The first thing that strikes you is the smell, a mixture of sweet and sour odors wrapped in a whiff of smoke. It is like something both rotting in humidity and burning at the same time. Next you are struck by the noise, a cocktail of humming, hissing and hurling that reminds you of Stockhausen’s electronic compositions. It will take some time before you form an image of this malodorous miasmic monster, the debris of the twin towers of the World Trade Center and adjacent buildings that collapsed like a pack of cards when two jetliners, hijacked by terrorists, exploded on impact against them, on Sept. 11.
This is what the world now knows as "Ground Zero", the gaping wound at the heart of America. The debate over what to do with it rages on. Some want the twin towers to be rebuilt, higher if possible. Others insist that the place be turned into a memorial, a kind of secular shrine for the victims. The latest opinion polls show that Ground Zero will be the No. 1 tourist destination for Americans in the coming year. "People will come here to renew their bond with America," says Mayor Rudolf Giuliani.
What is certain is that Ground Zero has already transformed America’ view of itself and the world at large. Whoever planned the September attack must have been ignorant of American history and psychology. All students of American history know the attacks have produced the opposite effect. In more than three decades, one has never seen the average American so determined to use his country’s power to reshape the architecture of the world.
Talking to scores of people from many walks of life, from senior officials to the man in the street and Ground Zero workers and visitors, during a 10-day visit, one gains the impression that a majority of Americans are prepared for action, and, if need be self-sacrifice, to make "the world safe for democracy" as President George W. Bush puts it. Translated into real politics, that means the imposition of Pax Americana on a part of the globe that was hitherto only sporadically affected by the US.
Before Sept. 11, two events had helped shape the United States presence in the world. The first was the battle of Alamo in Texas in the 19th century when a huge Mexican army led by Gen. Santa Ana routed a small force of American private fighters led by Davy Crocket. Although a complete disaster, Alamo entered the American psyche as one of the founding myths of the nation.
It provided the justification for an American counterattack that, in time, led to the capture of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California from Mexico. The reshaping of the map meant that the US, and not Mexico, was to become the "superpower" of the 20th century. Alamo had yet another consequence. The US made it an article of faith never to allow anyone to threaten it within the Western Hemisphere.
The next formative event of American history came almost a century later with the Japanese attack against Pearl Harbor in 1941. The Japanese had hoped that the attack would force the US out of the Pacific and into its cocoon. Again the opposite came to pass a few years later when, having conquered Japan and taken the Japanese emperor prisoner, the US emerged as the unchallenged power in the Pacific. That meant an extension of Pax Americana not only to Western Europe but also to a fair chunk of Asia and the Pacific Rim.
The French leader Gen. de Gaulle describes the Americans as "reluctant soldiers". He writes: "The American will not fight unless he is obliged. He is reluctant to enter battle, but when he does he will fight to the end."
Alamo and Pearl Harbor illustrate the fact that the average American needs to feel himself a victim before he fights back. No American president could secure popular support for waging war against anyone who has not attacked the United States first. This is why the Vietnam War ended with humiliation for the US.
Unlike other nations that gloat over their victories in war, Americans remember only their defeats. Ask an average visitor to Ground Zero what he knows of the battles of Normandy, Midway or Tete, which rank among the greatest victories in military history, and you are likely to get a shrug of the shoulders. Even the war of Kuwait’s liberation, in which Saddam’s armies collapsed in just 100 hours, has become a faint memory for most Americans.
If Alamo led to a new system that made the American continent safe for the US, the result of Pearl Harbor was to ensure US security in the Asia-Pacific region. American pundits expect that the Sept. 11 attack is the starting point for creating another "zone of security" for the US. This new zone will stretch from North Africa to the Indian subcontinent, adding several huge pieces to the global jigsaw of Pax Americana.
Hitherto, US interest in that zone had been limited to strategic considerations in the Mediterranean and the security of oil supplies from the Gulf. The Arab-Israeli conflict had added a further dimension largely because of the strong Jewish minority in the United States.
Alamo had symbolized a threat that was limited to classical territorial ambitions. Pearl Harbor had added a new dimension represented by Japan’s imperial pretensions. Neither the Mexicans nor the Japanese, however, had wanted to destroy the United States as such. The Sept. 11 attacks, on the other hand, were not designed to gain either territorial or imperial advantages against the US. They were designed to inflict death and destruction. They included an ideological, not to say theological, dimension that was lacking in Alamo and Pearl Harbor.
It took the US almost 20 years to reverse the defeat of Alamo. Avenging Pearl Harbor took more than four years, and a further 40 years was spent on stabilizing the Pacific Rim. The actual avenging of the September attack has taken less than three months. But to translate that into a new and stable balance of power from North Africa to the Subcontinent may take many more years.
Ground Zero is the symbol of a long process of reshaping a sensitive part of the world that, with the exception of Black Africa, is the only part to have remained largely outside the new global system of market economy and pluralist politics. Is the US prepared for the task it has set itself?
Contemplating Ground Zero, a visitor is reminded of how much of history is made by the law of unintended results: people do something to achieve one goal and end by provoking another, sometimes even the opposite.
