Something Called Terrorism

That was exactly one week ago tonight, and when they all had left around 2 A.M. I sat and mused on words, and the decline of language. Love, Peace, War. So overused we barely know what they mean anymore; like love: Is love a concept from the Gospels, from Plato, or that impossibly repetitive word in any pop song? “All you need is love, love, love…” Meaningless. Religion: are we talking about prayer, charity, faith, or militant fundamentalism? Enemy: that old word we can’t live without. We can all conceive of a personal enemy; a jealous lover, a bitter rival, and so on; but that big-concept word—THE ENEMY—is it not invented and constantly re-invented to give us something against which to fight? Could we have a thriving economy, or even a modest affluent society, without this perennial reason to build our arsenals? Would we be in space without an enemy to beat there?

Another word, truth. Truth? Well, one almost gives up. Since I’ve come home a noble man named Bernie Kalb quit his job as official spokesman at the State Department, on the grounds that he could no longer lie, officially lie. What was the defensive response from Foggy Bottom? The following worse-than-foggy quote from Churchill: “In time of war, the truth is so precious, it must be carefully attended by a bodyguard of lies.” Now that was a glorious sentence when Churchill said it, but to use it in the current context of planned disinformation is simply obscene. Note the not insignificant modifier “in time of war.” Is this time now, this moment, a time of war? Is this a period for Alien and Sedition Acts, counterrevolutionary measures, saving the world for democracy, yet a third time? Hardly. Only when convenient for the powers-that-be to say so. How often, and how gladly those same powers pronounce this a time of peace, in fact, when convenient. “Look at our nuclear arsenal,” they speechify proudly. “Has it not kept the world at peace for 40 years?” When it serves their purpose. Good Lord, we even have a missile called a Peacekeeper. How sly and crafty we are, and stupid too, as we go on debasing the language, honoring ambiguity in prose instead of in poetry, maundering, mindlessly preachifying. Love. War. Hate. Peace. God. Patriotism. Rambo. Way back before the First World War, specifically the collapse of the Hapsburg Empire and Company, certain visionaries saw the debacle coming, Kafka, von Hofmannsthal, Karl Kraus; they perceived it through the degradation of language, the hypocrisy of official speech. Are we doing the same? This is a deep question to ask ourselves in this period of self-reflection and forgiveness. Take the word Marx, for instance, Karl Marx, once regarded by all thinking men as a philosopher of the first magnitude, continuing and furthering the wisdom of Socrates and Hegel and . . . Marx? Today just a four-letter word. Today, even to discuss his philosophy of class struggle, except as the mark of the enemy (The Enemy!) is to expose oneself to the epithet: “soft on Communism.” How soft do you have to be to be thus accused? Piano? Pianissimo? Mezzo-piano? How about mezzo-forte, which might permit a sensible, unbiased appraisal of democratic socialism, or social democracy, or even—heaven forgive me—just plain socialism. How else are we ever to understand that great chain of hands that once encircled our Western world: Bruno Kreisky, Willy Brandt, Harold Wilson, Sadat, Allende, Olof Palme? All down, out, or simply murdered. Is not this worth our most vigorous thinking, our most Jeffersonian debate? Yes, but not if we wish to maintain the enemy, and remain forever in the dualistic, Manichean world of good and evil, bad guys and good guys, us and them, serpent and angel, gods and devils. Long live the enemy, and we’ll all get rich!

I warned you, hours ago, that these remarks would ramble. Jet lag is merciless; statistics are worse. But somehow I have arrived back at my main point: that I have come here tonight to share with you something I learned on this fantastic three-week journey abroad: first, that I have never loved my country so profoundly and caringly as I do now; second, that because of that love I feel more than ever the compulsion and responsibility to re-examine our automatic enemy-concept; and last, that this is a great time to do it, during these 10 days of prayer and reflection.

There is a charming legend about this penitential period: It is said that on Rosh Hashanah, New Year’s Day, the golden Book of Life up there in the sky is inscribed with the name of every single human being, along with his or her destiny for the year: who will live and who will die, who by fire and who by water, who will prosper and who will not. But there are 10 days within which one can change that inscription for the better—by prayer and the practice of good deeds. Charity and faith can avert the evil decree (you see, it’s all just another version of Corinthians, chapter 13). In other words, it’s now or never, because on the 10th day, Yom Kippur, the big book is closed and sealed for the year. Sorry folks, that’s it.

So here we are on the eighth night, and I want to make my own public confession of faith, hope, and charity. You see, a couple of years ago I had a bit of a falling-out with my esteemed and well-loved friend Derek Bok. I won’t bore you with the story, but the rumpus was basically about a book written and published at Harvard and blessed with a sizable preface by President Bok. I read and hated this book and became quite exercised about the preface, which didn’t exactly endorse the book, but the presence of which, up front and center, by so distinguished a thinker, gave the book a certain cachet I didn’t think it deserved. Dare I mention its name? Living with Nuclear Weapons—the title alone was discouraging enough. Well, I got real mad and, in a self-righteous huff, stopped further contributions to the Harvard scholarship fund I had established years before. I was wrong to do so; and even though Derek and I have never debated the matter publicly or privately—never even had that lunch we promised each other—nevertheless I have sinned, I re-examine, I re-evaluate, and I hereby return the withheld funds. There is no enemy; there is the American principle of free debate; fighting against an invented enemy is wasteful; fighting for ourselves and one another is constructive, is sharing—otherwise known as love.

Let me leave you with the thought that we all have until Monday night to meditate, rectify, re-assess, and get that celestial inscription changed. Try it, it’s worth it. And, as we say, shana tovah, a good year, and hatimah tovah, a good inscription. Bless you.