"This is clearly a critical moment. We need politicians and leaders who can inspire us with confidence. Yet none of our leaders is doing this. Instead naivety still seems to rule. Bush and Blair are asking us to fight a war against terror. But, as any fool should know, if we do, terror will strike back. Not as one army lined up against another, but as terror fights - with stealth, unexpectedly, without warning, without claims of responsibility. It will bypass the military and sacrifice the lives of ordinary people.
When rules are broken at such a pitch, the need to retaliate is understandable. But a military response on an ill-defined target is woefully dangerous. Behind this need to retaliate is the damage to our world view. And what is needed now is charismatic leaders who can assimilate the new thinking that results from this awful awakening. We want figures who embody our feelings, represent a wise assimilation and a thoughtful new political response. But as we do not seem to have such leaders, our anxiety is acute.
By the cruellest of fates, the fanatics have no such problem. The contrast between their leadership and ours is embodied in the difference between Bush and Bin Laden. Bin Laden does not even have to speak. His icon so potently embodies his cause. The irony is that if children were asked to draw Christ, they would drawn Bin Laden - not just because of how he dresses, but for his whole demeanour. His is the look of Christ-like suffering, with all the intense sexual ambiguity that goes with it. He looks like someone who has suffered an earlier psychological wound. That look matches the fanatic's ideology; he looks like a victim, languidly feminine, but with his gun over his shoulder he viciously repudiates this femininity and embraces machismo.
Against this we have Bush: dazed and confused, grasping at thoughts that refuse to form into meaningful words. This at a time when we need leadership to acknowledge our species shame and how to live with it.
guardian.co.uk |
