The terrorist attacks against United States were thought to divide Americans, that did not happened, American people have not been so untied ever since the Second World War. Nevertheless, what terrorist demonstrated with their acts is that, despite ideological differences among American citizens, they all feel threatened in the likelihood of another terrorist attack. According to Enrique Krauze American society was the target of the terrorist attacks due to, “its compromise with liberty and equality was intolerable for the theocrats convinced in the existence of a unique true”.<7> American society became vulnerable to an attack of that nature because their country has had open frontiers, a devotion to civilian liberty, an aversion to discrimination, a free market, and because they think that having a good life and handing a fanatic devotion with their ideology are incompatible. , this will be asserted.

United States responded to the 9-11 attacks by going to war, and it is evident that “war is harmful to the exercise of liberty”<9>. This will be determined depending on the development of the War on terror the US is fighting and it may be likely to occur in different ways: the government pressures to the media in order to achieve a consensus towards government policies; the accusations against the dissidents that are helping their enemies and are their accomplices; and a mayor suspicion towards those whose people whose aspect and language mark them in some way as “different” can be expected too. It is possible that those who are afraid about a possible cutting of civic liberties owe their fear to President’s Bush proposal to Congress regarding a new legislation to intervene the telephonic and information systems, and to allow the police and the tribunals to base their accusations in foreign proofs gather in places that do not fit the legal frame of United States. Nevertheless, the fact is that Congress has seriously questioned these proposals, possibly aiming to watch over American civil liberties. There is no reason to believe that the campaign commanded by United States against terrorism will reduce considerably the liberties of American people and there is no reason to believe that the policies followed by the government will give as a result a kind of military state.

There are two additional arguments that make hard to believe a series of important violations to civil liberties within the United States in the context of the fight against terror. The first one is that United States has become a more tolerant society than it had been during the 20th century. Not so long ago, the American society responding to the First World War prohibited the teaching of German language in their schools; another example of intolerance occurred during the Second World War when US authorities imprisoned ethnically related people to Germans, Japanese, or Italians. It must not be forgotten that during McCarthyism US practiced a policy of intolerance that equally stigmatized culprits and innocents. The intolerance periods that had marked the domestic affairs of the United States had posed legitimate issues about how Americans will respond in the future.

Nevertheless, Americans had changed; in an opinion poll made by the Wall Street Journal <10> to middle class people in all the states of the country, it can be observed that the culture of “not judging the others” has been extended. With the exception of homosexuality and illegal immigration, Americans are less disposed to insist that some ways of life are wrong, cruel, and sinful. It is evident that this tolerance presents some disadvantages; in the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks some people still believe that sometimes the acts of thirds are so evil and villainous that there is no justification for such acts. The 9-11 attacks had led to question, even by some Americans, the results of American foreign policy; some voices <11> within the left have found a moral equivalency between the destruction of the World Trade Center and the American invasion to Granada.

“Not judging the other” presents positive outcomes; if compared with intolerance, it allows people to avoid generalizations and provide reasonable understanding of other’s actions. Thus it is not likely that America experiences an era similar to McCarthyism, even when terrorists entered the country in a surreptitious way and that a portion of Islamic groups have historically fought against Christians and Jewish population. It is true though, that in the days after the attacks incidents of hate against Muslims happened did occur, it is also true that there is no excuse for such deplorable acts. However, these events were not infectious: nothing in the responses of American public suggests that there is a hysteric movement targeted to find the truthful intellectual leaders of the attacks.

There is another reason to conclude that a war against terrorism will not flow into a serious diminish of civic liberties. Before the Second World War, the United States did not have a modern welfare state and its people had less protection against corporative power. The War demanded good physical and mental conditions to the people in order to resist the needs of fighting the war; this presented an argument to modernize the American social system. When the war was over soldiers returned home, they were granted access to housing, education and medical assistance. The state increased social services and thus large number of Americans climbed up to the middle class standards. Maybe the war against terrorism will increase social standards in American life as the previous wars have done. In spite of the election of conservative presidents as Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan in the decades that followed the war, the republicans chose not to completely dim shied the social services granted in the years that followed the Second World War.

A possible negative outcome pf the 9-11 terrorist attacks within the American society may be a regression to a culture lacking civil compromise and interest which, according with critics such as Robert Putnam<12>, has characterized American society ever since the disappearance of generations with strong civic inclinations. If the rates of participation and compromise vary among different generations; thus, a generation undergoing extreme economic, political and social changes, such as the ones provoked by the 9-11 attacks, it is more likely to experience a profound change which according to Putnam can be translated in a careless attitude towards social compromise. Currently, Americans are experiencing what in the 20´s and 30´s occurred separately, an economic recession and an armed conflict; this may be enough to American society to turn aside their attention from a series of social related enterprises, rather focusing rapidly profitable ones.

Reality though, provides some arguments to temporarily disregard such a view. As Denise Dresser asks herself this question: “Who, after all, could think that there would be more Americans able to help the wounded people [in the aftermath of the 9-11 terrorist attacks]?”<13> Nevertheless, there were, and not only because the violence of the attack had few survivors, but also because those that survived wanted to do something to help. In one instant, Americans passed from being individualists to form part of a collectivity in need, “from playing alone the game of life in the U.S. to play as a team that game”<14>, social cohesion arose.

Moreover, the lack of civic compromise is thought to decrease, the tendency to ignore any event happening outside the American context is unlikely to occur. As the President of U.S. invites more foreign leaders to the White House and travels all around the world searching new partners, Americans inevitably will learn more about international politics and thus will be more thoughtful of civil liberties and rights worldwide. No one at this point can predict how strong and persistent the American answer will be to terrorism in this new millennium, but it is not difficult to predict that United States will be more compromised with the rest of the world than she had been in the last two or three decades. It is evident that Americans may not be able to overcome entirely their social problems. In fact, if America had lost their sense of moral integrity, as some conservative American authors state, sacrifices in terms of welfare or human losses may not be enough to shape up American moral. The harsh effects of the 9-11 attacks may not be enough to eliminate the injustice to women, minorities and others, as well as the unfair privileges granted to rich and white groups, as argued by Oskar Lafontaine<15>. Overall, it can be said that despite all her previously experienced social problems the United States had never been in such a bad shape, as some of her critics had suggested <16>. Without any doubt, American moral standards have changed so as her civil values. If the attacks and their consequences had effects in the American civic culture, such effects will have a gradual consequence rather than a swift and radical change. The 9-11 attacks may be used as a symbol for remembering that there are sufficient reasons for American society to be interested in public life without having to turn away to the necessities of their fellow citizens.

The public life after the 9-11 attacks will change, people feel frustrated and powerless. Possibly, Americans will never manage to completely stop terrorist acts, perhaps they will never get use to new restrictions in terms of traveling or mobility, they may feel restrained for a long time. It is likely that politicians will start looking for new moral campaigns while economists may start choosing common benefits instead of individual ones. Nevertheless, some aspects of the public life of the country will be improved after having suffered such an attack. Prior to the 9-11 attacks the American political system, in spite of all its defects, warranted a certain level of personal liberty and democratic stability, contrary to what still experienced in many countries; this will definitely not changed in the future; however; it has created an opportunity for internal reflection so as to come up with a new set of social priorities, and how these may be affected by US foreign policy.

Notes:

<7> Cfr. Krauze, Enrique, “El error de septiembre”, en Reforma, México, 28 de octubre de 2001, p. 3.

<8> Cfr. Bearden, Milton, La guerra contra el terrorismo en América, Grupo Editorial Norma, Colombia, 2001, p. 209.

<9> Cfr. Deutsch, Karl W., Análisis de las Relaciones Internacionales, Ediciones Gernika, México, 1994, p.243

<10> Quoted by Drucker, Peter F., Post-capitalist society, Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford, 1998, p. 158.

<11> Such as Mark Gojman in his article “11/9” in New York Times, New York, U.S., November 20th, 2001.

<12> Cfr. Putnam Robert, La Guerra civil de los otros. Ideología, rabia y ataque a Estados Unidos, Plaza y Janés, México, 2002, p. 95.

<13> Cfr. Dreser, Denise, “Acción vs. Resignación”, en Reforma, México, 29 de octubre de 2001, p. 1.

<14> Dresser, Denise, Op. cit., p. 2.

<15> Cfr. Lafontaine, Oskar, El corazón late a la izquierda, Ediciones Paidos Ibérica, Barcelona, 2002, p.220.

<16> E.g. Andrés Oppenheimer in his Reforma column: “El Informe Oppenheimer”