people who saw terrorism as an aberration (branding terrorist acts as motivated by inexplicable hatred) perceived those who opposed globalization as problems to be solved by furthering this process of globalization. Rothstein was happy to dismiss all the efforts of theorists such as Derrida and those of cultural activists (such as those in support of minority rights) to shed the burden of metaphysical thought, which had become oppressive to those not aligned with power or with “the center.”
In order to advocate the return of the metaphysical center, Rothstein called the efforts of postmodern thought and deconstruction “illusions.” He predicted that the negative connotations that the concept of imperialism had acquired were going to be reversed so that, in his vision of globalization, “instead of exploitation, imperialism is now being associated with democratic reform, sometimes to the great satisfaction of its subjects.”6 What he seemed to imply was that this “great satisfaction” was incidental, not even necessarily desirable or planned for, but it was one positive outcome of the necessary process of imperialist subjection. Rothstein concluded that the world clearly needed the power of the West, particularly of the United States, to be reasserted in “continuous and continuing decisions, active involvement in the destiny of nations …. Sounds familiar, yet strange. An old idea transformed. Call it Empire.”7
These statements, certainly not singular in the political and intellectual scene at the very beginning of this century, contained a whole history of thought behind them. When we entered the age of diversity, traditional Western values became exposed as constructed, so it was comforting to find (again) a context suitable to uttering such words that advocate “Empire.” This is just more proof that, even though the contemporary world has witnessed major transformations, such as women’s rights, affirmative action, or others, some foundational patterns of thought remain intact. There is always a new territory to defend, and in the “current events” this territory is not merely “the United States,” but rather something that is defined as the identity of the United States, namely, freedom. In relation to the American Mission in Vietnam, for instance, Spanos recalled that the discourse of freedom, spouted at the Vietnamese people as the “‘self-evident’ New World truths” and rejected by a radically different culture, instigated “the violent remapping of Vietnam.”8 In other words, Vietnam had to be turned into the territory of freedom.
The perversity of an abstract territory (which could be things like nation, religious belief, utopian imaginings of perfect societies, or something like freedom) is that it can be applied to anything and translated into any ideology. This is how Islam can be disputed by pacifists and terror-mongers alike, and this is also how American “freedom” can be hijacked by anyone to the point that it becomes a paradoxical concept when it is disputed within the United States. In Conservative terms, freedom is associated with the freedom of the market, so the enemies of extreme capitalism are enemies of freedom; in Liberal terms, freedom is associated with diversity, so that those who are (or appear) intolerant are blamed for destroying the spirit of free expression of identity that the country was founded on. Each side (in its more extreme version, even if merely portrayed as such) can become at any given time the enemy of freedom.
To go back to the turn-of-the-millennium example of 9/11, 2001, George W. Bush wanted to force freedom upon Iraq, and that project of hijacking an entire culture to save, as he claimed, American freedom, created a new brand of anti-American hatred. Right after September 11th, then-President Bush announced that “our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist attacks …. A great people has been moved to defend a great nation.”9 In this identification of territory, nation, and the abstract concept of identity, the purpose of retrieving what came under attack and defending a territory that is an identity was set forth in one stroke. This is a clear demonstration of the fact that the stakes in language become stakes in the interactions between identities: in this case, the identity of America as the territory of freedom that has to be defended. The way identity is defined can be justification for violence.
It is not surprising, therefore, that these foundational patterns of thought trigger the same response on the other side—or rather, that there are factions elsewhere in the world that seek in the political discourse of the West precisely what is foundational, to counter it with their own centered thought, very assertive of identity and very destructive to the Other. “Death to America!” is not even revolutionary anymore, but has become an abstract concept that identifies the Other as fallen, corrupted, and a justification for an assertion of a certain kind of violent self (the “terrorist”). In the decade and a half following the two declarations of war, it has become clear that the vast majority of Iraqis and Afghanis did not desire the conflict to begin with, but there were elements in the Middle East (glorified gangs, if you will) that wanted the wars to continue. After the Iraq war ended, the purging of the Other (which was a moral purging, more than a physical one) also ended, so there was a need to revamp the enemy’s identity and make it more inclusive.
When US troops started retreating, “America” as an entity became too far away and, as I said, was becoming too abstract. ISIS (or ISIL) initiated, in more recent history, a new stratagem by which anyone, including their own people, could be seen as Other. Not unlike the effort of the Nazis, ISIS has turned into Other anyone who can be seen as fallen from true identity (“true Islam”) in some way: not only did Westerners become targets, but also anyone corrupted by the West, converted to a Western religion, or with Western affiliations or sympathies. The idea that the Other has to be purged became very soon a practice: filmed decapitations flooded the Internet and other media, kidnappings either brought more financial resources or more adherents (in the Middle East or even in Western countries) through the gruesome killings that gave these terrorist gangs celebrity status.
Many things are disturbing in these scenarios, and everyone recognizes the danger of fundamentalist thought. We recognize how heavily it relies on othering the enemy, making straw men of whoever is convenient to eliminate at the time. But this is obvious, and everyone hopes that ISIS, despite its seemingly endless resources (amassed from oil, ivory, ransom money), will never expand enough to allow events of a bigger magnitude, such as nation conquest, or large-scale ethnic and religious cleansing. What I find even more problematic than accepting that these glorified gangs are violent, and that the violence comes from asserting an identity even against their own people (who are seen, perhaps, as not radical enough), is that even in the face of unthinkable violence, there are many who are not willing to admit that the idea behind the violence is problematic. There are many who believe that these gangs are just corrupted versions of idealism, because it can’t possibly be the idea itself that is the cause of violence. Just as people are willing to call a historic phenomenon such as the Christian Inquisition a corruption of good, true Christianity, or as many try to rescue Marxist theory from the misguided practices in communist countries, there is a denial that the problem in fact lies with idealist identification itself. In Heart of Darkness, Marlow was willing to redeem British imperialism when comparing it to the barbaric Roman practices, because he claimed that the British were backed up by an idea, which made the horrors of colonialism bearable since it was at least for a noble cause.
I find it equally disturbing that many reactions to ISIS’ violence only focus on the localized, corrupted, “mad” versions of fundamentalist thought, instead of acknowledging that any manifestation of certainty, especially the religious type of certainty in assuming an identity, is what has always caused tremendous violence throughout history and is still causing it today. When the French cartoonists were killed in 2015, the people who reacted to it (especially on the Internet) hurried, for a while, to claim, “I am Charlie”—to express their horror at the pointless violence directed toward famous (and infamous) Charlie Hebdo and his team of cartoonists. Yet the wave of sympathy quickly dwindled, and another reaction became popular: Charlie Hebdo went too far in his satire. And why? Racist cartoons and cartoons meant to shock and appall were not the main charge against him: what was worse was that he challenged the idea of religion. Critiquing
