Sara Tartaro

SIMPLE THOUGHTS

As soon as I heard the piece of news the following thought occurred to me: a story I was told when I was a kid and upon which I would like to dwell. I was persistently asking about the Third World, poor children, people who migrate to other countries and so forth. I don’t know whether my dad answered to my questions but I was impressed by the following story he told me:

"imagine a king who is giving a party in his huge castle. Outside the walls of the castle there are some poor people who hear the noise of the party: loud music, laughs, toasts…very soon a little crowd joins the few people listening to these laughs of joys and carefreeness. As soon as one of them climbs over the walls to better see what is going on, the others follow him. They approach the windows, begin to cast sidelong glances at the marvellous living room: sparkling lights and jewels, beautiful pieces of furniture, all sorts of good things on the table…For several times they ring the bell and ask to join the party and to share that Garden of Eden but every time they are answered "later; be patient". "What would you do if you were them?" –he asked me- "I’d break the windows and take my part!" I answered with no hesitation.

It sounds as a short story, but isn’t it the case of the countries of the third world? Isn’t this terrorist attack on quintessential symbols of American financial and military power an answer to politics of exclusion? Exclusion from what? From a system of benefits, from the welfare of modernization. It is as if in the logic of the market-economy and socio-cultural benefits many countries had been condemned to remain "outside of the game". How can we deny the failure of the American policy in the Middle East? How can we deny the failure of the West policy towards the Third World ?

I do not want to excuse such an act of terrorism; I do not want to excuse Omar Bin Laden or whoever else has organized it; I do not want them not to be captured but I also claim that we cannot renounce to look for a reason: why have they reached such a diabolical inhuman reaction?

If the motivation may lay in a policy of exclusion, there is to wonder which should be America’s answer to such an insult. I cannot deny my scepticism about America’s first reactions: the many forms of patriotism (from the president’s speeches to the concerts) sounded more like wish for revenge than wish for justice; that new market of T-shirts showing Bin Laden’s picture and the writing "wanted dead or alive" puzzled me; president’s speeches (including EU presidents) sounded a bit rhetoric; finally the decision for the "easiest" solution: the use of military force which has been justified by the pretext of international solidarity. Indeed to answer with another slaughter does not solve the problem at its roots; it just adds millions of innocent victims to an already shocking list. We should be aware that ending a war entails never starting it. It is true that the right to life of thousands of civilians has been violated on that unforgettable 11 of September in New York and Washington, but it is also true that the same right belongs to the millions of innocent people in Baghdad, Kabul, Belgrade and so forth.

Doesn’t the USA want to be the lighthouse of civilization? It is not in simple moments that they are asked to show it, but like now when they are put to the hard test.