BARBARIANS
By Walter Holland, 09/16/2001
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President Bush has spoken again and again to the American people, alternating messages of condolence with calls to arms, preparing the nation for "the first war of the 21st century". But the images his words conjure date from ancient times: "a group of barbarians has declared war" on America, he says, and before we know anything about the terrorists' identities, we know precisely where they come from and how they behave. Immediately calling to mind the Mongol horde and the Visigoths that sacked Rome and Byzantium, the word "barbarian" fans the flames of both racial distrust and high-cultural prejudice; these associations creep into everyday language as well, where describing someone as "barbaric" associates their unacceptably churlish or violent behavior with their status as entirely Other than us. Indeed, this "us versus them" mentality pervades government rhetoric of the last week; by linking anti-American terrorists with somehow "subhuman" ancestors, Bush has rapidly constructed (at least the idea of) a united American people, with a shared interest and a common enemy. Is it any surprise that the notion of "barbarians" was first used to describe Eastern (Asian and African) threats to the "civilized" Greek state? Barbarians, "babble-speaking" non-Greeks, originally were differentiated culturally, before being perceived as a military threat to ancient Greek life. Alexander the Great rose to fame for his conquest of present-day Egypt and the Persian Empire -- now Iran. Now, two and a half millennia later, a new barbarian horde is being evoked in the words of our leaders, in preparation for a holy war of retribution. Perhaps the question bears asking: does our anger, as a nation, stem solely from the horrific events of this week? Or is the coming (seemingly inevitable) conflict being positioned by our government as the settling of a 2500-year-old score? More generally: are we being motivated this week as much by the meanings hidden in everyday language, as by our government's more overt public statements? Related Links
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