Public
Administration and the Search for Meanings of 9/11
Zahid Shariff
Member of the Faculty
The Evergreen State
College
This paper presents, first, a
critique of the response of the literature in public administration to the
enormous tragedy of 9/11/01. That literature—more accurately, a proxy that was
selected for that literature—reflects several flaws. Public administration’s
focus, the paper suggests, is narrow and rigid, it tends not to generate
creative frameworks with which to view a significantly changed policy
environment. It continues, instead, to be fascinated with policies as they are
handed down and reveals no curiosity about the pressures that shape them. In
its response to 9/11, it remains largely concerned with the description of how
public agencies reacted to that tragedy and presentation of thoughtful
proposals for organizational coordination that might improve performance and
produce better results at a lower cost in the future. Second, the paper
provides alternative ways of interpreting the tragedy of 9/11. The motivations
of terrorists that the dominant view expresses, and public administration
literature accepts, may not be definitively known for some time. It is possible that they were neither
impressed by American material goods nor its political freedoms, but infuriated
by its accumulated record of foreign interventions. The paper identifies the consequences of this
and other alternative interpretations for public administration. And, third,
the paper reveals that, with the exception of one article, the treatment of
civil liberties in recent public administration literature leaves a lot to be
desired. It is remarkably abstract and distant, and the minority whose civil
liberties were most threatened remains virtually invisible.
The enormous human tragedy of
9/11/01 has understandably been condemned the world over. The killing of
innocent civilians has aroused sympathy for the victims and anger toward those
who murdered them.
On that day a massive national
effort was launched both to take action and to search for its meanings. The
first included the war on terror and it does not have an end in sight, and the
second began by asking, “why do they hate us?”, and that too is unlikely to end
any time soon. Framing the questions in that fashion severely limited the
search for meanings, and the taking of a series of actions culminated in the
expansion of the national security state. Justifications for an imperialistic
role for the United States are openly being offered now (e.g., Kaplan, 2003).
Sometimes the two—taking action and searching for the meanings of 9/11—were
mixed. While the search for meanings has received some attention in certain
publications, most of the time the information and analysis presented focused
on the actions taken and/or proposed at home and abroad.
I
write this paper because I feel disappointed by what, and how little, has
appeared in the major publications in public administration (PA) in response to
9/11 so far. I offer, consequently, a
critique of the literature in PA that appeared in response to that tragedy,
offer an alternative to it, and draw attention to the flaws in that literature
in addressing civil liberties. These purposes will be elaborated on a little
later.
When thinking of 9/11, I wonder how a dramatic
national event with monumental consequences could have been turned, as it
largely has been in PA, into recommendations for more coordination among
organizations at different levels of American government. Let me be more specific. First, 9/11 was clearly of central importance
to PA, since that tragedy drew attention to possible failure of intelligence
agencies; it required massive response on the part of city, state and federal
public employees who performed in a heroic manner; and it led to the expansion
of national security personnel, funding, and broad legislation. That notwithstanding, no convincing evidence
has emerged so far that these events broadened or deepened our frameworks to
view this tragedy in significantly new ways.
No new paradigms were offered, for example, a fact which acquires
greater significance when one recalls that in calmer times—which were
frequently described then, it seems awkward now to remember, as
“turbulent”—such practices were not uncommon (e.g., Farmer, 1995, and Fox and
Miller, 1996). When considering recent
publications, one notices that although their substance has certainly changed,
their frameworks, institutional preferences, and the tools relied on, with rare
exceptions, remain familiar: constitutional democracy; improving performance
and accountability; applying rationality; and producing better results at lower
costs.
Second,
it is widely believed that the study of PA is interdisciplinary, but the nature
of interdisciplinarity that now dominates the field emphasizes some aspects of
social sciences and leaves out other disciplines. If PA scholars had remained in touch with,
and incorporated major concepts developed in, such fields as cultural studies,
literary theory, and comparative politics, they would have been far better
equipped to respond in different ways, understand at different levels, and
interpret, perhaps even influence, the policies that are now being made and
executed. It is obvious that the concept of orientalism, and the discourse that
it generated, is among them. It is
probably worth pausing for a brief moment to identify some aspects of it.
Orientalist
discourse, as it gradually took shape during the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries, had made “an assumption that the Orient and everything in it was, if
not patently inferior to, then in need of corrective study by the West” (Said,
1978; pp. 40-41). Such study, as well as
the power in many cases to change the reality that was being studied, was a
unique Western privilege. Said
continues,
Yet
what has, I think, been previously overlooked is the constricted vocabulary of
such a privilege, and the comparative limitations of such a vision. My argument
takes it that the Orientalist reality is both antihuman and persistent. Its
scope, as much as its institutions and all-pervasive influence lasts up to the
present. (p. 44)
Said
presented a thorough review of orientalism’s developments and its critique in
his seminal work (Said, 1978). His
recent death was mourned the world over.
Recently, there has been a full-scale revival of orientalist
scholarship; see, for example, Berman (2003) and Lewis (2002).
Ignoring
the pervasive influence of this discourse, among other developments in cultural
theory, now haunts PA literature and keeps it unaware of its prejudices and its
constricted vocabulary. If dramatic
events like 9/11 do not provoke exploration of new theoretical frameworks,
analytical categories or linguistic styles—all the tools, that is, that are
expected to help in breaking out of the routines of “normal science”—the
prospects for disciplinary growth and creativity, not just the fashionable talk
of churning out new paradigms, are dim.
Third,
the interest in the vulnerable, those who are the victims of market forces or
governmental action, has not received, unfortunately, the attention in PA that
it deserves. The continuing influence of
that inertia is reflected in part in the way that the issue of civil liberties
has been treated recently. With one exception,
civil liberties in PA literature, as will be shown later, are treated in an
abstract and distant fashion. That topic
surfaced for discussion because of the well-founded fear that certain minority
groups (Arabs, Muslims, Middle Easterners, as well as those who resemble them)
may be threatened after 9/11, but paradoxically, it is these very groups that
remain virtually invisible in PA literature!
Furthermore, there is a strange disconnect between those muffled voices
talking of civil liberties and the vast majority singing the familiar chorus of
organizational design, coordination, and rationality. But perhaps that is not so strange when we
recall that the generalized understanding of the Orientalized other has already set in motion energies
that will turn the gaze of scholarly attention in some directions and not in
others.
Fourth,
attacks in the past, it may be useful to recall, had come fast and furious at
even the slightest hint of policy being separate from its implementation in PA
literature; the infamous dichotomy, which had begun to resemble a dragon, had
been slain over and over, a development that no one could dare to forget. Interest in policy, in turn, meant a variety
of concerns that at least included its points of origin, the forces that gave
it shape and meaning, and the interpretive powers that were assigned, assumed,
and enlarged; and, of late, it had begun to include issues of race, gender,
class, sexual orientation, and national origin. Since at least the rhetoric
demanded that one stand tall and triumphant over the slain dragon of that
dichotomy, the expectation might have been high that attention will be paid to
such policy issues when focusing on 9/11.
It is surprising, then, that there was is so little of it on this occasion,
an occasion when, if PA were serious about questioning the
politics-administration dichotomy, it could have accomplished a great
deal. Some of the pressing questions
that might have been pursued are (a) making major decisions in an environment
of crisis, (b) backgrounds of the important actors and their likely impact, (c)
effects of bureaucratic routines and standard operating procedures after an
initial preference has been expressed at the highest level (and other similar
insights provided by Allison [1971]), (d) intersection of such special
relationships as oil interests, Religious Right, and military contractors at
the highest levels of the Bush administration, and (e) understanding the goals
of the terrorists.
It
is hard to fathom why PA scholars did not probe such issues. Perhaps there was some comfort in moving in
familiar grooves, and these grooves are said to have a tendency to get deeper
with time. There is momentum of the past
too that pulls in ways that are hard to detect.
(I suggest later that the unchallenged acceptance of the official and
dominant interpretation, along with all of assumptions that go with it, has
also a lot to do with it.) Fortunately,
there are exceptions as well. Melvin
Dubnick (2002; p. 86), for example, stated, “In their efforts to reflect on the
implications and consequences of the tragic attacks of September 11, 2001,
Americans are faced with the added responsibility of having to give meaning to
such senseless events.” I build on a
similar foundation in this paper in the hope that exploring the diversity of
meanings is in itself a desirable goal and, further, that it may lead sometimes
to events becoming less senseless.
No one paper, or perhaps even a book,
can both celebrate what is valuable in that momentum and those grooves and inspire enough creative energy when
a national tragedy demands it. I
certainly do not expect in this paper to accomplish such ambitious goals. The purpose of the paper is to address some
issues and raise others that enhance the possibilities for a plural, open, and
perhaps even exciting role that the diverse meanings of 9/11 might open up for
PA. The central issue is the expansion
of the space for interpretive powers and alternative explanations, not to find
ways to implement policies efficiently or at a lower cost. I address these issues by, first, presenting
a critique of the response in PA literature to 9/11. The special issue of Public Administration Review (2002, vol. 62) serves as a proxy for
PA literature. That issue published more
articles on 9/11 than are available in any one publication in the field;
furthermore, PAR is often referred to
as the journal of record in PA. Called
here the Dominant View, the PA literature reveals the acceptance, with very few
exceptions, of the decisions handed down from top officials with thoughtful
recommendations about how their implementation might be improved without
raising any serious questions about the origins of the crisis as well as any
discussion of alternative responses to the ones quickly adopted under the
existing constraints. The second way I
have tried to address this issue of expanding the space for alternative
interpretations and explanations, organized here under Alternative Meanings,
consists of reviewing the same events with different possibilities in
mind. Fortunately, alternative
interpretations and explanations are readily available, although they are often
overlooked. The third part, called
Civil Liberties, focuses on these liberties in view of their special significance
in the post-9/11 period, and because the PAR’s
special issue devotes a whole section to it.
That part also provides a critique and suggestions for what might have
been included. The paper ends with some
concluding thoughts.
II. DOMINANT VIEW
The
search for meanings of 9/11 began to be framed soon after the tragedy occurred
in a language that was exaggerated and hyperbolic; it encouraged wild
generalizations that substituted slogans for analysis. Initially, it will be recalled, that
President George W. Bush described the crashing of the four airplanes on that
day as an act of terror, and promised that those responsible will be brought to
justice. Soon after that, he called it an act of war. But even characterizing the attack as a
terrorists’ declaration of war on America did not seem to be enough. Ratcheting the language up further, the
attack, the president (and virtually all the journalists, TV hosts, and most of
the analysts) declared, had been launched on freedom, a concept that was left
vague and unspecified, but was closely identified with the United States. The terrorists, the president and pundits
claimed, resented Americans for having that freedom since they did not have it
themselves, and that was why they had struck.
Finally, it was civilization itself that was identified as their real
target, although that too was left undefined; presumably it stood for both
American cherished values and cultivated refinement.
There might
have been the expectation that with time calm reflection will replace the
initial emotionally-charged rhetoric.
Instead, that original view not only hardened, it began to be defended
on the basis of escalating definition of what needed to be protected (human
life, freedom, civilization) and policy and political agendas (war, oil,
unipolar world, elections) with which they were linked. It also required the corresponding
denigration in exaggerated ways of those who were believed to pose the threat. “Evil came to our door,” stated President
Bush (2002; p. 4). Since then, a variety
of government officials have described the terrorist threat to be global, and
nothing less than total victory is now said to be the national goal. A new temperament and vocabulary emerged
which facilitated the use of words that encouraged venomous denunciation: demonic, evil, violent, dangerous,
terrorist, suspicious, Islamic. The
tendency to escalate, in language and in reliance on organized violence, is now
clearly the dominant and privileged implication of 9/11. Even Vaclav Havel (2002; p. 4), a rare
individual who combines refined sensibilities with political experience, was
clearly under its spell when he said in a recent speech, “Evil must be
confronted in its womb and, if there is no other way to do it, then it has to
be dealt with by the use of force.” He did not say what evil was or where its
womb was located. Similarly, an American
academician, Condoleezza Rice, who was appointed as the National Security
Adviser to President Bush, apparently seemed to believe that the terrorists’
commitment to violence was irrevocable and irrational; military developments or
other provocations did not influence their behavior. Recently, she insisted that the changed
conditions in Iraq had nothing to do with the increased terrorist activity
there (The New York Times, September
17, 2003, A12). She dismissed the notion
that the terrorists would “be minding their own business—drinking tea, having
meetings” if American invasion of Iraq had not taken place. “They are fighters, they are jihadists [sic],”
she said, and if they were not fighting in Iraq, she stated, they would be in
the Gulf, Southeast Asia, perhaps even the U.S.
(I think she meant jihadis, Muslims who undertake jihad.)
The
dominant meaning is not likely to loosen its grip in the foreseeable future.
Quick military victories in Afghanistan and Iraq have reinforced it. Some see in it an opportunity to erase the
memory of Vietnam, and others view it as an attempt to increase the influence
of the military-industrial complex. Most
feel helpless or alienated when confronting the repeated messages of fear and
patriotism in media now owned by a shrinking number of owners.
The
dominant meaning is also reflected in a kind of essentialization that would be
considered contemptible in other contexts.
For example, those who would immediately challenge the idea that the
behavior of a group should be understood in reference only to its cultural,
racial or religious characteristics, have felt perfectly comfortable in doing
just that during the last two years in reference to one distinct religious
minority. I don’t know anyone, for
instance, who has wondered what is it about the Christian religion or white
race that produces children or youth who go with guns to schools and start
killing other kids and their teachers.
Similarly, how often have op-ed pieces appeared, or dinner table
conversations in many households turned to, exploring a connection between the
Christian faith of Timothy McVeigh and his terrorist attack on a federal
building in Oklahoma City?
That
notwithstanding, the fact that the terrorists were Muslims continues to provide
enough justification for many well educated men and women to link the
terrorists’ behavior with their religion.
The assumption that what drove them to such extreme violence was a
unified and generic Islam, not an analysis of events, or hurts and grievances
that their nations endured, has by now become routinized. Perceptions based on these assumptions, which
are both biased and false as Said has so often demonstrated, are repeated so
frequently in official statements, media channels, and many scholarly works
that they take for many the shape of solid reality and unqualified truth.
While
some serious and balanced discussion of the religion of Islam and the Muslims
living in a variety of societies has taken place during the last few years, far
more frequent has been the daily Islam-bashing, in print and electronic media,
journals and books, and movies and TV shows.
One of the worst “scholarly” examples of it is Bernard Lewis’s (2002) What Went Wrong?, as was recently
pointed out by Said (2002; pp. 69-74).
Instead of opening up possibilities for new meanings and understandings
of who “we” and “they” are, another layer of beliefs about the Muslim world is
being laid, one that selectively supplies additional beliefs to confirm the old
prejudices to define it primarily in terms of its lacks and deficiencies and
absences. All of this is being done in
the name of increasing awareness and reducing misunderstandings about
Islam! It appears that keeping the oil
flowing at a low price had only temporarily dampened the orientalist discourse.
All
of the recent literature in PA made no mention of such concerns. Most of it either ignored the reasons,
explanations, or meanings of the terrorist attacks while focusing largely on
issues of implementation or it explicitly reinforced the version that did not
deviate from the dominant view. Here is
an example of the first:
As
we think about the best approach to creating an affordable and sustainable
system of homeland security in the context of competing budgetary claims, we
can and should select those programs and tools that promise to provide the most
cost-effective approaches to achieve our national goals. (Walker, 2002; p. 97).
The second
was represented well by Stephen Sloan (2002; p.124) who went beyond the already
inflated official view by suggesting that the terrorists have “declared war
against all.” I wonder if he is aware
that the number of countries that have not reported any case of terrorism is
actually far greater than those that have.
But human imagination is remarkably creative; it is quite capable in the
present environment of producing highly original definitions of terrorism.
Chester
Newland was the only author in that PAR
special issue who recorded his views on this matter in any detail. They deserve serious consideration. He pushed farther the already very broad
boundaries of the Dominant View. He
stated in a matter-of-fact fashion that “terrorism seeks to force civilized
society to violate its own basic values and disciplines that sustain them,”
and, further, that “humane society is among terrorists’ chief targets”
(Newland, 2002; p.155). He also offered
some explanations for the terrorists’ behavior.
“Terrorism thrives on many varied causes, though terrorist acts often
are grounded most essentially in personal or borrowed longing for
self-justification: I am!“ (p.154,
emphasis in original).
Newland
did not provide any evidence for his conclusion that the causes of terrorists
were grounded “most essentially in personal or borrowed longings for
self-justifications…” In the absence of
any evidence, one may speculate whether such self-justification was a widely-felt
human need. If so, he left unexplained
the most vital part, namely, the connection between such longings and the acts
of the terrorists—e.g., why did not others also commit acts of terror? On the other hand, if such longings are
rare, he might have speculated about why they occur among the terrorists more
frequently than others. Could it be the
memories of humiliation and betrayal, misguided understanding of current
events, poor child rearing practices, foreign exploitation of resources facilitated
by local stooges, or something entirely different? No, there are no such speculations. When the purpose is to condemn the others there is no reason to let them
speak for themselves, nor is there any need to scrutinize the logical leaps in
thinking when trying to understanding why they might have acted in a particular
fashion. Whether called scholarship or knowledge, it can come soaked in
prejudice, it can be plucked out of thin air, it can be constructed, published,
and, most of time, it can escape any serious review or critique.
In
the following passage, Newman gives the impression that there are other or
related causes of terrorism as well.
A
most visible and deeply saddening inspiration for expanding global terrorism is
the escalation of generations-long, tit-for-tat, more than an eye-for-an-eye
conflicts between Israel and Palestine, which have blinded both to the humane
roots of their historically great cultures, now plunged into mutual
degradation, if not destruction. Thus
[sic], through pursuits of self-aggrandizement and other causes as pretexts for
being, terror flourishes. (Newland,
2002; p. 154)
Here
Newman would have one believe that self-aggrandizement and other causes of
Israeli-Palestinian conflict are serving as pretexts for some undefined
phenomenon called being, which leads
to the prevalence of terror. There are even more serious questions here than
those raised above—about definitions (“being,” “pretexts,”
“self-aggrandizement”), and the connections assumed from one step to
another. Pretexts for being, if it is
possible to understand that phrase, sweep aside such major events as the Nazi
atrocities during World War II; the active role in the Middle East, first, of
the British and then that of the United States; the alliances formed during the
Cold War; location of major religious sites in Jerusalem and the surrounding
areas; Israel’s security; the personalities of the major actors; and the
Israeli occupation of Palestine, and the establishment of a large number of
settlements. Perhaps they are folded, in
a highly unique way, under “tit-for-tat, more than eye-for-an-eye,” or they are
to be found under the rubric of “other causes,” but, then, one cannot be sure
of that either. Such confusion reinforces the view that undefined and
unsubstantiated negative statements tend to be allowed only about some
subjects, in both meanings of the word.
Newland
also attributes to the terrorists some other ideas. “Globalization, in
particular, is corrupted to appear as an invader clothed as liberator” (p.
154). No terrorists, incidentally, are
quoted that support this view, or, for that matter, any of the other views
confidently attributed to them. As is
widely known, critiques of globalization by now have been offered from
virtually all points on the political spectrum.
Even mainstream figures, such as the Nobel Prize-winning economist,
Joseph Stiglitz (2002), has offered one.
And among the supporters of globalization too, its role as the liberator
is not so clearly evident. Here is what
Thomas Friedman (1999; p. 373), a well-known columnist for The New York Times,
states:
The
hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist. McDonalds cannot flourish without McDonald
Douglas, the designer of the U.S. Air Force F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe
for Silicon Valley’s technologies to flourish is called the U.S. Army, Air
Force, Navy, and the Marine Corps.
One
begins to wonder who is corrupting globalization’s role. Why does its role as
an invader, or its dependence on the threat of the use of military power,
become the corrupted version of what is actually a liberating force only when
the terrorists state it, assuming that is what “they” (all of them or some
factions, those based around Afghanistan or Indonesia or Saudi Arabia or
Algeria ?) do believe?
Since
Newman can be located within the framework of Dominant View, it may be
appropriate to point out the set of unstated assumptions upon which that
framework rests. One of them requires
that energies and attention be directed with a sense of urgency to
terrorism. Standing alone, unqualified,
de-contextualized, and torn from any historical precedents or memory, such
terrorism hastens the need to identify military targets. The provocation of 9/11 is thought to be a
sufficient reason. But explanations for
the rise of terrorism are also offered, in an ideologically conscious manner by
an increasing number of scholars, and they are repeated by those who go along
with the official position, trusting their government leaders, but adding
sometimes minor variations, caveats, or psychobabble. Such explanations almost always export the
problem beyond American borders: it is often Islam that is blamed or the
culture of certain areas or lack of democracy and/or education. Hand in glove with such a perspective is the
firmly held belief that European countries, and particularly the United States,
have done no harm abroad; they have exerted a benign influence, helped the poor
and the starving in other countries by providing them foreign aid and accepted
refugees and immigrants from such areas.
These two elements, evil comes from abroad and the United States and
Europe are a force for the good in the world, are the major pillars on which
the Dominant View rests.
Alternative
explanations will be discussed later, but at this stage it may be noted that
the Dominant View either does not entertain the possibility of different
perspectives, or when it does it is for the purpose of presenting new evidence,
or interpreting the old, for demolishing or considerably diminishing the
significance of certain events and forces.
Those events and forces are colonialism, the purpose of which was
exploitation; a variety of insidious practices introduced or condoned in the
so-called Third World countries in the interest of what were once called the
imperatives of the Cold War; Western interference in the affairs of such
countries where democratically elected governments were overthrown and
dictators installed, on some occasions, and dictators removed, when they were
no longer useful, in the name of introducing democracy, on others; and
financing certain NGOs or other groups with a view to influencing government
officials or election results.
There
are certain consequences of the PA literature not questioning the assumptions
of the Dominant View at least on some occasions. One of them is ignoring the considerations
mentioned above. Another is implicitly
accepting the view that terrorists are primitive people who are inspired by
their cultures and interpretation of their religion to be violent, determined
to attack innocent people abroad whose life style they envy, and committed to
denying themselves the benefit of learning from Western ideas and generosity.
What is expected to emerge from all that is a literature that does not raise
any doubts about the policies meant to militarily crush the terrorists abroad
and refine the organizational tools that thwart the security threats at home.
No wonder the PA literature reflected these values and produced the results
that it did.
Even
in the familiar territory of policy implementation, a blowback of sorts is
another consequence. The limitations of
the Dominant View are being revealed in Afghanistan and Iraq in a variety of
ways. First, after the predictable
military success in contests between highly unequal combatants, American
funding for nation-building, which was opposed until recently, may be
inadequate in amount and not likely to be sustained over a sufficiently long
period of time. Recent reports already
reveal that while military spending in Afghanistan was high, funds promised for
civilian purposes are shrinking (Rashid, 2002).
This imbalance has a familiar ring to it. It may be useful to recall that it was a
similar imbalance, between high military spending when armed struggle against
the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan was being sponsored by the CIA and the
almost complete lack of interest in social and political matters after the
Soviet defeat, that contributed to the instability in that area and provided
the impetus for terrorist activities there in the first place. Second, the United States’ military and
civilian personnel are likely to be inhibited in cooperating with, even
conceding power to, the people who were, until military victory was achieved,
demonized, the same people that continue, after their clear defeat and extreme
hardship, to reveal remarkable tenacity of faith in their religion and pride in
their culture. The opportunity to rid themselves of all that baggage and
embrace the American definition of the good, secular life is not being taken
advantage of as enthusiastically as expected. Third, these inhibitions on the
part of American personnel are further complicated by the fact that the quick
military victories have so far produced less respect, and more hatred, for the
United States among Arabs and Muslims.
In Iraq, a recent survey by the intelligence branch of the Department of
State, the results of which are still classified, are said by The New York Times (September 17, 2003,
A12) to reveal that hostility toward Americans is not grounded only in the
traditional Sunni loyalists of Saddam Hussein or, now, in Shiites as well
because of the frequent raids in their areas. “As reasons for the Iraqi
hostility, the defense officials cited not just disaffection over a lack of
electricity…, but cultural factors that magnify anger about the foreign
military presence.”
Operating
within the constraints of the Dominant View has significance for both policy
making and implementation. The recent PA literature, unfortunately, does not
even mention the kinds of concerns suggested above. Implementing policies by improving domestic
security organizational arrangements in a geographical and cultural vacuum goes
beyond ethnocentricity. Another
unfortunate consequence of working within its constraints is that the slain
dragon of that old dichotomy appears to be coming back to life again:
policy-making, it is now being implicitly granted, is someone else’s business,
PA is about implementation.
III. ALTERNATIVE MEANINGS
The
Dominant View often inspires images in the media, TV and radio talk shows, and
chat rooms of blood-thirsty Muslims, instructed by Islam to kill the infidels
at every opportunity. Fortunately,
alternative meanings of 9/11 are readily available, even though they are often
ignored. Here is one example. Under the supervision of Madeleine Albright,
who was not known to be friendly toward Muslims or Islamic countries when she
was the Secretary of State, the Pew Research Center and the International Herald Tribune conducted a
survey of opinion leaders in several countries.
As many as “58 percent of the foreign leaders said U.S. policies were
responsible for the attacks while only 18 percent of the U.S. opinion leaders
interviewed held that view” (Neikirk, 2001; p. 11).
The
dominant understanding and interpretation of 9/11 invariably ends up with
pointing the finger at some variant or the other of Islam (Wahabi, radical,
madrassah-based, fundamentalist, politicized, jihad-oriented, the list goes on)
and Muslim culture, beyond the personality and resources, that is, of Osama bin
Ladin. Definitive understanding of the
terrorists’ motivations and sources of inspiration are not known so far. What can be said with certainty is that they
were educated, young, Muslim, men who were nationals of Saudi Arabia and Egypt,
and they hated the United States. For many Muslims, which might include the
terrorists, the meaning of 9/11, however, is similar to the foreign
respondents’ views in that survey. To
understand their perspective, one does not have to search for vague clues,
subtle hints, or hidden messages, one only has to review some events in United
States’ foreign policy. For many
Americans, these events may be long buried in the past and they might even appear
trivial, but for most Muslims their memories are both remarkably fresh and
painful.
The
prominent events range from the overthrow of the democratically elected
government of Iran in 1953 to the present support of Israeli treatment of
Palestinians, and a great deal in between. The terrorists base in Afghanistan
emerged out of a deep sense of betrayal of the mujahedeen, some of whom later became the Taliban. It may be necessary to recall that the mujahedeen were Afghans, described at
one time by President Ronald Reagan as the moral equivalents of the American
founding fathers. They fought the
American-financed war to oust the Soviets from Afghanistan; they suffered on a
massive scale, with their casualties in thousands and dislocation of population
in millions. When these sacrifices had
paid off and the Soviets had been forced out, the United States abruptly left
the scene, leaving them feeling both exploited and abandoned. It is these feelings that were channeled into
terrorism later on, and it was American weapons and training that gave them
some of its lethal quality. Furthermore,
there is deep resentment about the stationing of American troops in Saudi
Arabia. For many Muslims, the havoc that
American-backed sanctions in Iraq caused its people, now being attributed
exclusively to Saddam Hussein’s policies, was a matter of very considerable
concern already; it is now being reinforced by the events unfolding after the
American military victory there. Reassurances
from top government officials that American policies are not directed against
Muslims, only those who are terrorists, are often viewed with skepticism among
the Muslim communities here and abroad because in virtually all the
contemporary international disputes, Muslims are on one side, and the United
States is either neutral or it is on the other side: Palestine, Kashmir, Sudan,
and Chechnya. The public stance of the United States that combines jingoism and
revenge, on the one hand, and claims of innocence and virtue, on the other,
generate among Muslims feelings of either cynicism or bitterness. This
alternative explanation holds that these harsh memories of humiliation and
exploitation of American policies provide the seeds from which we are reaping
the current harvest of terror.
To
that alternative meaning of 9/11 could be added another. A group of individuals for a variety of
reasons had concluded that the grounding of American foreign policy of
containment was deeply flawed; they were deeply committed instead to the
projection of US power on a global scale.
They formed the Project for the New American Century in 1997; its
founders included Elliot Abrams, Richard Armitage, John Bolton, Jeb Bush, Dick
Cheney, Richard Perle, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz. The Project published in 2000 a report,
“Rebuilding America’s Defenses,” (available at http://www.newamericancentury.org/publicationsreports.htm),
which provided in some detail the expansive view of the role of the US in the
future. It is analyzed, along with other
related Department of Defense documents by David Armstrong (2002). Since many of the founders of the Project
were later appointed to, and are currently holding, high positions in the
current administration, some interpret the meaning of 9/11 as having very
little significance for the new anti-terrorist foreign policies that are often,
for rhetorical purposes, associated with that date. According to that understanding, 9/11 was not
the reason for a sudden departure or a wake-up call; it provided the excuse for
transforming the ideological preferences that were strongly held and published
before that date into public policies.
The
sound of voices that rely on these kinds of analyses has been muffled by the
loud proclamations of the dominant meaning, and its substance distorted by
questioning the loyalty and patriotism of those who voice it. There are exceptions, of course. One of them is former President Jimmy Carter
(2002), who acknowledged the provocative nature of the recent policies. “We have thrown down counterproductive
gauntlets to the rest of the world, disavowing U.S. commitments to laboriously
negotiated international accords,” he wrote. “Peremptory rejection of nuclear
agreements, biological weapons convention, environmental protection,
anti-torture proposals, and punishment of war criminals have sometimes been
combined with economic threats against those who disagree with us.”
The
efforts to seek alternative meanings of 9/11 in recent PA literature are
remarkably few, but they need to be recognized.
Sloan (2002; p. 125), for example, identifies the need for a different
kind of inquiry, but he does not undertake it.
But
beyond the conduct of war, what is required in the long-term is the commitment
of the international community to identify and seek to eliminate the root
causes of a form of armed conflict and political violence that is as old as
recorded history and as current as today and tomorrow.
Similarly,
the purpose of Dubnick’s (2002, 86)
analysis
is to posit four alternative war narratives that are likely to surface during
the post-September 11 era. As will be
noted, there are indications of each during the months following the tragedy,
but none has yet emerged as the dominant post-script.
His
narratives are similar in some ways to the one presented here, but they are
also different; they do not include the alternative meanings, for instance. The
dominant view overlaps with his first two narratives.
I
have wondered why interest in these alternative meanings is so rare in PA. The lingering influence of dichotomy I
mentioned earlier comes to mind, which has been often slain but appears to be
remarkably resilient. Furthermore, our
training as well as the substance of our teaching, in most cases, limits our
horizons in some ways, although we are reluctant to admit that—in fact, I have
heard strong denunciation of any such allegation on several occasions. Leaving our wounded pride aside for a moment,
there is no denying that the amount of interest in various aspects of policy making in our publications and our
national conference is quite limited. To that list should be added the fact
that the tradition of questioning the motives, assumptions, interests, and
cultural sensitivity of policy makers is not well developed in PA literature.
IV. CIVIL LIBERTIES
Soon
after 9/11, residents in the United States from mostly Muslim countries were
rounded up in large numbers, detained, and interrogated for long periods. They were not allowed to contact anyone
immediately after being taken into custody; when they were located by their
families, they were moved to other locations, often very far from where they
originally lived; they were not informed ahead of time of the evidence that was
to be used against them; and for months, many were held in solitary
confinement. In a recent broadcast of “60 Minutes,” those interviewed stated
that they were tortured and were considering filing a class action suit to
collect damages. The exact number of
individuals who were so detained has not been released, but it is thought to be
between 1,500 and 2,000. The Attorney
General’s reason for holding them is that they are “suspected terrorists” but
the
grounds
for suspicion are apparently so unfounded that not a single one has been
charged with involvement in September 11 attacks; and with the exception of
four people indicted on support-for-terrorism charges in late August, no one
has been charged with any terrorists act.
Those arrested on immigration charges—the vast majority—have been
effectively “disappeared.” Their cases
are not listed on the public docket, their hearings are closed to the public
and the presiding judges are instructed to neither confirm nor deny that their
cases exist, if asked. Two district
courts and a unanimous court of appeals have held this practice
unconstitutional…(Cole, 2002, 20-21)
Such
governmental harassment, made legal by the USA PATRIOT Act, paralleled, perhaps
even encouraged, the non-governmental one that occurred on a larger scale with
even more lethal consequences. The
actions against Muslims and Arabs, or those who looked like them, ranged from
obscene calls to three murders. It was in view of the anticipation of these
events, or soon after they began, that the issue of civil liberties began to be
raised, and resistance to its violations began to be noticed.
The
relative lack of interest in recent PA literature in civil liberties, or
sympathy for its victims, may have to do with the inadequate attention to the
vulnerable generally, indifference toward an ethnic minority most Americans
have little or no contact with, negative representation of them in the media,
and/or Orientalist prejudices. It may also be based on the mistaken view that
protections that civil liberties provide in the U.S. are limited only to its
citizens. In a very recent case (Zadvydas v. Davis), the Supreme Court
held,
once
an alien enters the country, the legal circumstance changes, for the Due
Process Clause applies to all ‘persons’ within the United States, including
aliens, whether their presence here is lawful, unlawful, temporary, or
permanent. (Quoted in Dworkin, 2002, 46)
But
attempts continue to be made to threaten American citizens’ civil
liberties. Two citizens, Yasser Hamdi
and Jose Padilla, were arrested and declared by the president to be “enemy
combatants”; that is all that was thought to be necessary for
the
indefinite, incommunicado incarceration of any US citizen…This proposition is
so extreme that even the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, by far the
most conservative federal circuit in the country, rejected it. (Cole, 2002; p.
22).
Some
of those who are, or are suspected of being, Taliban fighters were captured in
Afghanistan and brought to Guantanamo Bay; at one time their number was around
600 (Lelyveld, 2002). After some
confusion, the legal cover found for detaining them was to give them the status
of “unlawful combatants.” The official
reason for holding them, in conditions that some have described as resembling a
human zoo, was the gathering of intelligence.
Virtually all of them are Muslims but they come from more than 30
countries; those from Saudi Arabia are the largest in number. Their detention
period could be indefinite. They are not
allowed the protections accorded prisoners of war. Justification for keeping
them in such a legal vacuum is based ultimately on military strength.
I
recall the words of Thomas Szasz (1974; p. 20): “In the animal kingdom, the
rule is, eat or be eaten; in the human kingdom, define or be defined.”
In
the recent PA literature, Shamsul Haque (2002) is clearly the exception. His overview of threats to civil liberties
that these changes pose to all who live the United States, citizens as well as
immigrants, is highly valuable. He
discusses four kinds of rights. (a) The
civil rights are challenged because the USA PATRIOT Act grants to the executive
branch certain unprecedented powers of “surveillance, including gathering
sensitive personal records, tracking e-mail and internet usage, monitoring
financial transactions, practicing sneak-and-peak searches, and using roving
wiretaps” (p. 173). (Lisa Nelson’s
[2002] analysis of the impact of new technology—she examines Carnivore
carefully—that filters information for intelligence gathering purposes is also
important here.) (b) The threats to political rights consist of
recent changes that affect “the protection of due process under the Fifth
Amendment and the safeguards against ‘unreasonable searches and seizures’ guaranteed
by the Fourth Amendment” (Haque, 2002; p. 174).
Also adversely affected are freedoms of speech and association because
of the Act’s “broad definition of domestic terrorism, which may cover political
dissent, civil disobedience, and [even] environmentalism…” (p. 174) (c) In regard to minority rights, the
stereotypes of Asians and Arabs that have been created in the United States
have increased intolerance toward them at home, and probably encouraged repression
against Muslims in China, Chechnya, and Kashmir. (Haque does not mention the fact that under
the Act, the president has the power to declare terrorist any person or
organization, and, having done that, the assets of that person or organization
can be frozen. By exercising that power,
two of the three largest Muslim charities have been shut down; they are said to
be “under investigation.” No charges
have been brought against them, and the period for which these funds will
remain frozen by government is not known.
Giving charity or zakat is a
religious duty of all Muslims.) (d) Social rights, which refer to entitlements to
public services, suffered as well.
Budgetary allocations for defense and domestic security have increased
while spending on social programs has declined.
This
is an incomplete account of the transformation in the civil liberties that has
occurred since 9/11/. The issues touched
on are grave, and they require urgent and frequent attention. For these reasons, it was gratifying to note
that in the special issue of PAR six
articles appeared in a section set aside for this topic. (Haque’s was not among them; it was in
another section.) On closer scrutiny,
however, it became clear that one of the six articles, by Kirlin and Kirlin
(2002), brought together interesting data that revealed that citizens’
propensity for civic engagement had decreased since 9/11, but it said nothing
about civil liberties. Another one, by
Spicer (2002), was also not concerned with civil liberties but with the range
of government operations. Spicer expressed strong preference for government as
a civil association that performed only minimal functions, and acted mostly as
an umpire, which was to be clearly distinguished from the dreaded vision of
government viewed as a purposive association. He worried that the resources
mobilized for fighting terrorism may be redirected later for the achievement of
social purposes. I wondered if making
food stamps available to the poor had already pushed the government into the
dangerous category of a purposive association.
The
remaining four articles (by Anthony Lewis, Lisa Nelson, Jon Gould, and Melvin
Dubnick) do touch on aspects of civil liberties, some of them very briefly
(Lewis contributed a page and a half), others in more detail. The reason for the terribly abstract,
anti-septic, and distant feeling I had on reading them was not hard to
locate. I was stunned to note that
except for a fleeting comment in two articles, to which I will turn in just a
moment, there was no reference to
Muslims or Islam or Arabs in any of the six articles and the introduction in
the entire section devoted to civil liberties!
Since the obvious needs to be stated, at what decibel level in order to
be heard it is hard to tell, it was the fear that Muslims as individuals or as
a group may become the primary targets of violence and discrimination that the
issue of civil liberties surfaced in the first place. (Non-Muslims are also threatened, but that is
not widely known.) Making a passing
reference to them while writing on civil liberties in a post-9/11 context is
comparable to publishing an article on civil rights in the 1960s while
mentioning African-Americans in a cursory fashion!
In
one article, Jon Gould (2002) sought to carefully balance civil liberties
against the need for government surveillance.
He identified six factors that most Americans are willing to tolerate in
order “to uncover those individuals who pose a threat” (p. 76). One of the six dealt with “limiting the
search…to more relevant suspects might smack of illegal discrimination.” He stated, “Given the demographics of the
September 11th hijackers, some might call for intensive screening of
young Middle Eastern men who seek to board an aircraft.” He proceeded then to reveal the findings of a
poll in which 68 percent of the respondents stated that it would be a mistake
to “put Arabs and Arab-Americans in this country under special surveillance”
(p. 77). Since Gould moved on after
this, and did not mention Arabs or Muslims again, he left behind an incomplete
story. No mention was made of the
several widely reported cases of Muslims who were not allowed to board
airplanes for which they had confirmed reservations. Or any reference to the sweeps in Arab and
Muslim neighborhoods soon after 9/11 from which a large number of men were
taken into federal custody. What he
leaves the reader with is a balancing act generously tipping in favor of civil
liberties as reflected in a public opinion poll while completely ignoring their
violations in practice.
In
the other article, Dubnick (2002; p. 89) stated that while the official message
coming from the White House and the administration “from September 11 onward
has been a clear warning that Arab Americans and Islamics of all nationalities
should not be the target of revenge or reprisal,” there was also an “enemy
within narrative” that could be heard as well, and the latter message was
probably heard very clearly by such agencies as Immigration and Naturalization
Service and FBI. It is quite remarkable
that even in this one sentence in which the group under attack is identified,
Dubnick could not name it accurately.
Who are the Islamics? Did he mean
Muslims? Islamists?
In
both articles, or any of the six for that matter, the authors cannot be accused
of expressing any sense of outrage over, or sympathy with, the Muslims and
Arabs whose civil liberties were being violated. Maintaining such a distance is in itself
worth exploring, although I will not attempt such exploration here. Clearly, we have a long way to go.
Looking
to the civil rights’ future, conventional wisdom holds that when the danger is
over, better sense prevails, balance is restored, and the rule of law is again
respected by the government. But Ronald
Dworkin (2002; p. 45) draws our attention to the different nature of the
problem that the nation currently faces.
We
are ashamed now of what we did then: we count the [Supreme] Court’s past
tolerance of anti-sedition laws, interments, and McCarthyism as among the worst
stains on its record. That shame comes
easier now, of course, because we no longer fear the Kaiser, or kamikazes, or
Stalin. It may be a long time before we
stop fearing international or domestic terrorism, however, and we must
therefore be particularly careful now.
What we lose now, in our commitment to civil rights and fair play, may
be much harder later to regain.
When the PA literature focuses on a
variety of issues, there is a sense of comfort and familiarity—with the
concepts used, the outcomes expected, the citations relied on, etc. But when the gears shift and the issues now
have to include the victims of governmental overreach, there is no easy way to
absorb these concerns, and there is a disconnect of sorts, since the language
to name and confront it is far less fully developed.
The
vitality of Dworkin’s analysis for PA deserves to be widely known. Prompt and
eager efforts in PA literature to institutionalize the combating of
international and domestic fear, which several articles in PAR clearly do, may prolong, if Dworkin is right, the danger to
civil liberties. The possibility that PA
is complicit in this fashion is a serious issue that needs urgent attention.
V.CONCLUSION
I
have wondered what implications would emerge for PA from including all these three perspectives. It is an issue that needs exploring in our
professional journals and conferences.
However, here are some tentative speculations. In our curriculum and research, such
inclusion might lead to the incorporation of some discussion of policy
frameworks within which administration takes place. The legacy of Cold War, which has rarely been
emphasized, might be added for providing a historical backdrop. With the growing interest in terror, some
understanding of orientalism would greatly broaden our horizons; and exploring
the potential or existing culpability of PA in institutionalizing fear may
broaden the interest in constitutional democracy. Some familiarity with American foreign policy
could add a dimension of interdisciplinarity that we often overlook. And who can deny these days the usefulness of
knowing something about the politics, ownership, distribution, and consumption
of oil. While these concerns might be
spread across the curricula, they might also breathe new life into international
and comparative public administration.
In view of the current interest in including non-governmental actors in
PA’s curriculum, there are a variety of fascinating areas that have opened up:
development of the institutions of PA in Afghanistan and Iraq in the context of
explicitly acknowledging the national, regional and American interests; the
tension between relying on NGOs, on the one hand, and private businesses, on
the other; the renewed interest in industrial-military-complex; and the role of
monetary payoffs in obtaining agreements of other countries, on one hand, and
the support of individuals and groups within foreign countries to facilitate
military occupation, on the other.
Few
would argue with the proposition that broadening the scope of interpretive
abilities is likely to improve our understanding of public policies. I have indicated how frequently we in PA tend
to gravitate toward parochial and narrow routines of the past. I have also tried to offer a different
framework for understanding the same events.
I entertain the immodest expectation that such a framework when applied
might develop the capacity for searching for diverse and varied meanings of
events, policies, and even organizational restructuring plans. If there is any merit to this kind of
analysis, I have only scratched the surface.
Other possibilities were mentioned recently by Louis Menand (2002, 98)
although he did so partly in jest.
September
11th showed that the United States is hated by many good people around
the world because it is an imperial bully; the United States is hated by many
bad people around the world because it is a beacon of freedom and opportunity;
Islam is a civilization irredeemably hostile to Western values; Islam is a
civilization assimilating Western values; globalization has gone too far;
globalization has not gone far enough…
The
task of sorting out explanations of major events and developments along these
lines—call them hypotheses, if you must—in the curriculum of PA can only enrich
it. To put it differently, not doing so,
will give us in many cases only monolithic versions of received wisdom,
silencing many unfamiliar voices, and students in classes trying to stay awake.
It
is perhaps appropriate to end with an untidy note that prevents, or at least
reduces, the prospects of misunderstanding.
First, I have been critical of scholars writing for the special issue of
PAR dated September, 2002, who did
not have access to some information that I have relied on, and that may appear
unfair. While that may be true in some
cases, my belief is that the general tendencies that I have identified are
still valid.
However,
nothing would please me more than to see convincing evidence that PA literature
had already moved in the direction I am suggesting, and that my critique and
proposals are unnecessary. Second, nothing in this paper is meant to justify
the actions of the terrorists. Those steeped in the dominant view have
sometimes made unwarranted inferences of this kind when encountering dissenting
opinions. Third, any kind of analysis,
it needs to be readily acknowledged, if pushed to extreme limits, will produce
absurd results. Search for diverse
meanings does not automatically validate all of them equally. Such search has
led in some instances to bizarre conclusions through convoluted reasoning. Jean Baudrillard’s statement about 9/11
illustrates the problem: “We can say that they did it, but we wished for
it” (quoted in Menand, 2002; p.101, emphasis in original).
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Zahid Shariff
earned his doctorate in public administration at New York University. Since then, he has been a full-time faculty
member teaching graduate- and undergraduate-level courses at Brooklyn College,
New York, and Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago; since 1990 he has been
at The Evergreen State College, Olympia, Washington. Some of his articles have appeared in edited
books and others in such professional journals as Administration & Society and Social Science Quarterly.
Dr. Zahid
Shariff
Member of
Faculty
The Evergreen
State College
Olympia,
Washington 98505
Tel. 360-866-6000
E-mail: shariffz@evergreen.edu
Fax:360-867-5430