Retribution, not revenge

By Rajeev Bhargava

IN INDIA, as elsewhere, everyone understood the cry for help: horror writ large on terror-stricken faces, the choked voices of people who saw it happen, the hopeless struggle to control an imminent breakdown in public, the unspeakable grief. For one moment, the pain and suffering of others became our own.

In a flash, everyone recognised what is plain but easily forgotten - that inscribed in our individual selves is not just our separateness from others but sameness too. Despite all socially-constructed differences of language, culture, religion, nationality, perhaps even race, caste and gender, we share something in common. Amidst terror, acute vulnerability and unbearable sorrow, it was not America alone that rediscovered its lost solidarity. In these cataclysmic events, people across the globe reclaimed their common humanity.

As we empathised with those who escaped or witnessed death and relived the traumatic experiences of those who lost their lives, we knew of a grave moral wrong done to individuals. But the victims of September 11 were not just subjected to physical hurt or mental trauma, they were recipients and carriers of a message: from now on they must live with a dreadful sense of their own vulnerability. This was transmitted first to other individuals in New York and Washington, then quickly to citizens throughout the democratic world. The catastrophe on the East Coast has deepened the sense of insecurity of every individual on this planet.

However, this was not the only message sent by the perpetrators. When we focus on our collective identities, other disturbingly ambivalent, morally fuzzy messages are revealed. They are less likely to sift good from evil, more likely to divide than unite people across the world. One message which the poor, the powerless and the culturally marginalised would like communicated to the rich, the powerful and the culturally dominant is this: we have grasped that any injustice done to us is erased before it is seen or spoken about; that in the current international social order, we count for very little; our ways of life are hopelessly marginalised, our lives utterly valueless. Even middle-class Indians with cosmopolitan aspirations became painfully aware of this when a country-wide list of missing or dead persons was flashed on an international news channel: hundreds of Britons, scores of Japanese, some Germans, three Australians, two Italians, one Swede. A few buttons away, a South Asian channel lists names of several hundred missing or dead Indians, while another flashes the names of thousands with messages of their safety to relatives back home.

Not all intentional wrong-doing is physically injurious to the victim, but every intentionally generated physical suffering is invariably accompanied by intangible wounds. The attack on September 11 did not merely demolish concrete buildings and individual people. It tried to destroy the American measure of its own self-worth, to diminish the self-esteem of Americans. Quite separate from the immorality of physical suffering caused, isn't this attempt itself morally condemnable? Yes, if the act further lowers the self-worth of people with little enough. But this is hardly true of America, where the ruling elite ensures that its collective self-worth borders supreme arrogance, always over the top. Does not the Pentagon symbolise this false collective pride?

Amidst this carnage, then, is a sobering thought. It occurs more naturally to poor people of powerless countries. Occasionally, even the mighty can be humbled. In such societies, the genuine anguish of people at disasters faced by the rich is mixed up with an unspeakable emotion which, on such apocalyptic occasions, people experience only in private or talk about only in whispers.

The moral horror of the individual dimension of the carnage is unambiguous and overwhelming. But as we pause to examine its collective dimension, a less clear, more confusing moral picture emerges. How, on balance, after putting together these two dimensions, do we evaluate this more complicated moral terrain? The answer has to be swift and unwavering. For now, the focus must remain on the individual and the humanitarian. To shift our ethical compass in the direction of the collective weakens the moral claims of the suffering and the dead. This is plainly wrong. Nor is it enough to make merely a passing reference to the tragedy of individuals, a grudging concession before the weightier political crimes of a neo- imperial state are considered. The moral claims of individuals are currently supreme. But we cannot permanently screen off the collective dimension. To do so would obstruct our understanding of how tragedies of individuals can be prevented in future; in any case, in the long run it extends another already existing moral wrong.

Though victims have reacted with quiet dignity, there is also the expression of moral revulsion and, even as some people preposterously become the victims of this newest hatred, the American President has promised revenge. How do we assess these retributive emotions? At issue here is not hatred driven by malice or spite, but a morally grounded hatred. It is not wrong for a woman to hate the rapist who has permanently scarred her. How then can anything be wrong with hating ruthless strategists who achieve their political goals by the indiscriminate slaughter of innocent civilians? It is extremely abnormal if self- respecting persons do not experience righteous anger, even hatred towards those who have wronged them. It is even morally permissible to desire to hurt the wrong-doer. Yet it may not be wise or morally appropriate for victims to act on these feelings. It is imprudent because retaliatory action sparks off escalating cycles of revenge and reciprocal violence. Retaliation by the U.S. and counter retaliation will almost certainly plunge the entire world into greater suffering, pain, vulnerability and insecurity. Revenge can unleash even greater tragedies: it may unravel an unappeasable thirst for violence.

If lessons of history teach us anything at all, it is that the barbaric acts of one group solicit equally barbaric acts from others. We must ensure that today's victims do not become tomorrow's perpetrators of much worse. No matter on whom the first blow was struck, if our aim is to terminate barbarism, then, it must be stalled now, suddenly, and abruptly. All things considered, it is best to forgo the temptation to act on retributive hatred and feelings of vengeance. To restrain vengeful motives is wise for another reason. Undoubtedly, the massacre on the East Coast is motivated by the desire to question the economic, political and cultural supremacy of the U.S. in a radically unequal world. If and when the mightiest nation in the world retaliates, it will not be to grant equal status to offenders. It is rather more likely that, by a massive display of strength, they will be shoved further back in their less than equal place. The not so hidden text of American retaliation may be an abject lesson to all to never again dare American supremacy. Will it surprise anyone if a disproportionate and symbolic show of force to miam and crush the enemy flows from the very same motive of vengeance? It is true, of course, that some acts of revenge are the wellspring of equality and refute claims of supremacy by wrong-doers. However, the spectacular show of violence on September 11 and in the days to come is likely to reveal a different, warped logic of alternating claims of superiority.

We must not be forced again to witness ghost towns in other parts of the world with more terror-stricken faces, choked voices, desperately crying for help. We need retribution for sure, but not revenge. American might must be restrained, perpetrators must be brought to book in an international court of justice and tried for crimes against humanity, our common humanity. This would just be a beginning. To set a larger process of reconciliation in motion, the messages of marginalised collectives hidden under the gruesome rubble of Tuesday's destruction must be decoded and discussed by moderates from all over the world. Only by properly understanding the social, cultural and spiritual basis of self- respect in our troubled times can we ever begin to address the problems violently thrown at us on September 11.

(The writer is Professor in Political Theory at the Delhi University.)

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