[spectre] On the Events in New York

[Shuddhabrata Sengupta]

A few thoughts about the images of the events of 11th september in New York, 
and elsewhere.

Sitting in front of a New Delhi television, watching the destruction in 
NewYork, the first thought/feeling that crosses the mind is that of the 
solidarity of living in a time and place of danger. Day before yesterday it 
was New York. Today it could be anywhere.

Everytime we walk into a cinema in New Delhi, the body search that precedes 
entry marks each one of us as a potential walk-in detonator. Everyone is in 
danger. Everyone is dangerous. The blurred identikit photgraphs of suspected 
"terrorists" on police posters in the streetcorners of New Delhi that we have 
grown accustomed to seeing over the past decade and a half could be my face, 
your face, anyone's face.

The day the airplanes sought their target, was a day that television cameras 
sought their targets too. On BBC world I saw repeated telecasts of a few 
Palestinian boys, young men and one matronly looking woman flashing a V for 
victory sign. The time that this footage go on our TV screens, was far 
greater than the time that was given to randomly strung together images of 
spokesmen of different Palestinian and/or Islamist   Groups disclaiming 
responsibility. 

If we were to stop in the middle of grief and outrage and think for a moment 
about an economy of images then the importance of an image that says "these 
are the kind of people that celebrate an act of terror at this scale" far 
outweighed, the images that suggested that "people with Arabic or Persian 
sounding names are as distressed by what has happenned". People with Arabic 
or Persian sounding names live all over the world. They are neighbours, 
colleagues, friends, relatives and lovers of all of us. 

The planes sought and  found their targets. The cameras, the microphones, the 
spin doctors are now seeking theirs. Perhaps, soon the world will find itself 
being mobilized to fight a war that no one ever really realised the 
implications of .

Once, in a far away and nearby country called Afghanistan, a whole generation 
was armed to fight for something called 'freedom". Amongst those who acted as 
the brokers of that war was one who is today 'freedom's' chief enemy. Osama 
bin Laden was once flush with the guns and money of those who seek to hunt 
him down today. It would be good to remember how easily and how flexibly the 
leaders of the 'free world' permutate those who are heroes one day, villains 
the next. 

Once upon a not so distant time, the mujahideen, the taliban were hailed as 
valiant men of faith fighting to keep the free world free. Today their 
description reads differently. 

As the cameras and the political pundits, in New York and In New Delhi, 
grease the machinery of retribution and call for the war to end terror, (as 
if war were anything but, terror itself writ large, and made legal) we, 
living in this city, and in other cities close by, in Lahore, Peshawar, 
elsewhere in South Asia, will find ourselves being dragged, inch by inch, 
into the centre-stage of the theatre of another new war. 

Perhaps those who rule us will fall in line, and scramble to be the scouts of 
this new operation, perhaps they will make new deals or renew old ones. We 
will watch the machine work. We will be the fuel.

What can be said at this time? 

That, perhaps, the organization of people and the mobilization of images, to 
defend or conquer  a territory - any territory - be it Afghanistan or 
America, be it Kashmir or Kosovo, New York or New Delhi, will always rebound 
back on people, both within that territory and elsewhere. 

That the greater glory of nation states, and civilisations is always visited 
upon ordinary people in the form of death. That all flages are shrouds. 

All that I can say is that the sooner we jettison martyrs, suicide bombers, 
generals, heroes, victims and presidents, the quicker, we can get on with our 
lives. Flags, states and beliefs are besieging life. Everyone is in danger, 
because everyone of us is imprisoned by passports, marked by the faiths we do 
not understand and masked by the cloth of flags. 

Each one of us is a target and anyone can be a flying or walking or sleeping 
bomb.