Well, world history has taken another leap into a great black hole since I was talking to you last. Sad, sad, sad. Once more we seem to have as defined but unreal a divide as the Iron Curtain, except the Iron Curtain had a physical reality as well as a psychological, mental divide. And again we have the tendency to put whole peoples (now Muslims, Afghans) into categories that are defied by the vast majority of those people. Is the lesson of history that people do not learn from history? You would sadly think so. Anyway, this month my verbiage is mainly on these current realities so if you've had enough and don't want to know how I see the score, please look away now.

Images
The twenty-first century has not had too long to wait for iconic images of violence that will last in our minds for a long, long time became etched indelibly. The 11th September 2001 will certainly stay in western consciousness for a long time. The presence of media/TV coverage meant, along with global participation in US American culture, that much of the world could identify with the terrible events unfolding. Here are some of my images.

• The webcams that were formerly on top of the World Trade Centre showing nothing, blackness.
• That second plane come in to crash and create a towering inferno to end towering infernos, and ending thoughts about the first crash being an accident.
• The Northern Ireland woman who, with her background, was sure that the first plane crash was a bomb and left her work when colleagues were reassured and told to stay in their places - she survived and they perished in the second attack.
• The blind worker in the World Trade Centre whose dog calmly guided him down and away.
• A neighbour of some of the presumed attackers saying that, judging by their refuse, they shopped in Walmart and ate a lot of pizza.
• The dust which coated those fleeing.
• The desperate search for survivors.
• The pictures that emerged from mobile phone calls of the last desperate minutes and moments before the planes crashed.
• George Bush coming out of his helicopter back in Washington and walking unnaturally, like trying to march as a soldier or seem in control.
• The US threats of revenge. George Bush saying those who did not support the USA supported the terrorists (so, I'm a terrorist).
• The British threats of revenge and Tony Blair providing a mixture of moral support and immoral justification for future violent deeds.
• The talk of "measured response" which equals 'revenge'.
• The way the majority of the media have given justification to the forthcoming US attacks. The way when the USA is attacked it is blanket coverage for weeks and weeks - and when attacks happen in the southern or central hemispheres (to coin a phrase) possibly involving ten of thousands - or millions of deaths - or natural disasters take tens of thousands of lives - it's on page 18 and fifth item on the evening news.

What way to make sense of six thousand dead? Well, my home town used to be just over the three thousand mark, it's a bit more now, but I think in terms of that as a unit - so it was like all the inhabitants of two towns that size being wiped out.

No one deserved to die in that way. People do not deserve to die in retaliation, particularly not the increasingly desperate Afghans, driven from pillar to post, caught between rocks, mountains and hard places, who never chose the Taliban to govern them or to have Osama bin Laden as a guest.. May those who died rest in peace. May those who are about to die rest in peace - or, far, far better, may the USA and its allies see that killing people to show that killing people is wrong is immoral, illogical and counter-productive in building a world of peace and human development. God forgive them for they know what they do. There is the saying that 'Revenge is a dish best eaten cold' but revenge has no place in a civilised world. It is justice we should be talking about, and human rights - bringing those behind the 11th September attacks to justice . Gandhi was right when asked what he thought of Western civilisation and replied 'That would be a good idea.'

Logic
It is well knowing that the USA is No.1 superpower (militarily, economically, culturally) in the world. Presumably it is for this reason that it feels entitled to tear up every treaty in the book regarding international obligations to other countries and the world, yet expects everyone to come to its aid, militarily, when it hits a crisis (those who are not with it are defined as being against it). But its logic in trying to get bin Laden and the Taliban, who offer him hospitality, is a bit shaky. Follow that logic and dozens of countries would have been justified in coming to the USA in the twentieth century and 'taking out' the president, government and various agencies. Because, the USA has supported or engineered more brutal coups, done more blanket bombing (Vietnam, Cambodia) , and been behind more brutally repressive activity in more countries than perhaps any other country - arguably including the Soviet Union. I don't want to get into a competition here about 'who is the worst' but the USA has supported despicable activities. Another 11th September, 1973, was when the presidential palace in Chile was stormed in a US-engineered coup, ushering in a dark day in Chilean history and human rights. This was typical of dozens of coups which the USA had a hand in .

Eduardo Galeano in La Jornado of 21st September explored this better than I can. 13 years ago, he says, Afghani Muslims were the heroes of the film Rambo 3, in the time of G Bush Snr. Now they are the worst of the worst. Which makes you think that the USA has few friends, only interests.

Galeano goes on to say that "Henry Kissinger was one of the first to react to the 11th September tragedy; "Those who provide support, financing, and inspiration to terrorists are as guilty as the terrorist themselves." If that's how it is, the urgent need right now is to bomb Kissinger. He is guilty of many more war crimes than bin Laden or any terrorist in the world. And in many more countries. He provided 'support, financing, and inspiration' to state terror in Indonesia, Cambodia, Iran, South Africa, Bangladesh, and all the South American countries that suffered the dirty war of Plan Condor."

Galeano points out the common ground between low- and high-tech terrorism, between the terrorism of religious fanatics and market fanatics, the hopeless and the powerful. "All these worshippers of death are in agreement as well on the need to reduce social, cultural and national differences to military terms. In the name of Good against Evil, in the name of the One Truth, they resolve everything by killing first and asking questions later. And by this method they strengthen the enemy they fight." .......

The Troubles in Northern Ireland have had their share of publicity but were a teddy bears' picnic compared to some of what has gone on, and still goes on, in this small and fragile planet we call Earth. But even here, in Northern Ireland, we saw the IRA grow exponentially in strength and stature when the British government introduced curfews, internment and shoot to kill policies. It took a generation for the situation to de-escalate as far as the Good Friday Agreement. Even so there's life in the oul conflict yet and even if it is a low level conflict in a small country it shows no sign of disappearing completely (or at all?). When we consider the trauma existing here during and after our Troubles, think what exists elsewhere with usually much less financial resources to ameliorate it. It all makes me feel profoundly weary, profoundly sad, but not profoundly pessimistic; the positives in human nature have a way of showing themselves in times of danger and hardship. But please, on a global or a local scale we have to live for justice; to 'kill for justice' is to kill justice itself.

Ray: the only glimmer of hope
Well, recession was beckoning and gathering force when the attacks of 11th September happened in the States. Its effect on the stock markets of the world and the system was fast and furious. The air industry has been particularly affected - possibly 1600 jobs out the window at Aer Lingus and 800+ at Shorts (Bombardier Aerospace) aircraft manufacturing plant in Belfast. But, and this is an interesting but, there is the odd exception. One firm, welcomed to Northern Ireland with open arms (sic) by all the political parties and by Nobel peace prize laureates Hume and Trimble looks set to have a bright future and buck the trend. In fact its stock market value rose by 25% since the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. Not only this but it has been providing much needed employment in the North-west, in Derry/Londonderry/TIA city where the only opposition has come from malcontents and ne'er-do-wells who have nothing better to do when they should graciously accept this gift from the American gods. The name of the firm? Raytheon. Its business? Making arms. Its size? Fourth largest arms manufacturer in the USA. You see they only make software in Derry. That makes it all right then because you see software has nothing to do with modern arms manufacturing and missiles. OK, I admit it, I'm being ironic. So how many Afghan or other deaths will Derry production contribute to??????

Irish neutrality, my arse
Meanwhile Bertie was ignoring what shreds of Irish neutrality were left to give US planes refuelling rights at Irish airports, and naturally of course Shannon was used. So the Irish state is complicit in whatever state-sanctioned murder takes place. Shame on you, shame on all of us. And not only did he do it but he did it without debate or votes in the Dail (even though with Fine Gael and other backing it would have been a fate (sic) accompli). Why bother joining NATO when you can give No. 1 Military Superpower what it wants without a debate? Why stand up for the noble cause of global non-alignment that Fianna Fail used to stand for when you can gain brownie points with The Superpower, The Great Benefactor? Which as India and Pakistan discovered very quickly is - give support to the USA first, then wait for the payoff.

US and THEM
The USA is a land of great contrasts and its people likewise. Some of the most sensible, intelligent - and even radical - people I have met have been US American. But the US people as a whole do not exactly have that reputation. They are often laughed at in places and at times in Europe, Latin America and elsewhere. And I can tell you that, for example, the US scouting movement would put the fear of a vengeful God into you because of the reactionary and militaristic views of many of them - at a time when many other scouting movements have travelled forward into current times. So what are the factors affecting US culture and its people? Here's my list, not exactly very original points but I thought I'd put them together. Readers who live in or are originally from the USA can put me right if you think I'm mistaken.

The USA considers itself post-revolutionary (the founding fathers - don't know if the founding mothers get quite the same look in) when it is really neo-post-colonial (the internal colonisation of the land and displacement of native peoples).

Despite increasing Hispanic influence, particularly in the southern states of the US, and the ethnic origins of its people in dozens of European (white) and African (black) countries, the US 'culture' is English-speaking American with limited contact outside, not necessarily 'WASP' (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) but not too far from this.

And the fact that most US citizens haven't been outside their, admittedly vast, country leads to monoculturalism and lack of interest in the wider world. It is now unusual for western Europeans, for example, not to have been outside their own country.

This is all reinforced by the US American culture being the dominant one in the world. This comes partly from cultural creativity - the US is home of many modern musical forms (e.g. jazz, blues, gospel, rock and roll), and of Hollywood (which is maybe more to do with money than creativity, but anyway) - the dominant film industry location. This actually makes it more difficult for people from the US to adjust to other cultures, even where they are trying hard to do so, which creates some of the situations where US citizens can be laughed at and they can misread situations (the rest of us can do that too but it unfortunately makes it easier for them to do it).

US cultural hegemony is further underpinned by US economic and military power. This is why English is now the dominant world language, not so much any more to do with the people the language was named after.

And with superpower might goes a tendency to have a very misplaced view of your position in the world. This isn't peculiarly US American. It happened to the Russians. It had happened to the British. This tendency seems to be to see military actions which are really pursued because of economic interests as 'policing' actions, 'keeping the world in order' etc.,

Behind all that might is a certain insecurity - about their military might, about their qualities as a people, about whether people like them or should like them. Why else would their government be looking at vastly expensive Star Wars programmes when they have a very divided country in terms of wealth and could use the money to help poor people get a foot on some rung of some ladder somewhere? There can be arrogance there, a lot of it sometimes in looking down on other cultures, but there can also be insecurity which they may try to hide with brashness. Image and reality may be further apart for the USA and its people than for most countries.

It is hard, when writing about a country and a culture of a few million people to do justice in a few paragraphs. Hard to do it and not be arrogant and glib. Please let me know if I've got it wrong.