This time, one country indivisible The traditional left-right dispute is irrelevant to these abnormal times

Special report: Terrorism in the US <http://www.guardian.co.uk/usterrorism>
Richard Sennett
Monday September 17, 2001
The Guardian
The United States is entering a new Vietnam era. Or, at least, certain
things seem to me to be the same now as they were when America began to
fight in Vietnam in earnest 40 years ago: now, as then, there is a strong
desire for solidarity within civil society; now, as then, there is confusion
about how to translate inner solidarity into warfare.
At the start of the Vietnam war, US politicians and generals had to convince
the American people that there was a credible threat to the security of the
nation. It is often forgotten today how quickly they did so; President
Lyndon Johnson was handed a "blank cheque" right after the Gulf of Tonkin
incident in 1964. In 1963 and 1964 support for the war was fervent, outside
academic circles. Today, of course, no convincing is necessary.
The civil drama of Vietnam was how quickly that internal solidarity came
apart. It soon became apparent that even young people who supported that war
did not want to fight in it. For a long time, the American left has suffered
from a malign amnesia in this regard: in avoiding the draft, middle-class
youngsters passed the burden of fighting down to the white and black working
classes. Within a few years, this class fissure helped to crack apart
American solidarity.
The events this past week may seem to have ended "Vietnam syndrome" - the
unwillingness of US politicians and the military to risk American lives
abroad. Five thousand Americans are already dead. To judge by the call-in
talk-shows - real community events in the US - Americans are now willing to
fight. But, on the ground, there are already contrary signals. New York's
Union Square, where many people have gone to light candles or lay flowers
for the dead, is decked with peace symbols from the Vietnam era, as well as
hand-scrawled signs demanding war. One of the largest signs in the square
reads "An Eye for An Eye = Blindness".
No nation, anywhere, could eschew revenge when attacked as the US has been.
But the trauma of the defeat in Vietnam meant that, for nearly three
decades, the nation's leaders developed no new military policy. The military
resolved to fight only wars that the US was sure it could win, as embodied
by the Powell doctrine; the Reagan era, though bellicose in words, fought
only small wars against weak states; the Clinton decade dithered in the
Balkans.
The reason for this was not martial cowardice. By force of dollars, instead
of arms, America controlled the world. The economy guaranteed our security.
Last week, that guarantee ceased.
I think it needs to be emphasised that in the last decade Western Europe has
been as indecisive as America's leaders, and has also subscribed to the
doctrine that money can do the work of guns. With the notable exceptions of
Tony Blair and Joshka Fischer, European statesmen dithered in the Balkans.
American policy-makers have rightly resented criticism and second-guessing
by their European colleagues, who in practice have often seemed to follow
the precept of Marshal Petain in the first world war, "we're waiting for the
Americans".
What is special about the situation of the US is the way that the waging of
war unites the country. Historically, warfare has cemented bonds between
those myriad fragments of American society that are at odds in peacetime.
The first world war melted together immigrants who had recently arrived from
Europe; the second world war began to fuse black and white Americans, a
patriotic fusion which became even more pronounced in Vietnam.
In the second world war, few soldiers on the ground knew much about the
countries they were fighting to protect; in Vietnam, none did. However,
through fighting in these alien places, they became more American. But after
the Tet Offensive of 1968, the Vietnam war marked a change in this historic
pattern. The soldiers felt undermined by protesters at home; still, courage
to fight against losing odds remained. Yet after Tet, many American soldiers
came to respect the Vietnamese they were fighting.
Here, I think, is a grim contrast with the situation of today. Americans can
easily imagine that others are filled with envy for their wealth. Americans
cannot as easily imagine that others would so hate US culture that they
would kill its citizens. Though the US is a deeply-religious nation, the
violent hatred of much of Islam for American values seems inexplicable,
unfathomable. The killing is certainly that; the foreign impulse to combat
"evil" is, uncomfortably, the mirror of our own.
A country can be defeated by bombs; hatred of a way of life cannot be.
Like every other American, I do not want another Vietnam of military
failure. But like many of the Americans who lit candles or placed flowers in
Union Square, I do not want a "victory" over actual enemies that destroy the
lives of millions of Afghanis, Pakistanis, Iranians, or Iraqis who have
already suffered at the hands of their own rulers. I am not a politician or
a military strategist: I have no idea how to fight terrorists effectively. I
suspect our own rulers do not, either.
On the news programmes, the policy-pundits are full of plans for tightening
internal security, so the same thing won't happen again. But why should it?
A suitcase full of deadly bugs might be next. Hysteria won't serve day by
day, and there was little of it after the attacks in New York; everyone in
the city, from the mayor to ordinary people on the street, behaved admirably
- calm, and generous to each other. An old leftist of my acquaintance
believes we are entering a "pre-fascist" era, but my own sense is that in
time people will, out of this same reasonableness, reject the curbs on civil
liberties now being proposed.
There is a lot of talk about how the US will be fundamentally changed by
these events, but little discussion about what the attacks tell Americans
about themselves. Will they stop if the US re-asserts its military might, or
do we Americans need to change our behaviour towards others in order to make
ourselves ultimately more secure?
I believe the latter, but that sign "An Eye for an Eye = Blindness" seems to
me only to waken memories of Vietnam, when such simplistic recipes split the
US apart. What holds civil society together is neither ideology nor shared
sorrow, and not even religion; it is the capacity to act effectively
together day by day, toward some common purpose.
As we watched the second World Trade Centre tower collapse in a cloud of
smoke, the porter in my building turned to me and asked: "Do you think
people can handle it?"
Forty years ago, when President Johnson got his blank cheque, we thought we
could; five years later we discovered we couldn't. And now?
* Richard Sennett is a sociologist who teaches in London and New York
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