The Gates of Hell

While struggling to get to sleep late last night (again), I was watching the BBC or ABC World news report on the 9/11 Commission. The basic conclusion was that the previous two administrations stuffed up - big time. Fair enough, I suppose. What alarmed me, though, was the language that all the Commission members were using. While I understand that the attack has left a scar on the collective American sociology, I am disturbed by the fundamentalist Christian imagery and ideology that seems to be seeping out of this inquiry. Take, for example, the Commission's critique of Clinton and Tennet's decision not to assassinate Bin Laden and their 'soft' handling of the attack on the U.S.S Cole in the latter years of Clinton's presidency. One member of the Commission, who talked a lot, used the phrase 'the Devil was breathing down our necks', and that failure to respond 'adequately' meant that the United States has entered the gates of 'hell' and is still stuck in hell trying to find an escape route.

I don't like this imagery. People have said from time to time that there are elements of the United States administration that were fighting a crusade, and this sort of language backs this up. To argue or imply that Bin Laden is the, or a, Devil is extremely dangerous. For starters it undermines relations between Christians and Muslims - and they're already reasonably undermined. With Bin Laden being a Fundamentalist Muslim, and Bush being a fundamentalist Christian, the portrayal of Bin Laden as the Devil, as Evil, as Satan implies that Bush is the opposite. Christian good, Muslim bad.

Furthermore, even if the language being used by the commission is strictly allegorical and the members themselves do not believe in it, there is a danger they or others will come to believe in it. Repeat something often enough and it becomes true. Rabelais had to believe in Christianity because the language around him in 16th Century France was so infused with Christian symbolism and metaphors - they even told the time by the Bible. Orwell has shown how language dictates how we think - and although he argued that a reduction in our vocabulary reduces our capacity to think in an abstract and critical manner (double plus good), it is reasonable to extend this to a vocabulary heavily weighted in favour of a particular party or person. Just look at the Cultural Revolution in China, or the Beloved Leader in North Korea.

Language plays an exceedingly important role in our lives and the lives of those we kill in our god-awful crusades. We should treat it with a degree of respect.

Class over.