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Observations by LAKSHMAN GUNASEKERA

Those philosophers of Euro-modernist global domination who declared "the end of history" must surely be regretting their neo-Christian eschatology every time they see or hear the phrase "nine-eleven".

This week, '9-11' is probably more ubiquitous globally than another, far more useful, United States' export: the '7-Eleven' 24-hour store chain (Taiwan alone once had more than 200 outlets). Today, almost everyone in America (almost, except for small numbers of independently thinking, assorted rednecks, hillbillies, carpet-baggers, ex- and neo-hippies and suchlike), quite forgetting those learned exhortations to forget history, takes her or his history forward from September 11th, 2001.

And if, in that early excitement over the collapse of the Socialist Bloc, American neo-liberal philosophers had hoped to halt history in what they presumed to be a glorious 'now', it was not any countervailing technological or military great power that subsequently re-started history. Rather, it was a small group of people with a desperate fanaticism that inspired a suicidal savagery ('berserker' would be the Old Norse term for it), that retrieved American history for the Americans.

Maybe America's neo-Christianity (pseudo-Christianity?) needed a new Year Zero to start things over in a new millennium. Perhaps, ideologically speaking, Francis Fukuyama had to declare his 'end of history' in order that a new epoch of 'Anno Domini', a new imperium begins. No wonder the World Trade Centre site in Manhattan, New York, has been named 'Ground Zero'. Not only is it geographically 'ground zero' (just like in Hiroshima and Nagasaki), but, in the Global Age, '9-11' becomes the temporal turning point, the Year Zero, in the enforcement of the New World Order. Someone - heoric Mohammed Atta? - had to bring an Armegeddon of sorts so that time/history began again.

Fortunately, there has been no rush to re-build on the site of the World Trade Centre, New York, after the original twin towers were destroyed in the suicide guerrilla strike last year. Otherwise, as we approach the first anniversary of 9-11 this week (I wonder whether Francis Fukuyama is counting the years), other similarly desperate fanatics might be tempted to further advance American history. In Washington, DC, however, the Quadragon has been repaired, and is, once again, a Pentagon, so it is ready and awaiting the next incursion or, excursion, depending on one's geo-political location.

"Low tech, high concept" was how an American security expert described the attacks on CNN television in the first hours after the twin guerrilla strikes. The experts - that is, those whose job it was to do the hard-headed analysis as opposed to the ranters and ravers - were already busy dissecting the attacks and appreciating the methods employed and the strategic and tactical approach of the perpetrators and planners. This particular expert, very much aware of the preponderant dependence on advanced technology of US security systems, both civilian and military, was appreciating the brilliant simplicity of the attack method. Here was no attempt to smuggle in weaponry or to manufacture weaponry such as 'improvised explosive devices' (IED) with which we, Sri Lankans, have become so familiar (or, are we already forgetting?). Nor, presumably, did the New York-Washington attackers have to do any conventional military 'assault training' although, in that tantalisingly brief airport security video tape, Mohammed Atta looked physically trim and fit. They only had to be fit enough for brief moments of close quarters, hand-to-hand fighting, perhaps to use small arms and, most importantly, to pilot and navigate large passenger jets in mid-flight.

All their other expertise was in that murky realm of covert warfare, similar to espionage, in order to survive, move around, and operate secretly as they prepared for their attack and moved into position - that is, locations from which to launch it. I refer to espionage, because most of their preparation - indeed, a critical part of the overall 'Operation 9-11' (to coin a phrase) was in the realm of intelligence: in deciding the most effective way of seriously politically hurting the sole superpower, in identifying the best targets for the greatest political impact, in identifying the method, in assessing the strength of the buildings being targeted, the size of the aircraft with the necessary quantum of high octane fuel, in deciding the required flying skill, the timing, the flight routes, in obtaining all this information, etc., etc.

That the United States was indeed seriously politically hurt was to be seen in the quick about-turn the ruling Republican Party did in a crucial area of US global politico-military policy: in President George Bush Junior's acknowledgment, within weeks of September 11, of the need for an independent Palestinian State.

He became the last governmental leader in the world to do so other than Ariel Sharon. It is sad indeed that a government, especially that of a state that is recognised as a model of democracy (I do love models....mmm....), had to be compelled by military savagery to adopt a policy that the rest of the world had already acknowledged as the most just and reasonable one. It is an even greater, tragic irony that, that far more devastating military strike, the nuclear attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which is yet the world's sole military use of nuclear weaponry, and executed by none other than our sole remaining superpower, did not bring about any similarly significant political about-turn by the targeted state.

After all, most US policy-makers, military and civilian, even at the time of the nuclear strike, had already concluded that Japan was close to defeat and only needed more conventional mass bombing of its civilian and industrial centres before it surrendered (the saturation bombing of cities had been going on for months).

It is even more ironic that, given the logic of today's 'anti-terrorism' rhetoric, the atomic bombing of August 1945 becomes 'conventional' in comparison (according to that logic), to the September 2001 guerrilla attack on the USA. After all, the powers-that-be, refuse to recognise non-state politico-military violence as 'guerilla' warfare any more and have adopted the rhetoric of 'terrorism'. Thus, the New York-Washington attacks, according to that logic, are not even 'conventional' guerrilla strikes and the atomic bombing must be seen as closer to the 'conventional' in order that the 9-11 attacks can be labelled 'terrorism'. Let's leave that rhetoric to the conventional politicians.

Given the covert nature of the operation, the twin attacks on the US have become one of the most successful guerrilla operations in human history. More significantly, these strikes have heralded a new parallel epoch, that is, an epoch parallel to that of the new Global political regime: a political resistance that is necessarily equally global.

Actually, just as much as globalisation was inherent in the post-Second World War spurt in the global spread of capitalism and its governance in various forms (the IMF, GATT, regional defence and political pacts such as NATO, CENTO, ASEAN), so was global resistance inherent in those early actions of international or transnational guerrilla warfare, especially in relation to the Palestinian problem.

For example, what could be more international than the Palestinian guerrilla bombings, assassinations and skyjackings in Western Europe? What could be more transnational than the Japanese Red Army attack on Tel Aviv airport in support of the Palestinian cause? After all, such a an expression, in military terms, of international solidarity, was only an extension of the international solidarity already being vociferously expressed in civilian terms by numerous activist groups throughout the world.

By the 1970s the international co-operation among guerrilla groups had become well known. It was no surprise, therefore, when Sri Lankan Tamil militants were found to have trained in Palestinian guerrilla camps in Lebanon. Neither was it surprising when, very recently, IRA militants were found in the jungles of Columbia in Columbian insurgent enclaves. What is clear, however, is that just as much as the State has become all pervasive not only at national levels but also at the global level, so has the resistance to that pervasiveness become internationalised, globalised.

The State, national and global, has become stronger and yet stronger, with the national regime being reinforced by a global regime. It is a regime of politico-economically dominant State powers, of a network of inter-governmental world organisations such as the UN, the WTO, the IMF/World Bank, of a vast framework of 'international legal instruments' ranging from the UN covenants and treaties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (read nuclear exclusivism) and the Kyoto Protocol, and of a web of defence, security and 'anti-terror' pacts.

It was most interesting to note that, at a seminar last week in Colombo on federal systems of governance, a foreign expert on federalism argued was able to agree that in the cases of Canada (Quebec) and the United Kingdom (Northern Ireland), the facility to secede was not only provided for, but was also politically tenable in that part of the world. But what about the cases of Sri Lanka (Eelam) or, other nationalist struggles in South Asia? No, that expert argued, it was not politically tenable. Why? Because, in North America and Western Europe there were other larger, regional systems, like the European Union, in place to accommodate a newly seceding polity and to ensure that the transition was peaceful, orderly and democratic whereas in South Asia such larger systems were not in place. (The fact that, that seminar discussed federalism in-depth but did not touch on con-federalism is also noteworthy.)

In other words, global order is stronger on some parts of Earth than on others and radical adjustments in the global inter-state system could be 'managed' only in such a tightly ordered situation. Such are the political ramifications of the Global Age. That is why, in post-Cold War eastern Europe we have seen successful secessions in Czechoslovakia, a quick (if briefly bloody) partitioning in the former Yugoslavia and rapid unification in Germany. Even post-Soviet central Asia has seen similarly quick secessions of several states within an already existing stable politico-legal framework in which the states in all these new countries remain lightly linked to the former Russian dominant power.

Not so in post-colonial Asia and Africa where the chaos of colonisation has been multiplied by the chaos left behind by the departing colonisers. So South Asia has to struggle on with its post-colonial mess.

The strengthening of the State in these regions in the context of this post-colonial mess, and often in stark disregard of that mess, has given rise to numerous forms of resistance at sub-state level in terms of social class, caste, ethnicity, gender and numerous other forms of collective solidarity and initiatives for collective survival.

If some of this resistance, especially social class, caste and ethnic, has give engendered insurgency, others have remained at the level of intensive politics. What all this resistance has in common is the vast network of organisations that address the different aspects of the resistance political, legal, social, and even physical subsistence such as refugee organisations and charity kitchens.

If charity kitchens are at the 'soft' end of the spectrum indeed, to some extent, linking up with the dominant social groups as an avenue for charity then, the political action groups are at the 'hard' end, and the insurgent movements become the 'cutting edge'. At the same time, the legal and social arms of this resistance of the Subalterns are the above-ground or overt level while some of the political groups and, certainly, the insurgent movements, form the underground levels.

And the Underground resistance has always, in various ways, meshed with the Underworld in a vast global Subterranean that is the veritable 'alter-ego' of the global State (or, to put it in neo-Christian terms, the Citadel of God).

So is this to be the course of history? If one is to begin from the 11th of September, 2001, then it might seem so. But, in reality - that is, as far as the reality of space-time understood there are many time lines and many histories.

The American people themselves, notwithstanding some neo-liberal philosophers, have always recalled their history both the proud as well as the shameful dimensions. Even in the 19th century, intrepid European expansionists in Texas took on Mexican armies in bitter war over territory with the battle cry "Remember The Alamo". The Alamo was a fortified mission outpost that was defended to the last man including the legendary Davy Crockett - when it was overrun by the Mexicans. Today, American soldiers remember the World Trade Centre when they fight in Afghanistan, their will to battle clearly far stronger than it was in Vietnam.

But the Mexican wars are today seen in a new perception of American history, a perception that acknowledges both the triumphs of democracy and capitalism as well as the shame of expansionism and genocide. That acknowledgement is a hallmark of the great civilisation that North America has become after the colonial Dark Age. Can this civilisation, in this Global Age, retain that sophistication of perception as human history becomes ever more a single, collective odyssey, post-2001?

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