Tragedy and Farce
The following is a commentary I wrote for class today. It came out as more of a blog/essay than a scholarly critique, so I thought I would put it here. It's in response to reading The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright and the page citations are for that book.
History repeats itself. The first time as tragedy, the second as farce.
Only the farce is equally tragic for anyone living through it. Or dying from it. I should attribute the quote above to Marx, but my source for it was instead the English novelist Julian Barnes. It was, perhaps, the central theme of his novel The History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters, a work which in my own opinion tops Hegel and Marx in its explication of world history. As I concluded Wright's The Looming Tower, I felt like I had completed several more chapters.
But the farce isn't so funny when you're Ali Soufan, retching in the bathroom over the photos that showed the CIA already had part of the information the FBI needed to prevent 9/11. And it's not just random chance (is it?) when John O'Neill turns to a strict prayer regimen reminiscent of the practices of those he had tried to hunt down and shut down for years? Or that he took a post at the Trade Center that those same people brought down on top of him? Just coincidence? Or just in the way we tell the story? And is it tragedy or farce when men kill people by the thousands in the name of religion that "explicitly states that Muslims shall not kill anyone, except as punishment for murder. The murder of one innocent, the Qu'ran warns, is judged 'as if he had murdered all of mankind.'" (124) And is it even more tragic (or farcical) when this is nothing new, when centuries of crusades and jihads have raged across the Middle East. Or when, in a scene reminiscent of Napoleon having Snowball chased away by his guard dogs in George Orwell's Animal Farm (another fictionalization that remained true to history), perhaps the last somewhat reasonable influence on bin Laden, Azzam, the one who saw the real danger, is gunned down in a way that is all too convenient for Zawahiri. (130) Or that "One line of thinking proposes that America's tragedy on September 11 was born in the prisons of Egypt," where through sheer brutality, the Egyptian authorities were doing their best to destroy terrorism. Or when, to defend ourselves as a nation we embark upon the very course our attackers wanted us to take and do the very things they were trying to provoke?
I would be tempted to talk about Derrida and auto-immunity here, and paradoxical aporias. But somehow, this is all a bit too old, a bit too basic, a bit too human for that, isn't it?
Those that don't learn from history are condemned to repeat it. That's another quote, and I don't know whom to cite for it. But it's appropriate for this work, is it not? And the following story fits it perfectly: "His (Zawahiri's) views had undergone a powerful shift from those of the young man who spurned revolution because it was too bloody. He now believed that only violence changed history. In striking the enemy, he would create a new reality. His strategy was to force the Egyptian regime to become even more repressive, to make the people hate it. In this he succeeded. But the Egyptian people did not turn to him or to his movement. They only became more miserable, more disenchanted, frightened, and despairing. In the game Zawahiri had begun, however, revenge was essential; indeed, it was the game itself." (217)
Only Zawahiri didn't begin the game. He merely joined it. It's been the same game since the birth of civilization in Iraq, Egypt and elsewhere. Violence, revenge, violence, revenge. It's a never ending cycle condemned to repeat itself indefinitely. Violence doesn't change history. It just repeats it.
Or maybe, just maybe, there are enough peope who under the right circumstances might really see what's going on in all this history for the first time and turn against those who attempt to condemn themselves and others to walk the same old paths. Maybe there are even some here in America, too.
History repeats itself. The first time as tragedy, the second as farce.
Only the farce is equally tragic for anyone living through it. Or dying from it. I should attribute the quote above to Marx, but my source for it was instead the English novelist Julian Barnes. It was, perhaps, the central theme of his novel The History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters, a work which in my own opinion tops Hegel and Marx in its explication of world history. As I concluded Wright's The Looming Tower, I felt like I had completed several more chapters.
But the farce isn't so funny when you're Ali Soufan, retching in the bathroom over the photos that showed the CIA already had part of the information the FBI needed to prevent 9/11. And it's not just random chance (is it?) when John O'Neill turns to a strict prayer regimen reminiscent of the practices of those he had tried to hunt down and shut down for years? Or that he took a post at the Trade Center that those same people brought down on top of him? Just coincidence? Or just in the way we tell the story? And is it tragedy or farce when men kill people by the thousands in the name of religion that "explicitly states that Muslims shall not kill anyone, except as punishment for murder. The murder of one innocent, the Qu'ran warns, is judged 'as if he had murdered all of mankind.'" (124) And is it even more tragic (or farcical) when this is nothing new, when centuries of crusades and jihads have raged across the Middle East. Or when, in a scene reminiscent of Napoleon having Snowball chased away by his guard dogs in George Orwell's Animal Farm (another fictionalization that remained true to history), perhaps the last somewhat reasonable influence on bin Laden, Azzam, the one who saw the real danger, is gunned down in a way that is all too convenient for Zawahiri. (130) Or that "One line of thinking proposes that America's tragedy on September 11 was born in the prisons of Egypt," where through sheer brutality, the Egyptian authorities were doing their best to destroy terrorism. Or when, to defend ourselves as a nation we embark upon the very course our attackers wanted us to take and do the very things they were trying to provoke?
I would be tempted to talk about Derrida and auto-immunity here, and paradoxical aporias. But somehow, this is all a bit too old, a bit too basic, a bit too human for that, isn't it?
Those that don't learn from history are condemned to repeat it. That's another quote, and I don't know whom to cite for it. But it's appropriate for this work, is it not? And the following story fits it perfectly: "His (Zawahiri's) views had undergone a powerful shift from those of the young man who spurned revolution because it was too bloody. He now believed that only violence changed history. In striking the enemy, he would create a new reality. His strategy was to force the Egyptian regime to become even more repressive, to make the people hate it. In this he succeeded. But the Egyptian people did not turn to him or to his movement. They only became more miserable, more disenchanted, frightened, and despairing. In the game Zawahiri had begun, however, revenge was essential; indeed, it was the game itself." (217)
Only Zawahiri didn't begin the game. He merely joined it. It's been the same game since the birth of civilization in Iraq, Egypt and elsewhere. Violence, revenge, violence, revenge. It's a never ending cycle condemned to repeat itself indefinitely. Violence doesn't change history. It just repeats it.
Or maybe, just maybe, there are enough peope who under the right circumstances might really see what's going on in all this history for the first time and turn against those who attempt to condemn themselves and others to walk the same old paths. Maybe there are even some here in America, too.