ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, August 7, 1996 TAG: 9608070014
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DANIEL N. NELSON
TERRORISM claims many victims. Democracy is often among them. Through random and deadly violence, terror reaps its greatest reward - fear that weakens the sinews of tolerance and breaks the bonds of civil society.
For most of the past decades, Americans have been spared the worst of terrorism. Although horrific events such as the attacks on Pan Am Flight 103 and the Beirut Marine barracks are stark exceptions, other advanced democracies - such as Germany, France, Britain and Spain - have borne a proportionately greater burden of bombings, assassinations and hostage crises.
Now, however, events point to an intensified threat. To these new vulnerabilities is added a widely shared fear of urban crime that has overshadowed other concerns about the economy, education or health care.
Insecurity ascendant bodes ill for democracy. At previous moments in U.S. history, domestic or foreign threats have been associated with a suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, the internment of hundreds of thousands of American citizens of Japanese origin and the unleashing of spy agencies on domestic organizations. In other countries, the 20th-century record is yet more ominous - the destruction of Weimar by Adolf Hitler's demagoguery and intimidation, vicious repression by juntas in Greece, Argentina or Chile. In all these cases, authoritarians couched their actions in the rhetoric of national salvation in the face of conspiracies and threats from domestic and foreign enemies.
Insecurity - when threats outweigh capacities to deter or defend against them - and democracies do not mix well. Although security is not a sufficient condition for democracy, it is necessary; democracy is security-dependent. The nurturing and maturation of stable modern democracies in countries with natural forms of protection (oceans, channels) and ample resources (from continental expansion or colonial exploitation) are not mere coincidence. And, even then, detours and backsliding when threats arose from abroad or within meant that democratic institutions, attitudes and behavior developed incrementally over centuries.
During this lengthy gestation, and even thereafter, terrorists know that it is the perception of insecurity in the broadest respect - physical safety, economic well-being, assurance of justice and equality - that matters most. When a population begins to sense that its government cannot protect its ``life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,'' its trust in the system erodes and a process of systemic demise commences.
Such a milieu is a fertile ground for anti-democrats at the fringes of politics and society. Claiming that competition, tolerance and pluralism are luxuries the nation cannot afford, demagogues call for investigations of groups, surveillance of individuals, scrutiny of intellectuals, longer fences and higher walls along borders, denial of civil or economic rights to immigrants and minorities, more police, larger jails, a bigger army and more fear.
This is exactly as the terrorists intended. Put to flight, democracies become former democracies, devoid of the stable civility that is their strength. The lure of protection, order and sure footing in a time of new threats means that citizens and civil society retreat from the public sphere. Once the field is abandoned by the populace, anarchists and demagogues have it to themselves.
Americans' reactions to the explosion of TWA Flight 800 and the pipe-bomb incident in Atlanta have, thus far, been muted; sympathy for family tragedies has been intertwined with resignation and a resolve to carry on. The political impulse, however, has been to expand investigatory powers (especially wiretapping authority), tighten surveillance measures at airports and intensify intelligence operations aimed at such threats. For these measures, broad public support is evident.
But, were future incidents to occur, would we continue on the path that is so easily charted? What additional steps to fight terrorism would we endorse, offering pieces of our democracy on an altar of perceived threats? The United States of 1996 is almost two generations removed from the grotesque excesses of McCarthyism, and no longer obsessed with the unequivocal adversary of communism. But we should never forget the convulsive spectacle of suspicion, innuendo and accusation into which this nation has devolved in our recent history or the abuses of power that institutions and politicians are wont to exhibit. From these episodes to a palpable danger to American democracy is not so far as we'd like to think.
Our foremost consideration should be ensuring the requisite security on which democracy depends, not mounting a war against the specter of terrorism at any cost. Highly targeted legislation and presidential findings, not sweeping measures opening the door to excess and abuse, ought to be our priority. External sponsors of terrorism, individual profiles and group identities are already well known. We need, for example, more capable and better trained airport-security personnel far more than we need new legislation expanding the intrusive power of federal agencies.
Democracies can be victimized by terrorists in two ways - by using their openness to plan and carry out vicious attacks and, then, by watching as pluralism, tolerance and the rule of law unravel in pursuit of fears their violence has spawned. Families victimized by terrorism deserve nothing less than a national commitment to seek the causes and pursue the perpetrators of such horrors. But, measures against these threats would hand terrorists a further victory were we to countenance, because of our insecurities, a future that is less free.
Daniel N. Nelson is professor of international studies at Old Dominion University and president of Global Concepts Inc. He wrote this for Newsday.
L.A. Times-Washington Post News Service
LENGTH: Long : 102 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: JOHN MacDONALD Los Angeles Times Syndicateby CNB