An eye for an eye…
AT 8.46 am on September 11, 2001, American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. A second plane hit the South Tower at 9.03 am: Eyes widened in disbelief, screams, sirens, the groan of crumbling steel — over 3,000 lives were lost. The media and mandarins scrambled to identify the cause, quickly attributing it to terrorism motivated by religious fundamentalism. This led to a rush to understand the nature of ‘terrorism’ and to find a remedy for the irrational violence of jihadis. Uncle Sam moved swiftly, declaring a Global War on Terror, rallying ‘like-minded’ nations, some willing and others under coercion: “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.”
‘Experts’ argued that barbaric interpretations of certain religious beliefs justified extreme violence. Some went further, suggesting that all religions, even those traditionally seen as pacifistic, were prone to intolerance — thus, ‘Religious violence’ gets defined, and an entire community is vilified. The term Islamophobia skyrockets in usage — Google's Ngram will confirm as much. Halal hotdog vendors are jeered at, and even those like Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh man with a tangential physical resemblance to ‘you-know-who’, is murdered in Arizona four days later, his turban mocked before the attack — so much for rationality.
The common portrayal of 9/11 as the prime example of the dangers of religious extremism, juxtaposed with the supposedly rational and tolerant nature of secularism, is deeply problematic.
The aim of the GWOT was to destroy terrorist networks and prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction. The use of unmanned aerial drones became important in targeting suspected militants, especially in Pakistan and Yemen. Furthermore, legal frameworks like the USA PATRIOT Act expanded surveillance and detention powers.
Its legacy, however, is marred by the staggering toll it has taken on civilian lives. The United Nations estimated that over 47,000 civilians were killed in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2021. In Iraq, the human cost was even higher: according to the Iraq Body Count project, at least 2,00,000 civilians lost their lives during the conflict. Adding the euphemistically named 'collateral damage 'in Pakistan and Yemen, the body count reaches 45 lakh, with at least 30 lakh of these being indirect deaths.
The discursive problem lies in the simplistic understanding of secularism. No religion, with its high poetry, nor any secular society, with its insistence on the separation of church and state, has managed to bring about lasting peace. The 16th-century European Wars of Religion, from which modern secularism emerged, are often billed as caused solely by religious differences. However, secularism and science, in their waltz with power, hit discordant notes. Give thanks to Foucault for pointing this out.
This conflict, much like the Global War on Terror, was driven by a complex mix of political, economic and social factors. Secularism has been portrayed as the necessary antidote to prevent such violence, despite the fact that emerging secular states themselves engaged in violent acts to establish and maintain power. Consider the British Raj — Pax Britannica — as a product of this supposed enlightenment. The British claimed to bring 'civilisation' to a 'backward' society, but their noble mission cast the Indian as stunted, legitimising violence - both figurative and literal. We are yet to emerge from the inferiority we embodied through our interaction with the Brits. I mean looking at the portrayal of contemporaneous conflicts in West and South Asia, without first battling a sense that such violence is a throwback to a more primitive state of affairs — is a task. Decolonisation, it seems, is still a distant dream. Simon, you better stay home.
Social anthropologist Talal Asad argues secularism sits on a continuum with religion in as far as governance is concerned. Secular authorities acting as theologians, decide which practices are acceptable and which are not. Operating with such self-assumed high moral ground, the pundits in Washington, informed by the likes of Samuel P Huntington had decided a particular civilisation was not in agreement with the God in whom they trusted, providing a rationale to legitimise military interventions chiefly in Iraq and Afghanistan — sanctioning large-scale ground forces, airstrikes and special ops to overthrow regimes deemed to be supporting terrorism.
The point is, the human cost of the GWOT does not paint much of a picture of rationality either. Just as idealism in its desire for peace is simple, so too is the nature of violence: it begets more of its kind. An eye for an eye does indeed make the whole world blind.
