiant tator is ready to overturn all prior social future in the place of present mediocri- norms. Faithful to the Promethean proj- ty turned into the totalitarian systems ect that permeates all modernity, both of the twentieth century, a remedy far artist and dictator propose to fabricate worse than the disease they purported an entirely new art, new men, new peo- to cure. Today we spurn the peddlers ples. Nothing is given; everything is the of political dreams, the utopians who product of the will. Their ambition is promised imminent happiness for all, in½nite, yet it de½nes an enclosed space, because we have learned that such because it recognizes nothing outside of promises served to hide the sinister ma- it. Artists and dictators, intoxicated by neuvers of Lenin and Stalin, Mussolini pride, are united by the belief that they and Hitler. We sometimes think of Ro- are masters of the entire process of con- mantic images of artistic perfection as struction–whether it be of works of art the antithesis of those political dreams. or of societies. In reality, that is far from the truth. The This comparison of Romantic and rev- two were not simply associated or com- olutionary projects also suggests a more petitive; they grew out of the same con- profound relation between the two, go- ception of the world, the same convic- ing back to their origins in the nine- tion of possessing a recipe for the per- teenth century. Consciously or uncon- fect creation, one that would not need to sciously, Romantic thinkers embraced take any account of earlier ways of living a Manichaean vision of the world: for or creating. Both posited a radical oppo- them, artists and poets constituted the sition between low and high, present elite of mankind, and art played the role and future, evil and good, and sought to reserved for gnosis in ancient religious doctrine. The same can be said of utopi- 30 Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies an thinkers, who dreamed of collective (London: Routledge, 1945).

Dædalus Winter 2007 65 Tzvetan eliminate the ½rst term of each pair once Todorov and for all. But if the ideal ceases to be a on nonviolence horizon and turns into a rule of everyday & violence life, disaster follows: the reign of terror. History teaches us that the Romantic dream–though in½nitely less lethal than its inverted double, political utopianism –is doomed to disappointment nonethe- less.

66 Dædalus Winter 2007 Adam Michnik

The Ultras of moral revolution Translated by Elzbieta Matynia

We need a moral revolution!1 We need a moral revolution because Do we really need one? we are surrounded by ‘souls of mud’– But of course! Replied an ultrarevolu- reactionaries, hidden royalists, petty tionary, a Jacobin. individuals, one-day patriots–who are But of course! Replied an ultrareac- conspiring against our revolutionary tionary, a partisan of the Counterrevo- government. We need a moral revolu- lution. tion because vice is spreading. Reaction- Radicals, adherents of extreme solu- ary newspapers are sowing lies; so one tions, Ultras of all the colors of the rain- has to force them into silence. Corrup- bow, have a need for revolutionary up- tion is spreading; so we must look care- heavals, because only upheavals that fully at the rich. “I regard wealth,” said turn the world upside down allow them Robespierre, “not only as the price of to ful½ll their dream of a great cleansing. crimes, but as a punishment for them; I want to be poor, so as not to be unfortu- nate.” France is surrounded by traitors– I those poisonous insects sowing shame- lessness, deceit, meanness. It is they who The Jacobin, the revolutionary Ultra, caused the collapse of a state and socie- says: ty functioning according to one system of values, discovered in 1789, with rules Adam Michnik is editor-in-chief of “Gazeta that allowed us to maintain a dignity and Wyborcza,” Poland’s leading daily newspaper. a brotherhood founded upon the need to He founded the paper in 1989 to support the in- do good. We need a moral revolution to- dependent trade union Solidarity during the ½rst day, now that we have a chance to leave free elections in the history of the Communist the crisis of nonmemory and the curse bloc. Michnik has published numerous books, in- of a fresh start. We need a cleansing, a cluding “Letters from Prison and Other Essays” capacity to do good for the Revolution. (1985), “The Church and the Left” (1993), and It also means a recognition of one’s own “Letters from Freedom: Post–Cold War Realities errors–one’s fatal tolerance for ‘moder- and Perspectives” (1998). 1 For Professor Barbara Skarga, with a deep © 2007 by the American Academy of Arts bow. This article was ½rst published in Polish & Sciences in Gazeta Wyborcza, April 15, 2005.

Dædalus Winter 2007 67 Adam ates,’ for the forgiving and the temper- sadness and amazement. After all, those Michnik ate. who echo them ought to know where it on nonviolence The conservative, the reactionary Ul- all leads. & violence tra, says: Does history repeat itself? Karl Marx We need a moral revolution because once wrote, paraphrasing Hegel, that now, after the return of the Bourbons, each historical fact repeats itself twice the tide of revolution has receded. The –the original drama turns into farce. time has passed when vice ruled trium- Marx was wrong: history repeats itself phant over France; when regicide was much more frequently. The world is a law unto itself; when those responsi- still full of inquisitors and heretics, li- ble for regicide dictated their own laws; ars and those lied to, terrorists and the when virtue was humiliated, loyalty terrorized. There is still someone dying persecuted, and property con½scated. at Thermopylae, someone drinking a It’s true that a cruel despotism and the glass of hemlock, someone crossing the omnipotent guillotine, that revolution Rubicon, someone drawing up a pro- –this huge gutter of ½lth–polluted scription list. And nothing suggests that France. Nevertheless, France still has these things will stop repeating them- many virtues; so one can, wrote Joseph selves. de Maistre, “start the nation anew.” We like to reiterate that history is a France, washed clean from the dirt of teacher of life. If this is indeed true, we Jacobinism, restored to its monarchic listen very poorly to its lessons. That is and Catholic roots, will become a sym- why I am reflecting today on the Ultras bol of reconciliation between the King of the Revolution and the Ultras of the and his subjects. We need a moral revo- Counterrevolution, who dreamt about lution in order to restore the dream of a a Big Cleansing and a Moral Revolution state and society functioning according –not so that the language of that reign to one system of values, with rules that of terror may never repeat itself, but allow us to maintain the loyalty and dig- because I’m convinced it will inevitably nity be½tting royal subjects, always in- do so. clined to do good. We need a moral revo- lution because today everything is possi- ble, ‘even the resurrection of the dead,’ III not to mention the resurrection of ‘our After a victorious civil war, Lucius Cor- own moral subjectivity.’ One must avoid nelius Sulla, the Roman dictator, began at all costs a compromise with the bas- his rule by taking revenge on his oppo- tards of Jacobinism and Bonapartism, nents. He did it with an exacting meth- who want a constitutional monarchy, od, namely, by ordering the drawing up that is, a king without royal power–they of proscription lists, that is, lists of out- don’t understand that ‘every constitu- lawed enemies–and designating a re- tion is regicide.’ ward for their heads. “With nerve-rack- ing premeditation,” write historians II Max Cary and Howard Hayes Scullard, “Sulla prolonged the listing of new vic- What familiar voices despite such dif- tims, announcing from time to time ferent historical costumes. I hear them additional proscription lists. Terror continuously today–with mounting reigned. This modernized system of

68 Dædalus Winter 2007 mass murders was aimed with particu- Hegel later writes: The Ultras lar viciousness at those adversaries who of moral A government of some kind, however, revolution were wealthy. Their property was con- is always in existence. The question ½scated, and the cities of Italy became presents itself then, Whence did it ema- theaters of execution.”2 This was the nate? Theoretically, it proceeded from purpose of the proscription lists Sulla the people; really and truly, from the Na- announced: it was terrifying to ½nd tional Convention and its Committees. one’s name on such a list. The forces now dominant are the abstract For centuries the list of names has principles–Freedom, and, as it exists been an irremovable element of social within the limits of the Subjective Will history: the lists of witches burned at –Virtue. This Virtue has now to con- the stake; the lists of heretics examined duct the government in opposition to by the Inquisition; the lists of Jesuits the Many, whom their corruption and condemned to exile; the lists of Masons; attachment to old interests, or a liberty the lists of Jews; the lists of Christians that has degenerated into license, and suspected of Jewish background; the the violence of their passions, render un- lists of Communists and those suspected faithful to virtue. Virtue here is a simple of having Communist sympathies; the abstract principle and distinguishes the lists of royalists and other enemies of citizens into two classes only–those who revolution; the lists of agents of Tsarist are favorably disposed and those who are Okhrana; the lists of hostages; and the not. But disposition can only be recog- lists of those beheaded by guillotine or nized and judged of by disposition. Suspi- axe, or those who were shot. cion therefore is in the ascendant; but vir- Executions were usually preceded by tue, as soon as it becomes liable to suspi- the lists of suspects–those suspected of cion, is already condemned. Suspicion revolutionary or subversive activities, of attained a terrible power and brought a sinful past or present, of betrayal. Sus- to the scaffold the Monarch, whose sub- picion marched ahead of accusation and jective will was in fact the religious con- execution. science of a Catholic. Robespierre set up the principle of Virtue as supreme, and IV it may be said that with this man Virtue was an earnest matter. Virtue and Terror The French Revolution overturned an were the order of the day; for Subjective absolute monarchy and established a Virtue, whose sway is based on disposi- constitutional monarchy. “This consti- tion only, brings with it the most fearful tution was also vitiated,” wrote Hegel, tyranny. It exercises its power without “by the existence of absolute mistrust; legal formalities, and the punishment it the dynasty lay under suspicion, because inflicts is very simple–Death. it had lost the power it formerly enjoyed . . . . Neither government nor constitution V could be maintained on this footing, and the ruin of both was the result.” And it had begun so beautifully. The Revolution began under a hopeful sign of Freedom, Equality, and Brotherhood. 2 H. H. Scullard and M. Cary, Dzieje Rzymu The Bastille–a bastion and symbol of (Warszawa: n.p., 1992); translated from the tyranny–was captured. King Louis xvi Polish edition.

Dædalus Winter 2007 69 Adam chose a path of compromise with the Speaking on behalf of the supporters Michnik revolutionary camp; absolutism col- of the Restoration, Chateaubriand de- on nonviolence lapsed. It looked like ‘the King with the clared: “We want a monarchy based on & violence people, the people with the King.’ the principle of equal rights, the princi- Speaking parenthetically: in July of ple of morality, civic freedom, political 1789, the Bastille, where opponents of and religious tolerance.” the King had been imprisoned, had on- The Restoration did not end in words. ly seven prisoners–four counterfeiters, Louis xviii proclaimed a charter that two mentally ill, and one imprisoned was an act of reconciliation between the at the request of his father. Such was Restoration and the Revolution. It guar- this bastion of tyranny. Such a bastion; anteed the inviolability of property from such a tyranny. It was already absolut- the Napoleonic period and maintained ism with broken teeth. the nobility of the status of the empire; In spite of that, an historic event but it also declared the equality of citi- took place, the event of an epoch: in zens and their fundamental freedoms. the Declaration of the Rights of Man And it even promised amnesty to those and Citizen it was proclaimed that peo- who were involved in regicide. ple are born and remain free and equal Louis xviii wanted to reassure under the law. The words of Marie Jo- Frenchmen that he did not want re- seph La Fayette were repeated: “People venge, as his enemies claimed. He de- become free as soon as they want to be clared that only “a system of modera- free.” And the revolutionaries repeated: tion could prevent France from tear- “It was different in England, where so ing itself apart with its own hands.” much blood was shed; our revolution triumphed almost without bloodshed.” And they repeated that the Revolution VII opened the gate through which France Every revolution has its own dynamic; advanced from tyranny to freedom. each is too slow, un½nished, betrayed. From within each revolution is a de- VI mand for acceleration, completion, protection against betrayal. The Restoration also began beautifully. On the very threshold of the French After a quarter century of revolution- Revolution the demand that the mon- ary and Napoleonic turmoil, there be- arch give in to the National Assembly gan–along with Louis xviii–a time was revolutionary. A compromise be- of gentle words and conciliatory ges- tween the Revolution and the monarch tures. François René de Chateaubriand, on behalf of constitutional rule and a the most distinguished Bourbon ideo- Declaration of the Rights of Man was logue, wrote in 1814 that Louis xviii is celebrated as a victory of the revolution- “a prince who is known for his enlight- aries. But soon this compromise, built ened mind, is unsusceptible to preju- on a dualism (the self-limitation of the dice, and is a stranger to vengeance.” monarch in his power and of the Revo- He quoted the words of Louis xvi: “I lution in its demands), turned out to forgive with all my heart those who for be fragile. The radical monarchists saw no reason from my side became my ene- in it the capitulation of the King; the mies, and I ask God to forgive them.” radical revolutionaries saw it as a betray-

70 Dædalus Winter 2007 al of their ideals. The Revolution ought the privileges of the aristocracy. And the The Ultras to be crushed by the army. The King Catholic Church has to guard against of moral revolution ought to be removed; long live the Re- “the scum of equality.” The Ultras clear- public, retorted the revolutionary Jac- ly had nothing against France tearing it- obins. self apart with its own hands. The Jacobins came out on top. Mon- archists escaped abroad, and the King was imprisoned, judged, and guillotined. IX Any voice against the dissolution of the There is no reason to question the good monarchy–the constitutional one– intentions of the Jacobins, those Ultras was called treason, as were voices that of the Revolution. They really wanted to demanded a normal judicial process save the Revolution from the royalists, or at least a renunciation of the death from foreign armies, from superstition, penalty. from treason and corruption. They, dili- The Revolution, begun in the name gent readers of the Encyclopedists and of freedom, transformed itself into an Jean-Jacques Rousseau, really wanted aspiration for a republican order against France to be ruled by virtue. the constitutional monarchy. It was not But in order to ½ght monarchists and about freedom anymore but about the émigré aristocrats, the Jacobins con½s- Republic, and any critic of this solution cated the aristocrats’ properties and was suspected of treason. And the con- closed their newspapers; to win the war, troversy over the Republic transformed they demanded unity around the revolu- itself into a ruthless ½ght for power in tionary government and punished any- the revolutionary camp. one who deviated. To remove supersti- tion, they demanded the loyalty of Cath- VIII olic priests and exiled those who refused to take an oath. To prevent treason and Every restoration has its own dynamic; corruption, they announced a ‘Great each is too slow, un½nished, betrayed. Vigilance’ with regard to traitors and Each restoration hides within itself the the corrupt. Moreover, they introduced guardians of the holy flame of past in- a law on suspects–each loyal citizen stitutions and customs–the Ultras. was obliged to denounce suspects. The The Ultras have to reject any compro- measure of revolutionary fervor was the mise between tradition and revolution, number of denunciations. Long lists of because the Revolution was for them an suspects were compiled, then long lists absolute evil, without a grain of good of those imprisoned for being suspect. –the height of absurdity and moral de- France was taken over by fear. The Reign cay. It is “a pure impurity,” said Joseph of Terror had begun. The theater of the de Maistre. “It is a wonder of decay, a revolutionary guillotine was launched. wonder of absurdity, and a wonder of The Jacobins saw in the guillotine an banditry.” instrument for the defense of the Revo- For an Ultra then, the Charter of Lou- lution. They believed that it was they is xviii was nonsense, an absurdity, “a who were the Revolution and that they work of madness and darkness.” One were the guarantors of the durability has to break with the chimera of the and continuity of the rule of Freedom Rights of Man, restore censorship and and Virtue. This is why they defended

Dædalus Winter 2007 71 Adam their power without scruples, and why X Michnik any critic was branded a traitor to the on nonviolence Revolution. In any revolution the dialectics of mod- & violence xvi It all began with the trial of Louis . eration and radicalism takes place. At Nobody cared to collect any evidence each revolutionary turn, yesterday’s rad- of guilt or observe normal judicial pro- ical person turns out to be today’s mod- cedures. The King was guilty because erate. If he is lucky, he is accused of cow- he was King. He had to be guillotined; ardly opportunism; if he is not lucky, of the people had sentenced him through treason and participation in counterrev- their representatives. A motion was olutionary conspiracy. made to ask French citizens whether Vladimir Lenin, quite fluent in revolu- they supported the carrying out of the tions, wrote this about the Girondistes death penalty. Antoine Louis de Saint- (moderates): “They wanted to deal with Just, a Jacobin Ultra, retorted passion- autocracy gently, in a reformative way, ately: “This appeal aims at creating a without hurting the aristocracy, the gen- conflict between the people and the try, the court–without destroying any- Legislature, and therefore a weakening thing.” But the Jacobins–according to of the people. This intrigue is a way to Lenin–wanted people “to deal with the bring back the tyrant to his palace.” monarchy and the aristocracy ‘in a ple- The crime has wings, argued Saint-Just. beian way,’ mercilessly exterminating It will spread. This intrigue to save the the enemies of freedom, strangling by King through “votes bought by foreign force their resistance, without making gold” will win the ear of the people. But any concessions on behalf of the ac- the monarchy is an eternal crime, and cursed legacy of subjection.” the monarch is a barbarian, a tyrant, and This is how Lenin imagined the Jac- a foreigner. The public good requires the obin moral revolution, and this is how death of the King, and the only ones who –in a Bolshevik way–he implemented could think otherwise are either allies it personally. It is not dif½cult to under- of the tyrant or people who have been stand why he glori½ed Jacobin terror, bribed. calling it “plebeian.” It is more dif½cult After such arguments, which terror- to understand why the gentle and com- ized the National Assembly, the execu- promising path of the Girondistes de- tion of the King was a mere formality. served contempt; and why the Giron- Justice and the public good–as under- distes were still accused of moral rela- stood by the Jacobins–won out over tivism, of blurring the boundary be- the logic of mercy, forgiveness, and tween good and evil–why the aspira- conciliation. xvi tion to pluralism and compromise with Not only was Louis guillotined, opponents was taken as an abandon- but symbolically the old order was sen- ment of moral principles. tenced to death. The guillotine for the The Jacobins perceived their adver- King de½ned the norms of the new or- saries as conspirators against Freedom der. Freedom and Virtue entered into and Virtue. In these they believed fanat- a marriage with the guillotine. ically, but they understood them in a pe- culiar way. The symbol of Freedom was the capture of the Bastille, from which seven people were freed, while in the

72 Dædalus Winter 2007 prison of France ruled by the Jacobins, The conspirators were unmasked– The Ultras there were thousands. And Virtue? The some of them escaped, the rest were of moral revolution Reign of Terror, as Friedrich Engels, al- imprisoned. “Not all the imprisoned,” so interested in the topic of revolution, explained Saint-Just, “are guilty. The soberly wrote, was “a rule by people majority of them were just confused. who spread fear around them, and on But in the struggle with the conspiracy, the other hand it was a rule by people the salvation of the nation is the highest who were themselves full of fear.” Those law.” Then, it is very dif½cult to distin- were “cruelties committed by people guish an error from a crime, and one has who themselves were in fear,” and in to sacri½ce the freedom of a few in order this way they reassured themselves. to save all. A faction of the conspirators, Fear and denunciations, those were “secretive and politically sophisticated, the methods of Jacobin Virtue. seemingly caring about freedom and The Jacobins declared that they de- order, skillfully opposed freedom with fended Freedom against treason, against freedom, did not distinguish inertia enemy conspiracy, but conspiracy, sim- from order and peace, nor republican ply speaking, was opposition to Jacobin spirit from anarchy.” It walked with the rule and the methods of governance ap- people and freedom to direct them to- plied by the Ultras. Conspiracy, in the ward their goals–toward monarchy– opinion of Furet, an historian of the “by making current conditions and the Revolution, is an idea typical of the tra- horror of these days look repugnant.” ditional religious mentality, which is This is the language of Saint-Just, “accustomed to treating evil as a product whom Albert Camus considered a great of hidden forces.” It is also an idea char- man. Robespierre was also called ‘The acteristic of revolutionary conscious- Incorruptible,’ ‘The Spotless.’ Yet it is ness. Thanks to this idea, any obstacle they, Robespierre and Saint-Just, who could be explained as the result of ene- became symbols of the cruel Terror, the my actions–high prices, food short- monstrosity of informers, and the guil- ages, corruption scandals. The belief in lotine, which killed anybody who got in a conspiracy “reinforces the horror of the way. the crime because it cannot be admitted, It is worth remembering that behind and expresses the cleansing function the backs of those idealists of cruelty of its elimination; it frees one from hav- and apostles of terror hovered out-and- ing to point out the perpetrators of the out scoundrels, who used revolutionary crime and from revealing what their slogans and the guillotine to settle dirty plans were, because one cannot describe accounts, to blackmail, and to pursue perpetrators who are hidden and whose shady interests. The idealist fanatic is goals are abstract.” followed by thugs, scoundrels, and hyp- Saint-Just unmasked the Girondistes: ocrites. This is the fate of every revolu- he said that within the very body of tion. But the scoundrel is less interest- the National Convention conspirators ing–he appears wherever one can ½sh in aimed at the restoration of tyranny had murky waters, get rich by informing on built a nest. Their plans were “sinister” others, get promoted through intrigue, and their actions “re½ned.” They were get famous by kicking someone who is neither courageous nor open enemies of down. Freedom. They spoke its language; they More interesting is the idealist: this appeared to be its defenders. one is ready to give his life for his ideals,

Dædalus Winter 2007 73 Adam but more willingly he puts others to France ruled by the Jacobins was tak- Michnik on death on behalf of those ideals. Before en over by the madness of searching for nonviolence he puts them to death by guillotine, enemies and traitors. Informers, revo- & violence though, he puts them to death with lutionary tribunals, guillotines–every- words. A fanatic idealist, he reaches for body was suspect. Denunciations tri- mud before he reaches for his sword. umphed along with meanness and fear Before he exterminates his enemy, he –all in the name of Virtue. has to dehumanize him, de½le him. If In trying to describe the people of the absolutism of Jacobin Virtue was hatred, Skarga writes about those who to justify absolute terror, then their en- have a dispersed identity, about people emies–the victims of terror–had also who are “weak” and “susceptible to in- to be absolutely evil, the embodiments fluence,” “ambition-driven,” “pathet- of total treason and perfect degradation. ic” people. Indeed, there were plenty Among the Jacobins–including the of those in Jacobin clubs and revolution- leaders–were plenty of corrupt people ary tribunals. But more fascinating are hungry for power, privilege, and money; the strong people, the honest ones, the people guilty of corruption and theft; idealistic, who are blinded by the drug people with many complexes; ne’er-do- of revolution and transformed into skill- wells; incurable schemers; careerists at ful manipulators, cynics of the political the service of any government. For ide- game, demagogues of fluent speech and alists, it could not have been very pleas- dried-up heart–people of a religious ant. But, as they say in Polish, when you sect transformed into a gang of bandits. chop wood, the chips fly. If an informer The idealist fanatic, the Jacobin Ultra, served Virtue, his very contribution believed that one could build a better eliminated all character flaws. If the in- world according to the ideals of Rous- triguer hurt the enemies of Virtue, the seau and through revolutionary meth- intrigue became the servant of the Revo- ods, by excluding from public life the lution. The service of Virtue manifested people of the ancien régime, which had itself in only one way: hatred of the ene- been based on the oppression of subjects mies of Virtue. Hatred–as Barbara Skar- by the mighty of the world. Rousseau ga has recently reminded us–is a feeling said, “I hate subjection because it is the that does not know how to look at the source of all evil.” The Ultra Jacobin be- world other than from the perspective of lieved that the revolution would help to negation. Even in what to others seems end all evil. This is why the Jacobin nev- valuable and important, it notices exclu- er spoke in his own name; but in the sively trickery and deceit. Because, for name of the Revolution and the Nation, one who hates, this is the natural state in the name of Freedom and Virtue, in of the human condition. Hatred does the name of those humiliated by subor- not aim at improving. Quite to the con- dination, he sent to the guillotine people trary, it favors the existing situation and suspected of vice. Virtue is possible and with satisfaction cites every error and fascinating only when surrounded by unsuccessful endeavor, con½rming the vice. This is why the ‘just and spotless’ correctness of its attitude. But above all, need popular injustice and all-embracing with such an orientation, it wants to poi- sin. son everybody around. And it begins to The Jacobin “glori½es the poor,” ooze out until it embraces the whole so- observes Hannah Arendt, so that “his ciety. praise of suffering as the spring of Vir-

74 Dædalus Winter 2007 tue” becomes dangerous, usually serving There is in Danton a certain feature which The Ultras as a “mere pretext for lust for power.”3 reveals a thankless and petty soul: he of moral revolution Was the Jacobin sincere in declaring his praised the recent productions of Des- compassion for the poor and the suffer- moulins, at the Jacobins he dared to de- ing? We have no reason to doubt it. On mand for them freedom of the press, the other hand, it was not a compassion when I suggested to them the privilege of for any speci½c, individual persons. The burning. [ . . . ] When I showed him the Jacobin identi½ed with the “boundless system of calumny of the Girondistes, suffering of the masses,” the suffering he answered, ‘What does that matter to of millions. “By the same token,” wrote me? Public opinion is a whore, posterity Arendt, “Robespierre lost the capacity to is nonsense!’ The word Virtue made Dan- establish and hold fast to rapports with ton laugh: ‘There is no more reliable vir- persons in their singularity; the ocean of tue,’ he said laughingly, ‘than that which suffering around him”4 drowned all par- I cultivate every night with my wife.’ How ticular reasons–reasons of friendship, could this man, to whom any moral idea truthfulness, loyalty to principles. The was alien, be a defender of Freedom? An- Revolution in the name of Virtue and other maxim of Danton’s was that one Freedom turned into a dictatorship of ought to use rascals; that is why he was sacrilegious liars–the Jacobins in pow- surrounded by the dirtiest intrigants. He er became perfectly indifferent to the believed in a tolerance for vice, which was fate of individuals who had been victim- to ensure him as many supporters as there ized or humiliated. Such people could are corrupted people in this world. [ . . . ] already be sacri½ced without scruples At every time of crisis Danton took a vaca- in the name of Revolutionary Cleansing. tion. The cleansing became a purge–a purge When the Jacobins were cursed, that was meant to wash the dirt of hy- pocrisy and duplicity from the clean face he remained silent. When he was attacked of revolutionary Virtue. himself, he forgave. All the time he ap- “The Revolution,” wrote Arendt, “be- peared to the Girondistes as a tolerant fore it proceeded to devour its own chil- mediator, he bragged publicly that he had dren, unmasked them.” In the end, “No never denounced any enemy of freedom, one is left among the chief actors who he constantly reached out to them with does not stand accused, or at least sus- an olive branch. [ . . . ] He did not want the pected, of corruption, duplicity, betray- death of the tyrant; he wanted people to al, conspiracy with the court, and ac- be satis½ed with his exile. [ . . . ] He desired cepting money and instructions from amnesty for all of the guilty; therefore he London or Vienna.”5 wanted counter-revolution. Preparing the accusation of Danton, This is an accounting of Danton’s Robespierre wrote in his notebook: crimes drafted by Robespierre. And a close friend of Danton said to the Jac- obins: if you kill the Girondistes, the 3 Hannah Arendt, On Revolution (New York: next ones will do the same with you. Viking Press, 1963), 89. And that is what happened. The day before his execution Danton was to 4 Ibid. say: “In revolutions power remains at the end with the biggest scoundrels.” 5 Ibid., 98.

Dædalus Winter 2007 75 Adam Led to the square where the guillotine sistently repeated the pathetic refrain Michnik loomed, he was to shout, “Robespierre! of Socrates: “They want to force me to on nonviolence You will be following me!” And that is drink hemlock . . . and I know that I will & violence what happened four months later. Lou- drink it.” A magni½cent pretext for serv- is Auguste Blanqui, an icon of French ing it to his opponents. revolutionaries in the nineteenth centu- For Robespierre, the end justi½ed the ry, imprisoned in 1848, prepared a ruth- means, even the most vicious means, lessly honest portrait of Robespierre, when the real goal, wrote Blanqui, was whom he called “a would-be Napoleon.” “the desire for power.” He wrote: “No other personality was as destructive as he was; when he de- manded that others give up their per- XI sonal dreams, it was only so that they But every restoration also swings from could put them onto the altar of his own moderation to radicalism. Every restora- pride.” The National Convention, the tion is un½nished, inconsistent; it does highest revolutionary power, “was like not ful½ll the expectations of its support- a herd speechless from fear, standing ers. at the gate to the slaughterhouse. All After initial declarations on behalf of tongues were frozen, all eyes were moderation, conciliation, and accord glazed, all gestures were petri½ed in hor- comes a moment when the Ultras of ror.” restoration–also known as White Jac- Robespierre declared: “We need to in- obins–feel disappointed. In France, still in each person a religious respect for after a short honeymoon, Napoleon man, this deep sense of obligation that returned to power for a hundred days; constitutes the only guarantee for intro- after those hundred days, the Ultras re- ducing a state of social happiness.” Blan- taliated against the thankless French. If qui commented: the symbol of the beginning of restora- It was apparently in order to instill reli- tion were the appeals to forget about the gious respect of man for man that Robes- hatred dividing France, now the Ultras pierre sent to the guillotine all his rivals, declared that conciliatory Louis xviii including the least dangerous opponents. was a “Jacobin with a lily.” They called A furtive glance was enough to send his to stop the appeals for reconciliation best friend to the guillotine. Camille Des- because there can be no reconciliation moulins, a friend from youth and a com- between the party of the hangmen and rade in the struggle and an admirer, was the party of the victims. The time of do- executed because he dared to say ‘Burn- ing justice had begun–in the name, of ing is not an answer.’ course, of the Great Cleansing of France from this hellish dirt of both the Revo- All of those godlike warriors were lution and the empire. Because–the Ul- cruel people, hungry for power, armed tra argued–revolution was the child of with hypocrisy and their blessed stilet- haughtiness and madness, which fed up- tos. Robespierre, mercilessly beheading on corpses; it was a monster enjoying all those who opposed his ambitions or looting, arson, and butchering. Now one awakened distrust, constantly present- ought to bring back the old prerevolu- ed himself as a victim. On the heaps of tionary laws, customs, and privileges for corpses murdered by his hand, he con- the gentry, aristocracy, and the Church–

76 Dædalus Winter 2007 as well as discipline and censorship. His Majesty, where were his accusers The Ultras “The freedom to print and freedom of when Ney was ½ghting on so many bat- of moral revolution the press,” said the Ultra, “are the most tle½elds? Can France forget about a he- horrible plague of our unfortunate ro of the Bersina battle? Am I to put to times.” death someone who has saved so many And he was sincere in these confes- French lives? I know that I am arousing sions: he believed that the return to the the hatred of the courtiers, but stand- prerevolutionary golden age is neces- ing near my grave, I can say, like one of sary and realistic, but he warned that your distinguished ancestors: ‘All lost the revolutionary forces are still power- but honor.’ I will die satis½ed.” For these ful, that the majority of the positions in words de Moncey was thrown out of the the administration are still occupied by Chamber of Peers and locked up in a for- Jacobins and Bonapartists. This is why tress. a Great Cleansing is needed. “The time The witness for the defense was Mar- for handling with kid gloves is over!” shal Louis Nicolas Davout, who defend- And indeed it was over. The White ed Ney to the very end. Unfortunately, Terror flooded France with blood; para- other marshals were short on honor military units of royalist guerillas intro- and courage. So Ney was sentenced and duced a climate of vengeance, inquisi- shot. In the name of the restoration of tion, and repression aimed at all sus- knightly virtues, people were used as pects; and anybody could be suspected marshals who had behaved despicably, of Jacobinism, of Bonapartism, of any- choosing obsequiousness, cowardice, thing. In Avignon, the Napoleonic Mar- and betrayal. shal Brune was murdered. His body was The violence that was to guarantee dragged down the street and thrown in- Virtue became an instrument of vil- to the Rhône. lainy. The moderate and the lenient in The royal government released pro- the camp of restoration were losing; scription lists of enemies; censorship the Ultras were winning. Their restor- was restored. A ban was announced on ation was to be the Grand Counterrev- “provocative shouting and subversive olution, that is, revolution–also moral journals.” The newly created lists of –with a minus sign. All changes intro- suspects were kept secret. After the ½rst duced by the Revolution were to be trials, the ½rst heads rolled. The acts of erased; all the chimeras of the philoso- the executioner brought order and calm. phers of the Enlightenment concerning “There is a need for chains, hangmen, the state of nature, the social contract, torturers, death; let the heads of the Jac- the constitution, the rights of man and obins roll; there is the need for a fear the citizen, and parliamentary repre- that redeems.” sentation were to be abandoned. The Among those the Chamber of Peers absolute monarchy was to be restored, judged was a famous Napoleonic Mar- as this was the only way to return to shal, Michel Ney. The per½dy of this tri- God’s order guarded by the Catholic al was that those who were to sentence Church. him were his comrades-in-arms. And Tradition provided an easy model: the it was to be chaired by Marshal Jeannot Inquisition. The Spanish Inquisition, de Moncey. Distressed by the situation, argued the Ultra, understood that one de Moncey sent a letter to Louis xviii needs to beat to death any serious as- in which he wrote: “Allow me to ask sassination of religion. Nobody has the

Dædalus Winter 2007 77 Adam right to criticize the kings of Spain. They tyrs. The Ultras won. Because they Michnik know their enemies, and under the law believed that only the use of similarly on nonviolence they can punish them. Nobody ought forceful means could prevent huge po- & violence to feel sorry for evildoers, who deserve litical defeats and push back particular- the punishment for questioning Span- ly forceful attacks on the state. And the ish dogmas. Those who spread heresies most effective of those means was vio- ought to be put among the worst crimi- lence; it is violence that creates order, nals. After all, heresy led Europe to the “that stops the hand of man, and threat- Thirty Years’ War. ens with chains, with the sword, with If there had been an active Inquisition the knout, and with the guillotine.” in France, the Revolution would never Against rebels one ought to send “sol- have happened. Therefore, the ruler who diers and executioners.” does without the stakes of the Inquisi- The executioner is the guarantor of or- tion deals a deadly blow to humanity. der who struggles with chaos, dirt, and “The Inquisition on its own,” argued de rebellion. The executioner is a man who Maistre, the perfect Ultra, “is a blessed metes out punishment. institution that provides Spain with an De Maistre asked: extraordinary service which a sectarian Who is this inexplicable being, who, when and philosophical fanaticism has derid- there are so many agreeable, lucrative, ed, and shamelessly.” honest and even honourable professions The direct consequence of such rea- to choose among, in which a man can ex- soning was a law on sacrilege that the ercise his skill or his powers, has chosen Ultras introduced during the Restora- that of torturing or killing his own kind? tion. It stated that “sacrilege is recog- This head, this heart, are they made like nized as any active insult to religion our own? Is there not something in them made consciously and out of hatred. that is peculiar, and alien to our nature; The profanation of Church vessels is Myself, I have no doubt about this. He is subject to the death penalty. The prof- made like us externally. He is born like all anation of consecrated bread calls for of us. But he is an extraordinary being, the same punishment as parricide.” and it needs a special decree to bring him We should add that those guilty of par- into existence as a member of the human ricide ½rst have their hand cut off and family–a ½at of the creative power. He is then their head. The Ultra argued eager- created like a law unto himself. ly that “as far as someone guilty of sacri- Consider what he is in the opinion of lege is concerned, in sentencing him to mankind, and try to conceive, if you can, death one is after all simply sending him how he can manage to ignore or defy this to face his natural judge.” The author opinion. Hardly has he been assigned to of those words, Louis Gabriel Bonald, a his proper dwelling-place, hardly has he philosopher of the Ultra camp, certainly taken possession of it, when others re- believed that it would serve the Cleans- move their homes elsewhere whence they ing and the Moral Revolution. can no longer see him. In the midst of this Chateaubriand–an unquestioned le- desolation, in this sort of vacuum formed gitimist–tried unsuccessfully to argue round him, he lives alone with his mate that the principle of religion is mercy, and his young, who acquaint him with the and if it needs the guillotine it is only a sound of the human voice: without them triumph for their [the Church’s] mar- he would hear nothing but groans.

78 Dædalus Winter 2007 The gloomy signal is given; an abject earth upon these two poles: ‘For Jehovah The Ultras servitor of justice knocks on his door to is master of the twin poles and upon them of moral revolution tell him that he is wanted; he goes; he he maketh turn the world’ . . . . 6 arrives in a public square covered by a “Translating this apology of the exe- dense, trembling mob. A poisoner, a cutioner,” the modernist writer Boleslaw parricide, a man who has committed Micinski wrote in an essay, On Hatred, sacrilege is tossed to him: he seizes him, Cruelty, and Abstraction, “I had the im- stretches him, ties him to a horizontal pression that my ½ngers were stained cross, he raises his arm; there is a hor- with blood.” rible silence; there is no sound but that One must analyze the style of this ex- of bones cracking under the bars, and cerpt to notice,” wrote Micinski, “that the shrieks of the victim. He unties him. the source of this spirit is sadism. From He puts him on the wheel; the shattered behind the mask of the defender of con- limbs are entangled in the spokes; the servative principles, “the face of a sadist head hangs down; the hair stands up, appears.” And also the conviction arises and the mouth gaping open like a fur- that “man is evil and must therefore be nace from time to time emits only a few ruled with an iron truncheon.” bloodstained words to beg for death. He So much for Micinski. Isaiah Berlin, has ½nished. His heart is beating, but it after reading The Saint Petersburg Dia- is with joy: he congratulates himself, he logues, observed that de Maistre is sin- says in his heart, ‘Nobody quarters as cerely convinced that “men can only well as I.’ He steps down. He holds out be saved by being hemmed in by the his bloodstained hand; the justice throws terror of the authorities [ . . . ] must be him–from a distance–a few pieces of purged by perpetual suffering, must be gold, which he catches through a double humbled by being made conscious of row of human beings standing back in their stupidity, malice, and helplessness horror. He sits down to table, and he eats. at every turn. [ . . . ] Their appointed mas- Then he goes to bed and sleeps. And on ters must do the duty laid upon them by the next day, when he wakes, he thinks of their maker who has made nature a hier- something totally different from what he archical order by the ruthless imposition did the day before. Is he a man? Yes. God of the rules–not sparing themselves– receives him in his shrines, and allows and equally ruthless extermination of him to pray. He is not a criminal. Never- the enemy.”7 All in the name of Moral theless no tongue dares declare that he Counterrevolution and Cleansing. is virtuous, that he is an honest man, that he is estimable. No moral praise seems appropriate to him, for everyone else is assumed to have relations with human beings: he has none. And yet all greatness, all power, all sub- 6 Joseph De Maistre, http://www.newphilsoc. ordination rest on the executioner. He is org.uk/Freedom/berlinday/a_great_and_virtu- the terror and the bond of human associa- ous_man.htm; St. Petersburg Dialogues, quoted tion. Remove this mysterious agent from in Isaiah Berlin, The Crooked Timber of Human- the world, and in an instant order yields ity (New York: Knopf, 1991), 116–117; also in http://maistre.ath.cx:8000/st_petersburg. to chaos: thrones fall, society disappears. html, quoted in ibid. God, who has created sovereignty, has also made punishment; he has ½xed the 7 Ibid., 118–119.

Dædalus Winter 2007 79 Adam XII “It is time,” appealed Saint-Just, “for Michnik everybody to return to moral principles, on nonviolence Who is the enemy poisoning the order and for terror to be used against the en- & violence of Freedom and Virtue during the Rev- emies. It is time to declare war against olution? Who is the enemy destroying wild corruption, and to require every- God’s order on earth and the established body to lead modest and frugal lives and hierarchy with Christ’s envoy at the top? to observe civic virtues, and to wipe out The Red Ultra will answer the same way the enemies of the people who favor as the White Jacobin: this enemy is a crime and the passions of the depraved.” sect. There exists in France a political In this way Saint-Just declared war on sect, argued Saint-Just. This sect that the sect and announced a Great Cleans- poisons public life is made out of mon- ing and Moral Revolution. archists both open and hidden, who And what was ‘the sect’ for de Mai- wanted to remove Louis xvi but did not stre? They are those who try to corrupt want to end the monarchy. Today the people or overthrow the existing order. members of this sect demand modera- “They are the disturbers and subverts,” tion and leniency, amnesty for the ene- wrote Berlin. “To the Protestants and mies, and reconciliation with the ene- Jansenists he now adds Deists and Athe- mies of Virtue. Those people are crimi- ists, Freemasons and Jews, Scientists nal and arrogant; they are émigrés and and Democrats, Jacobins, Liberals, Utili- British agents. They are corrupted and tarians, Anti-clericals, Egalitarians, Per- depraved, thieves, bribe-takers, and fectibilians, Materialists, Idealists, Law- dishonest speculators; people who are yers, Journalists, Secular Reformers, and weak and vain, malcontents and sowers intellectuals of every breed; all those of disagreement, hypocrites and fruit- who appeal to abstract principles, who less shouters. put faith in individual reason or individ- Public life is entangled in the web of ual conscience; believers in individual this sect. Should not such a society–in liberty or the rational organization of which self-interest and envy are the hid- society; reformers and revolutionaries: den springs of many enemies and crimi- these are the enemy of the settled order nals who through bribery want to escape and must be rooted out at all costs. This is ‘la secte,’ and it never sleeps; it is forev- justice–launch the greatest possible ef- 8 fort to cleanse itself? And those who try er boring from within.” to stop this cleansing, are they not trying This sect ought to be annihilated by to corrupt society? And those who want force, ½rmly and mercilessly, in the to corrupt it, are they not trying to de- name of the divine order. De Maistre– stroy it? like any conservative–was convinced “There is no hope of prosperity,” ex- that those who launch revolutions in plained Saint-Just, “if the last enemy of the name of freedom end up as tyrants. Freedom would breathe; you ought to Summarizing the Jacobins’ doctrine, he punish not only traitors but also those remarked sarcastically what people hear who are neutral; you ought to punish from their leaders: “You think that you everyone in the Republic who is passive do not want this law, but we want to as- and does not do anything for it.” The sure you that in fact you really desire it. flame of Freedom would cleanse us just If you dare to reject it, we will punish as liquid crude iron throws off any dirt. 8 Ibid., 119.

80 Dædalus Winter 2007 you by shooting you for not wanting imate daughter. Both the stake and the The Ultras what you want.” And that is what they guillotine were to serve the Cleansing, of moral revolution do, concluded de Maistre. Moral Revolution, but they have always One ought to agree with this ‘White served the arbitrary claims of the au- Jacobin,’ the most distinguished of the thorities, convinced that they have Ab- Ultras. This is exactly how the Jacobins, solute Virtue at their disposal. the Red Ultras, acted. They proclaimed And such thinking has always ended themselves the emancipation of Free- badly. dom and Virtue; they privatized the Revolution in order to privatize the na- tion. The guillotine caused all the French XIII people to become the property of the The Red Ultras, whether Robespierre or Revolution. But the White Ultras priva- Saint-Just, have legions of defenders. So tized God and proclaimed themselves does the White Jacobin de Maistre. the emancipation of the evangelical The defenders emphasize that Robes- teachings, while undertaking, intellectu- pierre was spotless, incorruptible, in- ally and practically, an effort to convert domitable; that Saint-Just, a fascinating the French using the executioner’s axe. dreamer, was a good and pure man; that Blanqui accused Robespierre of send- de Maistre was famous for his personal ing to the guillotine spokesmen of athe- charm and kindness toward people, and ism in order to win back the favor of the that his apology for the executioner was Church. This is why he presented as an the result of his horror at the Jacobin ter- offering to Catholic priests the head of ror, a kind of revenge, as he saw in the Chaumette, a preacher of atheism. Blan- victim of the executioner either Robes- qui wrote: “What a pleasant surprise it pierre or Saint-Just, not just an ordinary was for the sons and heirs of the Inqui- mortal. sition to see that God had again found I gladly agree with the advocates of Himself under the care of the guillotine. the Red Ultras and the White Jacobins. The beautiful times of the mightiness But in the rhetoric and mentality of the of the divine spirit could be reborn as Red Ultras we can recognize, after all, heads rolled to honor the immortality the early outlines of the rhetoric and of the soul.” Heretics were made depen- mentality of the Bolsheviks; in the icon dent upon the supreme ruler of the tor- of Robespierre we can see Lenin and turer. The guillotine had replaced the Stalin; and in the terror of the Jacobin stake. guillotine we can see a preview of the Let us set aside the tone of anticlerical- platoons of CheKa death squads.9 ism typical of French revolutionary cir- On the other hand, in the catalog of cles, here carried ad absurdum, because opponents of the Divine Order prepared it is absurd to think that Catholic priests by de Maistre we see the same people appreciated the cult of the Supreme Be- twentieth-century Fascism added to ing created by Robespierre. Let us em- their enemy list. phasize, rather, the well-captured inti- “De Maistre’s violent hatred of free mate relationship between the guillotine traf½c in ideas,” wrote Isaiah Berlin, and the stake. The guillotine of the Jac- obins was the natural daughter of the 9 VeCheKa, known better as CheKa, stands for Inquisition’s stake. And it doesn’t really Vserossykaya Chrezvychainaya Komissiya (All- matter at this point that it was an illegit- Russian Extraordinary Commission).

Dædalus Winter 2007 81 Adam “and his contempt for all intellectuals, wish to understand that revolution has Michnik are not mere conservatism, . . . but some- its rights. on nonviolence thing at once much older and much Jacobins and Ultras always reply the & violence newer–something that at once echoes same way. After all, to be a Jacobin is to the fanatical voices of the Inquisition, transcend limits. It means to attack the and sounds what is perhaps the earliest constitution in the name of utopia, and note of the militant anti-rational Fas- the republic in the name of a perfect re- cism of modern times.”10 public. It means to criticize the guillo- You will say that those are just words, tine for being too gentle to enemies; to just ideas, written down on paper. But label the partisans of moderation trai- words are not innocent. They have a life tors of the revolution; to be redder than of their own. Words create a system of the Reds, more plebeian than the plebe- ethical and intellectual interpretation of ians, more ‘mad’ than the extreme radi- the world, an interpretation that allows cals, more vigilant than the tribunals of one to see in the guillotine a gate to Free- vigilantism, more suspicious than the dom and Virtue and in the executioner’s lieutenants of suspicion. To be oppo- axe a path to God. The history of the Jac- nents of the death penalty while order- obins and Ultras, Red or White, teaches ing new executions daily; to be such a us that there is a need for ethical knowl- relentless hound of the ‘tolerant’ left edge, that there are no honest values that that one ½nds oneself to the left of com- would justify reaching for such peculiar- mon sense; to be such an enthusiastic ly dishonest means and methods. This is defender of the Revolution that one why one cannot put people down in the sends other revolutionaries to the guillo- name of lifting them up; this is why one tine. cannot spread the poison of fear in the “To be ultra,” wrote Victor Hugo, name of Virtue and Moral Revolution; is to go beyond. It is to attack the scepter this is why one cannot push the drug in the name of the throne, and the mitre of suspicion in the name of Truth and in the name of the attar; it is to ill-treat Cleansing. This is why one cannot for- the thing which one is dragging; it is to get that God did not give any person kick over the traces; it is to cavil at the power over any other person; that no fagot on the score of the amount of cook- one should give up caring about one’s ing received by heretics; it is to reproach own salvation in caring about someone the idol with its small amount of idolatry; else’s salvation; that one cannot force it is to insult through excess of respect; anyone into faith either through force it is to discover that the Pope is not suf½- or blackmail; and that the cross is the ciently papish, that the King is not suf½- symbol of the Lord’s suffering, not a ciently royal, and that the night has too baseball bat for clubbing adversaries. much light; it is to be discontented with alabaster, with snow, with the swan and XIV the lily in the name of whiteness; it is to be a partisan of things to the point of be- I already hear the ironic commentaries: coming their enemy; it is to be so strong- those are the nauseating platitudes of an ly for, as to be against.11 aesthete, empty moralizing that does not 11 Victor Hugo, Les Miserables, ch. 3, http:// www.online-literature.com/victor_hugo/les_ 10 Berlin, The Crooked Timber, 150. miserables/170/.

82 Dædalus Winter 2007 The Jacobin and the Ultra will agree science, and others “a necessary com- The Ultras on one thing: when one chops the wood, promise with error.”13 That compromise of moral revolution chips fly. Well, I am such a chip. And be- ended “continuous and mass sufferings, fore I am treated like such a chip by mor- hatreds and wrongs.” al revolutionaries in the name of Virtue “After a thousand years,” concluded and Freedom, in the name of the Divine Trevelyan, “religion was at length re- Order and Revealed Truth, allow me to leased from the obligation to practice say, “Without me, ladies and gentlemen. cruelty on principle, by the admission I have already learned this lesson.” Then that it is the incorrigible nature of man you will ask me, “Do you know, you to hold different opinions on specula- Malcontent from the sect of the eternal- tive subjects.”14 ly dissatis½ed and afraid, any revolution The Toleration Act will be called by that would be different?” And I would this historian “a curious patchwork of answer, “Well, there have been different compromise, illogicality, and political revolutions . . . . ” good sense.”15 Wise Britons, wise Ma- The English Revolution of 1689 was cauley Trevelyan. called the Glorious Revolution, and not because of heroic acts and victorious battles, nor even because of a victory XV over a stupid monarch. “The true glory We, the Malcontents from the sects of the British revolution,” wrote George of the eternally unsatis½ed and afraid, Macaulay Trevelyan, “lay in the fact that dream of something similar. We do not it was bloodless, that there was no civil want further moral revolutions; a tight- war, no massacre, no proscription, and ening of the reins; special commissions above all that a settlement by consent to track down the enemies of Virtue or was reached of the religious and politi- the Divine Order; the proscription list cal differences.” This settlement stood of enemies, those who are suspected of the test of time; it stabilized freedom in animosity. We the Malcontents dream political life and practical compromise of just such a patchwork of compromise in the world of religious passions. and good sense. We the Malcontents do “The men of 1689 were not heroes. not want further revolutions in a coun- Few of them were even honest men. But try that has not yet recovered from the they were very clever men, and, taught last several . . . . by bitter experience, they behaved at this supreme crisis as very clever men do not always behave, with sense and mod- eration.”12 This dangerous situation compelled the bickering Whigs and Tories to make a compromise known as the Revolution Settlement. This was accompanied by the Toleration Act, in which some saw the right to live according to one’s con- 13 Ibid., 474.

12 G. Macaulay Trevelyan, History of England 14 Ibid., 476. (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1926), 473. 15 Ibid.

Dædalus Winter 2007 83 Cindy D. Ness

The rise in female violence

Whether encountered in the mythos about womanhood and led him to envi- of the Madonna or in the image of the sion women playing a special role in car- dutiful wife and obedient daughter, fe- rying out his project of satyagraha (the males have been regarded over the ages search for truth) based on his doctrine as having a special capacity to reinstate of ahisma (nonviolence). For Gandhi, balance where it has been undermined ahisma was the only viable road, politi- by the excesses of men. While excep- cally or spiritually, upon which to chal- tions to this stereotype are easily found lenge and transform the moral recalci- throughout history–the young Joan of trance of British rule in India and the Arc wreaked havoc against the English injustices that flowed from it; essential- for a brief period, and Catherine the ly, ahisma was a counterforce powerful Great led the Russian army in many vic- enough to check blatant aggression torious campaigns–women have been without responding to it in kind. Gan- celebrated chiefly for their ability to give dhi fully believed that peace came about and nurture life, not their ability to take by changing the heart of one’s adversary it away. through moral, not physical, force. It is this hallowed view of feminine Gandhi’s early experiences with satya- nature, evident across cultures, and the graha helped shape his thinking about extraordinary inner strength associated the relationship of men and women to with it that informed Gandhi’s ideas violence. The picketing of liquor and foreign clothes shops in 1921, though successful in achieving many of its goals, Cindy D. Ness is director of programs at the Cen- was in the end a failure in Gandhi’s eyes ter on Terrorism at the John Jay College of Crim- because the crowd (decidedly male), inal Justice and a practicing psychotherapist in trained for civil disobedience, instead New York City. Her forthcoming publications in- turned violent. Gandhi’s writings of the clude “Why Girls Fight: Female Youth Violence time suggest that the incident convinced in the Inner City” and an edited compilation “Fe- him that men lacked the discipline to male Terrorism and Militancy: Agency, Utility, carry out nonviolent protest. He saw and Organization.” men as by nature prone to arrogance, easily angered, and thus ill-suited to sus- © 2007 by the American Academy of Arts tain insult without retaliating. If men & Sciences came to exercise ahisma, he believed,

84 Dædalus Winter 2007 they only did so by traversing “a labori- dence that, since his assassination in The rise ous analytical process,”1 whereas wom- 1948, the world has become less vio- in female violence en, given their tendency “toward service lent or that women have come close and sacri½ce,” came to it “naturally and to bringing about its transformation. intuitively.”2 On the contrary, during the last thirty Perhaps nowhere more clearly than years, straddling the close of the twen- in his classic message, “To the Women tieth century and the opening of the of India in 1921,” does Gandhi articu- twenty-½rst, the extent of female par- late his faith in women’s civilizing capa- ticipation in violence around the globe city. In his passionate appeal to women has grown as never before. Girls and to take up picketing and spinning, he women now make up 30 to 40 percent underscores women’s centrality to the of the combatants in numerous ethno- cause: “If non-violence is the law of separatist/guerrilla struggles, and they our being, the future is with women.”3 have carried out suicide bombings in Though Gandhi never spelled out a spe- several parts of the world. In many ci½c agenda for women to carry out, Western countries, too, the incidence of he held that it was they, and not men, females being arrested for violent crimi- who were best suited to awaken the nal offenses has increased sharply. One conscience of the world. He wrote, “If must wonder what accounts for the ap- Europe will drink in the lesson of non- pearance of this trend across such wide- violence it will do so through its wom- ly disparate cultural realities. One must en.”4 Indeed, he believed, “it [was] giv- also wonder what it means for our world en to her to teach the art of peace to the for females, purportedly ‘the better half warring world”; to do so was “her spe- of humanity,’ to exhibit a strong and cial vocation and privilege.”5 It should ever-growing presence in war, personal be noted that Gandhi’s call for women’s violence, and destruction in general. political involvement was at the time While we should not lose sight of the nothing short of radical. fact that girls and women who partici- Yet, despite the great faith that Gan- pate in militancy and terrorism are, at dhi placed in women’s capacity to cre- the outset, frequently forced to do so, ate widespread peace, there is little evi- coercion alone does not account for the mobilization of thousands of girls and women as combatants in guerrilla wars. 1 M. K. Gandhi, Non-violent Resistance: Satya- graha (New York: Schocken Books, 1961), 330. It would also be inaccurate to perceive females as only following orders when 2 Ibid. political conflict turns violent. Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, the Rwandan national 3 Young India, April 10, 1930. Quoted from M. minister of family and women’s affairs, K. Gandhi, The Collected Works of Mahatma Gan- dhi, vol. xliii (Delhi: The Publications Divi- and the ½rst woman to be charged with sion, Ministry of Information and Broadcast- genocide and crimes against humanity ing, Government of India, 1971), 217. for ordering the rape and murder of countless Tutsi men and women, stands 4 M. K. Gandhi, Gandhi on Women: Collection of out as an example, albeit an extreme Mahatma Gandhi’s Writing and Speeches on Wom- one, of violent leadership by a woman. en, compiled by Pushpa Joshi (Ahmedabad, In- dia: Navajivan Publishing House, 1988), 24. Additionally, it is important to note that norms regarding the use of violence 5 Ibid., 26. by women have undergone a marked

Dædalus Winter 2007 85 Cindy D. shift not only in conflict zones, where some of the structural and cultural Ness the need to defend one’s life is acutely changes of the mid-to-late twentieth on nonviolence felt, and in disenfranchised communi- century that have set the stage for the & violence ties, where life is comparatively hard. escalation in violence by females, keep- They have changed dramatically in ing in mind that violence is also always mainstream culture as well. In the Unit- driven by conditions, context, and lan- ed States, for example, it has become guage that are unique to the setting in common to see female heroines and which it emerges. (Indeed, without an villains committing violence in action accounting of the unique factors that movies and on prime-time television.6 leave females primed to engage in vio- Rather than being portrayed as gender lence in their particular locations, the anomalies, violent females have come observation that females today resort to be lauded in American media as for- to violence in greater numbers than midable opponents. Such portrayals fly their predecessors did is of little prac- in the face of the female paci½st Gandhi tical value.) imagined over three-quarters of a centu- The structural and cultural changes ry ago, who was by nature disinclined to that I believe underwrite this social do battle. trend are a fading demarcation between In fact, it would be fair to say that, in the public and private spheres (partic- the last few decades, the use of violence ularly in the West), a growing recogni- by females has become visible and at- tion of (and dependence on) the politi- tained categorical signi½cance in an un- cal utility of women, and a signi½cant precedented way. Concomitantly, a dis- lessening of the divide between com- cursive space has opened up in which batant and noncombatant status in war we can problematize the social basis of, zones. I will attempt to make the case and the symbolic structures associated that the three together have contributed with, females both acting and being con- signi½cantly to the democratization of vio- structed as ‘naturally’ violent. While lence, a phrase ½rst introduced by the edi- the resort to violence by females is not tor and commentator, Fareed Zakaria, quite the ‘new normal,’ its increase cer- but used here to reflect an increased ac- tainly delivers a blow to the self-sacri- cess to violence and its instruments by ½cial and paci½stic trope that has widely both genders.7 Not only has violence characterized female behavior for cen- ceased to be a resource monopolized by turies. The matter now at hand is how nation-states, as Zakaria contends, it has one should understand that behavior also ceased to reside solely in the hands and the variables influencing its evolu- of men. tion. It is important to underscore, howev- In this essay, I will argue that, over the er, that the changing relationship of fe- last several decades, the use of violence males to violence should not, in most in- by females has been granted a new de- stances (if at all), be construed as indica- gree of legitimacy in traditional as well tive of progress toward gender equality, as modern societies. I will consider whether in a terrorist organization, an ethnoseparatist struggle, or an American

6 See Martha McCaughey and Neal King, eds., Reel Knockouts: Violent Women in the Movies (Aus- 7 See Fareed Zakaria, The Future of Freedom: tin: University of Texas Press, 2001), for an ex- Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad (New tensive treatment of this subject. York: W. W. Norton, 2003).

86 Dædalus Winter 2007 inner city. A review of the literature on power. With few exceptions, political The rise women militants in traditional societies violence has been an overwhelmingly in female violence reveals a pattern whereby women com- male arena across most cultures. For batants are viewed as equal to men in this reason, any society, whether tradi- issues relating to struggle, but not out- tional or modern, that sanctions female side of them.8 To be sure, it is a com- violence must justify the breech of its monplace of political violence that, in social order to itself in its own cultural the name of the cause, traditional mores terms. So as not to be dismissed as being can be overridden without making a fun- ‘deviant’ and simply marginalized, fe- damental, or even long-term, alteration males who commit violence must in all in a society’s values regarding gender other ways ‘belong’ to their social world, relations. Leila Khaled’s observation of the organization of which is predicated more than twenty years ago that nation- on a host of structural arrangements and alism is the ½rst cause seems particular- deeply felt moral beliefs.10 ly relevant to the majority of politically violent struggles today in societies that Scholars typically agree that with the do not have egalitarian gender-role ex- emergence of industrialization in the pectations to start with. Where the two late eighteenth century, the world of collide, nationalist aspirations take pri- work was gradually separated from fam- ority over feminist ones; the frequent- ily life and, for all intents and purposes, ly cited reason is that equality between the public sphere became the province men and women cannot be realized in of men. Though differing in degree de- an environment of oppression. A more pending on location, social group, and candid analysis of the situation would historical period, the virtual exclusion include the reluctance that movement of females from the labor force, politics, leaders and their surrounding societies voting, and institutions of higher educa- feel toward fundamentally challenging tion–and the ideological premises their the structure of gender relations.9 exclusion rested on–sustained the di- But while the increased numbers of vorce between public and private life up females participating in violence may to World War II. not indicate gender reform, it does vio- In the last decades of the twentieth late conventional notions of gender and century, however, progressive ideas re- garding social and economic equality, in 8 For instance, discussion of this point can combination with technical innovation, be found in Leila Khaled, “Arm the Spirit,” undermined the legitimacy of these divi- http://www.pflppal.org/opinion/interviews/ sions, dramatically increasing opportu- khaled/arm.html (accessed August 6, 2006); nities for women outside of the home. and Marieme Heile-Lucas, “Women, Nation- As large numbers of women in Western alism, and Religion in the Algerian Liberation Struggle,” in Rethinking Fanon: The Continuing societies entered the work force, the Dialogue, ed. Nigel Gibson (Amherst, N.Y.: Hu- public/private binary, which had played manity Books, 1999). a signi½cant role in structuring their be- havior, became increasingly blurred and 9 For a detailed discussion of gender reform porous, with regard not only to employ- via female political violence, see Cindy D. Ness, “In the Name of the Cause: Women’s Work ment but to many realms of public life. in Secular and Religious Terrorism,” Studies in The movement from one sphere into an- Conflict and Terrorism 28 (5) (September–Octo- ber 2005): 353–373. 10 Ibid.

Dædalus Winter 2007 87 Cindy D. other raised questions about the inevita- them to their new behavior.12 Even Ness on bility of their separation and the norms more damning were actual studies that nonviolence that underwrote it. debunked the idea that employed fe- & violence To begin with, the entry of females males made for more violent ones by into the public sphere via the workplace showing that arrest rates for females, set in motion a gradual shift in ideas like those of males, actually decreased about authority and subordination in during periods of strong economic gender relations. As females in West- growth and higher employment.13 ern countries began working for wages Yet Adler’s inclination to connect the and gaining professional status follow- new statistics to the new roles women ing World War II, the ½nancial indepen- were occupying was not altogether mis- dence and the psychological empower- guided. Economic trends alone could ment that went along with working not explain why, in the 1970s, women rendered women ‘new’ social actors in of all classes gradually began to mete many ways. With their expanded role out violence alongside men in action as protectors and enforcers in the work- movies, sometimes preserving law and place, in their communities, and eventu- order and at other times undermining ally in the collective imagination came it; why heroines in literature were more the increased likelihood of their becom- readily turning to violent solutions;14 ing real and imagined agents of aggres- and why, a decade or so later, female sion. characters who maimed and killed ap- Perhaps the best-known attempt to peared in video games. These images, explain the spike in female criminal ac- which would have been taboo a few tivity, some of it violent, in the United years earlier, had crossed into the main- States during the 1960s and 1970s was stream. What these movies and other Freda Adler’s “female liberation theo- popular cultural forms were telling us ry.”11 Adler’s contention–that the in- was that if the contemporary Western creased rates of female crime, both vio- female–independent and self-directed lent and nonviolent, were an outcome –chose, she was capable of aggressing in of the greater opportunities that females ways not unlike those of her male coun- had access to–struck an emotional terpart, even for sport. chord given the rapid rede½nition that Essentially, when women gained ac- gender roles and the institutions that cess to the public sphere, it set certain reinforced them were undergoing. On changes in motion. One, they became the other hand, many feminist scholars physically present in public spaces. As of the day argued that Adler’s framing of the ‘new’ female criminal was little 12 Carol Smart, Women, Crime, and Criminolo- more than a reworking of older argu- gy: A Feminist Critique (Boston: Routledge & K. Paul, 1976), and Ngaire Naf½ne, Female Crime: ments that cast female aggression as a The Construction of Women in Criminology (Bos- move from the feminine to the mascu- ton: Allen & Unwin, 1987), to name two, have line, rather than identifying the changed written critically of Adler’s theory. sociocultural and economic circum- stances particular to females that drove 13 For instance, see Jane Chapman, Economic Realities and the Female Offender (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1980). 11 See Freda Adler, Sisters in Crime: The Rise of the New Female Criminal (New York: McGraw- 14 For example, see Gail Goodwin, Glass People Hill, 1975). (New York: Knopf, 1972).

88 Dædalus Winter 2007 mothers and caregivers, women were which they take on new roles while still The rise removed from public life and their bod- adhering to the gender dictates of the in female violence ies ‘privatized.’ In the marketplace, how- dominant social structure. Yet, surpris- ever, females were much freer to make ing as it may seem, in many such soci- use of their physicality, including their eties, females have still come to play a physical strength, as they saw ½t. No large and growing role in political vio- longer were female egotism, rage, and lence. As we shall see, the usefulness self-hatred destined to be subdued of women as violent political actors in- through internalization.15 Unlike her creases in proportion to the exigencies homebound sister, the female in the of war. marketplace needed both to appear and actually be strong enough to defend her- What began before World War II in self–if not physically, then psychologi- many parts of the world as resistance to cally. In tandem, the culture no longer colonial rule became the bloody task of saw strength and aggression associated nation building and the clash of ethno- with women as deviant, but accepted it separatist claims in the decades that fol- as a part of modern womanhood. lowed it. During the second half of the To put it another way, whereas compe- twentieth century, separatist guerrilla titiveness and skills of domination are struggles, and conflicts between ethni- not highly valued attributes in the pri- cally or religiously divided populations, vate sphere, they are commonly thought increasingly came to characterize the to be instrumental in the public sphere. landscape of collective violence.16 Never Not only self-defense, but also personal had the world seen the proliferation of empowerment and retaliatory violence, so many separatist or intrastate conflicts gradually came to be seen as legitimate at the same time, most of them arising forms of expression for females operat- in non-Western societies where gender ing in the public sphere. No longer was relations and the hierarchies that sup- the female limited to the role of victim– ported them were extremely traditional. she could also now ‘perform’ the role of While women had been involved in aggressor. In essence, by the end of the separatist struggles before the cold war, twentieth century, a space had opened in the last decades of the twentieth cen- up for women to be both violent and ‘le- tury, separatist groups pursued an unpre- gitimate’ in mainstream culture. cedented policy of deliberately recruit- While the entry of females into the ing women and children into their cad- public sphere, especially since the 1980s, res. The introduction of women and has been a worldwide phenomenon and girls into combat was a response to lo- not just a Western one, it has been most gistical demands: the mounting number pronounced in Western nations. Indeed, of casualties, the intensi½ed governmen- in conservative societies, where gender tal crackdowns, and the ability of wom- roles are extremely traditional, it is that en to escape detection more easily than much more incumbent upon women men can.17 The turn toward female re- and girls to improvise techniques by

16 See Charles Tilly, “Violence, Terror, and 15 See E. E. Maccoby and C. N. Jacklin, The Politics as Usual,” The Boston Review 27 (3–4) Psychology of Sex Differences (Palo Alto, Calif.: (Summer 2002). Stanford University Press, 1974), on the inter- nalization of anger by females. 17 See Ness, “In the Name of the Cause,” 357.

Dædalus Winter 2007 89 Cindy D. cruitment swept across the continents cently, religious militant groups were Ness of South America, Africa, and Asia. The able to trade on expectations that fe- on nonviolence influx of women and girls signi½cantly males were adverse by nature to com- & violence strengthened groups such as the Kurdis- mitting violence: as such, women tan Workers Party (pkk), the Liberation were particularly successful in slipping Tamil Tigers of Ealaam (ltte), the Shin- through tight security arrangements ing Path, and the Revolutionary Armed under a number of guises. As part of Forces of Columbia (farc), all of which an overall strategy to inflict maximum might not have been able to sustain damage, females in many groups were their operations had they not welcomed called upon to carry out a dispropor- women. Women actively sought to join tionate percentage of suicide missions.18 these armed struggles–although coer- The female suicide bomber put a new cive recruitment is a staple of many eth- face on the use of lethal force–not in noseparatist groups, the widespread the movies or in the imaginary world poverty and lack of economic opportu- of a novel, but in real time. nity that has historically afflicted third- While the numbers of females en- world nations set the stage for females gaged in ethnoseparatist struggles had to join rebel movements en masse. Being always been much greater than the part of a rebel force ensured that at least numbers involved in religious terrorist one’s need for food and shelter would be groups, it is the sensational acts of the met. latter that brought global attention to If women and girls were initially ad- female participation in political vio- mitted into a wider range of roles based lence. Indeed, a hallmark of religious on necessity, their participation gradu- terrorism had been its lack of female ally became integrated into the organi- participation and the speci½c ideology zational structure of many such groups. that deterred it. For example, given the In essence, the more time women and strict gendered demarcation of the pub- girls engaged in these less conventional lic and private spheres in Islam, the re- roles, the more conventionality these sort to violence by women and girls, roles came to assume. In fact, the female rather than constituting a restorative militant, over a relatively short period act, until recently amounted to a sign of time, developed a global presence in of cultural fragmentation.19 But as reli- armed struggle on a scale that was with- gious terrorist groups came under in- out historical precedent. Rather than an creased pressure and their support base exotic exception, the female combatant was threatened, they, too, often looked was transformed into a familiar ½gure to women to embrace violence and to on the battle½eld. News coverage of sec- introduce new vigor into their struggle. tarian strife depicting the female mili- For example, in 2002, at a point when tant with an automatic rifle announced Chechen rebel forces had suffered heavy, to the world that men were not the only demoralizing losses, Hawa Barayev ones who could claim expertise in vio- drove a truck into a building housing lence and destruction. In addition to providing militant 18 See Yoram Schweitzer, “Suicide Terrorism: groups with increased personnel, fe- Developments and Characteristics” (lecture, Institute of Computer Technology, Herzliya, males also brought them greater flex- Israel, February 21, 2000). ibility in carrying out their offensive operations. Both secular and, more re- 19 See Ness, “In the Name of the Cause,” 360.

90 Dædalus Winter 2007 Russian Special Forces, killing twenty- herself. In many conflicts, the dividing The rise in female seven soldiers. Wafa Idris, the ½rst Pal- line between combatant and noncom- violence estinian female suicide bomber, struck batant has become increasingly blurred. the same day that Yassir Arafat made a speech inviting females to join the Whereas a century ago male sol- armed resistance against Israeli occupa- diers on the battle½eld accounted for tion. Arafat’s call to women was an at- approximately 90 percent of war-rela- tempt to radicalize the ½ght for indepen- ted deaths, in the twentieth century dence at a time when his popularity was civilians became the main casualties waning and his control over the Pales- of war.21 In signi½cant part, the shift tinian Authority was in question.20 Al- was an outgrowth of more powerful though females have ½gured prominent- weaponry and advanced technologies ly in secular groups such as the pkk and that made it possible to use lethal force the ltte over the last twenty years, it at a distance (the aerial bombardment was the spate of Palestinian female of cities, rocket grenades, etc.). Strikes bombers in 2002 and the six attacks by speci½cally aimed at ½xed military tar- Chechen women in 2003 that truly cap- gets (i.e., air½elds, suspected ammuni- tured media attention. Since then, Al tion sites), while in one sense delivered Qaeda–associated groups have flirted with great precision, were not suf½cient- with the idea of using females on a num- ly exact to avoid causing ‘collateral’ or ber of occasions, in an attempt to regain civilian damage. That intrastate conflicts the element of surprise they have lost be- over the last half-century were routinely cause of the increased government sur- fought in the spaces where people lived veillance of their operations. also placed civilians on the frontlines. Clearly, the political necessity for fe- Not surprisingly, when battlefront and males, in both secular and religious civil arena occupy the same geographi- struggles, to engage in violence has cal space, the distinction between civil- come to override the long-standing cul- ian and soldier is compromised, if not tural barriers that have inhibited them entirely obliterated. from doing so. Militant/terrorist orga- Advances in weaponry and the ‘local- nizations have mastered the rhetoric for izing’ of the battle½eld left women and leaving intact the sense of what proper children particularly vulnerable to at- gender roles are in normal times, even tack, especially since, all too frequently, as they encourage females to break with they were left behind in the villages from tradition for speci½c ends. By placing which men were either killed or taken the representation of female violence by force, or which the men had aban- within ethically or religiously justi½able doned in anticipation of being killed. frameworks, they have also gone far in As Carolyn Nordstrom describes the sit- redrawing the symbolic boundaries that uation, political violence moved “from de½ne who is defending the group and the trenches to the backyards,” putting its cause and who is defending his or women at the epicenter of war. In her analysis of how females live and survive 20 See Barbara Victor’s case study of the fe- male Palestinian suicide bombers that struck in Israel beginning in 2002. Barbara Victor, 21 See Ted Gurr, People Versus States: Minorities Army of Roses: Inside the World of Palestinian at Risk in the New Century (Washington, D.C.: Female Suicide Bombers (Philadelphia: Rodale United States Institute of Peace Press, 2000), Press, 2003). for a discussion of this and related issues.

Dædalus Winter 2007 91 Cindy D. in war zones, she concluded, “Women has been laid down along gender lines– Ness and girls do not have an option about danger is no longer limited to a physical on 22 nonviolence ½ghting in wars of the 21st century.” challenge that can be reserved for males. & violence No longer exempt from being a mili- The dismantling of this relationship tary target by dint of being female (the has dealt a serious blow to the construc- concept of noncombatant immunity has tion of the feminine, which to a large ex- historically not been as sparing as the tent rests upon the necessity (and sup- term suggests), women were placed in posed naturalness) of the protector/pro- the position of having to protect and tected binary. No longer can the female provide for themselves and their chil- exist in her state of ‘innocence’; thus, dren in any way that they could. To be humanity can no longer be assured of certain, in many hostilities the rape and her ‘civilizing’ capacity, as Gandhi con- killing of women and children became ceived of it, since she is now herself a the preferred weapon to destroy the ene- party to destruction on the world stage. my–by targeting what an enemy holds And so, as she experiences herself and sacred one could strategically under- the world around her differently, the mine his or her morale and ultimately world must see her differently, too. weaken him or her. Avoiding capture and persecution sometimes meant that Gandhi never lived to see the realiza- a woman had to move her family from tion of the culture of nonviolence that place to place, while at other times it re- he envisioned, nor have women dis- quired the direct de½ance of government avowed the use of violence as a means or rebel orders to survive. It could mean, to an end as he anticipated. Rather, over for example, running food shipments, the last several decades, the assumption carrying medical supplies to a remote that women are innately nonviolent has part of the countryside, or shooting a undergone major revision. Our collec- rebel or government soldier in self-de- tive ideas about who does and who does fense. not possess the potential to be a violent Thus, while not formally combatants, actor have been changing. Depictions of given the reality of their everyday exis- females as violent ½gures are no longer tence, women and children in conflict considered the exception but have be- zones have had to become ‘actors’ in come mainstream cultural representa- their own defense, meeting violence tions. and its threat not through males but If we are to understand the rise in fe- directly. Indeed, it would be fair to say male violence, it is essential that we that the new forms of insecurity and move away from a belief, like Gandhi’s, violence, including terrorism, which in the determinative force of human, have come to characterize the majority and especially female, ‘nature,’ and that of armed conflict in the late twentieth we acknowledge the contributions made century, and which by de½nition do not by social forces. These underlying condi- allow for preparation, challenge the as- tions–poverty, religious and ethnic ri- sumption of the traditional protector/ valries, and the techniques of modern protected relationship that historically warfare, as well as the perception that females are valuable assets to the func- 22 Carolyn Nordstrom, “Gendered War,” Stud- tioning of such organizations–drive ies in Conflict and Terrorism 28 (5) (September– females into armies of liberation and October 2005): 399. best explain their voluntary participa-

92 Dædalus Winter 2007 tion. Moreover, in conflict zones that The rise rely on lethal force from a distance or in female violence guerrilla hit-and-run tactics, the doc- trine of noncombatant immunity–that civilians who do not participate in the operations of any armed force are grant- ed protection from attack–is rendered meaningless. As the concept of ‘danger’ becomes something that an individual cannot anticipate with any certainty, tra- ditional gendered notions of protection also become far less instrumental and, therefore, less relevant. During the closing decades of the twentieth century and the opening ones of the twenty-½rst, the violent female has become a category with new options of behavior and representation–both heroic and antiheroic. No longer can females simply be thought of as the ob- servers or witnesses to ‘evil’: the will to violence, rather than being a male char- acteristic, is gender-neutral and depend- ent on a host of contextual factors. As the roles of protector and predator–real and imagined–become more open to them, the likelihood of females acting as agents of aggression is sure to increase.

Dædalus Winter 2007 93 Mia Bloom

Female suicide bombers: a global trend

Ever since Muriel Degauque, a Bel- er, women have mostly played support- gian convert to radical Islam, blew her- ing roles. “Society, through its body of self up in Iraq last November, questions rules and its numerous institutions, has have surfaced about the growing role conventionally dictated [women’s] roles of women in terrorism. Degauque’s at- within the boundaries of militancy. As- tack occurred on the same day that Saji- sisting in subordinate roles is welcomed da Atrous al-Rishawi’s improvised ex- and encouraged. Actually ½ghting in the plosive device (ied) failed to detonate war is not.”1 Most often, the primary at a wedding in Amman. This apparent contribution expected of women has growing trend of women bombers has been to sustain an insurgency by giving the general public and counterterrorism birth to many ½ghters and raising them specialists concerned because of its im- in a revolutionary environment. plication that women will be key players Women are now taking a leading in future terrorist attacks. role in conflicts by becoming suicide Yet the recent focus on female suicide bombers–using their bodies as human bombers neglects the long history of fe- detonators for the explosive material male involvement in political violence. strapped around their waists. The ½rst In reality women have participated in in- female suicide bomber, a seventeen- surgency, revolution, and war for a long year-old Lebanese girl named Sana’a time. Women have played prominent Mehaydali, was sent by the Syrian So- roles in the Russian Narodnaya Volya in cialist National Party (ssnp/pps), a the nineteenth century, the Irish Repub- secular, pro-Syrian Lebanese organiza- lican Army, the Baader-Meinhof organi- tion, to blow herself up near an Israeli zation in Germany, the Italian Red Bri- convoy in Lebanon in 1985, killing ½ve gades, and the Popular Front for the Lib- Israeli soldiers. Of the twelve suicide eration of Palestine. Historically, howev- attacks conducted by the ssnp, women took part in six of them. From Lebanon, Mia Bloom is assistant professor of international the incidence of female bombers spread affairs at the University of Georgia. She is the au- thor of “Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Ter- 1 Lucy Frazier, “Abandon Weeping for Weap- ror” (2005). ons: Palestinian Women Suicide Bombers,” http://www.nyu.edu/classes/keefer/joe/fra- © 2007 by Mia Bloom zier.html (accessed November 21, 2003).

94 Dædalus Winter 2007 to other countries–Sri Lanka, Turkey, as the wife of a soldier on her way to the Female Chechnya, Israel, and now Iraq. Out of maternity clinic, she gained access to suicide bombers the approximately seventeen groups that the high-security facility.5 She had even have started using the tactical innova- visited the maternity clinic for several tion of suicide bombing, women have weeks prior to her attack to maintain her been operatives in more than half of cover.6 The advent of women suicide them.2 Between 1985 and 2006, there bombers has thus transformed the revo- have been in excess of 220 women sui- lutionary womb into an exploding one. cide bombers, representing about 15 per- cent of the total.3 Moreover, the upsurge Why do women become suicide in the number of female bombers has bombers? Motives vary: to avenge a per- come from both secular and religious sonal loss, to redeem the family name, organizations, even though religious to escape a life of sheltered monotony groups initially resisted using women. and achieve fame, or to equalize the pa- Their participation in suicide bomb- triarchal societies in which they live. ings starkly contradicts the theory that In many instances, the women are women are more likely to choose peace- seeking revenge. Consider, for exam- ful mechanisms for conflict resolution ple, the women who join the Liberation than men are–that women are inherent- Tigers of Tamil Eelam (ltte), which ly more disposed toward moderation, is based in the Tamil areas, in the north- compromise, and tolerance in their atti- ern and eastern provinces, of Sri Lan- tudes toward international conflict.4 (In ka.7 According to anthropologist Dari- fact, most existing notions of women in ni Rajasingham-Senanayake, the gov- the midst of conflict portray them as vic- ernment has committed organized vio- tims of war rather than as perpetrators.) lence against the Tamils through a sys- Complicating these notions of feminin- tematic campaign of disappearances, ity further is the fact that the ied is of- rape, checkpoint searches, and torture– ten disguised under a woman’s clothing as well as the elimination of whole vil- to make her appear pregnant, and so be- lages in remote areas.8 Moreover, in the yond suspicion or reproach. On April midst of conflict, the government forces 25, 2006, Kanapathipillai Manjula Devi, have not been mindful to differentiate used such a tactic to penetrate a military civilians from combatants and militants. hospital in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Posing These oppressive tactics, along with civilian deaths, have soured the Tamil 2 “From Jerusalem to Jakarta and from Bali to Baghdad, the suicide bomber is clearly the 5 Arjuna Guwardena, “Female Black Tigers: A weapon of choice for international terrorists.” Different Breed of Cat,” in Schweitzer, ed., Fe- Quoting Don Van Natta, Jr., “Big Bang Theory: male Suicide Bombers, 87. The Terror Industry Fields its Ultimate Weap- on,” New York Times, August 24, 2003, sec. 4, 1. 6 Tamil sources, interview by Mia Bloom, July 2006. 3 Yoram Schweitzer, ed., Female Suicide Bomb- ers: Dying for Equality? Jaffee Center for Strate- 7 In July 1997 three national human rights com- gic Studies, Memorandum 84, August 2006, 8. missions established in 1994 found that there had been 16,742 disappearances since July 1988. 4 Emile Sahliyeh and Zixian Deng, “The Deter- minants of Palestinians’ Attitude Toward Peace 8 Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake, interview with Israel,” International Studies Quarterly 47 by Mia Bloom, Colombo, Sri Lanka, October (4) (December 2003): 701. 25, 2002.

Dædalus Winter 2007 95 Mia Bloom population on the government’s assur- ed carrying a homemade bomb on Tver- on ances of devolution and equal rights, skaya-Yamskaya Ulitsa. nonviolence which in turn has emboldened the & violence Muzhikhoyeva [admitted to having been] ltte and solidi½ed their control of Jaff- recruited by Chechen rebels as a suicide na.9 Rajasingham-Senanayake explains, bomber, in exchange for $1,000 in com- “In this context militant groups who pensation to her relatives to repay for jew- in½ltrate camps have little dif½culty in elry she had stolen from them . . . . When recruiting new cadres from deeply frus- the rebels sent her to Moscow to carry out trated and resentful youth, men and her mission, she changed her mind and women, girls and boys.”10 In fact, the got herself arrested by police.13 atrocities need not even hurt a Tamil woman directly for her to join the ltte, Muzhikhoyeva was the ½rst bomber as long as they affect the Tamil commu- to be captured alive. When the court nity as a whole: sentenced her to the maximum of twen- ty years despite the fact that she had Witnessing rape . . . hearing about rape opted not to explode her cargo, Muzhik- from other villagers and the Army’s kill- hoyeva shouted, “Now I know why ev- ing of Tamil youth (girls and boys arrest- eryone hates the Russians!”–adding ed by the Sri Lankan Army) . . . and the that she would return and “blow you all feeling of helplessness in not being able up.”14 This powerful image resonated to defend against the Sri Lankan Army throughout the Chechen community. are the main reasons for the girls joining Even though Muzhikhoyeva had done the ltte.11 the right thing, the Russian court had As the example of the Tamil wom- not granted her any leniency, radicaliz- en demonstrates, women generally be- ing her even more in the process. come involved, at least initially, for per- However, while women usually be- sonal, rather than ideological, reasons. come suicide bombers in response to a In Chechnya, to give another example, personal tragedy, some may also believe the female operatives are called ‘Black they can change their society’s gender Widows,’ because many were the sis- norms through militant involvement. ters, mothers, or wives of Chechen men According to Clara Beyler, a counter- killed in battles with federal troops.12 terrorism analyst in Washington, D.C., Zarema Muzhikhoyeva was one such and formerly a researcher for the Inter- widow. On July 10, 2003, she was arrest- national Policy Institute for Counterter- rorism in Herzliya, Israel, 9 Robert I. Rotberg, ed., Creating Peace in Sri Lanka: Civil War and Reconciliation (Cambridge, been a product of societal forces predisposing Mass.: World Peace Foundation and the Belfer and molding them to become militants as an Center for Science and International Affairs, expression of Ayat, traditional Chechen mores 1999), 9. (Ph.D. thesis, University of Cincinnati, forth- coming). 10 Rajasingham-Senanayake in ibid., 62. 13 Anatoly Medetsky, “Court Tries Alleged 11 Tamil sources, personal correspondence Tverskaya Bomber,” St. Petersburg Times, with the author, November 26, 2003. March 30, 2004.

12 There is some dispute about whether the 14 Steven Lee Meyers, “From Dismal Chech- Black Widows are in fact widows. Irina Bazar- nya, Women Turn to Bombs,” New York Times, ya argues that many are not widows but have September 10, 2004.

96 Dædalus Winter 2007 There is a difference between men and of martyrdom. Chechen rebels . . . write Female women suicide attackers: women consid- poems and songs about her.17 suicide bombers er combat as a way to escape the predes- The use of female operatives, especial- tined life that is expected of them. When ly by a religious militant organization women become human bombs, their in- like the Chechen Al Ansar al-Mujahi- tent is to make a statement not only in the deen, is signi½cant. Until recently, a fe- name of a country, a religion, a leader, but male bomber was almost certainly sent also in the name of their gender.15 by a secular organization. In effect, Again, the Chechen Black Widows [t]he growth in the number of Chechen provide strong support for this idea. His- female suicide bombers signaled the be- torically, a woman’s most relevant role ginning of a change in the position of fun- in Chechen society was to raise children, damentalist Islamic organizations regard- form their characters, and make them ing the involvement of women in suicide strong so that they became warriors attacks–a change that [has since] become for the Islamic faith (mujahideen) when devastatingly apparent.18 they grew up. Even after they were al- lowed to be a part of battles, female in- The idea of violence empowering surgents were initially used merely to women had already spread through the supply medical aid, food, and water to West Bank and the Gaza Strip. On Janu- the men; they also carried weapons and ary 27, 2002, Wafa Idris became the ½rst ammunition across enemy territory and Palestinian woman to perpetrate an act maintained the guerrillas’ morale. At of suicide terror. A twenty-seven-year- the Dubrovka theater siege, for example, old aid worker for the Palestinian Red the men took care of the explosives and Crescent Society from the Al-Am’ari ref- intimidation, while the women distrib- ugee camp near Ramallah, she was car- uted medical supplies, blankets, water, rying a backpack with explosives: chewing gum, and chocolate. Though The bomb in her rucksack was made the women allegedly toyed threatening- with tnt packed into pipes. Triacetone ly with their two-kilo bomb belts, they triperoxide, made by mixing acetone with did not control the detonators–the men phosphate, is ground to a powder. In a retained control of the remotes.16 grotesque parody of the domestic female The Black Widows, on the other hand, stereotype, it is usually ground in a food choose to die as a bomber in order to show mixer, before being fed into metal tubes.19 the strength of the resistance. They can On the way to delivering it to someone wear kamikaze bomb-belts, or drive a else, she got stuck in a revolving door, truck that is full of explosives. Chechen detonating the explosives.20 She killed guerrillas are inspired with the image of Khava Barayeva–the ½rst to walk the way 17 Ibid.

15 Clara Beyler, “Messengers of Death: Female 18 Yoram Schweitzer, “A Fundamental Change Suicide Bombers,” http://www.ict.org.il/arti- in Tactics,” Washington Post, October 19, 2003, cles/articledet.cfm?articleid=470. B03.

16 Anne Speckhard and Khapta Akhmedova, 19 Giles Foden, “Death and the Maidens,” The “Black Widows: The Chechen Female Suicide Guardian, July 18, 2003. Terrorists,” in Schweitzer, Female Suicide Bomb- ers, 63–90. 20 Agence France Presse, April 12, 2002.

Dædalus Winter 2007 97 Mia Bloom one Israeli civilian and wounded 140 sacri½ce themselves for the homeland,” on 24 nonviolence others. bragged one Al-Aqsa leader. Matti & violence Though her death was allegedly acci- Steinberg, a former special advisor on dental, it instantly transformed her in- Arab affairs to the Israeli government, to a cult heroine throughout the Arab described how a Hamas bimonthly pub- world. The military wing of Fatah, the lication–dedicated to women–was re- Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, took respon- plete with letters to the editor from Pal- sibility for the attack three days later. estinian women asking for permission Birzeit students appealed for more wom- to participate directly in the conflict and en to emulate Idris. Commenting on Id- asserting their right to be martyrs.25 ris’s death, female students stated, “The Palestinian women have torn the gen- struggle is not limited strictly to men . . . . der classi½cation out of their birth cer- It’s unusual [for a Palestinian woman to ti½cates, declaring that sacri½ce for the martyr herself], but I support it . . . . Soci- Palestinian homeland would not be for ety does not accept this idea because it men alone; on the contrary, all Palestin- is relatively new, but after it happens ian women will write the history of the again, it will become routine.”21 And in liberation with their blood, and will be- an editorial entitled, “It’s a Woman!” Al- come time bombs in the face of the Israe- Sha’ab proclaimed: li enemy. They will not settle for being It is a woman who teaches you today a mothers of martyrs.26 lesson in heroism, who teaches you the This participation of Palestinian meaning of Jihad, and the way to die a women in violence had global reverber- martyr’s death. It is a woman who has ations. In 2002, Indian security forces shocked the enemy, with her thin, mea- twice went on high alert, in January and ger, and weak body . . . . It is a woman who again in August, to guard against possi- blew herself up, and with her exploded ble attacks by female suicide bombers. all the myths about women’s weakness, The suspects sprang from two Pakistan- submissiveness, and enslavement . . . . It based Islamic organizations, Jaish-e- is a woman who has now proven that the Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba, both meaning of [women’s] liberation is the associated with Al Qaeda. In March liberation of the body from the trials and 2003, Asharq Al-Awsat published an inter- tribulations of this world . . . and the ac- view with a woman calling herself ‘Um ceptance of death with a powerful, cour- Osama,’ the alleged leader of the wom- ageous embrace.22 en mujahideen of Al Qaeda. The Al Qaeda The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade even network claimed to have set up squads set up a special unit to train female sui- of female suicide bombers–purported- cide bombers and named it after Wafa ly including Afghans, Arabs, Chechens, Idris.23 “We have 200 young women from the Bethlehem area alone ready to 24 Graham Usher, “At 18, Bomber Became Martyr and Murderer,” The Guardian, March 21 Kul al-Arab (Israel), February 1, 2002. 30, 2002.

22 Al-Sha’ab (Egypt), February 1, 2002. 25 Matti Steinberg, interview by Mia Bloom, September 2002. 23 Sophie Claudet, “More Palestinian Women Suicide Bombers Could Be On The Way: Ana- 26 According to Dr. Samiya Sa’ad Al-Din, Al- lysts,” Middle East Times, March 1, 2002. Akhbar (Egypt), February 1, 2002.

98 Dædalus Winter 2007 and other nationalities–under orders close once male jihadists gain new recruits Female from bin Laden to attack the United and score a few successes in the war on suicide bombers States: terrorism. At the same time that a Muslim woman is indispensable to male-dominat- We are preparing for the new strike an- ed terrorist groups and the war effort, she nounced by our leaders, and I declare that also is expendable. The sudden increase it will make America forget . . . the Septem- in female bombers over the past year may ber 11 attacks. The idea came from the suc- represent nothing more than a riding wave cess of martyr operations carried out by of al-Qaeda’s success rather than a lasting young Palestinian women in the occupied effort in the global jihad . . . . [T]here is no territories. Our organization is open to all indication that these men would allow Muslim women wanting to serve the (Is- the mujahidaat to prevail authority and lamic) nation . . . . 27 replace images of the male folk-hero.29 The involvement of Palestinian wom- Indeed, the drive to recruit women en in suicide bombings has also had an as suicide bombers may actually be lit- extreme impact on the cultural norms tle more than a tactical response to the of Palestinian society. Palestinians have need for more manpower. Besides add- long had a set of rules that describe and ing women to their numbers, insurgent limit gender roles (although Palestinian organizations can shame the men into women have been mobilized politically participating, in the style of right-wing since the 1960s). These rules have dic- Hindu women who goad men into ac- tated the separation of the sexes and re- tion by saying, “Don’t be a bunch of eu- stricted women to the private sphere– nuchs.”30 This point is underscored by particularly in rural areas. Through vio- the bombers themselves. A propaganda lence, women have placed themselves on slogan in Chechnya reads: “Women’s the frontlines, in public, alongside men courage is a disgrace to that of modern to whom they are not related. This has men.”31 And in the martyrdom video resulted in a double trajectory for mili- Ayat Akras–an eighteen-year-old Pal- tant Palestinian women–convincing so- estinian woman who set off a bomb in ciety of their valid contributions while the Supersol supermarket in Jerusalem at the same time reconstructing the nor- –taped before she blew herself up, she mative ideals of the society.28 stated, “I am going to ½ght [emphasis add- ed] instead of the sleeping Arab armies At the same time, it is dif½cult to as- who are watching Palestinian girls ½ght- certain whether terrorist organizations ing alone”–an apparent jab at Arab are actually employing women out of a heightened sense of gender equality. Ac- cording to Farhana Ali, an international 29 Farhana Ali, “Muslim Female Fighters: An policy analyst at the rand Corporation: Emerging Trend,” Terrorism Monitor 3 (21) (No- vember 3, 2005). The liberal door that now permits wom- en to participate in operations will likely 30 Amrita Basu, “Hindu Women’s Activism and the Questions it Raises,” in Patricia Jeffrey and Amrita Basu, eds., Appropriating Gender: 27 “Bin Laden Has Set Up Female Suicide Women’s Activism and Politicized Religion in South Squads: Report,” Arab News, Dubai, March Asia (London: Routledge, 1998). 13, 2003. 31 Dimitri Sudakov, “Shamil Besaev Trains Fe- 28 Frazier, “Abandon Weeping for Weapons.” male Suicide Bombers,” Pravda, May 15, 2003.

Dædalus Winter 2007 99 Mia Bloom leaders for not being suf½ciently proac- women have tended to be those where on tive or manly.32 the terrorist planners needed the perpe- nonviolence & violence It appears that insurgent organizations trator to blend in on the Israeli ‘street.’ in Iraq are similarly inspired. Although These female terrorists . . . westernize women form a very small number of the their appearance, adopting modern hair- bombers in Iraq, the message is that men styles and short skirts.”34 This is remi- should not let women do their ½ghting niscent of the ways in which women in for them. On March 29, 2003, within Algeria transformed their appearance to weeks of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, two participate in the fln revolution against women (one of whom was pregnant) the French occupation during the Battle perpetrated suicide attacks against the of Algiers in the early 1960s. The use of Coalition forces. Then, on April 4, 2003, the least likely suspect is the most likely Al-Jazeera television played a video of tactical adaptation for a terrorist group two Iraqi women vowing to commit sui- under scrutiny. Terrorist groups have cide attacks: “We say to our leader and therefore looked further a½eld for volun- holy war comrade, the hero command- teers, to women and children. er Saddam Hussein, that you have sisters A growing number of insurgent organ- that you and history will boast about.” izations are also taking advantage of the In a separate video, another woman, fact that suicide bombing, especially identi½ed as Wadad Jamil Jassem, as- when perpetrated by women and young sumed a similar position: “I have devot- girls, garners a lot of media attention, ed myself [to] Jihad for the sake of God both in the West and in the Middle East. and against the American, British, and Attacks by women receive eight times Israeli in½dels and to defend the soil of the media coverage as attacks by men, our precious and dear country.”33 again largely because of the expectation Terrorist groups may also ½nd women that women are not violent. Realizing useful as suicide bombers because of the this, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades have widespread assumption that women are drawn propaganda mileage from their inherently nonviolent. Women can by- female bombers.35 The image of wom- pass, for example, Israel’s restrictive en defying tradition to sacri½ce their checkpoints and border policy, which lives for the Palestinian cause has drawn has proven fairly effective against Pales- more attention to the despair of the Pal- tinian insurgent organizations inside estinian people. “Suicide attacks are the occupied territories. Since the mid- done for effect, and the more dramatic 1990s, it has been almost impossible for the effect, the stronger the message; unmarried men under the age of forty thus a potential interest on the part of to get permits to cross the border into Is- some groups in recruiting women.”36 rael. Women don’t arouse suspicion like men and blend in more effectively with 34 Yoni Fighel, “Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Israeli civilians: “Attacks perpetrated by Female Suicide Bombers,” October 6, 2003, www.ict.org. 32 Libby Copeland, “Female Suicide Bomb- ers: The New Factor in Mideast’s Deadly Equa- 35 Scott Atran argues that as a result of Akras’s tion,” Washington Post, April 27, 2002, C1. martyrdom, Saudi Arabia sent 100 million dol- lars to fund the Al-Aqsa Intifada. 33 Cited by Roman Kupchinsky in “‘Smart Bombs’ with Souls,” Organized Crime and Ter- 36 Claudet, “More Palestinian Women Suicide rorism Watch 3 (13) (April 17, 2003). Bombers Could Be On The Way.”

100 Dædalus Winter 2007 This tactic also makes the terrorists whose husbands were arrested in Bel- Female suicide appear more threatening by erasing the gium would like to become involved in bombers imagined barriers between combatants Jihad, the holy war. [I was asked] to help and noncombatants, terrorists and in- them by ½nding someone to train them nocent civilians. This is the underlying and supply them with explosives.” Ac- message conveyed by female bombers: cording to Belgian sources, an Algerian terrorism has moved beyond a fringe named Khalid Abou Bassir, who claims phenomenon; insurgents are all around to be the coordinator for Al Qaeda in Eu- you. For secular militant Palestinian rope, was designated to lead a team of fe- groups at least, Akras’s death demon- male suicide bombers.39 strated that they are not all religious fa- Converts are a particularly dangerous natics who believe that God will grant group, not only because they can evade them entrance to Paradise or reward most pro½les, but also because they car- them with seventy-two virgins (houris). ry European passports. Also, like in most Nor are the leaders all gripped by a burn- faiths, converts may feel the need to ing desire to see all females locked be- prove themselves and can be more radi- hind black veils. For them, the involve- cal in their views than are people born ment of women is meant to signal that into the faith–thus making them more they are waging a political war, not a re- susceptible to extremist interpretations ligious one–and the suicide bombings of Islam. Converts, male as well as fe- are a carefully planned and executed part male, may very well be a key resource of a precise political strategy.37 in the future for terrorist organizations. Degauque’s attack raises an added Pascal Cruypennick was arrested in Bel- element of female converts, of which gium for sending suicide bombers to there are thousands in Europe, married Iraq; other converts, like Richard Reid to Muslim men and willing to make the and Jose Padilla, are also in custody. In sacri½ce. Increasingly, bombers in Iraq Belgium, as in many other countries in have been female converts to Islam and Europe, it appears converts are leading not Arab women. On June 2, 2006, a the charge to jihad in Iraq. woman known only as Sonja B, a Ger- man convert to Islam, was seized in Are women suicide bombers portents Germany, foiling her planned attack in of gender equality in their societies? Iraq. After his arrest last November in Unlikely. Fanaticism and death cults Morocco with sixteen other militants generally do not lead to liberation poli- suspected of terrorist activities, Moham- tics for women. Women may exhibit ed Reha, a Moroccan Belgian af½liated courage and steely resolve as terrorists, with the Moroccan Islamic Combat but if they are part of a system that af- Group (gicm), claimed, “The part- ners of several suspected terrorists be- 39 The use of women remains a point of con- ing detained in Belgium are ready to testation among different streams of Sala½sm 38 in Al Qaeda Central. The recently killed Abu carry out suicide attacks in Morocco.” Musab al-Zarqawi certainly had no qualms He continued: “Many Muslim women about using women in Iraq or Jordan, but oth- er militants, like Samir Azzouz, have thus far refused. As long as the majority of suicide 37 Usher, “At 18, Bomber Became Martyr and bombers in Iraq come from the Gulf, the num- Murderer.” bers of women will remain low since neither the Saudis nor other more conservative Wah- 38 afp report, cited by De Standaard. habis will permit women to go on jihad.

Dædalus Winter 2007 101 Mia Bloom fords them unequal status, then femi- In fact, the ltte has attempted to com- on nism doesn’t apply.40 It is telling that pel married Tamil women, including nonviolence & violence the women who participate in suicide retired female cadres, to adopt more tra- bombings are usually among the most ditional and conservative forms of dress socially vulnerable: widows and rape (the sari and head coverings) and not victims. In fact, in several instances, the wear trousers in ltte-controlled areas. women were raped or sexually abused However, some may argue that there is not by representatives of the state but a difference between the lower-ranking by the insurgents themselves. As such female operatives in terrorist groups and they are stigmatized, and thus easily re- the women who are planners and lead- cruited and exploited. ers, such as Ulrike Meinhof, who provid- ed the intellectual backbone of the Baad- Those who send these women do not er-Meinhof organization. The assassina- really care for women’s rights; they are tion of Czar Alexander II in 1881 was al- exploiting the personal frustrations . . . of so organized by a woman, and many these women for their own political goals, other nineteenth-century revolutionar- while they continue to limit the role of ies were female. Nevertheless, in many women in other aspects of life.41 cases, women’s participation in violence The evidence that males in terrorist did not lead to their equal status in the organizations exercise control over the societies that formed subsequent to the women is also strong. Palestinian female revolutions. It is interesting to note that cadres are not welcomed into the para- the women who played violent roles in military terrorist factions, which remain revolutionary movements in Iran, Pales- dominated by men. Even in the Al-Aqsa tine, and Algeria were not included in Martyrs Brigades, women are not wel- the leadership of the successor regimes. comed by the ranks of the male ½ghters. The problem lies in the fact that these And in Sri Lanka, where women consti- women, rather than confronting archaic tute 30 percent of the suicide attackers patriarchal notions of women and ex- and form crucial conventional ½ghting ploding these myths from within, are units, few women are among the top actually operating under them. These leadership. Beyler remarks: include a well-scripted set of rules in which women sacri½ce themselves; the It is mostly men who govern this infra- patriarchal conception of motherhood, structure . . . . Women are rarely involved in for example, is one of self-denial and the higher echelons of the decision-mak- self-effacement. In a sense, martyrdom ing process of these groups. Women may is the ultimate and twisted ful½llment of volunteer, or . . . be coerced to conduct a these ideals. So, the spectacle of female murderous strike, but the woman’s role is suicide bombers doesn’t challenge the ultimately dictated by the patriarchal hier- patriarchy as much as provide evidence archy that rules Palestinian society and its of its power. The message female suicide terrorist groups.42 bombers send is that they are more val- uable to their societies dead than they 40 Foden, “Death and the Maidens.” ever could have been alive. 41 Ibid.

42 Clara Beyler, “Using Palestinian Women as Bombs,” New York Sun, November 15, 2006.

102 Dædalus Winter 2007 Robert H. Mnookin

Ethnic conflicts: Flemings & Walloons, Palestinians & Israelis

Because of mass demonstrations ob- U.C. Louvain and those with odd call jecting to the presence of any franco- numbers went to K.U. Leuven. phone curriculum within a university When I arrived in Leuven in February situated in Dutch-speaking Flanders, the 2006 as a visiting scholar,1 I was aware of Belgian government negotiated a deal in this history and knew about Belgium’s 1968 that split the ½ve-hundred-year-old language cleavage and linguistic fron- Catholic University of Leuven into two tier.2 But I thought the conflict between institutions. Katholieke Universiteit the Flemish and Walloon peoples was a Leuven (K.U. Leuven) remained in the thing of the past, of little contemporary old college town and became an entirely relevance to my interest in ethnic con- Dutch- (and English-) speaking univer- flicts in general and the Israeli-Palestin- sity. A completely independent French- ian conflict in particular. Two experi- speaking Université Catholique de Lou- ences were soon to suggest I might be vain (U.C. Louvain) was formed and wrong on both counts. moved to a brand-new campus in Lou- vain-la-Neuve, a new town created in 1 I am grateful to the Francqui Foundation the Walloon (or French-speaking) re- for the opportunity to have spent a semester gion, about an equal distance from Brus- at K.U. Leuven as the holder of the Internation- al Francqui Chair. This essay reflects my ongo- sels. ing collaboration with Alain Verbeke, my host With the split, the existing library had at K.U. Leuven, to whom I am deeply indebted. to be divided. The disputants negotiated I would also like to acknowledge the research a typically Belgian compromise: those assistance of Ariel Heifetz, Columbia College volumes with even call numbers went to 2004, and Eli Schlam, Harvard Law School 2009.

Robert H. Mnookin, a Fellow of the American 2 See Kenneth D. McRae, Conflict and Compro- Academy since 1995, is Samuel Williston Profes- mise in Multilingual Societies: Belgium (Water- loo, Canada: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, sor of Law at Harvard Law School, director of 1986), 17. In the south–Wallonia–nearly ev- the Harvard Negotiation Research Project, and eryone speaks French; in the north–Flanders a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the –the language is Dutch. In a population of 10.5 Behaviorial Sciences. His books include “Dividing million, about 44 percent speak French and the Child” (1992), “Barriers to Conflict Resolu- about 56 percent speak Dutch. In one small area obtained from Germany after World War tion” (1995), and “Beyond Winning” (2000). I, with a population of about ½fty thousand, German is the principal language. © 2007 by Robert H. Mnookin

Dædalus Winter 2007 103 Robert H. The ½rst relates to the controversy 5) The only durable solution is the full Mnookin concerning the “Manifesto for an Inde- independence of Flanders. Because of its on 3 nonviolence pendent Flanders within Europe.” The economic and social development since & violence argument of the 252-page manifesto can World War II, Flanders has the identity be easily summarized: and self-suf½ciency to be a full-fledged 1) Flanders and Wallonia have diver- national community with all the charac- gent needs and goals because they have teristics of an independent member state profound differences–political, eco- of Europe.5 nomic, social, and cultural. The manifesto was neither shrill nor 2) The two regions are arti½cially held highly rhetorical. Nor was it created and together only by a “maladjusted and in- endorsed by persons thought to be ex- ef½cient” federal governmental structure treme Flemish nationalists, such as the with antimajoritarian restrictions and a leaders of the Vlaams Belang, a politi- “chaotic distribution of powers.” cal party on the far right that is hostile 3) As a result of this structure, rational to immigrants and has long called for and ef½cient policymaking is impossible, Flemish independence. Instead, people and Flanders is unable to adopt those who can best be described as Flemish policies necessary to maintain economic members of the business and academic competitiveness and ensure future eco- establishment, including Herman de nomic growth in the face of the socio- Bode, the president of the Harvard Club economic challenges of an aging popu- of Belgium and the chairman of McKin- lation, ever-growing globalization, and sey and Company in the Benelux, were increasing international competition. responsible for the document. 4) A further result of this structure is The manifesto provoked an immedi- that, at the national level, bad compro- ate outcry from the francophone com- mises are negotiated, which require the munity. Because of a francophone cli- Flemish people to make “exorbitant and ent’s protest, de Bode was forced to inef½cient” ½nancial transfers amount- resign as chair of McKinsey. Naturally, ing to over 10 billion euros per year this controversy piqued my interest (about 1,734 euros for each Fleming) to in learning more about the conflict be- Wallonia and Brussels. If Flanders re- tween the Flemish and the Walloons, mains part of Belgium, these subsidies are only likely to increase.4 Pagano, Miguel Verbeke, and Aurélien Acca- puto, “Le manifeste du group In de Warande,” Courrier hebdomadaire du crisp 8–9 (1913– 3 In de Warande, “Manifesto for an Indepen- 1914) (2006). dent Flanders within Europe,” Brussels, Bel- gium, November 2005. The report was ‘drawn 5 Recently, Rudy Aernoudt, a prominent up’ by the ‘Reflection Group’–sixteen Flemish former Flemish public servant, wrote a book businessmen and academics who had studied with both Dutch and French editions, sug- Belgium’s problems at the ‘Warande,’ the elite gesting policies that might improve the na- Flemish men’s club in Brussels located next to tional economy and hold the country togeth- the residence of the American ambassador to er, contrary to the “Manifesto.” See Rudy Aer- Brussels. The manifesto also carries the names noudt, Vlaanderen Wallonië. Je t’aime moi non of an additional ½fty people who “subscribe[d] plus (Roeselare: Roularta Books, 2006); Rudy to [its] conclusions . . . and principles.” Aernoudt, Wallonie. Flandre. Je t’aime moi non plus (Roeselare: Vif/Roularta Books, 2006). 4 Ibid., 155. See, generally, ibid., 132–177. The On his website, www.aernoudt.com, over amount of transfers, as well as the reasoning three hundred persons, including many prom- of the “Manifesto,” is contested in Giuseppe inent Flemings, endorsed his perspective.

104 Dædalus Winter 2007 the present institutional structure of Bel- peoples–with roughly equal numbers– Ethnic gium, and the prospects for the nation’s where the issue can be framed as wheth- conflicts survival as a single state. er the appropriate resolution should involve two states or only one. Finally, The second experience relates to inter- in both disputes, if there is to be a two- views I conducted during my visit to Is- state solution, a contentious and com- rael and the Palestinian territories in late plicated issue is the fate of the capital– February 2006. It had never occurred to Brussels or Jerusalem. me that the conflict between the Flemish Yet what makes the comparison fasci- and the Walloons, and Belgium’s gov- nating is not these similarities but a con- ernmental structure, would be thought spicuous difference. Belgium presents a relevant to the Israeli-Palestinian dis- remarkable example of an ethnic con- pute. But on two different occasions, af- flict without a single death or any mass ter learning that I was temporarily resid- violence over a thirty-year period. Dur- ing in Belgium, Palestinian intellectuals ing that time, a Belgian political elite on stated that the resolution of the conflict opposing sides of the language divide should involve the creation of a single stitched a series of compromises into a secular state modeled after Belgium’s– complex federal system. This new feder- with language communities and large- al regime may not be suf½cient to hold ly autonomous regions that would give the Belgian state together, but no one be- both Jews and Palestinians substantially lieves the conflict between the Flemings independent control over their own des- and Walloons will become violent. This tinies within the framework of a single stands in striking contrast to the Israeli- binational, federal state.6 The irony of Palestinian conflict, where during the this suggestion did not escape me. same period negotiations have repeated- I have since discovered some surpris- ly failed and thousands have died. Many ing similarities between these obvious- believe that the outline of a two-state ly very different ethnic conflicts. As it solution that would better serve the in- turns out, the size of Israel and the Pales- terests of most Israelis and most Pales- tinian territories combined is almost ex- tinians is reasonably clear. President actly the same as Belgium, both in terms Clinton outlined its basic terms in 2000. of square miles and population.7 Both But since the collapse of the Oslo peace can be seen as conflicts between two process at the end of 2000, more than one thousand Israelis and three thou- 6 See Victoria Tilley, The One State Solution: A sand Palestinians have died in this seem- Breakthrough for Peace in the Israeli-Palestinian ingly intractable conflict. Deadlock (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan The contrast with Belgium poses two Press, 2005). This seems to have been the fa- general questions: Why do some ethnic vored resolution of the late Edward Said. See Edward Said, “Truth and Reconciliation,” in cleavages with territorial dimensions The End of the Peace Process: Oslo and After (New lead to violent breakups or civil war York: Vintage, 2001), 318. (e.g., Yugoslavia) while others are re- solved peacefully through negotiations 7 Belgium is 11,787 square miles; Israel and the (e.g., Czechoslovakia)? There obvious- Palestinian territories are 10,548 square miles. ly is not a single answer to this question, Belgium’s estimated 2006 population is about 10,500,000, while that of Israel and the Pales- tinian territories is approximately 11,100,000. ulation Data Sheet, http://www.prb.org/ Population Reference Bureau, 2006 World Pop- pdf06/06WorldDataSheet.pdf.

Dædalus Winter 2007 105 Robert H. but the study of Belgium and the con- that makes up Belgium (with the excep- Mnookin trast with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict tion of Liege) consisted of an amalgam on nonviolence can suggest some useful hypotheses and of separate provinces–some franco- & violence inform speculation.8 phone and some Flemish–controlled A second general question relates to ½rst by the Spanish, later by the Austri- federalism and the extent to which, an Hapsburgs, then by the French, and through institutional design, a nation ½nally by the Dutch. The nation’s found- with ethnic cleavages can be created or ing was thus not a love match but an ar- held together. Here the study of Belgium ranged marriage between spouses who leads me to somewhat more pessimistic had little in common–the product of a conclusions. The Belgium case suggests nineteenth-century compromise among that federal structures allowing for de- great powers interested in creating a centralized decision making may exacer- neutral buffer state. In 1831, the Belgian bate centrifugal forces. Moreover, con- National Congress wrote a ‘liberal’ con- sociational safeguards, which give each stitution that contemplated a strong uni- ethnic group veto power over policies tary parliamentary state with a constitu- and changes, may lead to policy dead- tional monarch. A German noble close- locks that hasten the eventual breakup ly related to both the British and French of a nation. If this is so in Belgium, is royal families was invited to become the there any hope that such a structure can ½rst King of the Belgians. provide a solution for the Israelis and When Belgian independence was de- the Palestinians, or in other countries clared, language reflected social-class (such as Iraq or the Congo) with ethnic differences more than a cultural cleav- cleavages that have territorial dimen- age. French was the language not simp- sions and where there is a long history ly of the Walloons but also of the Flem- of violence?9 ish elite. Although the Flemings always outnumbered the French speakers, the Belgium only became a nation in 1830, francophone Belgians dominated the and its creation was not the culmination new country culturally, politically, and of a single people, with a shared sense economically. While the Belgian consti- of Belgian identity, achieving nation- tution contained words suggesting lan- hood.10 Before that year, the territory guage liberty, the new parliament, dom- inated by this elite, made French Bel- 8 James Fearon and David Laitin have done gium’s “single of½cial language”–the important, systematic empirical work on eth- only language to be used in the national nicity and violence. See James Fearon and Da- legislature, in governmental administra- vid Laitin, “Ethnicity, Insurgency and Civil tion, and in the courts. It was contem- War,” American Political Science Review 97 (1) plated that French could be imposed in (January 2003): 75–90; James D. Fearon and Flanders and that the entire country David D. Laitin, “Violence and the Social Con- struction of Ethnic Identity,” International Or- would eventually become francophone ganization 54 (4) (Autumn 2000): 845–877. reconstruct a Belgian history demonstrating 9 See Ugo M. Amoretti and Nancy Berneo, the prior existence of some sense of people- eds., Federalism and Territorial Cleavages (Balti- hood. See Louis Vos, “Reconstruction of the more: John Hopkins University Press, 2004). Past in Belgium and Flanders,” in Secession, History and the Social Sciences, ed. Bruno Cop- 10 This is not to say that after the creation of pieters and Michel Huysseune (Brussels: vub Belgium, some historians did not attempt to Brussels University Press, 2002).

106 Dædalus Winter 2007 through “a policy of assimilation,” using though actual practices changed much Ethnic “legal and economic influence.”11 more slowly.12 Between 1890 and 1920, conflicts For more than a century after Bel- contemporaneous with the extension gium’s founding, Wallonia was much of suffrage, a mass ‘Flemish movement’ richer than Flanders. With large coal emerged.13 Its major focus was language reserves, Wallonia was among the earli- and cultural rights. During World War I est parts of Europe to industrialize, and it was claimed that thousands of Flemish it experienced rapid economic growth enlisted men had died unnecessarily be- during the nineteenth century. Flanders, cause their francophone of½cers issued on the other hand, relied on subsistence commands that the men could not un- agriculture. It had no modern industry: derstand. A 1921 law envisioned a bilin- its famed textile facilities never became gual regime of sorts, in which govern- fully mechanized and floundered in the ment of½cials would use both languages. nineteenth century. Crop failures led to Nevertheless, the Walloon region re- a famine and contributed to massive un- mained francophone, and even in the employment and severe economic hard- Flemish areas, many government of½- ship. Many Flemings emigrated, to Wal- cials spoke only French.14 lonia and to America. A critical change with respect to lan- Throughout this period, there was guage policies occurred in 1932 and 1935, rampant social and economic discrim- when legislation established a regime of ination against those who could not dual monolingualism that remains to this speak French. State-supported elemen- day. Reversing the bilingual law of 1921, tary and secondary education was pre- this legislation created two monolingu- dominantly francophone, as was all uni- al regions on the basis of a territorial line versity-based instruction. Francophone Belgians viewed the Flemish majority 12 McRae, Conflict and Compromise; Huys- who could not speak proper French as manns, “The Flemish Question”; Liesbet uneducated, backward peasants, suited Hooghe, “Belgium: Hollowing the Center,” in to do manual labor but little else. Be- Does Federalism Matter? Political Institutions and the Management of Territorial Cleavages, ed. Nan- cause upward social mobility required cy Bermeo and Ugo Amoretti (Baltimore: Johns knowledge of French, many Flemings Hopkins University Press, 2003), 62–76, 58. learned French. Few Walloons ever bothered to learn Dutch. 13 In 1893, the Belgian constitution was amend- Needless to say, many Flemings re- ed to give all men over twenty-½ve one vote, with additional votes (up to a maximum of sented the discrimination, especially the three) going to older men who owned homes, prohibition against using their own lan- had suf½cient savings, or held a university de- guage in their dealings with the govern- gree. A 1920 amendment created universal male ment. In the late nineteenth century, the suffrage where all had a single vote. Suffrage laws on the books were changed in the was not extended to women until 1948. There is a vast literature on the Flemish movement. See direction of of½cial bilingualism, al- François Nielsen, “The Flemish Movement in Belgium After World War II: A Dynamic Anal- 11 Kris Deschouwer, “Kingdom of Belgium,” ysis,” American Sociological Review 45 (1) (1980); in John Kincaid and C. Alan Tarr, eds., Consti- Huysmanns, “The Flemish Question”; Theo tutional Origins, Structure and Change in Federal Hermans, Louis Vos, and Lode Wils, The Flem- Countries, vol. 1 (Montreal: McGill-Queens, ish Movement: A Documentary History, 1780– 2005), 49. M. Camille Huysmanns, “The Flem- 1990 (London: Athlone Press, 1992). ish Question,” Journal of the Royal Institute of In- ternational Affairs 9 (5) (1930). 14 See McRae, Conflict and Compromise, 28.

Dædalus Winter 2007 107 Robert H. dividing the country. The language used Today, Belgium’s constitution allo- Mnookin in administrative matters, primary and cates power and responsibility to gov- on nonviolence secondary education, and judicial mat- ernments for each of three territorially & violence ters was to be based exclusively on lo- based regions (Wallonia; Flanders; and cation–not the mother tongue of the Brussels, the capital) and three language individual citizen. In Flanders, Dutch communities (French, Flemish, and Ger- became the only of½cial language; and man). The regions and communities in Wallonia, the of½cial language was have directly elected, parliamentary- exclusively French. Only Brussels and style legislatures and a legislatively ac- certain border areas were to remain bi- countable executive body.17 They also lingual. have broad and exclusive responsibility and authority in speci½ed areas.18 After World War II, there was a strik- As a result of these changes, political ing reversal of economic fortunes for life in Belgium is now conducted along the two regions. In Wallonia, the coal linguistic lines. There is no longer any and steel industries declined. In Flan- major political party that operates on ders, the port of Antwerp was modern- both sides of the linguistic frontier. By ized; foreign investment poured in; and reason of internal conflicts relating to new plants were built for petrochemi- language and cultural autonomy, the tra- cals, car assembly, and shipbuilding. To- ditional parties–the Catholic or Christ- day, the Flemish region of the country ian Democrats, the Liberals, and the So- is substantially richer than the Walloon cialists–have all now split into separate region. The per-capita gdp of Flanders French-speaking and Dutch-speaking now exceeds that of Germany, France, parties. Today, there are two distinct par- and the United Kingdom, while that of ty systems in Belgium, one francophone the Walloon region is similar to that of and one Flemish.19 the poorer regions in France and Italy.15 Since 1970, contemporaneous with devoted to Belgian politics and has the trans- formation of Belgium from a unitary state to the economic rise of the Flemish region, a federal system as its connecting theme. ½ve sets of constitutional revisions have transformed Belgium’s governmental 17 Flanders decided early on to combine the structure from a strong unitary national language-based ‘Flemish community’ parlia- system into a federal structure of mind- ment with the Flemish regional parliament. The result is that there are a total of six, rath- boggling complexity, in which substan- er than seven, parliamentary-style elected leg- tial power has devolved to monolingual islatures, each of which has a government. subnational governmental units.16 18 The authority of the communities includes 15 gdp per capita in Flanders is approximately matters relating to education, language, and $33,500, while it is about $24,500 in Wallonia. culture, including support of the arts. The re- Eurostat Regional Database, http://epp.euro- gions have authority for a broad range of poli- stat.cec.eu.int/portal/page?_pageid=0,1136162, cies relating to economic development, envi- 0_45572076&_dad=portal&_schema=portal. ronment, agricultural and housing policy, wa- The 2005 estimate for the United Kingdom and ter, energy, and transport. Germany is approximately $30,100; in France it is $29,600, https://www.cia.gov/cia/publica- 19 Lieven De Winter, Marc Swyngedouw, and tions/factbook/index.html. Patrick Dumont, “Party System(s) and Elec- toral Behavior in Belgium: From Stability to 16 See Hooghe, “Hollowing the Center.” The Balkanization,” West European Politics 29 (5) November 2006 issue of West European Politics is (November 2006): 933–956.

108 Dædalus Winter 2007 At the national level, there are a vari- speaking government of½cials to learn Ethnic ety of mechanisms to ensure that neith- Dutch, on the other, resulted in the conflicts er the Flemish nor the francophone par- scheme of territorial monolingualism. ties, acting on their own, can impose de- Over time, however, the concerns of the cisions on the other language group. A Flemish movement broadened: “[I]t be- governing majority in parliament always came gradually more nationalist and au- requires a coalition government, and tonomist in response to the slow adap- the Belgian constitution requires that tation of the Belgian-Francophone insti- the cabinet must have an equal number tutions and growing anti-Flemish sen- of ministers from each language group, timent among French-speaking politi- apart from the prime minister. This cians.”21 Between 1970 and 2001, the means that the coalitions necessarily Flemish parties succeeded through ne- cross language lines, and typically in- gotiations in creating a federal system clude at least four of the six major par- that gives the Flemings the power to ties.20 The current government is a co- make policy for a broad range of issues. alition of the Flemish liberals (vld), The conflict today relates to Flemish the Flemish socialists (sp.a-Spirit), the pressure to go further. Many within francophone liberals (mr), and the fran- Flanders want still greater autonomy: cophone socialists (ps). Because of what some seek devolution to a confederal is known as the cordon sanitaire, the six system, others independence. Franco- major parties have agreed with each oth- phone Belgians object to both. er never to include the Flemish national- ‘Minority’ protection versus majority rule. ists (the Vlaams Belang) in any govern- Belgium democracy is not based on ma- ing coalition. jority rule but instead provides an ex- ample of a ‘consociational democracy,’ Belgium’s present-day federal struc- of which proportional representation, ture can best be understood as a com- executive power sharing, elite bargain- plex set of compromises, the product of ing within grand coalitions, and minori- a series of protracted political negotia- ty vetoes are key elements.22 At the na- tions that sought to deal with four prob- lems, none of which has been put to rest. 21 Hooghe, “Hollowing the Center,” 59. Language and the quest for autonomy. The Flemish movement was originally con- 22 Brendan O’Leary, “Debating Consociation- al Politics: Normative and Explanatory Argu- cerned primarily with language rights ments,” in Sid Noel, ed., From Power Sharing to and cultural equality. In the 1930s, the Democracy: Post-Conflict Institutions in Ethnical- combination of Flemish pressure, on ly Divided Societies, Studies in Nationalism and the one hand, and resistance to a bilin- Ethnic Conflict (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s gual regime that would require French- University Press, 2005); Brendan O’Leary, “An Iron Law of Nationalism and Federation: A (Neo-Diceyian) Theory of the Necessity of 20 See also Liesbet Hooghe, “A Leap in the Federal Staatsvolk and of Consociational Res- Dark: Nationalist Conflict and Federal Reform cue,” Nations and Nationalism 7 (3) (2001); Kris in Belgium,” Occasional Paper 27, Western So- Deschouwer, “And the Peace Goes On? Con- cieties Program, Cornell University, Ithaca, sociational Democracy and Belgian Politics in N.Y., 1991. Since 60 percent of the population the Twenty-First Century,” West European Poli- is Flemish, the unstated presumption has been tics 29 (5) (November 2006): 895–911; Kris that the prime minister will be Flemish–not Deschouwer, “Falling Apart Together: The since the 1970s has a Walloon had the top posi- Changing Nature of Belgian Consociationalism, tion. 1961–2001,” Acta Politica (37) (1–2) (Spring–

Dædalus Winter 2007 109 Robert H. tional level, in response to the Franco- in administrative dealings, but also to Mnookin on phones’ fear that they might be con- have Dutch-speaking schools. Brussels nonviolence stantly outvoted by the Flemish majori- remains a point of political contention, & violence ty, Belgium has put in place institution- though, because metropolitan Brussels al mechanisms that prevent Flemish extends well beyond the nineteen muni- domination through majority rule. By cipalities in the Brussels-Capital Region, reason of the alarm-bell procedure, the and over the years an increasing num- requirement of concurrent majorities ber of French speakers have acquired for special laws, equal representation in homes in the surrounding areas. The the national government, and a multi- Flemish fear and resent what they see party political system that requires coal- as the creeping ‘Frenchi½cation’ of these itions, the francophone political parties Flemish areas. The flash point today have considerable leverage in the nation- concerns the Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde al parliament to ensure that their inter- electoral district, which includes both ests are taken into account in any nego- the of½cially bilingual Brussels-Capital tiated deal. Many Flemish resent these Region as well as the nominally mono- antimajoritarian elements, which they lingual Dutch Halle-Vilvoorde areas that often characterize as antidemocratic. surround it.23 Brussels. The Brussels metropolitan Regional economic differences: internal area presents a special problem for Bel- transfers. A potentially explosive conflict gium because of its physical location, relates to the control and allocation of its history, and its growth. Brussels is governmental resources. In Belgium physically situated in Flanders, and in today revenues for all levels of govern- the mid-nineteenth century a majority ment are primarily generated by taxes of the city’s inhabitants were Flemish. levied at the national level. Because Today, Brussels is no longer a Flemish Flanders is now much richer than Wal- city. In fact it has become overwhelm- ingly francophone. The negotiated com- 23 In 2002 the Belgian high court ruled that promise was to make the nineteen mu- having Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde as a single nicipalities of Brussels into a separate, electoral district was inconsistent with certain bilingual Brussels-Capital Region that is provisions of the present Belgium constitution not part of either Flanders or Wallonia. that contemplate territorially based electoral Moreover, in order to protect the Flem- districts, and remanded the matter to the na- tional parliament for remediation. The result ish minority within Brussels from fran- has been a deadlock. The Flemish parties insist cophone domination, the governmental that the borders of the Brussels-Capital Region structure of the Brussels-Capital Region remain ½xed, and that the electoral district be has several antimajoritarian rules akin to split so that voters in the Halle-Vilvoorde areas those in the national government. Flem- are no longer attached to the Capital Region ish residents of Brussels are guaranteed for any voting purposes. The francophone par- ties oppose the split, and also ask that six com- the right not only to use their language munes with a number of francophone residents be given language facilities and be added to Brussels proper. While the conflict has substan- Summer 2002); Rudy B. Andeweg, “Consocia- tial symbolic importance on both sides of the tional Democracy,” Annual Review of Political language divide and might be used for purposes Science 3 (2000): 509–536; George Tsebelis, of political mobilization, its practical impor- “Elite Interaction and Constitution Building in tance is minor. With respect to national elec- Consociational Democracies,” Journal of Theo- toral power, little turns on how the Brussels- retical Politics 2 (1) (January 1990): 5–29. Halle-Vilvoorde electoral district is reformed.

110 Dædalus Winter 2007 lonia, it proportionately pays more of I was regularly told that people on both Ethnic these taxes. In past negotiations at the sides of the language divide share many conflicts national level, the leaders of the franco- values, including a pragmatic willing- phone parties have exercised their le- ness to compromise and skepticism of verage to extract and protect what the government. They also take pride in the Flemish parties see as disproportionate restaurant scene throughout Belgium internal transfers from the Flemish re- (which is said to have more Michelin gion to the Walloon region and Brussels. stars per capita than France). Never- A good portion of these transfers oc- theless, survey evidence suggests that cur because unemployment insurance, Belgian identity is thin, particularly health insurance, and social security for Flemings, at least in comparison (old age retirement bene½ts, disability) to their local or regional identity.26 No remain national, and not regional, pro- one knows the words of the national grams.24 Thus, Flemings pay more into anthem, and Belgium is one of least na- these programs than they receive. The tionalistic countries in the world. major Flemish political parties now reg- Belgians are quick to suggest that there ularly call to varying degrees for the re- are real cultural differences between the gionalization of these national entitle- Walloons and the Flemish. Stereotypes ment programs. Such changes are vehe- paint the Flemish as more disciplined mently opposed by the francophone par- and harder working, like those of the ties, especially the Socialist Party, which Northern European, Germanic cultures, sees these national entitlements as vital- while the Walloons take after the more ly important to its political base and at fun-loving Latins in Southern Europe.27 the core of the party’s political ideology. Ideologically there are some conspicu- ous differences as well: the socialist tra- In light of these conflicts between the dition is much stronger in the Walloon Flemish and the Walloons, what can region; the Flemings are much more hold Belgium together, especially given committed to a market economy. While the centrifugal pressures generated by nearly everyone throughout the country the existing federal regime? is nominally Catholic, the proportion King Albert I, early in the twentieth of observant Catholics is thought to be century, was told by a Walloon political higher in Flanders.28 leader: “You reign over two peoples. In Belgium there are Walloons and Flem- 25 26 Hooghe, “Hollowing the Center,” 65; See J. ish; there are no Belgians.” This is an Billiet, B. Maddens, and A-P. Frognier, “Does overstatement if it is meant to suggest Belgium (Still) Exist? Differences in Political that a Belgian identity counts for nothing. Culture Between Flemings and Walloons,” West European Politics 29 (5) (November 2006): 912– 932. 24 Bea Cantillon, Veerle de Maesschalk, Stijn Rottiers, and Gerlinde Verbist, “Social Redistri- 27 On the cultural clichés and stereotypical bution in Federalised Belgium,” West European perceptions, see Aernoudt, Wallonie. Flandre. Je Politics 29 (5) (November 2006): 1034–1056. t’aime moi non plus, part I.

25 This quote comes from a published letter to 28 For a recent study suggesting that these dif- the Belgium king written by J. Destree, a Wal- ferences in religiosity are being eroded, and loon Socialist. A. Alen, “Nationalism–Federal- that the entire country is becoming more secu- ism–Democracy: The Example of Belgium,” lar, see Billiet, Maddens, and Frognier, “Does redp/erpl 5 (1) (1993): 47. Belgium (Still) Exist?”

Dædalus Winter 2007 111 Robert H. What seems uncontestable today is at home and 15 percent speak Dutch), Mnookin that the language cleavage has been em- there is a modest degree of residential on nonviolence bedded into a governmental structure integration. The Brussels workplace & violence that reinforces the sense of ‘two peoples’ also tends to be more integrated be- who are likely in years to come to drift cause 350,000 Flemish people who live farther apart, and not be brought closer in Flanders work in Brussels.31 together. Ordinary citizens may partici- Millions of Belgians literally are un- pate in the political process only among able to communicate because they can- their own language group. There are no not speak each other’s language. The mass media–i.e., national newspapers, degree of linguistic segregation in the television stations, or radio stations– schools–from the elementary level aimed at both the French- and Dutch- through the universities–is striking. speaking communities. The daily news- The curriculum of any particular school papers are exclusively Dutch, French, or is typically taught exclusively either in German. Television and radio stations French or Dutch. While some families have been separate in Flanders and Wal- intentionally cross-enroll their children lonia since 1960, and each community so that they might better learn the other has its own public broadcasting organi- language, these are the exception. zation regulated by its language commu- Nor is there a shared national commit- nity, not the national government. “As ment to make Belgians bilingual. While a result of this media gap, two cultures elementary schools, on both sides of the have gradually emerged, with diverging language divide, do offer a few hours a social sensitivities, fashions and cus- week of language instruction in the oth- toms.”29 er language beginning in the fourth While Belgium is a small country, grade, few Walloons ever learn to speak there is surprisingly little social interac- Dutch with any degree of fluency. In tion between Flemings and Walloons. 2000, researchers found that, in Wallo- The number of mixed Flemish-Walloon nia, 17 percent know Dutch in addition marriages is very low.30 And the degree to French. The proportion of bilingual of residential and workplace segrega- Flemish people is much higher: 57 per- tion in the Flemish and Walloon regions cent know French and Dutch, and 40 is stunning. Very few Dutch-speaking percent know English as well. In Wallo- people reside or work in Wallonia, and nia, only 7 percent are trilingual.32 My very few Walloons live in or commute to strong impression, however, is that com- Flanders. Flemish businessmen in pros- pared to a generation ago, fewer Flemish perous southwest Flanders complain speak French fluently because of the in- that because even unemployed Walloons creasing dominance of English.33 are unwilling to commute to Flanders, they often hire workers from neighbor- 31 W. Swenden and M. Jans, “‘Will It Stay or Will It Go?’ Federalism and the Sustainabili- ing France. Within Brussels (where 85 ty of Belgium,” West European Politics 29 (5) percent of the population speaks French (November 2006): 890.

29 Ibid, 914. 32 Victor Ginsburgh and Shlomo Weber, “La Dynamique Des Langues En Belgique,” Regards 30 Ibid., 915. Citing F. Bartiaux and C. Watte- Economiques 42 (June 2006). lar, “Nuptialiteit,” Algemene Volks-en Won- ingtelling op 1 maart 1991, Monograph n. 5A 33 “The youngest generations of Flemings, (Brussels: National Statistical Institute, 2002). unlike their parents and grandparents, have

112 Dædalus Winter 2007 So what ‘glue’ is there to hold the For those Flemings pressing for inde- Ethnic country together, particularly in the face pendence, Brussels presents a real polit- conflicts of a serious economic or political shock? ical stumbling block. Today, Brussels is While the two groups have shared a na- not only the capital of Belgium and often tional history since 1830, much of it has characterized as the capital of Europe– not been happy. Two devastating World it is the capital of the Flemish regional Wars were fought on Belgian soil, and government and community. Although during each there was a German occu- Brussels is located within what was his- pation that led to divisive and bitter torically Flanders, it is highly unlikely postwar accusations, in which many that a majority of this overwhelming- Flemish felt unfairly accused of collabo- ly francophone city, if given a choice, ration. Although the Flemish region is would elect to dissolve Belgium to be- now more prosperous and has substan- come part of Flanders. Nor would its tial autonomy, psychologically many residents necessarily prefer to become Flemish still feel resentment over lan- part of a new francophone nation over guage slights and what they see as ongo- maintaining the status quo: franco- ing francophone condescension. Mean- phone residents of Brussels do not iden- while, some in the francophone commu- tify with the Walloon region and its sep- nity are very quick to characterize Flem- arate culture so much as with the broad- ish politics as fascistic–because of the er, more cosmopolitan French culture. electoral strength of the Vlaams Belang They also have economic reasons to pre- –and to condemn Flemings generally fer the status quo to dissolution: Brus- for selfishness and lack of solidarity be- sels is not a rich city, and it bene½ts from cause of their expressed desire to reduce transfers from Flanders–both direct the entitlements of the welfare state. and indirect. Some say only soccer and the monar- The manifesto suggests that, after chy provide glue–not good news, since the dissolution of Belgium, Brussels the national team is mediocre and Prince should become a condominium of sorts, Philippe, the francophone heir apparent a shared responsibility of the two new to the throne, is regularly characterized nations as well as the European Union. in the Flemish press as a bumbling dim- Others have suggested that Brussels wit. might become a ‘free city,’ part of nei- The factors that are more likely to hold ther new country but instead the capital the country together, besides inertia and of Europe, presumably subsidized by conventional concerns about the eco- the eu. While such alternatives would nomic costs of a divorce, are Flemish presumably be acceptable to those press- fears that Brussels might be lost, a cul- ing for Flemish independence, the man- ture that supports pragmatic compro- ifesto fails to describe the process by mise, and the interests of a national po- which any of these alternatives can be litical elite that is experienced at prob- achieved. Flanders lacks the capacity to lem-solving negotiations. solve the Brussels problem unilaterally. Instead such arrangements would have grown up and become socialized in a mono- to be created through negotiations, with lingual Dutch environment . . . . They are much the agreement of the national franco- more focused on the Anglo-Saxon world, phone parties and the eu, and presum- which means that French has become a for- eign language.” Billiet, Maddens, and Frog- ably with some sort of rati½cation by nier, “Does Belgium (Still) Exist?” the residents of Brussels as well. But why

Dædalus Winter 2007 113 Robert H. would the francophone parties or the The history of Belgium is replete with Mnookin eu agree to such arrangements, which such compromises. on nonviolence they would surely see as smoothing the Finally, the leaders of the major polit- & violence path to Flemish independence? And ical parties are masters at negotiating why would a majority in Brussels prefer such Belgium compromises, across both such alternatives to the status quo? language and ideological cleavages. In Suppose Flemish independence could these negotiations the leaders have a be achieved only if Brussels became part great deal of power because the leaders of a new francophone state. How likely can speak for their parties. Belgium is is it that a majority of Flemings would sometimes called a ‘partitocracy’ be- support independence if, in the process, cause of the power of political parties Flanders risks ‘losing’ Brussels? In an- within the Belgian system.34 Party dis- swering this question, we must acknowl- cipline is total; in parliament, deputies edge that many Flemings have ambiva- vote as their party leaders dictate be- lent feelings toward Brussels. They often cause it is the leaders who substantially express pride in this cosmopolitan city influence whether someone is a candi- and its Flemish roots. But many Flem- date and, subsequently, their position on ish–especially those who live and work the electoral list. Party leaders are not outside the city–also feel Brussels has directly accountable to the electorate. become a foreign metropolis ½lled with Moreover, the need for coalitions in immigrants. They often express resent- order to form a government, when com- ment that Brussels is only nominally bi- bined with the various antimajoritarian lingual–in reality, Dutch is not much rules, creates pressure to forge some sort used or even understood in many shops of working consensus across party lines. and restaurants. Nonetheless, Brussels Stalemates do occur, sometimes leading is an important part of the glue that to the fall of the government and the call holds the country together. Like a father for new elections. But the typically pro- who never ½les for divorce because he is tracted negotiations often result in log- unwilling to give up custody of a child, rolling compromises, sometimes with many Flemings–who might otherwise further devolution of authority to the favor independence–would prefer to regional or community level combined stay in an unsatisfying Belgian marriage, with various side payments subsidizing where the spouses are leading separate the Walloon region. Complaints about lives, than give up Brussels. Belgium’s ‘democratic de½cit’ relate to Another important factor that holds the fact that these leaders can negotiate Belgium together is shared cultural com- deals without much public input or dia- mitment to pragmatism and compro- logue. Leaders are often accused of ‘sell- mise. Both Flemings and Walloons use ing out’ and accepting arrangements in- the expression ‘Belgian compromise’ to consistent with assurances given during describe a deal in which dif½cult issues election campaigns. Nevertheless, over are resolved because each party in a con- the years, this political elite has helped flict has made some concessions. While hold the country together. a Belgian compromise is typically messy, inef½cient, and ambiguous–and no one may understand its long-term implica- 34 See Lieven de Winter and Patrick Dumont, “Do Belgian Parties Undermine the Democratic tions–it allows ordinary life to go on Chain of Delegation?” West European Politics 29 without undue disruption or violence. (5) (November 2006): 957–976.

114 Dædalus Winter 2007 In thinking about negotiations con- but its institutional importance would Ethnic cerning the future of Belgium, I have be substantially reduced, perhaps retain- conflicts identi½ed four conceptual possibilities: ing responsibility only for national de- 1) The national government might be fense and aspects of foreign affairs. Pres- strengthened and policies adopted to ently, only the Vlaams Belang and one mitigate the language-based cleavage small conservative Flemish party (the and reinforce Belgian national identity. nv-a) advocate the creation of an inde- 2) The status quo might be maintained. pendent Flemish republic. This might 3) There might be further devolution of result either from the negotiated disso- authority to the regions, perhaps leading lution of the Belgian state or successful to a confederation. 4) Flanders might unilateral secession by Flanders. Mean- win independence. while, all of the francophone parties pre- The ½rst outcome strikes me as ex- fer the status quo, vehemently opposing tremely unlikely. In theory, the engine further devolution, much less a confed- of history might be ‘run in reverse,’ and eration or Flemish independence. Belgium might adopt policies to make The negotiations concerning the fu- the entire country bilingual, strengthen ture of Belgium are coming to resemble the national identity, and augment the a game of ‘chicken.’ In that dangerous powers of the national government. Be- game, two teenagers drive down a sin- cause the separate language communi- gle lane toward each other. The driver ties control the schools and language who stays in the lane wins the game; policy, though, the national government the driver who swerves is the ‘chicken.’ lacks the authority to require bilingual If neither swerves, a collision occurs. education. Nor does it have a major po- Each player would like to win, but each litical party on either side of the linguis- player would prefer swerving to collid- tic divide advocating the return of more ing. authority to the national government. In the case of Belgium, the Flemish Path-dependency often means one can- parties will argue for further devolution. not simply retrace one’s steps once deci- The francophone parties will resist. The sions are made. Flemish political elite at the national lev- The other three scenarios are all pos- el will probably suggest that the franco- sible, and each has its advocates. The phone parties’ refusal to compromise three mainstream Flemish parties have risks eventual Flemish secession. Given all indicated they would prefer some fur- the problem of Brussels and the various ther devolution of authority to the re- legal impediments to secession, though, gions, particularly with respect to eco- the francophone parties may not ½nd nomic and social welfare policies. The the threat of secession credible. More- Flemish Socialist Party would prefer over, they may believe that in the end modest changes in the existing federal the leaders of the mainstream Flemish system, while the Flemish Liberal Party political parties would not support and the Flemish Christian Democratic Flemish secession because it might not Party have suggested going much further serve their personal political interests and creating a ‘confederal’ state. In such or those of the Flemish unions and the a state, through a common constitution, Flemish ngos that administer elements the regions would cede only de½ned and of the national entitlement programs. limited powers to the national govern- A stalemate might well lead to escala- ment. Belgium would continue to exist, tion on the part of the more mainstream

Dædalus Winter 2007 115 Robert H. Flemish parties to put greater pressure court would follow the Canadian ruling Mnookin on the francophone parties. In the face in Secession Reference. That case ruled that on nonviolence of francophone intransigence, the Flem- a referendum in favor of secession in & violence ish Christian Democratic Party and the Quebec could not be the basis for unilat- Flemish Liberal Party might come to fa- eral secession; instead it could do little vor independence unless there is further more than create an obligation for Que- devolution. The Flemish parliament bec and the other provinces in Canada might take actions to signal that a major- to negotiate in good faith. Applied to the ity there would support secession if the Belgium case, good-faith negotiations francophone parties remain inflexible. would not require the francophone par- For example, resolutions might be pro- ties to agree to Flemish independence. posed advocating an advisory referen- External international pressures might dum within Flanders on the question of also discourage Flemish secession. Inter- Flemish independence. national law strongly discourages unilat- Whether or not a majority in Flanders eral secession because it violates state would vote for independence in such a sovereignty, which is at the center of the referendum is hardly clear, especially in international system. It is conceivable light of the Brussels problem. More fun- that the issue of Flemish secession might damentally, a unilateral declaration of be brought before the European Court independence by the Flemish parliament of Justice, but here, too, the probability is of dubious legality. Nothing in the Bel- of Flemish success is low. While those gian constitution allows secession. And seeking Flemish independence would no it is dif½cult to imagine that the consti- doubt claim that as a people they have a tution could be amended to allow it over right to self-determination, this claim is the opposition of the francophone par- not very persuasive. Because of the sub- ties. If the Flemish parliament proposed stantial autonomy the Flemings present- holding a referendum in Flanders as a ly have within Belgium, they cannot prelude to a unilateral declaration of in- credibly claim they are prevented from dependence, those opposed to Flemish participating in the political, economic, independence would no doubt challenge and social decision-making processes of its legality on a variety of grounds in the the state. They are not an oppressed mi- Belgian constitutional court.35 There is nority but instead a majority that is, on no provision in the constitution provid- average, richer than the francophone ing for a referendum, much less one to community.36 be held in Flanders alone. Moreover, Finally, any attempt at Flemish seces- they would claim that, whatever the out- sion must be examined in the context come of such a referendum, Flanders of the European Union. The eu would lacks the power to declare its independ- probably see the dissolution of Belgium ence unilaterally. It is likely the Belgian 36 Principle viii of the Helsinki Final Act 35 Called the Court of Arbitration, this court adopted by the Conference on Security and Co- has ultimate responsibility for adjudicating operation in Europe in 1975 states: “The parti- jurisdictional conflicts between various levels cipating States will respect the equal rights of of government and ruling on the allocation peoples and their right to self-determination, of governmental authority within the federal acting in all time in conformity with the pur- system. By law, this twelve-person court must poses and principles of the Charter of the Unit- have an equal number of French-speaking and ed Nations and with the relevant norms of in- Dutch-speaking judges. ternational law, including those relating to the

116 Dædalus Winter 2007 as a threatening precedent, given the in- which changing the structural status Ethnic ternal cleavages in other eu countries, quo requires francophone assent. The conflicts most notably Spain. Moreover, Belgium francophone parties may refuse to plays an integral role in the stability of swerve from their insistence on the sta- the eu because Brussels is the home of tus quo because they believe that the many European Community institu- major Flemish parties cannot credibly tions. The eu and many member states commit to staying on the path toward would probably apply a great deal of Flemish independence. The dilemma for pressure on the parties to negotiate a re- the Flemish negotiators is that, without solution of the conflict short of Flemish credible Flemish moves in the direction independence. of secession, the francophone parties However, despite all these impedi- may not be willing to make any signi½- ments, a hard-nosed realist would rec- cant concessions in the direction of de- ognize that if the Flemish parliament volution or entitlement reform. ever declared independence after a refer- My own best guess is that the probable endum in which a substantial majority outcome after the 2007 national elec- of the Flemish people voted in favor of tions will be a ‘Belgium compromise’– that outcome, Flanders–like Slovenia– a complex and obscure deal that perhaps could probably secede and ultimately couples a resolution of the controversy secure international recognition of its over Brussels-Halle Vilvoorde electoral independence. There would be no civil district with some small entitlement re- war, and Flanders would no doubt be- form. The deal might include a modest come a member of the eu. devolution of some welfare policies cou- This outcome is highly unlikely, pled with transitional transfer payments though, given the preferences of all of from Flanders to ease the impact in the the mainstream political parties on both Walloon region and Brussels. Unilateral sides of the language cleavage. With the secession seems highly unlikely unless exception of the Vlaams Belang and one the francophone parties refuse to make small party (nv-a) presently in a coali- any concessions and a substantial Flem- tion with the Flemish Christian Demo- ish majority ½nds a protracted stalemate crats, all of them would prefer further intolerable because of the perceived con- devolution to Flemish secession. Seces- sequences for the Flemish economy. sion would represent a collision, in which neither player swerves. Studying the ethnic conflict between In this game of chicken, the franco- the Flemish and the Walloons hardly phone political parties have an advan- provides a suf½cient basis to develop tage because the negotiations are occur- a full-blown theory of why some con- ring in the shadow of a legal regime in flicts are violent and others are not. But by contrasting this conflict with that of the Israelis and Palestinians, one can territorial integrity of States” (emphasis added). suggest some intriguing factors that The “right of self-determination” for purposes might make the peaceful resolution of of this Act has not been interpreted to give an an ethnic conflict more challenging. internal minority people the right to secede. These relate to the history, the stakes, For further analysis, see Antonio Cassese, Self- Determination of Peoples: A Legal Reappraisal the geography, the economics, and the (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, institutional context (both domestically 1995), 278–292. and internationally) of the conflicts.

Dædalus Winter 2007 117 Robert H. History. The history of the relations be- conflicts37 concerning the role religion Mnookin on tween ethnic groups–the intensity of should play in governance. By compari- nonviolence past discrimination and past violence– son, the stakes of the conflict between & violence surely matters. History shapes both the Flemish and the Walloons seem to competing ethnic narratives and ethnic be small potatoes. Their cultural iden- group identity. While the Flemish narra- tity and survival are not at stake. Fran- tive speaks of social discrimination and cophone and Dutch-speaking Belgians condescension, it does not include sto- have both achieved linguistic and cultur- ries of francophone Belgians attacking, al autonomy, and they control a broad wounding, or murdering Flemings. All range of governmental policies. More- of this stands in sharp contrast to the over, given the existence of the eu, many narratives of victimization and the his- policies will be set at the supranational torically based identities of Israeli Jews level regardless of whether or not Flan- and Palestinians. The Israeli narrative ders stays a part of Belgium. embodies a historical sense of victimi- Geography. Dividing Belgium into two zation based on centuries of anti-Semi- linguistically homogeneous independ- tism as well as the comparatively recent ent nations–a Dutch-speaking Flanders Holocaust and its relationship to the and a French-speaking Wallonia–is a founding of the Jewish state. Among comparatively simple matter. Few fran- Palestinians, the historically based sense cophone Walloons live in the Flemish of victimization is equally profound. It region, and not many Dutch-speaking is based on a narrative of territorial dis- Flemings now live in the Walloon re- placement through foreign colonization, gion. Leaving Brussels to one side, a two- the trauma of al-Nakba, and now nearly state solution does not create a signi½- forty years of a humiliating Israeli mili- cant ‘minority’ problem in either state. tary occupation during which thousands In the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, no ex- of Palestinians have been imprisoned, isting border neatly separates the two wounded, or killed. peoples. A two-state resolution would The stakes of the conflict: ideological, reli- not create ethnically homogenous na- gious, political, and material. Both Israelis tions unless hundreds of thousands of and Palestinians tend to see the stakes of families are relocated. Without reloca- their conflict as existential: Will Israel tion, each state would have a substantial survive as a Jewish state? Will the Pales- ethnic minority who live on the ‘wrong’ tinian people be able to secure a home- side of the line. Today, aside from Jeru- land? Decades of Arab enmity lead Is- salem, which only complicates matters raelis to believe that the Jewish state further, more than a quarter million Jew- faces extermination unless Israeli Jews are prepared to engage in armed defense. 37 I have written about the importance of these Many Palestinians believe that an armed internal conflicts. See Robert H. Mnookin and struggle is indispensable if the Palestin- Ehud Eiran, “Discord ‘Behind the Table’: The ian people are to secure their own state. Internal Conflict Among Israeli Jews Concern- Moreover, religious differences enor- ing the Future of Settlements in the West Bank mously complicate the Israeli-Palestin- and Gaza,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 1 ian conflict. Not only are there conflicts (2005): 11–44; and Robert H. Mnookin, Ehud Eiran, and Sreemati Mitter, “Barriers to Prog- between the parties concerning the con- ress at the Negotiation Table: Internal Conflicts trol of sacred sites, but also within each Among Israelis and Among Palestinians,” Ne- community there are profound internal vada Law Review 6 (Winter 2006): 299–366.

118 Dædalus Winter 2007 ish settlers reside in the Palestinian ter- shadow of armed conflict, where each Ethnic ritories and more than a million Pales- side has shown a willingness to use force conflicts tinian Israelis are citizens of the Jewish or violence. Within Belgium, leaders state. have never used even the threat of force. Economics. The average per-capita in- Instead, political leaders on both sides come of the Walloons is about three- of the language divide, supported by a quarters that of the Flemings: now shared culture that appreciates pragma- about $24,500 in comparison to a Flem- tism and compromise, have had a long ish average of $33,500. By international history of dealing with one another to standards both groups are prosperous. create Belgian compromises, which In comparison, the economic disparity though often messy and complex have between the Israelis and the Palestinians permitted the disputants to muddle is enormous: the average per-capita gdp through. This has never been the case for Israelis is about $25,000 while that in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, where of Palestinians living in the territories is the internal conflicts among Israeli Jews, only $1,000.38 on the one hand, and among Palestin- Political context. The conflict between ians, on the other, have made it extreme- the Flemish and the Walloons has no ir- ly dif½cult for leaders on either side to redentist element. The Flemish move- build a consensus behind the table in ment does not receive ½nancial support order to support a concession across the from Holland, and the Walloons receive table. none from France. Palestinian groups, All of these differences make negoti- on the other hand, receive external sup- ating a peaceful resolution of the Israeli- port for their struggle, both in dollars Palestinian conflict enormously chal- and arms, from Arab countries, Iran, as lenging. These differences suggest an well as members of the Palestinian dias- important, if obvious, lesson: a single- pora. Israel receives substantial external state solution–with some sort of conso- ½nancial support from the Jewish dias- ciational federal, or confederal, regime– pora, and substantial military aid from does not provide a model for a stable the United States. Moreover, Israel and long-term solution for the Israeli-Pales- the Palestinian territories, unlike Bel- tinian conflict, even assuming (as I do gium, are not embedded in a powerful not) that it would somehow be accept- supranational community. Belgium also able to the parties. In circumstances has effective national and regional gov- where there has been a protracted histo- ernmental institutions and the capacity ry of ethnic violence between two peo- to control internal violence. In the oc- ples of roughly equal population, where cupied Palestinian territories, the Pales- their economic circumstances are pro- tinians lack well-developed and stable foundly different, where there are deep governmental institutions of their own internal divisions within each communi- and have been unable to control violent ty, and where there is no cadre of experi- elements. enced leaders with constituents willing For Israeli and Palestinian leaders, ne- to accept collaborative problem solving, gotiations have always occurred in the such a regime is unlikely to provide an arrangement for an enduring peace.

38 Eurostat Regional Database; cia World Fact- book, https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/ factbook/index.html.

Dædalus Winter 2007 119 James G. Blight & janet M. Lang

Robert McNamara: then & now

But only in time can the moment in the A singular fact about the twentieth rose-garden century is this: roughly 160 million ...... human beings were killed by other hu- Be remembered; involved with past and man beings in violent conflict. It was future. the bloodiest century in human histo- ry. Errol Morris’s Academy Award–win- –T. S. Eliot, “Burnt Norton” (1991)1 ning documentary, The Fog of War, chal- lenges us to look closely at that tragic James G. Blight is Professor of International Re- century for clues as to how we might lations (Research) at Brown University’s Watson avoid a repetition of it, or worse, in this 2 Institute for International Studies. Among his century. publications are “Cuba on the Brink: Castro, The ½lm takes the form of a one-on- the Missile Crisis, and the Soviet Collapse” (with one conversation between Morris (who Bruce J. Allyn and David A. Welch, 1993), “Ar- is behind the camera) and former U.S. gument Without End: In Search of Answers to the Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNa- Vietnam Tragedy” (with Robert S. McNamara mara (who is on camera). The conver- and Robert K. Brigham, 1999), and “Wilson’s sation traces McNamara’s experiences Ghost: Reducing the Risk of Conflict, Killing, and from the end of World War I, through Catastrophe in the 21st Century” (with Robert S. the course of World War II, and the un- McNamara, 2001). He is also the coauthor of folding of the cold war in Cuba, Viet- “The Fog of War” (2005). nam, and around the world. We are en- couraged to experience pivotal moments janet M. Lang is Adjunct Associate Professor of in the twentieth century vicariously, as International Relations (Research) at Brown the ½lmmaker and his subject walk us University’s Watson Institute for International through the decisions of the leaders in- Studies, where she is codirector, with James G. volved in these seminal events. Archival Blight, of the Critical Oral History Project. She is also the coauthor of “The Fog of War” (2005). 1 T. S. Eliot, Collected Poems 1909–1962 (New Her current research focuses on the impact of the York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1991), 178. presidential transition from Kennedy to Johnson on the Vietnam War. 2 See also James G. Blight and janet M. Lang, The Fog of War: Lessons from the Life of Robert S. © 2007 by the American Academy of Arts McNamara (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Little- & Sciences ½eld, 2005).

120 Dædalus Winter 2007 footage and recently declassi½ed tape McNamara engaged many of his former Robert Mc- recordings of presidential conversations enemies, we have become familiar with Namara: then & now help the viewer place McNamara, who the ‘two McNamaras’ phenomenon. was eighty-½ve years old when Morris Reviewers and audiences responded interviewed him, in the chapters of his- to both the performance of the ‘two Mc- tory he discusses. Namaras’ and Morris’s ability as a ½lm- maker to render the two fully alive on Two prerequisites made The Fog of War the screen. However, many were not on- possible. The ½rst is McNamara’s central ly engaged by Morris but also enraged role, as U.S. secretary of defense, in two by McNamara. What seemed to irritate momentous events of the twentieth cen- skeptics most was not something speci- tury: the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 ½c that McNamara said or didn’t say, and the escalation of the Vietnam War but rather the mere fact of having the in the 1960s. The second is McNamara’s ‘two McNamaras’ confront them yet intense involvement, over the past twen- again: the black-and-white images of ty years, in research projects involving the supremely con½dent young man in not just former colleagues but also for- power, and the color images of an elder- mer enemies–such as the Russians, Cu- ly man admitting to mistakes made by bans, and Vietnamese who were his that same young man. To these skeptics, counterparts at the time–as well as top there was and is only one McNamara– scholars from the relevant countries. the arrogant know-it-all who appeared He has reexamined his decisions and on the nightly news throughout his ten- actions as a government of½cial to a de- ure as defense secretary to mislead the gree and in ways that we believe are un- American public about the Vietnam precedented; and he has done so by ex- War. In their view, McNamara was and posing himself time and again to former remains (in the useful phrase novelist enemies who have not been shy about Geoffrey Wolff used to describe his fath- telling him exactly where they believe he er) a “duke of deception”–who in the was wrong and, therefore, why he should 1960s lied about the war in Vietnam, and be held culpable for decisions and ac- who now pretends to have taken an in- tions they and others regard as regret- terest in identifying mistakes he made table, even criminal. then, solely to try to rescue his tattered At the heart of his evolution as a re- reputation.3 searcher is what we call the phenome- Although we have worked with Bob non of the ‘two McNamaras’: this pecu- McNamara for twenty years, we profess liar spectacle of an octogenarian discov- no knowledge of his deep psychological ering and analyzing with the greatest in- processes or his allegedly ‘hidden’ agen- tensity, often with new and compelling das. We regard such speculation as dis- data from unusual sources, the mistakes tractions from appreciating his achieve- –always focusing primarily on the mis- ment over the past two decades. The is- takes–that he made as a public of½cial sue of McNamara’s veracity in the 1960s decades earlier, and then drawing les- with regard to the war in Vietnam is sons from his experience for the world both interesting and important but also, of the twenty-½rst century. Morris cap- in our view, more complicated than Mc- tured the ‘two McNamaras’ brilliantly in his ½lm. As the principal organizers 3 Geoffrey Wolff, The Duke of Deception: Memo- of the research projects within which ries of My Father (New York: Vintage, 1990).

Dædalus Winter 2007 121 James G. Namara’s critics typically admit. Much has learned about the mistakes he made Blight & remains to be said about this issue, but it while holding high of½ce, really is inter- janet M. Lang is not our purpose to do so here. Suf½ce rogating a fortysomething public of½- on it to say that there are similarities and cial, also named McNamara. Second, the nonviolence & violence differences among the ways of evaluat- phenomenon of the ‘two McNamaras,’ ing the truthfulness and deceptiveness if it were emulated by other former of½- of individuals and governments. Within cials, is potentially an important means this context, it is possible for reasonable –one of the few currently available–for people to differ in their assessments of reducing the risk of war and other disas- how McNamara compares with other ters caused by mistaken assumptions public ½gures in the way he personally and faulty decision making. dealt with the inevitable trade-offs be- It may be asked: is it possible to raise tween personal belief and public respon- the odds of human civilization surviving sibility.4 a twenty-½rst century already as bloody We are not going to undertake psycho- as, and arguably becoming even more logical analyses of McNamara’s purport- dangerous than, the twentieth century? ed motive to rescue his flagging reputa- Many are pessimistic, and not without tion. Nor will we try to refute those who reason.5 We would personally be more for the most part, we believe, simply re- optimistic if we believed more former fuse to come to grips with his historical of½cials might be convinced to follow work at all because of their long-stand- McNamara’s lead. The signs are not ing and apparently unshakeable belief encouraging, however. But we are not that ‘he lied then and so he must be ly- ready just yet to yield to this negative ing now.’ Our objective is less emotion- line of thinking. Thus, we urge our read- ally charged but ultimately more impor- ers to resist their own cynical proclivities tant. We want to provide an introduc- as well, at least until they have explored tion to the research process in which the evolution of the ‘two McNamaras’ McNamara has been involved. In addi- and given some thought to our conclu- tion, we want to summarize what the sion: it is desirable for more public of½cials man has been up to and what he has ac- to emulate the ‘two McNamaras’ because this complished during the past two decades, process can yield tangible and useful clues to and illustrate why we need to pay atten- how we might reduce conflict and enhance tion to the results of his efforts. peace. We lay our own cards on the table in the form of two propositions: First, each In the 1980s, we studied the problem of of the ‘two McNamaras’ is genuine. In nuclear danger. Nuclear war was said to The Fog of War, an eightysomething re- be ‘unthinkable,’ since (it was assumed) searcher named McNamara, chastened no sane leader would knowingly initiate and humbled by a good deal of what he a global nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union. But 4 A good place to begin to evaluate McNa- while nuclear catastrophe might be in mara’s veracity is in the paperback edition of his Vietnam memoir, In Retrospect: The Trag- edy and Lessons of Vietnam (New York: Vintage, 5 This is a central question in Robert S. McNa- 1996). In an appendix, McNamara reprints mara and James G. Blight, Wilson’s Ghost: Re- many reviews of the hardback edition of the ducing the Risk of Conflict, Killing and Catastrophe book, which range from admiringly positive in the 21st Century, expanded, post-9/11 pb. ed. to scathingly negative. (New York: PublicAffairs, 2003).

122 Dædalus Winter 2007 this sense ‘unthinkable,’ it was not im- We soon found out that this question Robert Mc- possible. If it was not impossible, we –what does nuclear danger really look Namara: then & now wondered, as did many others, how and feel like?–is more complex, and might it happen? more interesting, than we initially antic- One hazardous route that interested ipated. Kierkegaard, we discovered, un- us, as scholars whose background was derstood the main outlines of the dif½- in cognitive psychology, was a deep crisis culty long ago. We live life forward, he between heavily armed nuclear nations. wrote, groping in the dark, unaware of The world had traveled this route only its ultimate outcome, yet we are forced once–during the Cuban missile crisis to understand events in reverse, work- of 1962. Though a great deal had been ing our way backward from outcomes written about the missile crisis, when to their supposed causes. This creates a we ½rst took up the issue, many authors profound disconnect between lived ex- who were, as we were, concerned with perience and our understanding of that policy issues–that is, with the reduction experience.6 Caught in the moment–in of nuclear risks–did not believe the cri- the riveting and scary Cuban missile cri- sis had much, if any, relevance to the sis, for example–decision makers may world of the mid-1980s. The global polit- feel exhausted, confused, unsure, and ical situation, the U.S. and Soviet weap- afraid. But in the scholarly study of deci- ons systems, the command and control sion making, as we encounter it, the con- capabilities of both Moscow and Wash- fusion and fear seem to have been large- ington–all had changed dramatically ly omitted. Rather than explore the ex- since the missile crisis. Many believed perience of this and other events, schol- these changes rendered the missile crisis ars have tended to focus on theory-driv- little more than an historical oddity– en explanations that attribute outcomes fascinating, maybe even a little scary, but to this or that ‘variable.’ irrelevant to the contemporary world. We developed critical oral history to On the contrary, it seemed to us that bridge the confusion and immediacy of another look–from a more human angle raw experience and the relatively cut- –had the potential to yield information and-dried explanations of the outcomes with contemporary policy relevance. of that experience after the fact. It does While weapons, and command and con- so by combining, in structured confer- trol systems, had changed markedly ences, (1) decision makers, who lived since the 1960s, human nature hadn’t. the events ‘forward,’ (2) scholars, who And so, our principal research question understand the events ‘in reverse,’ and was straightforwardly psychological: (3) declassi½ed documents, which pro- “What was it like to be a decision maker vide added accuracy and authenticity during the crisis when, literally, ‘the fate to the conversation. We held our ½rst of the earth’ hung on the decisions of a critical oral history conference on the few leaders in Washington, Moscow, and Cuban missile crisis in 1987. Most of the Havana?” Decision makers became, and of½cials who advised President Kennedy remain, the focus of our research. They are the people who have a special kind of knowledge that comes from participat- 6 Kierkegaard’s perspective provides the orga- nizational scheme for understanding nuclear ing in an event, with signi½cant respon- danger in James G. Blight, The Shattered Crystal sibility on their shoulders and with no Ball: Fear and Learning in the Cuban Missile Crisis clear idea of the outcome. (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Little½eld, 1989).

Dædalus Winter 2007 123 James G. during the crisis participated, along with insight to determine whether, or how, he Blight & eminent scholars of the crisis.7 Since might have made better decisions. His janet M. Lang then, we have organized ½ve more criti- interest is in comparing then with now. on cal oral history conferences on the mis- Historians, aided by declassi½ed docu- nonviolence & violence sile crisis, broadening our inquiry to in- ments, generally want, on the contrary, clude the look and feel of nuclear danger to focus strictly on then, stripped of ex- not just in Washington but also in Mos- actly the kind of hindsight–inherent in cow and Havana. Robert McNamara comments such as ‘if I knew then what participated in all of them; many of his I know now’–that often makes history colleagues from the Kennedy adminis- come alive to former of½cials. This is an- tration, and their Russian and Cuban other reason we created critical oral his- counterparts, participated in one or tory–to bridge this gap in a way that en- more of the conferences.8 courages a productive conversation be- Encouraged by the signi½cance of tween of½cials and historians and other what he (and we) learned in these meet- academics, who may have read the same ings about the missile crisis, McNamara documents in their brie½ng notebooks, suggested, in early 1995, that we apply but who have different reasons for be- the method of critical oral history to coming involved in the inquiry. When the war in Vietnam. We did, with simi- critical oral history works well, the for- larly surprising and productive results, mer decision makers gain insight into which he summarizes effectively in The their mistakes and those of former ad- Fog of War. McNamara participated in versaries, allowing them to glean lessons three of the ½ve conferences on the war: that we can apply to present-day issues. in Vietnam (1997), Italy (1998), and the At the same time, historians are often United States (1999). Former North able to learn some of the fascinating un- Vietnamese of½cials and Vietnamese written history of an event, which was scholars participated in all these confer- previously unknown to them in spite of ences as well.9 their having studied the event’s paper As a former decision maker, McNa- trail for years or even decades. mara is interested in using historical The central concept in critical oral his- 7 This early phase of the Cuban missile crisis tory is empathy. Empathy is not sympa- project is recounted in James G. Blight and thy or agreement, but the capacity to David A. Welch, On the Brink: Americans and Soviets Reexamine the Cuban Missile Crisis (New understand reality as someone else un- York: Hill and Wang, 1989). derstands it–to articulate accurately the story others tell themselves, even 8 The basic source is James G. Blight, Bruce J. though it may be unflattering or even Allyn, and David A. Welch, Cuba on the Brink: threatening to you. The ½rst lesson in Castro, the Missile Crisis and the Soviet Collapse, expanded 2nd ed. (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & the The Fog of War is empathize with your Little½eld, 2002). enemy. And for good reason. The ab- sence of empathy, as McNamara has 9 These critical oral history conferences are discovered via critical oral history, leads presented and analyzed in Robert S. McNa- straightaway to misperception, miscom- mara, James G. Blight, and Robert K. Brigham, munication, and misjudgment–and to with Thomas J. Biersteker and Col. Herbert Y. Schandler, Argument Without End: In Search of actions that, in turn, are likely to be mis- Answers to the Vietnam Tragedy (New York: Pub- understood by an adversary, thus initiat- licAffairs, 1999). ing or deepening a downward spiral into

124 Dædalus Winter 2007 crisis and toward conflict. Sometimes, key dimension of courage–the willing- Robert Mc- as in the period leading up to the Cuban ness to face the possibility that you, as Namara: then & now missile crisis and during the escalation well as your former enemy, might have of the war in Vietnam, when one side been mistaken–Robert McNamara has carries out actions for what it believes often led the way. He has taken risks: to are defensive reasons, the other side may identify mistakes, empathize with for- feel threatened, believing its adversary mer enemies, and learn something from has gone on the offensive and made a them. For people who take the process conscious decision to escalate the con- seriously, as McNamara has, critical oral frontation, crisis, or war. When empathy history is a risky and uncertain business. is present, however, as it was during the Yet, as is evident in The Fog of War and climactic phase of the Cuban missile cri- the research on which it is based, there sis–when the United States and Soviet can be substantial rewards for those will- Union locked onto the same wavelength ing to take the risks. in the nick of time to avert war–even a At the beginning of The Fog of War, seemingly imminent and unavoidable Robert McNamara says something that disaster can be averted. is so commonplace it might escape our When critical oral history works, em- attention. “The conventional wisdom,” pathy exists between former enemies– he says, “is don’t make the same mistake and sometimes even between former twice–learn from your mistakes. And we colleagues–that was not there during all do.” True enough, but hardly news, the events under scrutiny. But for the we may think. He then adds another process to yield results, the curiosity brief comment that can be easily missed of former decision makers must over- and that we want to emphasize here. “In whelm their fear of entrapment by the my life,” McNamara says, “I’ve been part other side. More importantly, it must of wars.” Again, while true, it is hardly overcome their fear of being exposed as newsworthy, if we fail to connect the having made mistakes that render them “conventional wisdom” with his experi- culpable, to some degree, for disastrous ence of having been “part of wars.” But decisions and actions. if we make the connection, we may be- Courage is fundamental: the willing- gin to see that he is saying something ness to put yourself and your reputation quite profound. at risk in order to get nearer to an accu- We have been present on many occa- rate understanding of what happened, sions when McNamara learned how and why. Courage is the sine qua non in deeply he was mistaken; how dangerous a critical oral history setting. It is the en- were the consequences of his mistakes, gine that empowers participants to em- with regard to the Cuban missile crisis; pathize as fully as possible with former and how his mistakes contributed sig- enemies–to explicitly or implicitly as- nally to the tragedy of the war in Viet- sume a viewpoint famously embodied nam. Of course, he (and we) learned of in a comment attributed to the radical the mistakes of others as well–Ameri- English Puritan, Oliver Cromwell. “I cans, Russians, Cubans, Vietnamese. We beseech you,” said Cromwell, “think it may ½nd it easy to dismiss such ½ndings possible you may be mistaken.” Having if we have never had anything like the dealt by now with hundreds of partici- responsibility that McNamara bore as pants in critical oral history settings over secretary of defense from 1961–1968, if nearly twenty years, we feel that on this we have not, as McNamara has, been

Dædalus Winter 2007 125 James G. “part of wars” in a position of signi½cant participant in the critical oral history Blight & responsibility. We may instead be tempt- conferences, and the fortysomething janet M. Lang ed to conclude: ‘The guy made mistakes, decision maker who participated in the on and via this critical oral history process, events under discussion. You oscillate, nonviolence & violence he discovered what they were. Good. in other words, between the ‘two Mc- Better that he learns late rather than not Namaras.’10 at all, I guess.’ Destroying Castro’s regime: Cubans and What is missing in this cavalier atti- Soviets tell you in Moscow in January tude is an appreciation for the emotion– 1989, that, fearing an imminent inva- the powerful feeling of personal respon- sion of Cuba following the Bay of Pigs sibility for events that can be very dif- ½asco of April 1961, they agreed to the ½cult even to articulate. As we have seen deal to put nuclear missiles on the is- and heard time and again, for those who land. Yet you know that after the Bay of have been “part of wars,” the discovery Pigs disaster, no invasion was intended. that one was mistaken in crucial situa- So you and your colleagues in Washing- tions can be shattering–not just to one’s ton, via continuing threats to intervene reputation or historical legacy, but also and via a program of covert operations in a personal and immediate way. meant to destabilize modestly (in your view) the situation in Cuba, inadvertent- Here is a rule of thumb in the conduct ly but unmistakably were instrumental of critical oral history: the more signi- in causing the most dangerous crisis in ½cant the revelation and the greater the recorded history. subsequent need to revise our under- Nuclear danger: You and your col- standing of history, the bigger the mis- leagues believed that Soviet nuclear take made at the time. In confronting warheads never reached Cuba; thus, such revelations, scholars and former a U.S. air strike and invasion of the is- decision makers necessarily part com- land were unlikely to pose direct dan- pany. What to participating scholars is ger to the American homeland. Yet you often the most dramatic and exciting learn in Havana in January 1992, from tends also to be, to one or more former the Soviet general who directed the mis- decision makers sitting at the same sile deployment in Cuba, that the war- table, disturbing, even devastating, as heads were present, ready to be used. So they begin to see how their mistakes the attack and invasion of Cuba, which became part of the causal chain leading you and your colleagues may have come to danger and/or disaster. In an effort to within hours of ordering, would likely provide a sense of this process, we will have escalated immediately to nuclear summarize some things that McNamara war, killing millions of people, includ- has learned over nearly two decades of ing many Americans. If that had hap- participating in the critical oral history pened–and you eventually conclude projects on the Cuban missile crisis and that it was mainly luck that prevented the war in Vietnam. it, as you/McNamara emphasize in The Here we ask you to practice what we Fog of War–you would have borne some preach: we want you to empathize, in of the responsibility for a tragedy so im- this case, with Robert McNamara. Imag- ine, in each case, that you are McNamara, 10 This section is based on the documentation as the revelations are made by former and oral testimony in Blight et al., Cuba on the enemies. You are the eightysomething Brink.

126 Dædalus Winter 2007 mense and horrible that it seems ripped cause you/McNamara agreed to go to Robert Mc- Namara: from the pages of an apocalyptic sci- Moscow in January 1989 and to Havana then & now ence-½ction thriller. in January 1992 to try to empathize with, How close was Armageddon?: You ½rmly by listening carefully to, Cuban and Rus- believed in October 1962, during the cri- sian of½cials about the events of October sis, that no leader of the three involved 1962, this Cuban missile crisis becomes countries would seek a nuclear war un- part of your legacy to history–this Cu- der any circumstances. Yet Fidel Castro ban missile crisis will help de½ne the tells you, face to face in Havana in Janu- way future generations will remember ary 1992, that he did in fact ask the Sovi- you. Because of mistakes you and your ets to launch an all-out nuclear strike on colleagues made, the world was nearly the United States, if Cuba were to be at- blown up. Signi½cant Russian and Cu- tacked and occupied by the Americans ban mistakes were also revealed in those with the intent of destroying the Cuban conferences, but those revelations do Revolution. So now you know that you not assuage the personal impact of what and your colleagues had so cornered we have learned about your mistakes. Castro, so stripped him of viable op- tions, that he believed nuclear war was The June 1997 critical oral history con- his least worst option in a contingency ference in Hanoi was psychologically he felt was increasingly likely. In the very dif½cult for, and even threatening event of an American invasion during to, the former U.S. of½cials who partici- the crisis, there is no doubt in your mind pated. It was tenser than even the Janu- that the Cuban leader would have done ary 1992 confrontation with Castro and everything in his power to provoke the his Russian allies. Two simple statistical Soviets into launching a nuclear attack facts help to explain why. First: in the on the United States. Moreover, you al- missile crisis, so far as is known, one so learn that the more than forty-three American pilot was killed, flying a U-2 thousand Russians stationed in Cuba spy plane over eastern Cuba. The dan- at the time, including their ½eld com- ger to the world was without precedent, mander, would have agreed completely but, thankfully, the outcome was benign. with Castro: they would have tried to Second: in the American war in Viet- kill as many Americans as possible, us- nam, more than two million Vietnam- ing short-range nuclear-armed weapons, ese and more than ½fty-eight thousand even though their military defeat at the Americans lost their lives. In agreeing to hands of the Americans was virtually as- come to the conference table in Hanoi, sured. the participants knew that any mistakes This Cuban missile crisis, which you that might be revealed in the course of are learning about twenty-½ve to thirty those discussions would immediately years after the event, is far from Kenne- and irrevocably link those found to be dy’s and your (i.e., McNamara’s) ‘½nest in error even more closely than before hour,’ as it is often portrayed in lore. In to all the death, destruction, and suffer- fact, you (remember: you are still in ing implied in this ‘second fact.’11 character, as McNamara) nearly partici- Here are three of the most signi½cant pated actively, if unwittingly, in the total ½ndings: destruction of your society and, but for ‘luck,’ would have been partially respon- 11 This section is based on McNamara et al., sible for the worst disaster in history. Be- Argument Without End.

Dædalus Winter 2007 127 James G. Casualties and punishment: You (you are resisted control from Hanoi. Those do- Blight & now back ‘in character,’ as McNamara) ing the ½ghting and dying in the South janet M. Lang ½rmly believed that some upper bound, wanted to control their own destiny, on some threshold of casualties and sheer not take orders from presumed leaders nonviolence & violence punishment, must exist, beyond which in Hanoi, who, many believed, did not the Vietnamese Communist adversaries understand the reality of the war being would seek to negotiate an end to the fought in the South. If you had believed war and their U.S.-inflicted misery. Yet this, you conclude, it would have been you are told by credible interlocutors in clear that the United States need not get Hanoi in June 1997 that the Vietnamese involved in Vietnam. The outcome at Communists, in both North and South the conclusion of this civil war in the Vietnam, had ½rmly resolved to accept South would have likely been the same– a level of punishment far beyond that a uni½ed Vietnam under Hanoi’s lead- which they actually received, including ership, but without much impact on nuclear attacks and a U.S. invasion of whether other so-called dominoes in North Vietnam. They not only resolved the region would fall to Communism. to accept such punishment, but they The difference, obviously and tragical- had made detailed plans (which they ly, is that millions of people would have revealed at the conference) for surviv- been spared, including many of those ing and ½ghting until they won. You for whom you feel especially responsi- must reluctantly conclude that all the ble: the more than ½fty-eight thousand bombing you ordered, all the troops you Americans killed in action, and the more deployed, and all the death and destruc- than three hundred thousand wounded. tion your forces inflicted on the people Missed opportunities: You initiated many of Vietnam were pointless. Your strate- probes of Hanoi between 1965 and 1967, gy, you are told and told convincingly, each of which was a serious attempt, in would never have worked. The ‘threshold your mind, to end the killing and move of pain’ of the Vietnamese Communists, to a negotiated political settlement. All which was much discussed by U.S. of- of them failed. Hanoi blamed you and ½cials at the time, existed only in your your colleagues for refusing to agree to minds. It had no reality whatsoever to stop the bombing ½rst before talks could your Vietnamese enemies. begin, whereas the U.S. position was Civil war: You believed that, funda- that Hanoi must ½rst cease supplying mentally, the Vietnam conflict exem- their allies in the South, whereupon the pli½ed the cold war between East and United States would then halt the bomb- West. Hanoi, therefore (so you had as- ing of North Vietnam. Now you learn sumed), exerted tight control over its from well-placed sources in Hanoi of allies, the National Liberation Front detailed plans drawn up in the early (nlf, or ‘Vietcong’) in the South. You 1960s by the North Vietnamese govern- also assumed that Moscow and Beijing ment to respond favorably to an Ameri- similarly directed Hanoi’s actions ‘like can overture, if you and your colleagues a puppet on a string.’ Yet you now learn would only agree to stop the bombing from declassi½ed Vietnamese docu- ½rst. These sources say their govern- ments, and from discussions with of½- ment could not, as the militarily weaker cials in Hanoi, that North Vietnam had nation, risk being thought weak, by ap- great dif½culty controlling the war in the pearing to capitulate to the American South–that the nlf in fact often ½ercely demand to halt supplies to the South

128 Dædalus Winter 2007 ½rst. Ultimately, neither side ‘went ½rst,’ your Vietnamese interlocutors that you Robert Mc- and the war went on, year after year, were mistaken in the ways just listed. Namara: then & now unnecessarily and tragically, as you now [You are now free to assume your actual see it. identity. You can exchange your ‘two McNa- The Vietnamese Communists had a maras’ for your more unitary self.] name for what U.S. of½cials called the Do you see now why former decision bombing ‘campaign’ against North Viet- makers and scholars have different reac- nam. They called it the ‘war of destruc- tions to the process of critical oral histo- tion’ because its purpose, as they under- ry as it unfolds? As scholars, we don’t stood it, was simply and only to destroy have to factor in the personal cost of ob- North Vietnam, its Communist govern- taining the knowledge. Scholars, who ment, and its people, if necessary. Their had no signi½cant responsibilities in the basic assumption was that the United events in question, can extend empathy States was willing to commit genocide to former enemies free of charge. But for against North Vietnam, if that’s what former of½cials like McNamara, the act it took to ‘win.’ When you heard state- of empathizing with former enemies re- ments to this effect in the 1960s, attrib- quires that you think it possible that you uting such repugnant, unthinkable geno- may have been mistaken, and that your cidal motives and objectives to the U.S. enemies may therefore have been justi- government in which you served, you ½ed in thinking and acting as they did. were inclined to regard them as propa- To scholars, all the new information is ganda. Now, however, you begin to see interesting and some of it genuinely fas- the logic behind their name for that cinating. To the former decision makers, war. As you begin to empathize with the it may well be interesting, but it can also North Vietnamese government and peo- be potentially incriminating. This is be- ple, you ask yourself: from their point cause every former decision maker par- of view, what other purpose could such ticipating is, in effect, ‘two’ participants: bombing have, other than ‘destruction’? an elderly former of½cial sitting at the It begins to seem to you that, among conference table in front of a huge note- the North Vietnamese, only the naive book full of declassi½ed documents, on a would have believed the actual truth of psychological journey deep into the vir- the matter, which is that the bombing tual ‘time machine’ of critical oral histo- was meant to force the North Vietnam- ry; and a much younger decision maker, ese to the negotiating table by making it with the same name, who wrote and too painful for them to continue to per- read those documents in real time. severe on the battle½eld. Back inside the ‘time machine’ of critical oral history, We conclude by discussing, ½rst, the you remember the responses you gave process by which we extract from history at the time to accusations that you had an accurate understanding of why wars undertaken a ‘war of destruction.’ On and conflicts have occurred in the past; the contrary, you said, you were stopping and second, how we might actually re- Communists, upholding non-Commu- duce the risk of conflict and war now, nists, protecting the ‘Free World,’ and in real time. Both focus on the courage to establishing the conditions for negoti- empathize with our enemies–something ating from a position of strength. But that takes more courage than one might these responses begin to ring hollow think. Former New York Times journalist to you, once you become convinced by Sydney Schanberg noted in a review of

Dædalus Winter 2007 129 James G. The Fog of War that McNamara’s deci- Bushes’ coming to grips with their own Blight & sion to appear in the ½lm took “a kind deeply mistaken mind-sets regarding janet M. Lang of courage, for he knew that by coming the so-called war on terror following on forward at all he was offering himself up the attacks of September 11, 2001? Or nonviolence 12 & violence for the slaughter.” And in a ½ne essay should we expect each to crank out the that deals in part with public reaction to usual self-justifying memoir after leav- the ‘two McNamaras’ who appear in the ing of½ce–claiming not to have made ½lm, Harvard scholar Samantha Power any signi½cant mistakes, thus permit- draws this conclusion: “Since Mr. Mc- ting neither them nor us to learn any- Namara seems to have generated more thing useful from the exercise? If they scorn than those who never acknowl- do produce memoirs in the ‘one Kissin- edged error–e.g., Dean Rusk, Henry ger’ vein, our understanding of how to Kissinger, and three American presi- prevent war and promote peace will not dents–it is unlikely that other of½cials be advanced one iota. If ‘one Rumsfeld,’ will be willing to follow his example.”13 ‘one Cheney,’ ‘one Powell,’ and ‘one Indeed, former Secretary of State Bush’ made no mistakes, but still the Henry Kissinger, whose fabrications outcome was tragic, well, what more can about his career in government are both be done? Given the growth in the num- multitudinous and well documented, ber and magnitude of ways the human but who never admits to having made race has developed to inflict violence mistakes, remains a much less contro- on itself, we believe the world will grow versial ½gure than McNamara. McNa- steadily more dangerous for there being mara, in fact, has the dubious distinc- few, or no, true heirs of the ‘two McNa- tion of having alienated those on the maras.’ left and those on the right of the polit- As dif½cult as it is, and likely will be, ical spectrum. On the left, the ‘two Mc- to learn the lessons of history, muster- Namaras’ arrived much too late to elic- ing the courage to empathize with our it admiration or even approval; on the enemies in real time is even more dif½- right, the ‘two McNamaras’ phenome- cult. Quoting Reinhold Niebuhr in The non is an unseemly, retrospective capi- Fog of War, McNamara says that of½- tulation to the enemy. Yet the way for- cials in charge of foreign and defense ward–the way to learning valuable les- policy need to ask this question each sons from the mistakes of former lead- time a decision is called for: “How much ers that led to crisis, war, and tragedy– evil must we do, in order to do good?” is McNamara’s way, not Kissinger’s. Since 9/11, it seems to us that this ques- Can we imagine witnessing, in the tion, which has rarely, if ever, been a fa- near future, ‘two Rumsfelds,’ or ‘two vorite mantra of foreign policymakers, Cheneys,’ or ‘two Powells,’ or ‘two is asked even less often than it was be- fore. Empathy is in short supply these 12 Sydney H. Schanberg, “Soul on Ice,” The days in U.S. foreign and defense policy. American Prospect 14 (10) (November 2003): The same goes for the kind of humility 61–63. Reprinted in Blight and Lang, Fog of Niebuhr (and McNamara) believe are War, 200–202, 201. appropriate: it is nowhere to be found. Rather, we are subjected to endless re- 13 Samantha Power, “War and Never Having to Say You’re Sorry,” New York Times, Decem- petitions of this message: they do all the ber 14, 2003, Sec. 2, 1, 33. Reprinted in Blight evil deeds; we respond as we must to pre- and Lang, Fog of War, 208–214, 212. vail over a thoroughly evil enemy.

130 Dædalus Winter 2007 Neither we, nor anyone else of whom McNamaras’ through twenty years of Robert Mc- we are aware, has an easy solution to the research and their dramatic depiction Namara: then & now problem of how to encourage decision in The Fog of War? Who would have be- makers now to rally the courage to em- lieved that McNamara would, in the for- pathize with their enemies. Given the mulation of Hannah Arendt, be “drawn shrillness with which many have criti- out of hiding” in his retirement and be- cized the ‘two McNamaras’ of The Fog come, in his way, a trenchant, antiestab- of War for endeavoring to do so, it is lishment scholar and an apostle of em- hardly surprising that, for example, nei- pathy?15 Not us. ther members of the Bush administra- New York Times ½lm critic Stephen Hol- tion nor their supporters or opponents den wrote this in October 2003, after the in Congress have dared to do so. Lack- March U.S. invasion of Iraq but before ing the power to enforce the equivalent the December release of The Fog of War of a twelve-step program of empathy in theaters: “If there is one movie that enhancement among the world’s pow- ought to be studied by military and ci- er brokers (beginning in Washington, vilian leaders around the world at this where the greatest power is concentrat- treacherous moment, it is The Fog of ed), we consider instead an evocative War, Errol Morris’s portrait of former excerpt from a poem by W. H. Auden United States Defense Secretary Robert that suggests part of the process that S. McNamara.”16 We agree that the ‘two Robert McNamara has gone through to McNamaras’ should be studied–by all produce the ‘two McNamaras’: of us. But it is far more important for military and civilian leaders to emulate . . . all he did was to remember McNamara’s example. Is this possible? like the old and be honest like children. Is the ‘two McNamaras’ phenomenon a fluke, never (or hardly ever) to be re- He wasn’t clever at all: he merely told peated? Or are ways available to us as the unhappy Present to recite the scholars and as citizens by which we Past . . . 14 can raise the odds that others might be It is admittedly dif½cult to envision “drawn out of hiding” to identify their the emergence of ‘two Rumsfelds,’ ‘two mistakes, so that others may learn from Cheneys,’ ‘two Powells,’ or ‘two Bushes,’ them without all of us having to pay any one of whom suspects that his own such a heavy price? actions contributed to the cycle of vio- lence in which we ½nd ourselves. But perhaps we are being too pessimistic. For who in 1967–1968–with the war in Vietnam escalating, and with Robert McNamara almost daily claiming that “we are winning” and predicting a suc- cessful conclusion to the war–would have predicted the evolution of the ‘two 15 Hannah Arendt, Life of the Mind, in Peter Baehr, ed., Portable Hannah Arendt, vol. 1 (New York: Penguin Books, 2000), 414. 14 W. H. Auden, “In Memory of Sigmund Freud,” in Edward Mendelson, ed., W. H. 16 Stephen Holden, “Revisiting McNamara Auden: Collected Poems (New York: Random and the War He Headed,” New York Times, Oc- House, 1976), 215–218, 216. tober 11, 2003, B9, B17, B9.

Dædalus Winter 2007 131 Annals by David Jewitt & Jane X. Luu

Pluto, perception & planetary politics

Last summer, in Prague, members of ber, as they routinely do for run-of-the- the International Astronomical Union mill asteroids. From now on, Pluto is (iau) voted to remove Pluto from the 134340. list of planets. It is not a major planet Pluto’s loss of planetary status, while like our own Earth, or Mars, or Jupiter, pleasing to the many astronomers who they declared; it is instead a ‘dwarf plan- have long viewed Pluto as a planetary et’ along with several other diminutive usurper, has enraged others. Dark ru- but approximately round bodies in or- mors of a revolution at the iau swirl bit about the sun. Apparently adding on the Internet, and pro-Pluto political insult to injury, the iau’s Minor Planet action groups have formed. Pluto’s re- Center promptly assigned Pluto a num- classi½cation has also bemused science writers and the general public, many David Jewitt, a Fellow of the American Academy of whom believe planethood is Pluto’s since 2005, is a professor in the Department of right, not to be cruelly snatched away by mean-spirited astronomers. The dusty Physics & Astronomy at the University of Ha- iau waii. He has been published extensively in scien- world of the has never been racked ti½c journals. His research interests include the by so much controversy. trans-Neptunian solar system, solar system for- Astronomers will study Pluto just the mation, and the physical properties of comets. same whatever it is called: a planet, an Along with Jane X. Luu, he discovered the ½rst ex-planet, or a dwarf–it doesn’t mat- Kuiper Belt object in 1992. ter. In this sense, Pluto’s removal from the list of planets is inconsequential. So Jane X. Luu is a technical staff member at mit what is behind the abnormally high lev- Lincoln Laboratory. In 1991, she was awarded the el of interest and, in some quarters, the Annie J. Cannon Award in Astronomy, which is almost pathological passion aroused by given annually to a woman for distinguished con- Pluto’s reclassi½cation? tributions to astronomy. She also discovered the It turns out that the answer to this ½rst known Kuiper Belt object with David Jewitt question is deep. The reaction to Pluto’s in 1992. The asteroid 5430 Luu is named in her demotion tells us little about Pluto, but honor. a lot about the public perception of sci- ence, and about the role of politics and © 2007 by the American Academy of Arts public relations in modern planetary as- & Sciences tronomy.

132 Dædalus Winter 2007 stronomers have known since 1992 ry, objects fully 1000 kilometers in di- Pluto, per- A ception & that Pluto is not alone. It orbits the sun ameter were being discovered with reg- planetary along with a vast number of cohorts ularity. Starting in 2000, press reports politics in the frozen realms beyond Neptune. began to tout the applicability of the This region, now widely known as the term ‘planet’ to these objects with 2000 Kuiper Belt, contains bodies consisting wr106 (Varuna; some 600 to 900 kilo- mostly of ice and rock, like dirty snow- meters in diameter); then 2001 kx76 balls trapped in the solar system’s deep (Ixion; 800 kilometers); then 2002 freeze. More than a thousand Kuiper lm60 (Quaoar), 2004 dw, 2003 el61, Belt objects (kbos) have been identi½ed and 2005 fy9 (all 1000 to 1300 kilome- as a result of prodigious search efforts. ters). The straw that broke the planeta- Based on these discoveries, we can pre- ry camel’s back was 2003 ub313 (Eris), dict some seventy thousand kbos larg- a kbo whose diameter is the same as er than 100 kilometers in size, and tens, Pluto’s within the uncertainties of meas- even hundreds, of millions of kbos urement. The point of all these discov- measured down to 1 kilometer in size. eries was clear: Pluto is not alone. The The new discoveries show that the Kui- press release announcing Eris, howev- per Belt is a ring-like assemblage of bod- er, advertised it as “the tenth planet,” a ies extending roughly from Neptune’s label that many in the press and the pub- orbit at 30 astronomical units (au; 1 au lic accepted uncritically. But describing is the average distance between the Eris as the tenth planet presupposes that Earth and the sun) to at least 1000 au. Pluto is the ninth planet–and this had The Kuiper Belt has immediately already been a controversial assertion emerged as a new frontier in astrono- for many years. my, scienti½cally important on several The history of how Pluto came to be different levels. It turns out that the Belt labeled the ninth planet is well known. is the source of many of the comets that Astronomers in the early twentieth cen- intermittently grace Earth’s skies. More tury noted that Uranus’s position devi- signi½cantly, it is a vast repository of icy ated from its predicted ephemeris by bodies left over from the solar system’s a small but signi½cant amount. Since formation 4.5 billion years ago, and its these deviations could not be attribut- study promises to tell us much about the ed to Neptune, astronomers supposed way in which the solar system formed that they must be due to the tug of an and evolved. With the discovery of the unseen planet. Urbain LeVerrier and Kuiper Belt, it became clear that Pluto John Adams had successfully used a sim- was more usefully viewed as a large kbo ilar argument in the previous century than as a planet. Most astronomers have to predict the existence and location of recognized since 1992 that Pluto’s earli- Neptune, which led to its discovery in er classi½cation as a planet was a mis- 1846 by Johanne Galle. Percival Lowell take, but the message has been poorly named the unseen disturber of Uranus received by the wider public. “Planet X.” He calculated its position The ½rst objects discovered in the from the perturbations on Uranus, then Kuiper Belt were a few hundred kilome- instigated an observational search at his ters in diameter, tiny compared to Plu- private observatory in Flagstaff, Arizo- to, which is 2300 kilometers in diameter. na. In 1930, fourteen years after Lowell’s But it did not take long for larger bodies death, Clyde Tombaugh indeed found to be identi½ed. By the turn of the centu- Pluto near the predicted position and

Dædalus Winter 2007 133 Annals by announced Planet Pluto to an awestruck were also recorded in photographic David Jewitt world. observations from the 1950s and 1960s, & Jane X. Luu But things began to unravel quickly. but they went undetected. One of the Physical measurements showed that main reasons for this is psychological: Pluto was too small to perturb the oth- humans are not very good at perceiving er planets measurably: its mass is only things they do not expect to see. With one-½fth of 1 percent of Earth’s mass, six Pluto entrenched in our minds as the times less than even Earth’s moon. Pluto ‘last planet,’ nobody was able to see did happen to be near in the sky to Low- even the bright kbos until this popula- ell’s predicted location, but it had noth- tion had been ½rmly established in the ing to do with a Uranus-tugging “Planet 1990s. (This is an oft-repeated story in X.” Even worse for Percival Lowell (if astronomy. Pluto was recorded photo- not for Pluto), the deviations in the posi- graphically decades before Tombaugh tion of Uranus he used to infer the loca- discovered it, but went unnoticed be- tion of Pluto are now known to be obser- cause it was not sought. Amazingly, vational errors, not real deviations due Neptune was recorded by none other to an unseen planet. Thus, Pluto is not than Galileo, but he paid no attention “Planet X”–not because it does not have to it, delaying Neptune’s discovery for enough mass to cause deviations in Ura- two hundred years.) nus’s orbit, but because those deviations If Pluto had been immediately recog- are not even real! nized as the ‘tip of the Kuiper Belt ice- We have to conclude that Tombaugh berg,’ we would have known soon after discovered Pluto not because of the World War II–and certainly before the quality of Lowell’s predictions, but space age–where comets come from simply because he was looking when and where to go in the solar system to nobody else was. These facts, however, ½nd our most primitive materials. Our did not distract astronomers at Lowell understanding of the dynamics and ori- Observatory from advancing Pluto as a gin of the solar system would also have planet; and, in the absence of much pub- been much less biased by observations lic discussion until the discovery of the of the rocky planets and the inner solar Kuiper Belt, these facts made little im- system than it has been. The damage pression on the public. For all the wrong done by the mislabeling of Pluto as a reasons, the ‘planet’ label stuck. planet, in this sense, has been consider- It is interesting to speculate on what able. might have happened had Pluto been So what is behind the public fascina- properly described as a large kbo upon tion with Pluto as a planet? Nostalgia, its discovery in 1930. Most likely, our un- mostly. Pluto was always a planet in the derstanding of the solar system would past, how could it not be a planet now? have been advanced by many decades. This is the essence of the so-called cul- The next-brightest kbos after Pluto are tural defense of Pluto’s planethood ad- fainter by a factor of ½fteen or twenty. vanced by astronomer Mike Brown at They would have been dif½cult for Tom- Caltech. The argument is that the de½- baugh to locate, but astronomical sensi- nition of a planet is determined by col- tivity increases almost yearly and addi- lective beliefs rather than by any scien- tional objects could have been identi½ed ti½c metric. We can draw an analogy within a decade or two. Indeed, some of with the continents. There is no serious, the bright kbos found in recent years scienti½cally based de½nition of what

134 Dædalus Winter 2007 constitutes a continent, just a set of ac- main impulse is to cling to the status Pluto, per- cepted continents that we, as children, quo, whatever that might be. ception & planetary more or less commit to memory. This Astronomers have a different view politics analogy is good because, as with planet- (hopefully). The important and essen- hood, the de½nition of ‘continent’ we tially uncontested fact is that modern are familiar with plays no important role research clearly reveals Pluto as a large in understanding the geology, geophys- but otherwise unremarkable kbo. Even ics, geography, or even politics of the the strongest advocates of Pluto’s plan- world. It is a socially accepted construct. ethood cede this fact. Calling Pluto a But this doesn’t mean that anything planet adds nothing to our understand- goes. For example, it would be unaccept- ing of its nature, properties, or origin, able to most people to suddenly declare and in fact obfuscates its position as one Long Island or Florida a continent: it of a group of many bodies in the ring of doesn’t help scienti½cally, and it clearly debris in the outer solar system. Never- subverts the intent of the ‘continent’ theless, a vocal minority of scientists is label, which is to point to a substantial, expressing outrage, partly in sympathy coherent land mass. Likewise, labeling with the public confusion but more ob- tiny Pluto as a planet implies that it is viously for reasons of self-interest. in the same league as Earth (which is There are two main groups in this 500 times more massive), Uranus (7,500 latter category. First, those connected times), and even Jupiter (140,000 times). in some way to the discovery of Pluto This doesn’t make sense. and other large kbos have a vested in- More deeply, we believe that the pub- terest in asserting planetary status. We lic attachment to Pluto-as-planet reflects all know that planets are discovered by a fundamental misunderstanding of the historical luminaries such as William evolving, self-correcting nature of sci- Herschel and Urbain LeVerrier, where- ence. This misunderstanding stems from as kbos are already a dime a dozen. Dis- a confusion between memorization and covering a ‘planet’ is perceived as better comprehension that seems inherent to than discovering a big kbo because it educational systems worldwide. Those garners more press attention. Second, of us who teach undergraduate classes those involved in nasa’s ‘Horizons’ often see students to whom the lectures mission to ‘the last planet’ suddenly ½nd are merely an exercise in memorization. their spacecraft on its way to a seeming- Every detail of every lecture is written ly less important body. We see no intrin- down and memorized, with the idea be- sic problem with this. The Horizons mis- ing that to ‘pass the test’ one needs only sion is no less impressive, and the loss to remember everything and regurgitate of the planet label does not diminish sci- it upon demand. While memory is an enti½c interest in Pluto. But there is un- important part of learning, this is clear- doubtedly a degree of unease in having ly taking it too far. If we teach children to explain to hard-nosed nasa adminis- the names of the planets and do little trators why they have spent $700 mil- or nothing to explain their fundamen- lion on a ten-year mission to an ex-plan- tal signi½cance, of course they will re- et. This is a matter of planetary politics. act negatively when membership in Lastly, what was the motivation of the planet club is revoked. Since they the International Astronomical Union? have little idea of what the solar system This body had its heyday in the cold war, means in any broader context, their when it provided almost the only regular

Dædalus Winter 2007 135 Annals by opportunity for Western astronomers to On the brighter side, one cannot buy David Jewitt meet their counterparts from the other the level of public interest that has been & Jane X. Luu side of the Iron Curtain. Since then, it triggered by the planethood debate. The has taken responsibility for apportion- iau and astronomers everywhere have ing names to asteroids and to geological the potential to use this interest to focus features observed on solid bodies in the the public toward more fundamental, solar system, and for ½ghting light- and more scienti½c issues, such as the origin radio-frequency pollution of the skies of the solar system and even the nature on behalf of astronomers worldwide. and purpose of science. As a result, the Unfortunately, in the ‘what is a planet’ public, especially children, might care debate, the iau trapped itself between more about how our solar system came the irreconcilable positions of the pub- to be, how collisions and aggregation of lic, which was overtly interested in hav- solids and gas led to the emergence of ing the iau pronounce Pluto a planet, distinct types of planets: the Earth-like and of the astronomers, most of whom rocky planets in the inner solar system, were more interested in clearing the air and the gas- and ice-rich giant planets in by reversing a seventy-six-year-old mis- the outer regions. And it might wonder take. Worse, the iau allowed its delib- how the process of planet accumulation erations to drag on, mostly in secret, produced the leftovers that litter the re- for years, so magnifying the impression gion beyond Neptune. Let’s hope that that a weighty and complicated scien- what ultimately comes out of the planet- ti½c issue was under study. They could hood debate is a better understanding of have, and should have, declared that what science is about, rather than hol- Pluto was ½rst and foremost a big kbo, low mourning for the Icy Body Formerly and that calling it a planet was an un- Known as a Planet. helpful and ultimately unjusti½able mat- ter of public relations and planetary pol- itics, not science. Instead, they waffled, struggling for years in a doomed quest to ½nd a compromise that would keep all sides happy. While the iau in the end reached the right decision (except for the unnecessary invention of the ‘dwarf planet’ class), the public perception of the process, and of astronomers and as- tronomy, has been soiled. Millions of people now think of astronomers as having too much time on their hands, and as unable to articulate the most ba- sic de½nitions or clear positions in a co- herent way. Even the nature of science was muddied: do scientists really make progress democratically, by voting, as they did on the status of Pluto? Should we vote on the value of the gravitational constant? None of this is good for as- tronomy.

136 Dædalus Winter 2007 Annals by Owen Gingerich

Planetary perils in Prague

For astronomers, Prague is a singular- years has increased by orders of magni- ly nostalgic city. It was here, in February tude, an immense expansion factor that of 1600, that the young, starry-eyed Jo- only the observations of Tycho Brahe hannes Kepler met the imperious, eccen- rival in their comparative impact. Tele- tric Tycho Brahe. Brahe brought a price- scopes in mountain observatories, plus less trove of precise observations of the spacecraft above the atmosphere com- planets and stars, the likes of which the bined with modern electronics, have world had never seen–singlehandedly reaped a bounteous harvest of exciting he raised the astronomical data bank a new results. hundredfold. As Kepler would later re- But as seen from the Prague press of- flect, Brahe had the building materials ½ce of the International Astronomical for cosmology, but he lacked an archi- Union (iau), the world was ½xated on tect. Kepler became that architect. It was two far more mundane questions: would a conjunction fated to alter the course of little Pluto, in the frigid realm beyond astronomy. Neptune, still be considered a planet; Last August, Prague was teeming with and if so, would some of his icy play- astronomers, roughly two thousand of mates in that remote zone also be ush- them. They came to evaluate an astro- ered into the exclusive planetary club? nomical data bank that in the past few The iau had gotten itself into this feeding frenzy by a procedural question Owen Gingerich, a Fellow of the American Acad- of nomenclature that only indirectly in- emy since 1976, is Professor Emeritus of Astrono- volved Pluto’s status. For this is one my and History of Science at Harvard University of the things international unions do. and a senior astronomer emeritus at the Smith- They follow in Adam’s footsteps by cre- sonian Astrophysical Observatory. Among his nu- dentialing names. The International merous publications are “The Great Copernicus Union of Biological Sciences, for exam- Chase and Other Adventures in Astronomical ple, oversees a committee that establish- History” (1992), “The Eye of Heaven: Ptolemy, es the rules for the naming of birds and Copernicus, Kepler” (1993), and “The Book No- shells and other animals. And the Inter- body Read” (2004). Most recently, he published national Astronomical Union, in its very “God’s Universe” (2006). ½rst General Assembly, in Rome in 1922, established the list of eighty-eight con- © 2007 by the American Academy of Arts stellations accepted today. Committees & Sciences

Dædalus Winter 2007 137 Annals by under its aegis assign names to comets, would not have been so fraught, except Owen Gingerich to minor planets, to planetary satellites, that in 1999 my colleague Brian Mars- and to features on these moons or plane- den, who was directing the iau’s Mi- tary bodies. nor Planet Center, had reached a nice But as for planets, the iau has never round number in tabulating the aster- had an opportunity to name one. In 1930 oids, 10,000, and he suggested it might the Lowell Observatory announced the be reserved for Pluto. Unexpectedly, discovery of a planetary body beyond his rational, practical suggestion creat- Neptune, and they were delighted when ed a ½restorm, and the iau of½cers were an eleven-year-old schoolgirl in Oxford bombarded with protests at the appar- suggested the name Pluto, because its ent threat of Pluto’s demotion. Hence, ½rst two letters were the initials of the they were understandably nervous. Af- observatory’s founder, Percival Lowell. ter a large committee from their Plane- The iau held General Assemblies only tary Systems Sciences Division not only every three or four years and didn’t have failed after many months to ½nd a solid one until 1932, so by then the name was consensus, but also seemingly had not a fait accompli. considered the public-relations aspects In 1930 Pluto was assumed to be at in their debates, the Executive Commit- least as large as Earth, and maybe a few tee decided to appoint a broader-based times larger, for Percival Lowell had ‘Planet De½nition Committee.’ Since I presumably predicted its approximate had credentials in both astrophysics and position by its gravitational perturba- the history of astronomy, I was tapped to tions on the giant planets Neptune and lead the way across the mine½eld. Uranus. In the decades that followed, Many suggestions poured in via the however, observations showed that not Internet about how to de½ne the word only was Pluto much smaller–indeed, planet. Someone suggested it was already smaller than our moon–but also the de½ned by its Greek origins: wanderer. If apparent perturbations stemmed large- it moves against the starry background, ly from the use of an erroneous mass let it be a planet. Considering that orbits for Neptune in the celestial mechanical are already known for approximately computations. Thus, Pluto’s planetary three hundred thousand asteroids, not status was in some jeopardy. In 2000, to mention comets, the suggestion was when the planet walk was constructed straightaway tossed into the obsolete for the new Rose Center and Hayden ideas bin. Others appealed to history: Planetarium in New York, Pluto was freeze the status quo with its nine plan- conspicuous by its absence. ets. But history is a ½ckle guide, for Matters came to a head in 2005 when throughout the ages the number of plan- an icy ball discovered far beyond Nep- ets has varied both with cosmology and tune proved to be as large as or slightly with discovery. larger than Pluto. Was it, or was it not, a Meanwhile, the committee had con- planet? Which committee had the nam- ferred for two days in Paris to craft a ing rights? Meanwhile, it suffered under scienti½c, but culturally sensitive, de½- ub a technical designation, 2003 313, or nition. There were two ways, not com- the nickname Xena from a popular fan- pletely independent, to de½ne a planet tasy television show. scienti½cally: either by what it is, or by As far as the Executive Committee of where it is, that is, by its relationship to the iau was concerned, the situation its neighbors. Planetary scientists and

138 Dædalus Winter 2007 geologists are keen on studying planets trans-Neptunian objects, with a name Planetary as physical bodies. Some of them would such as ‘plutons’ to recognize the his- perils in Prague even cheerfully think of the giant satel- torical role of Pluto. In this way, Pluto lites–Jupiter’s Ganymede and Callisto, would be promoted while being demot- and Saturn’s Titan, objects that rival or ed, which, as some analysts smugly not- exceed Mercury in size–as planetary ed, was worthy of political solutions in- bodies. They are de½nitely in the what side the Beltway. camp. The dynamicists, on the other The frenzy of the iau press room hand, ½nd the dominating relationship in Prague was at ½rst exhilarating, but of a planet on its neighbors particular- in retrospect I realize it was a prime ly fascinating, and for them, where is of source of strategic error. The chief press prime signi½cance. of½cer was convinced that reporters While these alternative approaches to would want to know two things: Is Plu- de½ning a planet had rami½cations for to a planet? And how many planets are the status of Pluto, its standing was not there? The committee had never count- a major consideration in the negotia- ed because we all knew that the num- tions, and we never inquired where the ber in August would not be the same as seven members of the committee stood the count in December. I tried in vain on that issue. So while Pluto remained to convince him that the press release the elephant in the parlor, the members should say, ‘eight classical planets and a pretty much stayed in the kitchen. For growing number of plutons.’ The press, my committee, de½ning a planet as an which feeds on controversy, easily found object seemed simplest and more open- critics who declared the number of ended, especially considering the cur- twelve planets ridiculously complicated rent discoveries of large numbers of exo- because it included the round asteroid planets, that is, planetary bodies orbit- Ceres as well as Charon, a satellite of ing distant suns. Furthermore, rather Pluto that had snuck in through a foot- than establishing an arbitrary cut-off in note that wasn’t part of our proposed size, we chose the most obvious physi- resolution. cal characteristic as the dividing line. If Our recommendations met with en- a body had enough mass and therefore thusiastic approval from the Division enough gravity to pull itself into a ball, for Planetary Sciences of the American let it be a planet. Naturally, there would Astronomical Society, the largest inter- be an ambiguous boundary zone, but national group of planetary scientists. science and scienti½c taxonomy are full Where our proposed resolution ran in- of such debatable cases. to vehement and raucous opposition We immediately understood that a was from the dynamicists, who believed what de½nition would open the gates they hadn’t been consulted and who felt to a dozen more solar-system planets, stabbed in their psyches because we had and maybe as many as thirty or even not given primacy to their favored where forty, and that these would primarily de½nition. Feeding on the discontent of be dirty iceballs of the Pluto class, and those who felt uneasy about admitting not major planets like Uranus or Nep- too many dwarfs into the club, they mar- tune. I therefore proposed that we shaled support for a hastily worded al- should describe Mercury through Nep- ternative de½nition. tune as ‘classical planets,’ and make Our committee met with the leaders Pluto the prototype of a new class of of the opposition, and I showed them an

Dædalus Winter 2007 139 Annals by alternative compromise resolution that dent of the iau and a member of the Owen began: Gingerich Planet De½nition Committee, Cather- ine Cesarsky, made an impassioned and The predominant part of the solar sys- statesman-like plea to this effect, but tem is a dynamically linked suite of eight unfortunately brilliant floodlights blind- mutually-interacting planets, Mercury to ed those on the stage, and they did not Neptune. Each of these produces observ- see and recognize her until after the vote able perturbations on at least one of its had been taken. As Kepler wrote to his neighbors. The hundreds of thousands teacher, Michael Maestlin, “Experts can- of lightweight bodies individually have not live off themselves or on air. There- no observable dynamical effects on the fore, let us act in astronomical affairs in heavyweight planets. We retain this group such a way that we hold on to supporters of classical planets as the essential de½ni- of astronomy and do not starve.” tion of “planets.” Unfortunately, one becomes too soon Alas, they would have none of it, old and too late wise. I realize in retro- claiming that even the asteroid Ceres spect that the iau should never have at- could perturb Earth by a few centime- tempted to de½ne the word planet. It is ters and that eventually our instruments too culturally bound, with elastic de½ni- would be sensitive enough to detect that tions that have evolved throughout the minuscule amount. In the end, some- ages. What the iau could legitimately how, the confusing but de½ning phrase have done in its role of naming things that a planet was a body large enough was to have de½ned some subclasses, “to have cleared its zone” was added such as ‘classical planets,’ leaving the to the resolution and was adopted by planetary door open not only for pluto- the ½nal assembly. Appropriately, they nians and cereans but for the exoplan- voted that Pluto would be considered ets as well. These terms would be emi- the prototype body of an unnamed class nently teachable and would help stu- of dwarf planets, but which by the new dents understand the complexity and de½nition would not be planets. And by richness of the solar system that mod- the narrowest of votes they failed to give ern science is revealing. And astrono- the name ‘plutonians’ to the new class mers could have left Prague without of objects for which Pluto stands as the muddle on their faces. prototype. In the aftermath of Prague, the iau In their zeal for science, the voting committees joined forces to accept an astronomers in Prague seemed to forget appellation proposed by Mike Brown, that for the most part they don’t own the leader of the team that discovered the telescopes, the space probes, and 2003 ub313: it is now Eris, appropriate- the instruments on which they depend ly named after the classical goddess of for their researches. It is the taxpayers discord and strife. who own them. And it was American taxpayers who felt they owned the Hub- ble Space Telescope so much that they made an outcry when nasa of½cials decided to abandon it. It was our pub- lic constituency who forced a change in their plans. It behooves us to pay atten- tion to public relations. The new presi-

140 Dædalus Winter 2007 Poem by John Kinsella

Into the Sun

The ½lm of moisture on the eyeball sizzles though it’s not really hot outside: sun the other side of gold and occasional cloud umber to gravitational black; all surfaces are reflective from early morning rain, and into the sunlight is bitter-sweet and dif½culty lifts from the asphalt; a twisted strip of salmon gum bark laminate and the waste from Blake’s tree-angel–all angels excrete–has you swerve away as if life depends upon curve and intersecting line of shadow, long shade permeating your semi-reflective exterior, lull in crows’ late life, startling your blind spot navigating broken white line then double solid strips of nuclear activity, eternal chain reaction running aground past wooded cemetery, creeks leached from Lover’s Leap, a panorama of district occasionals, keepsakes; I dreamt as you dreamt of a screen full of triangles gone suddenly blank–seemingly in an instant, imagining a flash though its opposite is incandescence sucked dry, as sun visor is angled and head lifted above the straight and narrow, roll of the downward slide, pryamoid or prismatic slip from apex to base, a scrunching effect: that’s what’s left, and I’ve no proof beyond an evening dullness, a late dusk comparative: it’s less harsh on the eyes but less invigorating, less exposed to prayed for end result, an aftermath left to keep the flocks in order: so many cattle moving into sheep territory;

Dædalus Winter 2007 141 top- dressing they use their spray pods, liquid fertiliser like a coagulated mirage in cooler weather, seed-drilling a sun-rippled pasture, a bearing taken from the eye’s corner, these indulgences of a light so overloaded we’d never risk staring it down if free choice could change gravity to a variety more sublime; to the glint of immensity in-foliate, like carbons in triplicate when protogine, quick steps to levity.

John Kinsella is professor of English at Kenyon College and adjunct professor at Edith Cowan Univer- sity, where he is a principal of the Landscape and Language Centre. He has published numerous vol- umes of poetry, including “The Silo” (1995), “The Hierarchy of Sheep” (2001), and “Peripheral Light” (2003). He has also written novels, short stories, and four verse plays (collected as “Divinations”). Kinsella is the editor of the literary journal “Salt” and serves as international editor of the “Kenyon Review.”

© 2007 by John Kinsella

142 Dædalus Winter 2007 Fiction by Peggy Shinner

Life is Adequate

Sheep, milk, tv. He’s tried everything, So she thinks he’s lying. He can tell but she never believes him. She thinks by how, when he says he can’t sleep, she it’s a joke that he can’t sleep. She thinks goes on to the next subject. She doesn’t if only he tried harder. If he really want- skip a beat. By the way she says yes and ed to he could. All he has to do is close mm-hmm. She’s humoring him. All those his eyes. It’s that easy. What does she naps, she’s thinking. Old people always know about trying to sleep. She’s young, say they can’t sleep. They want you to she wants to go to sleep, she sleeps. He feel sorry for them. But you add it up, an used to be like that. Time was he slept hour here, an hour there . . . . The morn- like a baby. He shut his eyes and went to ing always comes, she’s thinking. He can sleep. tell. That was a long time ago. Lately, he can’t buy a good night’s sleep. The thing was she woke him up. He was Sometimes she thinks he’s lying. Or almost sleeping. He was dozing off. at least not telling the truth. He’s fabri- The news was on, Walter Jacobson cating. Exaggerating. He can hear her talking about a ½re on the South Side. telling her friends. Embellishing. She says He’d punched up a couple pillows, and embellishing just so she can say a big from underneath him he felt them give word. He knows a big word or two. His way. His foot twitched. You could see the vocabulary isn’t so small. smoke for miles, he thought he heard an onlooker say. He reached out his hand, Peggy Shinner is the recipient of several Illinois blinked his eyes. Faces flickered on the Arts Council Fellowships, an Ausable Press Fel- screen. No one was injured in the ½re. Is lowship, and a Pushcart Prize Special Mention. it too late? she said. Did I wake you up? Her work has appeared in “Alaska Quarterly At ½rst he didn’t know who it was. He Review,” “Bloom,” “The Chicago Reader,” “Tri- moved the receiver to the other ear. I’m Quarterly,” “Western Humanities Review,” and returning your call, she said. He got the other publications. She also has essays forthcom- feeling she was repeating it. I’m returning ing in “Fourth Genre” and “The Gettysburg Re- your call, like he was some kind of busi- view.” Currently, she is at work on a book of es- ness establishment. says about the body. He shook his head. The room was dark, except for the light from the tv. © 2007 by Peggy Shinner He pressed the remote a few times to

Dædalus Winter 2007 143 Fiction by turn down the sound. His call? Oh yeah, the carpet. Those specimens belonged to Peggy he had to call once a week to remind her him. Shinner he was her father. A little incident? Nah, he said, sitting up on the edge I couldn’t keep it in. of the bed. His zipper’d come open, but What are you talking about? she said, he didn’t even bother to give it a tug. and then it must have dawned on her. On the floor was a copy of People maga- In the receiver he heard her draw in a zine with Lady Di on the cover. He’d breath. been reading about the nuptials. In the A weather map ½lled up the tv screen, mirror above the dresser he caught a and he saw the ½ve-day forecast. Rain at glimpse of himself. He had to look a the end of the week, but he didn’t look couple times. The guy he saw had eyes that far ahead. looking up from the grave; his face was When did this happen? she ½nally gray. You wouldn’t look so good either, said. he thought, taking a quick peek around What does it matter when it hap- like he was daring someone to disagree pened. It happened. I had a little drip. with him. Boy, he’d been just about to Did you call Dr. Lowenstein? slip under. Already that felt like a while What, he’s going to turn off the ago. He pressed his thumbs over the spigot? bridge of his nose, the phone hunched Dad. She said it again. between his ear and shoulder. I’m wide So now you know. He braced the heel awake, he told her. My eyes are glued to of his palm on the bed. the tv. Know what? Because if you want to go back to sleep All she did was repeat what he said. . . . . Her voice trailed off as if she might I want you to have the whole picture. disturb him. Why are you talking as if I know what Then she mustered it up again. We can you’re talking about? Just tell me. Her talk tomorrow. voice reached another pitch. Is there a ration? The light from the tv went black for Walter Jacobson mouthed some words a second before it lit the walls again. I’m he couldn’t make out, then the picture not going to live forever, he said, with switched to Vice President Mondale’s his mouth right next to the receiver. daughter selling a car. Straining forward, he thought she said the word deal. Now he can’t sleep a wink. She’s at Dad, she said. home sleeping, her head on a nice big He waited for her to dispute him. fluffy pillow, and he’s watching the Cut it out. shadows for entertainment. The street- She was starting to sound a little huffy. light flickers in the tree. The shade slaps She had a tendency in that direction. He against the screen. Two sixteen, and the gulped some water from the glass on the clock radio makes no effort to candy- nightstand, swiping the back of his hand coat it. Time was she cried at night. She across his lips. Should he tell her what woke up crying. Muriel staggered out happened? of bed, to the crib, jiggling her back to After another swallow, he put the glass sleep. He’d drift in and out of sleep. He’d back. hear the floor creaking, Muriel traipsing I had a little incident. He looked down up and down the hallway. That was the at his feet, plastered by the podiatrist, on apartment on Independence Boulevard,

144 Dædalus Winter 2007 a one bedroom, the crib crammed Shane, the boy cried to the man who Life is against the wall in the dining room. She might have been his father. Come back. Adequate asleep? he’d say when Muriel came back Shane. With his arm draped around the to bed, but most nights he’d be asleep passenger’s side, he drums his ½ngers before she answered. on the seat. Last night’s shadows dart He throws back the covers. Lie here across the windshield. He almost slams all night, or lie here till morning. Those on the brakes. are his choices. Or take a stroll through The cleaners opens at seven, and he the premises. He drags his plastered feet waits for the Chinaman to unlock the to the window. Exercise is good for you, door. Over the radio Wally Phillips she likes to tell him. Window, crapper, drones on about the Variety Club char- refrigerator, bed. All the exercise he can ity cruise. Sail with the stars, and for a good get. Pulling up on his boxers, he leans cause, too. He switches the station. Every- against the ledge. In the dark he looks body’s got an angle, but who’s going to at his real estate. A swatch of grass, a help him? plot of dirt for his tomato plants, the Can you answer that? tree his son grew from a pit. On either A guy in a ½ve hundred dollar suit side a chain-link fence. Is this what it whisks by, on the way to a breakfast all amounts to? In spite of the rumor powwow with other LaSalle Street min- about stars, he doesn’t spot any. They’ve ions who look just like him. But the rise closed their eyes; they’re taking a nap. is a little short, Jack decides, sizing up Ha-ha, but the joke’s on him. Outside the pants. the crickets join in. The shadows shift. Finally the laundryman’s face appears Something rustles in the bushes by the at the door. alley. Just because he doesn’t believe Jack lifts himself out of the car. in ghosts doesn’t mean they’re not out Sam, he says, dropping the bundle there. He flattens his forehead to the on the counter. He stops for a second screen. A line of perspiration creases to catch his breath. If you opened earli- his chin. There are twenty-four hours er maybe you’d do more business. He in a day, but most of them, he concludes, doesn’t know the Chinaman’s name but searching the darkness for anything that ½gures Sam is a good guess. might jump out at him, occur after mid- Business is adequate, Mr. Kamin. night. He gives the Chinaman, already sort- ing through the pile of clothes, a closer In the morning he goes to the cleaners look, and unwads last week’s ticket out because he can’t keep anything clean. of his pocket. The guy’s a big shot. Eat, make a mess, put his money in es- Five and a quarter he owes, pushing crow with the Chinaman, that’s his rou- four ones and the rest in change across tine. Last night, after Cheryl called, it the counter. was sauerkraut, but he doesn’t discrimi- You been here long, Sam? he says. nate, ha-ha. Ketchup, coffee, sour cream Pardon me, Mr. Kamin. –he gives everything an opportunity to U.S.A. America. When did you come land on his pants. over? He lays his hands on the counter. After Cheryl called, Jack reminds him- The Chinaman doesn’t even raise his self, backing the car out of the garage, head. He’s too wrapped up adding his he couldn’t get to sleep. Johnny Carson, money to the till before he scurries to then a western, a movie called Shane. the back to look for the cleaning.

Dædalus Winter 2007 145 Fiction by Jack eyes the box. How much can the I haven’t got all day, but, for all he Peggy guy bring in? Not much, for sure; you knows, Sam’s skipped out and he’s Shinner can’t eat bonbons laundering other peo- alone in the place, him and the dry ple’s clothes. He shakes his head, agree- cleaning. Should he go up to a bag and ing with himself, and looks around. The start talking? Yak about the ghosts on Chinaman’s got geranium plants in the the graveyard shift? You can hear the window, to spruce things up. Well, he steam hissing the joint is so dead. He lived in a place like this, a three-room checks the white-faced clock on the apartment behind the store. tailor, the wall with the second hand skittering sign said. His father, after forty years of around like something’s wrong with it. hemming up suit coats, had the smell of Seven ½fteen, and only if he stretches mothballs in his hands. it. He shakes his wrist to see if his watch A hanger clangs to the floor. jumps ahead. A quarter after, seven ½f- What’s going on back there? Maybe teen–any way you read it, the day’s just Sam can’t ½nd his cleaning. His ½ngers begun. tap the counter. He doesn’t have all day Bang, bang. Gotcha. although his only plans are to count He jerks his head. sheep and take a nap. He smirks at his Loaded up with the cleaning, there’s own joke. Maybe he’ll go to the David the Chinaman, pushing aside the cur- Noyes brokerage ½rm and watch the tain, and a scrawny kid slipping by, with stock returns. a gun in his hand. A fly buzzes past. He takes a swipe Sure it’s a toy, but at ½rst Jack can’t at it but misses, and while his hand is help it, he takes a step back. out there–is that all? that simple?– David, the Chinaman says, pointing he reaches over and quickly counts the to the curtain, go back in there, but money in the box. the boy acts like he can’t hear. The laun- Fifty and change, he adds it up. A dryman raises his eyebrows, as if to say twenty, two ½ns, a stack of singles with kids. George staring up at him, lips sealed in You’re dead, the boy says, shooting collusion. Butch Cassidy and the Sun- again. dance Kid. Ha-ha. Limp, dirty, torn, The cap gun pops, and a string of taped, how many hands have these passed smoke curls in the air. through? Jack considers what the smart aleck Not to make a disturbance, he eyeballs said. the coins. You’re dead. You’d think he was a thief. Why not, he shrugs, he’ll pretend, Yeah, you’d think so, but to prove he’s and in slow motion he leans forward, not he puts his empty paws back where grips the edge of the counter, and sinks they belong on the counter. The only his head in the pile of dirty laundry, thing that glints on them is his wedding the clothes that ten minutes earlier he band. brought in. 14K gold, that’s what it is. Thirty-three years, and now she’s been On the phone Cheryl asks him to din- gone almost another. ner, and he can’t think of a reason to re- Not even a chisel could remove it. fuse her. Sam, he shouts, rearranging his stance. Where do you want to go? she says an The skin’s puckered around his knuck- hour later, pulling up to the curb in the les like it’s about to fall off. car he helped ½nance. The title, at his 146 Dædalus Winter 2007 insistence, is in both her name and his. Didn’t you bowl there? her voice Life is Chinese? Pekin House? comes up at him. A strand of hair falls Adequate He wants to give her a dirty look but in her face; she pushes it back. why waste it. His hands sit in his lap. A sixteen- They decide to go for Italian. pound ball is what he used to throw. After a few half-hearted attempts at Once he got a turkey, three strikes in the seat belt he lets it slip. How often a row. In the closet there’s a shirt with do you get the car washed? he asks, set- his name. Jack. tling back. The floor mats, he’s noticed, I liked the cokes, she says. They had a could stand to be vacuumed. He scans fountain. Cokes on draft, and she gives a the dashboard. He’d wanted her to get a little laugh. Chrysler, but she bought a foreign model When he looks, he’s rubbing the place instead. on his thumb where the ball gave him a Apparently not often enough, is her callus. answer. Stopping at the corner, she casts They pull into the lot at Malnati’s. him a glance. The place is jammed. Over there, he The trade-in value will be higher, he points to the space vacated by the Lin- continues, if you keep up the mainte- coln. Coming from the opposite direc- nance. tion, a guy gives his horn a blast. She I just bought the car, she says with a inches forward. Can they ½t? Yeah, tone in her voice, I’m not thinking of she’d beg him for quarters, and after trading it in. he emptied his pockets, she’d pick the She puts on her blinker to make a silver out of his hand. Keep the change, left. he’d tell her as she ran back to the foun- That’s the problem, he says, fum- tain, the pins crashing again. bling to adjust the seat for more leg- The rib eye’s good tonight, the lanky room. You can’t always think about the redhead outside the window is saying present. You have to think about the as she sidles into her car with a doggy future. You have to look ahead. Finally bag. he gets the lever to slip into place, and Are you hungry? he turns to Cheryl. the seat slides back. As for him, he has a taste for the spa- In the silence that follows, he realizes ghetti with Italian meatballs. Get what- something has gotten into him. ever you want, he adds. Put on your seat belt. Thanks, she says, as if, before he of- Without protest he does what she fered, it hadn’t been her intention. May- says. be I’ll have an antipasto salad. She runs The belt cuts across the shoulder of her ½ngers through her hair. one of the shirts he got back from the Is that all? Aren’t you hungry? Or- cleaners. Now his daughter’s the one der whatever you want, he urges again. telling him. The seat belt snaps. Before she opens On the right they pass Pedian Car- her door, he licks his thumb and reaches pet, shag on sale, $9.50 a yard, installed. over to rub the spot he’s just noticed on On the left the Mercury Bowl, where her slacks. he used to belong to a league. He shifts in his seat. The alley stretches out be- The audience laughs but Jack hardly fore him; he can hear the pins crash. catches Carson’s monologue. Slipping Welcome Back Bowlers, the sign says. out the belt from his pants, he lies in bed

Dædalus Winter 2007 147 Fiction by and prepares to think about what hap- ledge. At the sink he ½lls up a glass. No, Peggy pened instead. He puts his hands behind no, it’s not a glass he wants, it’s a cup, a Shinner his head. Change from his pocket falls coffee cup, like the one at Lou Malnati’s. on the spread. Next door, the Solomons’ At Malnati’s it was a cup. porch light goes on, the back door creaks His tongue rolls across his lips. Again open an inch. Go on, go on, he hears he turns on the tap. Louie Solomon say in a growl. Jack can He follows the water down the drain. picture him nudging the little mongrel, Did you ever think, he asks whoever’s prodding it with his toe. What would listening, that you’d end up here? And you want with an animal like that? Into shakes his head in disbelief. Here, and the night the dog yaps. he’s insulted by his reflection in the The spaghetti was good; it always is. window over the sink, with your stom- He’d carefully cut up the meatballs, the ach hanging over the lip of the counter, way he did. Cheryl’d gone ahead and or- your hairy shoulders slumping out of dered the salad, but he insisted she get the dago t-shirt you still insist on wear- garlic bread. Lasagna? How about lasa- ing. He slings a dish towel around his gna? You like lasagna, he’d tried again. neck. Johnny Carson chortles from the Eggplant parmesan? Because he knew other room, or so he imagines. Over the she liked vegetables, but when she de- water Doc Severinsen and the Tonight clined he couldn’t blame her. Eggplant Show band plays. Buddy Rich is the spe- wasn’t for him. Really, the salad is ½ne, cial guest. she said, but to make her old man feel He stares at the cup. better she ate a piece of the bread. Fill it up. When the waitress came around for For insurance he tightens his grip. coffee, he said yes. Yeah, yeah, I know, The refrigerator buzzes. From the he admitted, trying to head his daughter basement the furnace revs up. The off; but he had a desire for something whole house is getting in on it. Even strong. You’re always complaining you Louie Solomon’s runt, across the pas- can’t sleep, Cheryl leaned across the sageway, adds his two cents. Jack, Jack, table, going after him like a dog. Don’t it yaps. be so smart, he advised her, but topped it Fill it up. off with a grin. Then he laid up his palms Just to see if it happens again. as if to say hey? Instead, he ducks under the faucet and Herbal tea, she ordered, when the lets the water pour over his head. He waitress got around to her. stays under as long as he can. He lets his eyes slide back to the tv. When he comes up, dripping wet, The monologue’s just about over, Carson there’s a guy in the window with a dish- lifts his trademark golf swing. We have a towel over his head. It doesn’t take much great show tonight, the comedian prom- to know who he is. ises, and Jack ½nds himself repeating it. A great show. Next door the porch light At ½rst he sipped his coffee; it was goes off. hot. A splash of cream, two sugars, then Down the hall, across the olive green a third, the works. He’d watched the shag, faded he’s recently noticed, he cream sit on the top. The market’s down makes his way to the kitchen. A heel of today, he told her. Silver’s up. She looked salami hangs from a hook; a few straggly at him with what she hoped passed for plants still try to make it on the window interest; he knew that trumped-up look.

148 Dædalus Winter 2007 Soon there wasn’t much left in the cup. It’s nothing, he said even though no Life is A beat came at him from the jukebox; one asked. Adequate under the table she moved her foot. But right away he knew it was another How’s Solitron doing? she asked, going mechanical failure. back to the market. She must’ve remem- He waved the waitress, who was show- bered he owned some stock. I got out, ering him with napkins, away, and made he said, lifting the cup to his lips, just be- a pass at the nonchalant. Your old man fore it went under. needs to be towed, he said to his daugh- She raised hers too, a swig of herb tea ter. as a toast, ha-ha, to getting out before She said the only thing she knew how. you get under. Dad? she said. Then she drilled him a look over the Didn’t she have a bigger vocabulary top. than that? But he didn’t tell her how much he’d lost. A couple grand was his original At this rate he’ll miss all of Carson. guess but that was a lowball estimate. He’ll miss the world-class drummer, I switched to municipal bonds, he hur- Buddy Rich. ried on, and the towns, in dollar signs, A low rumble comes from the bed- marched out in front of him. Chicago room. Carpeted with the dishtowel, he Heights, Milwaukee, some swamp in lifts his head. He spots the green plants, Florida on a tip from his broker. They’re trailing along the ledge. They don’t tax-free and low risk, he was about to stand a chance. The world, he knows, add, a sucker for his own P.R., when is a jungle. It’s a jungle out there, he his hand, like a remark cut off in the says, brushing past the table, and his middle, went numb and he dropped lips come together as if to underline the cup. what he’s said. It thudded across the carpet. Dad, a In the bathroom he empties his blad- boy at the next table whispered loudly, der. He’s had to go for a while, but now that man made a boner. he can’t hold it in. The rumble sounds Someone laughed. again. Be right there, he thinks, just a Chicago Heights, Milwaukee, Pasco minute. Buddy Rich, calling him. County . . . He watches the drummer knock some- Kevin, the boy’s father said. thing out on the screen. Working hard, The waitress came running up. Rich sweats. Sticks fly, cymbals tip. With Dad, Cheryl chided, shaking her head the dish towel Jack mops his head. at his pants. He’s more than tired; he’s dead. But his forehead was clammy. He What’s that tune called? Carson asks heard his breath. when it’s over. She looked at him again. With one Moment’s Notice, Rich says. hand he pulled the other back and put Jack flicks off the light and shuts his it in his lap. eyes just as Carson pumps the drum- I’ll get it, the waitress said, bending mer’s hand. over for the cup. There, the boy pointed. In the dark, Moment’s Notice rolls The checks on the tablecloth were through him. We’ll be right back, Car- changing places. He rubbed his eyes son says. Jack turns from side to side, to see if he could get them to clear up. his feet pushing the covers. The wind From the jukebox the bass thumped. buckles the screen. Someone’s laying

Dædalus Winter 2007 149 Fiction by on the horn, a whistle of air escapes his Jack shrugs him off, but to play it safe, Peggy lips, and his eyelids lift themselves open. gives the yard a quick once-over. For the Shinner He doesn’t know a thing. Out the win- moment anyway, the wind’s at a stand- dow the light–or is it the moon?–wa- still. Does Louie know something he vers behind the trees. Sam’s sallow face doesn’t? rises before him; oh, the man in the Then he heads over to the plum tree moon, now he’s Chinese. Life is ade- and leans against the trunk, the closest quate, Mr. Kamin; is that what he said? thing out here for support. Every year The face hovers in the breeze. Eleven the tree makes a few puckery plums, twenty, and Carson’s still guffawing on and every year he’s reminded how much tv. Behind the shop, does Sam get a lit- he dislikes them. It’s hardly worth the tle sleep? Does his adequate life give effort, he wants to tell it, but like a dumb him rest? dog the tree keeps on trying. He cranks Jack pushes up from the pillow and his neck to the sky; the moon’s trying sits, leaning on his hands. to make a comeback. A pair of squinty Maybe he’ll go outside and howl at the eyes blinks down at him. He opens his moon. He juts out his head at the mirror mouth, but instead of howling, he as he staggers past. yawns. That’s it. That’s the best he can do. He could lay down right here. He When he gets to the yard, he scours could take some leaves and make a pile the sky, but the moon’s ducked out, leav- under his head. All he has to do is close ing behind a few stars to taunt him with his eyes, Cheryl said. He reaches up and their cut-rate light. rips a few off the tree, plums and all, and Even nature’s trying to conserve. shoves the fruit in his mouth. His hands, Jack, is that you? What are you doing on their own, go after more. What’s he out there . . . taking a leak? doing? The Chinaman won’t stop dog- Jack swivels around. Caught like a rob- ging him. Now he’s rustling in the bush- ber in his own backyard. Next door, the es by the alley. Mr. Kamin, he jeers. Jack screen door’s swung open and Louie Sol- almost expects him to leap out, bang, omon’s poked out his egg-shaped head. bang, you’re dead. And as he raises his One of his Havana cigars hangs from his arm to fend off a storm–a horde of mouth. bugs, out to irritate him–something Just like that mutt of yours, Jack says, does barrel out, breaking branches, tear- trying to recover. He pictures himself ing off leaves, smashing down every lifting one leg to go along with the joke limb. even though it’s not very funny. Woof, He gags. woof, he might bark, like a dog pleased Staring across at him is a deer stopped with itself, trotting away when he’s ½n- in his passageway. ished. Its legs are shaking, just like his I’m having a chat with nature. What’s hands. He swipes at the pulp and spittle your excuse, Louie? Protecting my prop- smeared on his chin, then, to stop the erty? Making sure nobody steals those shaking, thrusts his hands in his pants. plums? He points to the tree his son He coughs again. planted from a pit. Go back to sleep. What’s a wild animal doing in his Louie bites off the end of his cigar and backyard? spits it onto the sidewalk. Don’t stay out The deer steps back. here too long. You might see a ghost, he Don’t move, he cautions, but doesn’t snorts, closing the door. know if he means himself or the deer. 150 Dædalus Winter 2007 The rough bark of the tree snares his t- Life is shirt. The deer’s eyes meet his. What am Adequate I doing here? they seem to ask. Please, he whispers, unaccustomed to begging, and a flush of confusion creeps up his neck. The moon, not skimping at all now, makes the animal’s coat shine like cement. A quiver, like a single note from a song, ripples through its body. There’s a deer, he wants to tell some- body, in my backyard, but Louie Sol- omon’s shade, for the ½rst time in a dec- ade, is pulled down without a crack. His thumb circles the wedding band embed- ded in his ½nger. Stepping out from the tree, he opens his mouth, wide this time, and with a howl of laughter tells all of Bernard Street. Can you believe this? His voice pelts the sky. The stars shine back with their fleeting light, and the deer, huge and glistening, bounds down the pas- sageway, back to where it came from.

Dædalus Winter 2007 151 hanced expectations of success, oppor- tunity, and satisfaction. Where bad gov- ernance prevails, however, citizens suf- fer increasingly severe consequences– death, injury, intensi½ed morbidity, di- Robert I. Rotberg minished personal accomplishments, lowered expectations of achievement, on improving hunger, and sometimes starvation. nation-state Numerous studies have asserted strong linkages between good gover- governance nance and economic growth–at least at the national level. Good governance, they suggest, provides a platform with- out which sustained economic growth is extremely dif½cult. The data from several studies also show that econom- ic growth in nation-states contributes to the possibility of good governance. Good governance is essential if citizens There are sound reasons why both con- of nation-states or subordinate politi- clusions should, a priori, be correct. But cal jurisdictions are to maximize their those conclusions depend on what we inalienable rights as subjects, taxpayers, mean by good versus bad governance, or mere residents of the polities to which and what governance includes within they owe, or are compelled to pay, alle- its de½nition. giance. From their greatest need, free- Better governance inhibits conflict, dom from attack (security), to mundane while poor government is conducive but real needs, such as well-maintained to intrastate tensions and civil wars. In- roads and the availability of potable deed, new analyses of nation-state fail- water, citizens look to their suzerains– ure attribute it to governance errors that their modern nation-states, provinces, diminish a national government’s legiti- municipalities, and so on–for high- macy, reduce perceptions of its fairness, quality performance. Where that high- encourage out-groups to mobilize, and quality performance–good governance lead ultimately to internal war. It stands –is delivered, citizens can go about their to reason that better governed nation- personal business and pursuits with en- states would undergo fewer civil wars. This proposition–that better gover- nance, especially in the tension-½lled Robert I. Rotberg, a Fellow of the American developing world, reduces the frequen- Academy since 2005, is director of the Program cy and intensity of conflict–reinforces on Intrastate Conflict and Conflict Resolution the prior one: economic growth is more at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government likely where there is good governance. and president of the World Peace Foundation. War and turmoil and instability obvious- His publications include “When States Fail: ly inhibit growth–as in the Democratic Causes and Consequences” (1999) and “Bat- Republic of the Congo, Somalia, and the tling Terrorism in the Horn of Africa” (2005). Sudan–and special cases such as Co- lombia and Sri Lanka still demonstrate © 2007 by the American Academy of Arts that conflict and insecurity can lower & Sciences

152 Dædalus Winter 2007 growth even without vitiating economic ence weightings. Public-opinion surveys Improving performance entirely. in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Eu- nation-state governance For at least the reasons already ad- rope show a compelling uniformity in vanced, most of us prefer good gover- favor of governance as a quality com- nance. It is in our self-interest. Condi- posed of a number of quantities (politi- tions of good governance allow us to cal goods) that citizens want from their maximize our returns on personal ini- governments. Thus, the speci½cation of tiative and entrepreneurship. It is dif- what governance is flows from the bot- ½cult to conceive of anyone, anywhere, tom up, not the top down. Fundamental- who does not seek fuller educational ly, this analysis depends upon a universal opportunities, paved rather than pot- articulation of the requests that citizens holed roads, more rather than less secu- now make, and for decades and centu- rity, and so on. The wages of poor gover- ries have made, of their rulers. nance, on the other hand, are high, pay- Eight categories of political goods ing off in immiseration, hunger, and comprise governance and separate the death. good performers from the poor perform- Good governance does not occur by ers. None is as important as the supply chance. It must be nourished explicit- of security, especially human security. ly and consciously. The intervention Individuals alone, almost exclusively in of human agency is therefore critical. unique circumstances, can sometimes There is no good governance absent arrange their own security. And groups intentional, positive leadership. Con- of individuals can band together to pur- versely, where nation-states are badly chase goods or services that provide led, the delivery of the essentials of more or less substantial measures of se- governance falters, neglect becomes curity. Traditionally, and usually, how- common, and the decay of the nation- ever, individuals and groups cannot ef- state becomes obvious, especially to its fectively substitute privately procured stakeholders. Idi Amin in Uganda, Siaka measures of security for the full panoply Stevens in Sierra Leone, and Mobutu of publicly provided security. Sese Seko in Congo/Zaire are all African The security good includes Max We- examples of how narcissistic, avaricious, ber’s monopoly of violence. If a nation- and incompetent leaders create extreme state does not hold that monopoly it situations of lamentable governance, cannot provide full security. Likewise, with deleterious consequences. Presi- only a secure state projects power be- dent Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe has yond the borders of the nation’s capital. followed a similar trajectory in misgov- If nonstate actors are violent, security erning his once strong nation-state. exists only minimally for citizens. High We should no longer describe gover- levels of crime also demonstrate that a nance differences anecdotally. Tradition- nation-state, no matter how well-off, is al culture is important, but that variable performing poorly in terms of human is not useful in distinguishing the causes security. Citizens always look to their of good governance from bad gover- states for security of person. nance. Governance is rather a bundle of Only when reasonable provisions for deliverables that citizens expect, crave, security exist within a country–espe- or demand. These deliverables actually cially in a fragile, newly reconstructed differ across continents only at the mar- nation-state in the developing world– gin, with altered priorities and prefer- can governments deliver other desirable

Dædalus Winter 2007 153 Note by political goods. After security, rule of bank and lubricated by a nationally cre- Robert I. law is primary. Effective, meaningful ated currency, and an institutional con- Rotberg modern states provide predictable, rec- text conducive to monetary stability. ognizable, systematized methods of ad- Among the other basic political goods judicating disputes and regulating both that states typically supply are health the norms and the prevailing mores of a care; schools and educational instruc- host society. The essentials of this politi- tion; the physical arteries of commerce cal good are usually embodied in codes (i.e., roads, railways, harbors, and air- and procedures that together comprise ports); communications networks; and an enforceable body of law, security of a framework conducive to the empower- property and contract, an independent ment of civil society. The ½rst two of and ef½cacious judicial system, and a set these political goods are obvious; in the of norms that represent the values con- developing world, citizens have tradi- tained in the local version of a legal sys- tionally looked to their governments to tem. This is a description not of a West- supply nearly all medical care and most ern or non-Western form of law, but of forms of educational opportunity and a systematic method of arbitrating dis- advancement. putes without resort to violence–a po- Literacy levels and school persistence litical good universally desired. rates can demonstrate how well or how A third key political good enables citi- poorly a country, compared to its peers, zens to participate freely, openly, and is meeting or exceeding its people’s fully in the political process. This good needs in these areas. More generally, of political rights encompasses these es- putting numbers to all these criteria can sential freedoms: the right to compete tell us whether, within a region or across for of½ce; respect and support for–and regions, a country is providing higher the existence of–national and regional or lower levels of political goods than political institutions; tolerance of dis- its neighbors. Is Ruritania more or less sent and difference; and fundamental secure than its neighbors? Does Rurita- civil liberties and human rights. Free- nia have more or less rule of law? Is it dom of expression and freedom of asso- politically free? Are its citizens receiv- ciation are intrinsic to, and embodied ing more or less instruction and medi- in, this political good. This third politi- cal services? Are Ruritania’s economic cal good differentiates stable states that attainments fully reflected in its listed deliver few political rights from states gdp per capita, its gdp growth rates, that offer more of other goods, such as its governmental de½cits, or its inflation economic opportunity. rates? Is its civil society empowered? The fourth essential political good is Those are among the key questions; on- economic opportunity, which provides ly by answering them as objectively as a platform for the exercise of entrepre- possible are we able to answer the over- neurial initiative and the maximization all question: is Ruritania better or more of an individual’s quest for prosperity poorly governed than its neighbors? and higher living standards. Delivering Measuring governmental performance this political good requires supplying requires measuring outcomes, and not high orders of macroeconomic openness inputs. We must employ proxies that in- and ½scal prudence. Included in this po- form us about a government’s delivery litical good is a money and banking sys- of political goods, and not about its bud- tem, usually presided over by a central getary provisions. We want to know pri-

154 Dædalus Winter 2007 marily not what a government’s good were weak, and dragging down a coun- Improving intentions may have been, but what it try’s score, we could diagnose those nation-state governance actually accomplished with those appro- weaknesses and undertake improve- priated funds. If a country is corrupt, ments–to the bene½t of citizens. We those funds may indeed have been si- could establish benchmarks. Countries, phoned away from service delivery into particularly those in the developing individual pockets, so the mere fact that world, would have incentives to improve a nation-state appropriates or expends their rankings and, thus, their perform- more for health or education than its ance on matters of concern to citizens. neighbors do may mean little. Results Nation-states would naturally compete count. with their peers, leading to competition By measuring such outcomes–the for better governance, just as the ti re- delivery of political goods, country by port card on perceptions of corruption country–we can create a report card has led to greater awareness of the dan- on governance, enabling us to establish gers of corruption and, conceivably, to a ranking system of nation-states. Do- reduced levels of corruption in many so- ing so will encourage poorly performing cieties. nation-states to reform and to provide This new focus on governance through more and better political goods to their the optic of performance, the effective citizens. A ranking system will shame delivery of political goods, deserves its some states into striving to do better. It own international ngo to perform the will also embolden and assist the efforts necessary objective scoring and rank- of civil society organizations in such ing, using re½ned and calibrated criteria. countries, strengthening the reformist Without the creation of such an annual hands of parliamentary critics of poorly scorecard showing relative strengthen- governed nation-states. ing or weakening of good governance, Such a ranking system will bring gov- the governments of the developing ernance, and the importance of good world will continue to be unsure diag- governance in the affairs of nations, to nostically about how they can best serve the front of policy queues. It would, in their citizens. Jawboning by Washing- other words, bring ‘governance’ out of ton, London, and Brussels will have the closet. Transparency International less effect, donor conditionalities not- (ti) did just that for ‘corruption’ in the withstanding, than the publishing of 1990s. The new emphasis in the World an annual record of nation-state gover- Bank and the Millennium Challenge nance achievement. Through such a Account on governance per se, and on novel mechanism, there is a reasonable the delivery of political goods and polit- chance of improving the manner in ical institutions, should have the same which many weak and well-meaning effect for governance. governments deliver critical political Most of all, a sophisticated, transpar- goods to their citizens.* ent ranking system would enable us to create a report card on governance to diagnose the conditions of a particular * For more detailed discussions of these is- country. Doing so would strengthen the sues, see Robert I. Rotberg, “Strengthening ngo Governance,” Washington Quarterly 38 (2004): activities of s. If a nation-state were 71–81; and Robert I. Rotberg and Deborah ranked below its neighbors, we could L. West, The Good Governance Problem (Cam- say why. If security or rule of law scores bridge, Mass: World Peace Foundation, 2004).

Dædalus Winter 2007 155 twenty-year eruption of research reveals exactly how automatically and uncon- sciously prejudices operate. As members of a society with egalitarian ideals, most Americans have good intentions, but our Susan T. Fiske brains and our impulses all too often be- tray us. That’s the bad news from the on prejudice & ‘decade of the brain.’ the brain But the good news, from the current ‘decade of behavior,’ provides solutions. Individual values and organizational commitment can override our worst im- pulses. Getting information, however, is the necessary ½rst step, and we now know a lot about bias, both blatant and subtle, with the aid of the social sciences and neurosciences. The ½rst thing to understand: modern “They are bigots; prejudice is not your grandparents’ prej- you are, maybe, a little biased sometimes; udice. Old-fashioned racism and sexism I, of course, am accurate.” were known quantities because people would mostly say what they thought. [how to conjugate an adjective across Blacks were lazy; Jews were sly; wom- three persons] en were either dumb or bitchy. Modern equivalents continue, of course. Look Most people think they are less biased at current images of immigrants. But than average. Just as we can’t all be bet- most estimates place such blatant and ter than average, though, we also can- empirically wrongheaded bigotry at on- not all be less prejudiced than average. ly 10 percent of citizens in modern de- What’s more likely: all of us harbor mocracies. Blatant bias does spawn hate more biases than we think we do. So- crimes, but these are fortunately rare cial neuroscience suggests that most (though not rare enough). At the least, of us don’t even know the half of it. A we can identify the barefaced bigots. Our own prejudice–and our chil- Susan T. Fiske, a Fellow of the American Acad- dren’s and grandchildren’s prejudice, emy since 2005, is professor of psychology at if we don’t address it–takes a more Princeton University. She is the author of “Social subtle, unexamined form. People can Cognition” (1984), the third edition of which is identify another person’s apparent race, forthcoming, and “Social Beings: Core Motives gender, and age in a matter of millisec- in Social Psychology” (2004). She is also the co- onds. In this blink of an eye, a complex editor of “The Handbook of Social Psychology” network of stereotypes, emotional preju- (with Daniel T. Gilbert and Gardner Lindzey, dices, and behavioral impulses activates. 1998) and “Confronting Racism: The Problem Why? Because the culture puts them in and the Response” (with Jennifer L. Eberhardt, our brains. That’s how they become so 1998). widespread and automatic. These knee- jerk reactions do not require conscious © 2007 by the American Academy of Arts bigotry, though they are worsened by it. & Sciences 156 Dædalus Winter 2007 How do we know this happens? In their own. Whether they differ on age, Prejudice & our own lab, for example, we dug up ethnicity, religion, or political party, peo- the brain dozens of images of societal groups ple favor their own groups over others, who were identi½able in an instant: and they do so automatically. We have people with disabilities, older people, always had codes: plu (people like us), homeless people, drug addicts, rich busi- nokd (not our kind, dear), the ’hood, nessmen, and American Olympic ath- the man. Every culture names the ‘us’ letes. Our research participants agreed and the ‘not-us.’ This much appears to that they evoked the respective pity, dis- be human nature. gust, envy, and pride predicted by our This all-too-human comfort with the theory. We then slid a different group familiar and similar is probably hard- of participants into the fmri scanner to wired through people’s af½nity for their observe their brains’ responses to these in-groups. In order to survive and thrive, evocative photos. Within a moment of people need to belong with accepting observing the photograph of an appar- others. Attachment matters. Babies do ently homeless man, people’s brains set not do well when only their physical off a sequence of reactions characteris- needs are met; adults’ cardiovascular tic of disgust and avoidance. For neuro- and immune systems fail when they are science wonks, the activated areas in- isolated; mortality tracks social connect- cluded the insula, which is reliably im- edness. Historically as well as currently, plicated in disgust toward nonhuman we are motivated to belong with others, objects such as garbage, mutilation, to understand things as they do, to feel and human waste. Notably, the home- in control of our social encounters, to less people’s photographs also failed to feel social esteem, and to be able to trust activate other areas of the brain that are those nearest us. All this is easier when reliably involved whenever people think other people resemble you. about other people or themselves (dor- To survive in the rest of the world, somedial prefrontal cortex). In the case people demand, like the sentry at night: of the homeless (and drug addicts), ‘Who goes there? Friend or foe?’ Peo- these areas simply failed to light up, as ple need to know right away who is on if people had stumbled on a pile of gar- their side and who means them harm. bage. According to our research, people’s We were surprised, not by the dis- minds set up simple algorithms: If com- tinct disgust but by how easy it was to petitor for scarce resources, then not- achieve. These were photographs, after friend. Thus, not nice, not warm, not all, not smelly, noisy, intrusive people. trustworthy. If in-group or ally, then Other researchers have seen that even friend, and presumably warm and trust- dull yearbook photographs of black or worthy. white young men can trigger the brain’s Status also has immediate signi½cance amygdala; these emotion-alert areas ac- for social survival. After ‘friend or foe,’ tivate in many whites to pictures of un- one needs to know the other’s rank. Sta- familiar black male faces, as if they are tus implies competence and the ability prepared for fear in particular. to enact intentions for good or ill. If Even outside of social neuroscience, high-status, then competent–one had social psychologists have documented best pay attention to this person. If low- people’s instant unfortunate associa- status, one can ignore the incompetent tions to out-groups–those groups not other without much cost.

Dædalus Winter 2007 157 Note by The friend-foe, able-unable judgments category, both disgust and contempt. Susan T. yield four kinds of people in the world– They are alternately neglected and at- Fiske not the proverbial two. Able friends are tacked. And these are the people whose people like us (middle class), are our photographs lit up the insula and failed cultural ideals (Olympic athletes, as- to light up the social areas of the brain. tronauts), and are our close allies (for Americans, the British and the Canadi- People have a tendency to think that ans). In most instances, these are our biology is destiny. But just because we in-groups; we feel pride and admira- can correlate impulses in the brain with tion. Even people who are not them- certain prejudices does not mean we selves middle class, for example, typi- are hardwired to hate drug addicts and cally identify with middle-class ideals. homeless people. In the racial neuro- The Others come in three kinds. Two science studies, for instance, amygda- of them provoke intense ambivalence la (emotion-related) reactions corre- and, with it, mixed messages. We pity spond to other indicators of prejudice. those cooperators who cannot enact So people who are more prejudiced by their intentions–those seemingly too other measures show more amygdala disabled, de½cient, or decrepit (remem- response. But the levels of response vary ber, we are dealing in stereotypes here). by individual. And the alarms in whites’ Pity is a mixed emotion. Pity communi- amygdalas do not go off to familiar black cates paternalistic, top-down aid, cou- faces. Likewise, they grow accustomed pled with neglect. This is the likable but to faces with repeated exposure. So prej- disrespected quadrant of societal space. udiced responses vary a lot, depending Conversely, in the respected but dis- on the interplay between perceiver and liked quadrant dwell those at least as for- target. tunate as ourselves: high-status com- The most important lessons of the lat- petitors. Grudgingly viewed as compe- est biologically inspired social research tent, but resented as neither warm nor point to the complexity of the interac- trustworthy, they elicit envy, again a tions between biology and the environ- mixed emotion. Envy says, “The other ment. Take the amygdala-race results. has something that I wish I had, and I We ½nd that they evaporate as soon as will take it away if I can.” Respect com- people consider what vegetable the pic- bined with dislike is a volatile mix. It tured person might like for lunch. Simi- predicts going-along-to-get-along, but larly, our latest data indicate that the de- also attacking and ½ghting when the humanization of homeless people and chips are down. Envy is directed at high- drug addicts can be altered by the same status people not like oneself: rich peo- task, guessing what they would like to ple all over the world and, in the United eat, as if one were running a soup kitch- States at this time, Asian and Jewish en. A long line of our previous research people. Also, no doubt, members of the indicates that putting people on the American Academy. same team helps to overcome prejudices The fourth quadrant is unequivocal- over time. ly bad: both disliked and disrespected. The environment can interact with Low-status others who try to compete human nature for good or ill. People put (but fail), exploitative parasites–they under stress, provocation, peer pres- are stereotyped as neither nice nor sure, or authority sanction will enact smart. They elicit, more than any other their prejudices in the worst ways. We

158 Dædalus Winter 2007 have seen this in hate crimes directed Prejudice & at homeless people, homosexuals, and the brain all ethnicities; and we have argued that these processes underlie prisoner abuse in settings such as Abu Ghraib. Learning to deal with difference is hard. Generating enthusiasm for differ- ences is even harder. Yet our message is essentially optimistic. If we recognize prejudice’s subtle yet inexorable pres- sures, we can learn to moderate even unconscious prejudice. People will al- ways gravitate toward the familiar and similar, but they can expand their boundaries, if suf½ciently motivated. And this is the substance of social sci- ence married to neuroscience.

Dædalus Winter 2007 159 ran Africa. Underlying this skepticism is a theory, widely shared by academics, policymakers, and journalists alike, that democracy can only stand on the foun- dations laid by a highly educated popu- Daron Acemoglu & lation and a ‘culture of democracy.’ De- James A. Robinson mocracy, this theory goes, is ½rst and foremost about consensus, compromis- es, and government by the people. How on the economic origins can a society that has not developed a of democracy culture of democracy reach consensus and tolerate dissenting opinion? How can an uneducated population refrain from making choices that will ultimately undermine democracy by empowering groups, such as Islamic fundamentalists, with objectives radically opposed to de- mocracy? Will Iraq, and subsequently the rest of This theory, which can be traced back the Middle East, manage to establish to Aristotle and was most eloquently for- and maintain democratic institutions? mulated by the American sociologist Many, and not only detractors of the Seymour Martin Lipset in the 1950s, has current Republican administration, are such wide acceptance that it is now be- skeptical about the prospects of democ- yond ‘conventional wisdom.’ Yet it is racy in the Middle East and, perhaps, in not the only way to view democratic in- many other economically less prosper- stitutions. The alternative recognizes ous parts of the world, such as sub-Saha- that most collective decisions a society makes under any regime are at least in part about the distribution of resources. Daron Acemoglu, a Fellow of the American Some groups and individuals will bene- Academy since 2006, is Charles Kindleberger ½t, while others will lose out. Democracy Professor of Applied Economics at the Massa- is a speci½c set of institutions for making chusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author such collective decisions, distinguished of numerous publications, including “Beyond by its relatively egalitarian distribution Becker: Training in Imperfect Labor Markets” of political authority. While a dictator- (1998), “Productivity Differences” (1999), and ship or a monarchy concentrates collec- with James A. Robinson “Economic Origins of tive decision-making power in the hands Dictatorship and Democracy” (2006). of a narrow group, democracies give more voice to the majority of the popu- James A. Robinson is professor of government at lation. This alternative theory then sug- Harvard University. With Daron Acemoglu, he gests that democracy can flourish in any coauthored “Economic Origins of Dictatorship sort of society as long as the distribution and Democracy” (2006). He is also coeditor, of bene½ts implied by the democratic with Miguel Urrutia, of the forthcoming “An Eco- process are consistent with the underly- nomic History of Colombia in the 20th Century.” ing distribution of power. Conversely, it is likely to collapse if such economic and © 2007 by the American Academy of Arts political conditions are not met. & Sciences 160 Dædalus Winter 2007 Which of these two theories is a bet- that would enable them to influence The eco- ter approach is not simply an academic the types of societies in which they lived. nomic origins of matter. Whether Iraq, a country where The ½rst formal democratic institution democracy in 2001 almost one-half of adult males granted to the settlers was the Represen- and three-quarters of adult females were tative Assembly conceded by the Virgin- illiterate, and other economically less- ia Company in 1619, which effectively developed nations experimenting with enfranchised all white adult males. This democratic institutions, will ultimately concession was a desperate attempt to succeed is linked to which theory has give the settlers a stake in their fledgling more truth. It is also important that our society, mainly to convince them not to advice and support to these young de- walk away from their indentured labor mocracies come from the correct theory. contracts and obligations. While the accepted theory claims that Similarly, the much-delayed democra- democracy will remain no more than a tization of Latin America has little to do dream in Iraq until the Kurds and Shi- with the relatively low levels of educa- ites develop a culture of democracy and tion or an absence of a democratic tradi- the educational level of the Iraqi people tion. In fact, during the colonial period rises suf½ciently, the alternative main- in Mexico, for example, the mayors of tains that instead these groups need to Indians towns were elected, a practice get enough out of democracy that they which the Spaniards adapted from the have no incentive to undermine it or se- Aztecs. Though initially only descen- cede. dants of the Aztec or Indian aristocracy Fortunately for the citizens of Iraq, could vote, the institution evolved into the evidence is much more consistent a vibrant and participatory one, often with the alternative theory than the with all adult males taking part. Despite widely accepted one. Over the last cen- this democratic culture, democracy did tury, there has been no tendency for not emerge in nineteenth-century Mexi- countries that have become richer or co, and though it ½nally did in the twen- more educated to become more demo- tieth century, it has been marred by cor- cratic. Moreover, there are numerous ruption and political instability, largely historical examples of successful demo- resulting from the unequal distribution cratic societies starting with very low of wealth and the ability of the elites to levels of education and no trace of a cul- capture the political system via their ture of democracy. control of the main political party, the Perhaps the most telling example is pri. Democracy arrived so late in Mexi- from the United States, where the ori- co not because it was infeasible, but be- gins of democracy stem not from the cause it would have diluted the political legacy of the Mayflower and Bible-read- control of elites. ing Puritans, but rather from the politi- While the origins of democracy in cal struggles of early settlers in Virginia, North and South America show that Maryland, and Pennsylvania. These set- the link between the ‘culture of democ- tlers were mostly illiterate indentured racy’ and democracy itself is at best ten- laborers, certainly far less educated than uous, the most telling example is proba- the Spanish conquistadors of Mexico bly that of Botswana, the most success- and Peru. Though largely uneducated, ful democracy and economy in sub-Sa- the settlers of Virginia valued and de- haran Africa. When the British granted manded representative institutions independence to this colony in 1965,

Dædalus Winter 2007 161 Note by which they had acquired largely as a buf- Daron fer between South Africa and German Acemoglu & James A. Southwest Africa (Namibia), they left Robinson little of value: there were twelve kilome- ters of paved road, twenty-two Botswa- nans who had graduated from college, and only one hundred who had ½nished secondary school! But Botswana was fortunate to have avoided the most ad- verse effects of colonialism, and under the leadership of Seretse Khama and then Quett Masire, it built and main- tained democratic institutions, and used the revenues from diamonds both equi- tably and wisely. Botswana’s democracy has not only endured and flourished, but has not even been challenged by a coup or tarnished by major electoral fraud during the past forty years. These examples and many others show that it is indeed possible for a so- ciety to be uneducated and democratic, and they suggest that the elusive notion of the ‘culture of democracy’ is as likely to be the outcome of successful demo- cratic institutions as their cause. The main threat to Iraqi democracy is there- fore not the low educational attainment of its population or its lack of a ‘culture of democracy,’ but the high degree of polarization along ethnic and religious lines and the dif½culty of engendering a system that gives enough voice to vari- ous groups and redistributes the socie- ty’s resources fairly. Not an easy recipe, but certainly more hopeful than asking for a change in ‘cul- ture.’

162 Dædalus Winter 2007 President Emilio Bizzi Chief Executive Of½cer Leslie C. Berlowitz Chair of the Academy Trust and Vice President Louis W. Cabot Treasurer John S. Reed Secretary Jerrold Meinwald Editor Steven Marcus Librarian Robert C. Post Vice President, Midwest Geoffrey R. Stone Vice President, West Gordon N. Gill

Dædalus Board of Editors Committee Steven Marcus, Chair, Joyce Appleby, Russell Banks, Stanley Hoffmann, Donald Kennedy, Martha C. Nussbaum, Neil J. Smelser, Rosanna Warren, Steven Weinberg; ex of½cio: Emilio Bizzi, Leslie C. Berlowitz

Committee on Publications Jerome Kagan, Chair, Jesse H. Choper, Denis Donoghue, Jerrold Meinwald; ex of½cio: Emilio Bizzi, Steven Marcus, Leslie C. Berlowitz

Inside back cover: A Palestinian shrine for mar- tyrs, organized by Hamas on the campus of Al- Najah University, on the West Bank of Nablus, January 28, 2002: the shroud on display be- longed to a suicide bomber. The day before, in a dramatic departure for Palestinian organiza- tions that had previously banned women from suicide bombings, a female student from the university had detonated herself in the heart of one of Jerusalem’s busiest shopping streets, killing herself, an elderly bystander, and injur- ing at least one hundred others, a dozen of them seriously. See Mia Bloom on Female sui- cide bombers: a global trend, pages 94–102: “The message female suicide bombers send is that they are more valuable to their societies dead than they ever could have been alive.” Image © Reuters/Corbis.

Dædalus coming up in Dædalus: Dædalus on sex Joan Roughgarden, Terry Castle, Steven Marcus, Elizabeth Benedict, Brian Charlesworth, Lawrence Cohen, Anne Fausto-Sterling, Tim Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Birkhead, Catharine MacKinnon, Margo Jefferson, and Stanley A. Corngold Winter 2007

on capitalism Joyce Appleby, John C. Bogle, Lucian Bebchuk, Robert W. Fogel, Winter 2007: on nonviolence & violence & democracy Jerry Z. Muller, Richard Epstein, Benjamin M. Friedman, John Dunn, Robin Blackburn, and Gerhard Loewenberg on William H. McNeill Violence & its historical limits 5 nonviolence Steven A. LeBlanc Why warfare? 13 & violence on life Anthony Kenny, Thomas Laqueur, Shai Lavi, Lorraine Daston, Paul Jonathan Schell Rabinow, Robert P. George, Robert J. Richards, Nikolas Rose, John & Robert S. Boynton People’s power vs. nuclear power 22 Broome, Jeff McMahan, and Adrian Woolfson Mark Juergensmeyer Gandhi vs. terrorism 30 Neil L. Whitehead Violence & the cultural order 40 on the public interest William Galston, E. J. Dionne, Jr., Seyla Benhabib, Jagdish Bhagwati, Adam Wolfson, Lance Taylor, Gary Hart, Nathan Glazer, Robert N. Tzvetan Todorov Avant-gardes & totalitarianism 51 Bellah, Nancy Rosenblum, Amy Gutmann, and Christine Todd Adam Michnik The Ultras of moral revolution 67 Whitman Cindy D. Ness The rise in female violence 84 Mia Bloom Female suicide bombers 94 on nature Leo Marx, William Cronon, Cass Sunstein, Daniel Kevles, Bill Robert H. Mnookin Negotiating conflict: Belgium & Israel 103 McKibben, Harriet Ritvo, Gordon Orians, Camille Parmesan, Margaret Schabas, and Philip Tetlock & Michael Oppenheimer James G. Blight & janet M. Lang Robert McNamara: then & now 120 on cosmopolitanism Martha C. Nussbaum, Stanley Hoffmann, Margaret C. Jacob, A. A. Long, Pheng Cheah, Darrin McMahon, Helena Rosenblatt, Samuel annals David Jewitt & Jane X. Luu Pluto, perception & politics 132 Scheffler, Arjun Appadurai, Rogers Smith, Peter Brooks, and Craig Calhoun Owen Gingerich Planetary perils in Prague 137

poetry John Kinsella Into the Sun 141 plus poetry by Charles Simic, Lawrence Dugan, Molly McQuade, Ted Richer &c.; ½ction by Peggy Newland &c.; and notes by Omer ½ction Peggy Shinner Life is Adequate 143 Bartov, Samuel Weber, Susan Goldin-Meadow, William F. Baker, Harriet Ritvo, Phyllis Coley &c. notes Robert I. Rotberg on improving governance 152 Susan T. Fiske on prejudice & the brain 156 Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson on the economic roots of democracy 160

U.S. $13; www.amacad.org