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Howard’s hypocrisy on fighting terrorism

ASAP Statement - December 6, 2002

Prime Minister John Howard’s comments on November 29, December 1 and since then about the validity of Australia launching a pre-emptive strike against anyone from another country planning a terrorist strike on Australia have understandably angered many. He purports to be concerned about terrorism, but avoids a serious discussion about how to prevent further terrorist actions in Australia or elsewhere.

In response to a question on the ABC’s Lateline about the Central Intelligence Agency’s unmanned rocket strike against an alleged terrorist in the Yemen, Howard argued that the United Nations Charter should be changed to allow states to take such pre-emptive actions. He then "covered" himself by saying such pre-emptive action should be contemplated only if there would be no other alternative, but then said nothing about how to avoid any pre-emptive action.

Howard’s statements are another component of the propaganda offensive by the Australian, United States and British political elites to create a climate of fear and hostility towards the non-Western world. The campaign to create this climate is, in turn, meant to make it easier for these political (and business) elites to justify unilateral military action against or in any part of the non-Western world.

Propaganda offensive

The propaganda offensive has made use of the criminal terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and, more recently, the Bali bombings to build a picture of the non-Western world as the source of violence and barbarism. A coded language has been developed to create this picture. The initial targets of the offensive are "Islamic terrorists". Then, through a combination of statements by political leaders, media commentators and distorted news reports, the target is extended first to "Islamic fundamentalism" and then to Islam generally. The depiction of Islamic conservatism is then often associated with the Third World, that is to say, the non-Western world in general.

This message is never portrayed directly, although some techniques are rather vulgar. One such technique is to accompany an article on "international terrorism" (usually laced with references to Islam) with a map of the world indicating the countries where supposed terrorists reside. Almost inevitably these maps colour in the non-Western world of the former exploited colonial countries, still impoverished by imperialism’s exploitative debt trap.

The ideological division of the world into the "civilised" West and the "uncivilised" non-Western world is a reversion to the ideological backwardness of the nineteenth century. It is integral to the revival of the doctrine of the lawfulness of the pre-emptive strike.

Of course Bush and Howard consider that only they, the "civilised West" have such a right to pre-emptive action, usually against targets in the non-Western world. If Jordan or Egypt, for example, launched a military action to prevent Israeli terror attacks on Palestinian refugee camps, this would be seen as an act of war.

This ideological division of the world into two camps through the coded discussion of "international terrorism" is, of course, not about "civilisation", at least not as a serious struggle about cultural progress. It is about money, markets and resources. The political, military and business elites of the "Western world" have been organising a sustained economic pillaging of the non-Western world through the enforcement of the neo-liberal package of austerity, privatisation, import deregulation and increasing indebtedness.

Washington, London and Canberra know very well that these policies will generate resistance by the peoples of the Third World and even, to some extent, by corrupt pro-Western governments in many countries. The propaganda offensive against "international terrorism", with all its coded messages, is aimed at building popular acquiescence among the working people of the United States, United Kingdom and Australia to any future military action by these governments to protect their economic interests.

The propaganda target today is "Islamic terrorism"; the most likely immediate military target will be Iraq. These softening up devices are aimed at getting ordinary working people in the West used to such wars, interventions and jingoistic ideological campaigns.

Arrogance

Howard’s statement supporting pre-emptive strikes attracted hostile reactions from the elites of South East Asia, as well as on the streets. His statements have been universally – and correctly – perceived as arrogant.

In countries with large Islamic populations, many people can sense that Islam is being used as a code for "uncivilised non-Western beliefs". This adds to the depth of feeling that people like Howard manifest an arrogance against their religion and South East Asian societies as a whole. Statements that emphasise a rich country’s right to take unilateral military or police action in their countries only add to this general sentiment.

At the level of governmental and political elites, neither Australia nor Indonesia, for example, has a serious approach to preventing future terrorist actions. Terrorism of the kind that occurred in New York on September 11, 2001 or in Bali last October is an increasingly generalised political phenomenon flowing from the social and political crisis engulfing many countries in the Third World, including those suffering military attack, such as Palestine.

No level of state repression or intelligence surveillance or tightened police control will bring to an end these kinds of terrorist acts. The levels of desperation and social alienation prevalent in so many countries will inevitably drive people to acts of criminal insanity. Of course, the perpetrator of any terrorist acts, non-state or state, should be held to account in a court of law. But neither the police nor the courts nor the intelligence services can bring to an end an essentially political phenomenon. Indeed, increased state repression based on racial and religious profiling will only intensify the conditions giving rise to desperation.

A serious approach to ending these acts of non-state terrorism must involve finding a solution to the repression and suffering engulfing so much of the Third World. Neither the US, Australian and British governments, nor any of the pro-capitalist Third World governments, can take such a serious approach as it is their policies, and the policies of the banks and companies that they serve, which are the cause of the social havoc and suffering.

Hypocrisy

In relation to the increased social volatility in Indonesia, of which the Bali bombing is one terrible manifestation, Howard is the ultimate hypocrite. Indonesia’s social, cultural, and political institutions are all on the verge of bankruptcy and suffering a major collapse in popular legitimacy. The police, the courts, the parliament and the bureaucracy have almost no popular credibility.

A recent poll by the country’s leading daily newspaper KOMPAS showed that President Megawati’s popular support had dropped to only 10% — a sign that people are fed up with the continuing corruption and elitism. This situation is a direct result of the 27 years of money-grubbing dictatorship under Suharto.

Suharto corrupted all of these institutions, turning them into tools of repression or self-enrichment. Howard was one of the strongest defenders of Suharto, including Suharto’s invasion and occupation of East Timor. Howard, and most of Australia’s political elite, is totally complicit in the dictatorship’s destruction of Indonesia’s economic, cultural, social and political institutions.

Howard is complicit in the creation of the conditions that have made acts of non-state terrorism more likely. He is the one who must be held responsible for the Bali bombings. Howard helped legitimise violence in politics in Indonesia. While Suharto’s dictatorship murdered, arrested and pillaged, Howard defended the dictator and invader as a "caring and sensitive" leader. The same attitude was displayed by all the Western elites. Why should anybody be surprised then if other groups decide to copycat the criminal violence of the state terrorists that the West, including Labor and Liberal governments, so lauded and defended?

There is only one way to ensure the end of non-state terrorism. Only fully mobilised people power that brings to an end all conditions of social violence, economic exploitation, and wars of oppression and state terrorism will end such terrorism. Threats of pre-emptive strikes or increased police and intelligence controls will be totally ineffective and are, in fact, part of the policy package that has brought the world to its current state of havoc.