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17 September 2001 12:30
The personal and the political
Anne Corbett
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In the best case the historical parallel will be seen not as Pearl Harbour or Cuba, but the recognition of the need for a new Bretton Woods
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Our family has been living the ups and downs of being a global network for some time. So unsurprisingly I was one of the thousands, if not millions, uselessly ringing New York where one son lives, just after 2.15 London time [on Tuesday]. And then uselessly ringing a French mobile to get the other son who travels endlessly. I threw emails into the ether as if they were a bottle in the ocean. Would he ever read that, sometime before 3pm London time, his trying-to-be-calm Mum was sending love and kisses.
We were among those who had the message that counted when we got home: Among the ones saying 'Oh my God,' there was 'Mum and Dad, just to reassure you.'
Four long days later, we know more and more about the horror of these happenings, and who did it. I’m zapping between the UK, France and the US for the commentaries. The French Radio Four, taking the long view, is getting those who train the next generation of intelligence and economic strategists to explain the ‘ruptures’ which have been changing the geopolitical balance:
The non state nature of terrorism... the widening gaps between rich and poor nations...the implosion of key states... the Third World demographic explosion.. the strengthening of local identification in compensation ... there’s no possibility of keeping a lid on terrorism.. We have to start rebalancing rich world/poor world relationships.
It’s the argument put so well by Saskia Sassen of Global City fame, connecting poverty with religious fanaticism, which ultimately interconnect with the successful attacks on the symbolisms of capitalism and American power.
As I write GWB is in Camp David with his advisers and chief of staff working out their next steps. No doubt, as with the eleven long days of the Cuba crisis, we’ll eventually have the accounts of the arguments which have been going back and forth among the military chiefs and advisers round the table, as they face choices which parallel in difficulty those JF Kennedy eventually made.
The optimist in me says that the defining moment is so stark that the biggest choice the American people will make is to accept the end of their isolated and lone superpower status, so that when the immediate crisis is over, some cooperative foreign relations agendas are possible. In the best case the historical parallel will be seen not as Pearl Harbour or Cuba, but the recognition of the need for a new Bretton Woods.
The pessimist in me says that when looking for leadership in difficult circumstances, we would not necessarily have picked on GW Bush to deliver it. Let us hope that the American president, whose name will forever be attached to the choice or choices of response to Sept 11, will have the capacity to take some decisions which keep open the door to the long view.
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