September11 in Different Semantic Structures

Jurgen Habermas offers an interesting distinction between the real world and the world that we feel ourselves in and understand our lives in. He calls the world that we have built on our mind and under the influence of history, language and social structure as the “life-world”. A big difference may exist between the real world and our life-world. Each of us lives in a historical period and in a cultural and social structure and have a mentality which has constructed a special situation and world for itself. For him the real world is the same as what he imagines, though it might not be the same in reality and the objective reality would have fundamental differences with the subjective world that he has made for himself.

On this basis, the theoretical and sometimes political disputes are arguments among various mentalities which have depicted the world in different forms for themselves rather than being on the nature of the reality. Therefore the differences seen are differences among various worlds that human beings and social groups have created for themselves under various historical and dialogue conditions rather than indicating the correctness or incorrectness of various narrations and interpretations of reality.

Here if we want to investigate an important phenomenon such as 9/11 from this perspective, more than being able to discover the nature of the phenomenon, we will discover various statements and outlooks which will try to put this event in their own semantic system and come to a narration that substantiates their mentality and presumption on the world around them.

Here we review some instances of these divergent remarks and narrations of 9/11.

1. A suspicious look which is always looking for a conspirator satan. In this attitude, the world today is the scene of aggression of satans and the root cause of any horrendous incident should be sought in plots and mischief of a satan.

In this framework, 9/11 which no body casts any doubt on its catastrophic nature should have roots in the mischief of one of the contemporary satans. In the mental world of some Americans such as Michael Moore (the American director), a number of NeoCons and vicious capitalists supporting them are the same satans who are behind all horrible incidents such as 9/11. For staunch Marxists who have not lost their revolutionary zeal even after the fall of the East block, the main satan is the global capitalism which creates tragedies such as 9/11 to settle their sectional problems and inherent crises so that on this pretext they would overcome economic crises and find a way for domination over and looting of the nations under oppression. Even theorists such as Egypt’s Samir Amin and Emanuel Wallerstein put the said event in their semantic system in this same way.

Another group who can never realize any incident without considering the US and Zionism behind it try to find evidences and present analyses indicating this catastrophe like all other catastrophes is in the hands of the satanic powers as all the mischief in the world are coming from them. In fact all these remarks are identical in one thing and they hold responsible a conspirator satan for 9/11 so that the world would not experience prosperity as long as they exist. Of course, they consider as satanic the essence of the current world and the focal/central powers of the modern world, therefore, to them 9/11 is merely a deception to continue hegemony and satanic life of the modern man.

2. The second group is narrations which again seek the root cause of incidents such as 9/11 in satans but in their semantic structure and conceptual world, the satans have a different nature. They regard the present and modern world a manifestation of goodness and benefaction. They also consider enemies of this gradual but auspicious and promising perfection of history vicious forces who wanted to block the way to human welfare, progress and freedom by committing heinous crimes. For them, the nature of the modern world not only is not satanic but an expression of God’s will or perfection of history and nature for welfare and intellectuality of human being. Therefore, the groups and humans who wanted to block this course of perfection are agents of the satan or axes of evil in whose presence the world would not see prosperity. This is how the American NeoCons who are seeking to crush this axis of evil with iron fists think. Liberals and a group of European realists and even Socialists, despite their basic differences with the NeoCons in the manner of dealing with the causes of evil, cooperate with them in principle. They regard religious fundamentalism and terrorism the main cause of this incident and similar events. They also seek the root cause in anti-modern religious outlooks as well as economic and social shortcomings in such regions as the Middle East and North Africa.

3. But in some semantic systems, in order to understand incidents such as 9/11, it would not be very effective to look for the main culprit because it would be futile and impossible to find collectively favored evidences and argumentations in this respect. We should also not look for a satan responsible for all the vice because human world does not deserve satanic analyses. For them, international relations are relations between human beings. Humans and human institutions neither enjoy an innocent and angle-like nature to attribute all the goodness and benefactions to them nor could they be fully satanic. They are human in the real sense of the word and human phenomena sometimes display magnificent, auspicious and fascinating events and sometimes depict heartrending crimes. Both these manifestations are human and could be the origin of human strengths and weaknesses.

9/11 can be a sign of big divides created in the course of rapid development and swift perfection of modern civilization. It has made modern tools available to those who consider the modern world a source of deviation and the tragic situation of some humans. For them, 9/11 is a refuge which shows that modern world, either in intellectual domains or political, economic and strategic spheres is need of rethinking. Therefore, for this group which is comprised mainly of positivists, this incident is the origin of rethinking and reorganization of social life in the new era. To the interpretation of some, it is the beginning of a new period in modern era, and in the opinion of another group, it is the sign of beginning of an anguishing post-modern era.

These samples show how different mentalities and semantic structures portray different pictures of a single event and how each of them provides its own required evidences and documentations. These evidences are interesting and thinkable in their right place but before trying to reflect the reality they seek to corroborate a mentality this outlook has been built upon.