No Cause, No God, No Abstract Idea

But I Do Not Know Whether The Photograph Can, Or Does, Say Things As They Really Are. Something Has Been Lost. But The Representation Is All We Have.

Take A Young Man From Gaza Living In The Most Horrendous Conditions - Most Of It Imposed By Israel - Who Straps Dynamite Around Himself And Then Throws Himself Into A Crowd Of Israelis. I've Never Condoned Or Agreed With It, But At Least It Is Understandable As The Desperate Wish Of A Human Being Who Feels Himself Being Crowded Out Of Life And All Of His Surroundings, Who Sees His Fellow Citizens, Other Palestinians, His Parents, Sisters, And Brothers, Suffering, Being Injured, Or Being Killed. He Wants To Do Something, To Strike Back.

The Just Response To This Terrible Event [9/11] Should Be To Go Immediately To The World Community, The United Nations. The Rule Of International Law Should Be Marshaled, But It's Probably Too Late Because The United States Has Never Done That; It's Always Gone It Alone.

Since The 1960s, We Have Seen The Failure Of The Melting Pot Ideology. This Ideology Suggested That Different Historical, Cultural And Socioeconomic Backgrounds Could Be Subordinated To A Larger Ideology Or Social Amalgam Which Is "america." This Concept Obviously Did Not Work, Because Paradoxically America Encourages A Politics Of Contestation.

And What Terrifies Me Is That We're Entering A Phase Where If You Start To Speak About This As Something That Can Be Understood Historically - Without Any Sympathy - You Are Going To Be Thought Of As Unpatriotic, And You Are Going To Be Forbidden. It's Very Dangerous. It Is Precisely Incumbent On Every Citizen To Quite Understand The World We're Living In And The History We Are A Part Of And We Are Forming As A Superpower.