Dialogue: Simplistic notions of goodies and baddies

By GORDON McLAUCHLAN

"Evil" was brought back into fashion both as a word and a concept by Ronald Reagan during the 1980s with his description of Soviet Communism as the "evil empire".

It has become common currency since George W. Bush took it up after the World Trade Center terrorism to describe Osama bin Laden and the al Qaeda organisation. Bush has even heightened its meaning with "most", and on one televised occasion found even that not enough by calling bin Laden the most evil man "in our civilisation", whatever that meant.

(By the way, have you noticed lately that sometimes, even when Bush is discussing the most serious matters, a small, slightly askew grin appears and his eyes sparkle as though with humour?)

The word is now so fashionable that even New Zealand judges are using it to describe especially egregious crimes and criminals.

The antecedents of the word "evil" in slightly different spellings go back a long way to the Saxon "ubil" and beyond, but it settled into something close to its modern spelling about the time the Bible was being translated into English in the 14th and 15th centuries.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines the word as "the antithesis of good in all its principal senses" and noted (in the immediate pre-Reagan era) that "in modern colloquial English it is little used; in quite familiar speech the adjective is superseded by bad".

Of course, if you clap a "d" on the front it becomes devil, that arch, biblical perpetrator of evil, aka Satan and Mephistopheles; just as if you slot an extra "o" into God it becomes good.

All of which, I would suggest, makes it no coincidence that "evil" has been revived by the powerful Protestant (not to say fundamentalist) influence in American politics.

Especially in the American Deep South, the struggle for the world goes on with a daily struggle between the forces of God and the Devil. This is because of that particularly literal way the born-agains read the scriptures.

This is something many Western people are aware of and should be wary of: that American political leaders are by implication turning what is boringly catchlined as the "War on terror" into a latter-day, epic struggle between the biblical forces of Good and Evil. Hence the Bush Administration challenge to nations that they are either with the US or on the wrong side of the righteous war.

One European commentator remarked as the war in Afghanistan became so eminently successful that he was worried by what would come next in the campaign against terrorism because "the Americans are walking on water".

While bin Laden may aptly be described as evil, it is worrying if America's leaders think of themselves as the forces of good.

I think it was John A. Lee who claimed that Michael Joseph Savage - revered in his time by the people of New Zealand - once remarked, with applause ringing in his ears, "They think I'm God". To which Lee said he replied: "Well, as long as you don't, we're okay."

All this is why the article in the Herald this week by Terence O'Brien, international relations expert, was so timely and valuable. A dispassionate commentator on the conduct of foreign policy, he suggested that any extension of the war beyond the borders of Afghanistan should "give New Zealand serious pause".

He also noted that Israel has already borrowed the American rhetoric and tried to colour the Palestinian cause as simply evil and in no way even associated with a legitimate fight for nationhood.

Iraq and Somalia have been mentioned as possible refuges for terrorists and one wonders whether any move against those countries by the US would be motivated, at least to some degree, by the need to settle old scores, to bury old humiliations.

Worse, American commentators have suggested the Administration might be interested in terrorist activities in the Philippines and in Aceh, in Sumatra. The Acehnese, with a Muslim majority, have been fighting for independence since the 17th century, first from the colonial powers and now the Indonesian central Government, and have never been completely subdued in all that time but have never been given their freedom, either.

The US has no more claim to special virtue than many other nations, as recent revelations on complicity with Indonesia over the invasion of East Timor underlined. That's apart from its role in helping the ... well ... yes, evil Pinochet regime and its support for many other oppressive, undemocratic governments during the long years of war against communism.

There is no doubt that the New Zealand Government is under pressure from the US but few would quibble about supporting the campaign against bin Laden. However, moving to other countries would be a worry and New Zealand may have to reluctantly stand on principle against such moves.

Fortunately, a number of more powerful European countries will probably take the same attitude and little old New Zealand can get in behind.