So how might we resist such monumental change? Rorty believes this can only be achieved by challenging the culture of government secrecy. There are plenty of areas, he says, where neither international law nor criminal law apply. "In these areas, governments are now pretty much free to do as they please: to parachute hit squads into Third World countries in which terrorists are thought to be holding meetings, to bring about regime change in nations suspected of supporting terrorists, and so on." What we need if we are to counteract this, he claims, are updated laws, "openly agreed on by international bodies and adopted, after debate, by national governments." Citizens should demand this from their governments, in the interests of creating some kind of code of international criminal justice.

But is Rorty right in his contention that secrecy is to blame? If Western governments are indeed relying on secrecy they must be feeling seriously hard-done-by at the moment, since almost daily we are entertained with stories about what has gone on behind supposedly closed doors. Unlike the quasi-states Soyinka spoke of in his second lecture, Western governments are identifiable targets, and they are currently being regularly targeted not just by terrorists but also by their own citizens. In his book Against All Enemies (2004), Richard Clarke offers a contradictory account of George Bush's response to the attacks on the World Trade Centre. According to Clarke, Bush was determined to attack Iraq, regardless of whether it had played host to Al-Qaeda or not. "Bush and his inner circle had no real interest in complicated analyses; on the issues that they cared about, they already knew the answers," he claims. And it is this absolute, fanatical certainty, this lack of regard for the opinions of others, that Soyinka believes accounts for current events. He addresses this in his final lecture, I am Right; You are Dead.

Soyinka argues that it is easy to recognise the voice of the fanatic in Osama bin Laden's declaration that the world is divided between believers and non-believers. But he goes on to claim that the same 'fanatic spore' is apparent in George Bush's stark statement: "you are either with us or you are on the side of the terrorists." Such a reduction of the world to the simplicities of binary opposites is indeed a marker of the 'fanatic mind', and Soyinka believes that we fail to recognise this fanaticism in Bush "at our peril." Richard Clarke would presumably agree. Referring to Bush's "insistence" on attacking Iraq, Clarke says: "Nothing else could have so closed Muslim eyes and ears to our calls for reform in their region...It was as if Bin Laden, hidden in some mountain redoubt, were engaging in long-range mind control of George Bush, chanting: 'Invade Iraq, you must invade Iraq.'" Such fanaticism is as messianic in its aims as that of Bin Laden, argues Soyinka, and generates the 'rhetorical hysteria' that is designed to carry people along on its menacing journey towards control of the Other.

Of course not everyone agrees with Soyinka. He appeared on Radio 4's Start the Week on 22nd March with Clive James, Doris Behrens-Abouseif, and John Brewer, where he took part in discussion in which his views were certainly not accepted without question. Clive James in particular questioned Soyinka's claim that the quasi-states are peopled by those who have been deprived of dignity, and that their sense of worthlessness has been generated by the actions and attitudes of the West. "Does the discontent of the terrorists not come more from their fear of attempts to revolutionise the Arab world?" James asked, citing moves towards rights for women as an example. But whether Soyinka is right or wrong is not the key point. The significant thing about these particular Reith lectures is that they focus our minds on some of the most vital questions concerning contemporary politics and international relations that can be asked at the moment, and encourage us to debate the answers with all the energy we can muster. And how better to conclude my comments than with an impassioned plea for justice from one of Soyinka's Prisonettes, 'Flowers for my Land':

'Take Justice
In your hands who can
Or dare. Insensate sword
Of Power
Out Herods Herod and the law's outlawed.'

  < previous   Page 3 of 3

Content last updated: 07/07/2004

About the author

Lynda Morgan completed her Ph.D thesis on South African settler fiction at the School of Oriental and African Studies (the University of London), and her main literary interests continue to be in African literature and colonial/postcolonial studies. She publishes papers in these areas, and regularly contributes to national and international conferences. In August she will deliver a paper on South African and Australian settler fiction at the ICLA Congress in Hong Kong. She is also a published poet.