Hero and villain: who is who?
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It is one of those few days that you don’t forget: everyone knows what they were doing when the planes hit the World Trade Center, on that clear sunny day that made TV images perfectly clear. It was one of those days that changed the course of history. Al Qaida’s brutal cold-blooded shameful attacks were the spark the Bush Administration needed, the opportunity the neo-cons, with their violent colonial spirit, exploited as much as possible, at home and abroad.
At home, the shrinking of the American democracy soon began with freedom-restricting laws like the Patriot Act and the subsequent ones. It was in those days that ICE was established, the legalised internal quasi-terrorist organisation the Trump administration is so proud of today: it helps the preservation of the pure WASP race with kidnappings, killings and deportations. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, i.e. more than ten years without a worldwide Spectre-like enemy, 9/11 provided a convincing enemy so badly needed to spread again a new sense of fear and subsequent rage, basic elements for conservative politics and consent.
Also as far as foreign politics is concerned, Al-Qaida came at the right time, releasing all the neo-cons’ basic instincts hidden under the surface. The future pre-emptive wars discredited the CIA worldwide but cancelled the function of the UN, and from then on war became free, an available option without rules and international approval, so that now Trump thanks those guys. The incredible 20 years long Afghanistan war (2001-2021) fuelled terrorism and the Talebans’ power (Trump is now using this model in Palestine), the fake made-up motives for the 2003 invasion of Iraq was a shocking revelation but became a template to adopt in case of need, the devastating images of the CIA tortures and of the Guantanamo quasi-concentration camps, that reminded us of the medieval inquisition, travelled lightly through the web disturbing those who still believed in democracy and asked the overwhelming question of where the line between democracy and dictatorship is. All this in the old magic name of oil, the black gold by which we are destroying the planet, and of the ancient imperialistic attitude of the West. In the following years 9/11 furnished us both with other Islamic terror attacks and grandiose peace demonstrations which spread a renewed anti-American spirit, blooming also today because of Trump’s wars in all its forms and ways: the kidnapping of presidents, disregard for Europe in the Ukrainian question, the silent approval of Israel’s genocide, the backfiring war with Iran – all made possible by that 9/11 spark. Trump’s claim that either you back the US policy or you support terrorism is the same as G.W.Bush’s ‘with or against us’. Now, and then, there is no between, only a black-or-white choice. You can’t disagree with Bush’s or Trump’s politics and at the same time condemn the brutality of Islamic terrorism.
As for me, that event inspired me the ‘noir-est’ novel I have ever written, Dark City, set in a world of permanent fight between the West and Islam. Had there to be a sequel, the ‘actors’ may change but the setting would remain the same. Is there any hope left? Or is it Bye-bye Miss American Pie, as Don McLean’s song about the death of music goes? Let’s stick to Bruce Springsteen’s introductory words to his recent Philadelphia concert celebrating 250 years of American – dreamt? – democracy. And let’s not forget there is another dramatic 9/11: fifty-three years ago (1973), Salvador Allende’s democratically elected socialist government was overthrown in a military coup led by the US-backed fascist Augusto Pinochet. A tell-tale story on American democracy.