Pergamon

Ideas, History of European

Printedin GreatBritain.All rightsreserved 0191-6599/94 $7.00+0.00

Vol. Nos 1994 Copyright 1994 pp. 21-34, Ltd 19, 0 1-3, Elswier Science

ON THE CONCEPTS OF THE OTHER AND THE ENEMY

VILHO HARLE*

THE

CULTURAL

MOMENT

IN INTERNATIONAL

STUDIES

International Studies are in transition. Among recent features we can recognise the recovery of the humanistic ideals and approaches which were earlier lost in the modern striving for scientific rigour. This cultural moment** has emerged as a direct challenge to the realist school of International Studies. Iver B. Neumann and Jennifer M. Welsh have introduced the distinction between the logic of raison d&at represented by the realist school of International Studies, and the logic of culture. The former believes in the primacy of the sovereign state system, and the autonomy of that system from domestic political, social and moral considerations. It focuses our attention on the vertical division of the world into sovereign states, rather than on the horizontal forces and ties that cut across state frontiers, emphasised by the latter alternative logic. While one cannot deny the role of power politics in international relations, international order is also created through the existence of common values, and particularly by the sense of belonging to a society. The nature of the logic of culture and approaches-to the study of international relations-implied by it can be illustrated by the case of European identity, and the role the Other and the Enemy play in it. As Neumann and Welsh suggest, order among European states has been generated by agreement on not only international values, but also domestic ones of a social and cultural nature, operating at the societal level rather than the level of the independent sovereign state. The point is that the very idea of what Europe is has been defined by the European mind in negative terms, suggesting what Europe is not. Such a distinction between US and them has been expressed by such concepts as Enemy Images, the Other, and the Enemy. While the three concepts deliver the same proposition and can be, therefore, applied synonymously, one should be more careful about their differences. Such a discussion does not lead us away from the political nature of European integration, on the contrary, the cultural approach only can help us to fully understand the political. Therefore, in addition to a suggestion of conceptual clarification, I am going to maintain that Enemy thinking, when applied as a justification for creating the political union of Europe, is likely to contribute to conflicts both outside and within Europe.
*Department of Political Science, P.O. BOX 33, University of Helsinki, SF-00014 Helsinki, Finland.

27

28 THE CONCEPTS

Vilho Harle

In the contemporary everyday language of scholars, journalists and politicians it has become conventional to speak of enemy images, The concept comes from psychological and social-psychological studies where they are defined, by and large, as the commonly-held, stereotyped, dehumanised images of the outgroup.4 The concept represents a special case in defining them, but we can conclude that enemy images belong to (social-) psychological studies, to propaganda and mass mobilisation in wars and other violent campaigns. As to the Other, the easiest way to define it is to say that the Other is fundamentally different from us. For Aristotle the excluded other is an alien, who was unable to use and understand the common (Greek) language; consequently, the barbar became an object of hunting, i.e. the slave. Modern scholars like Michel Foucaultf show that the Other is perceived as an abnormal, mad and delinquent person. Applying phenomenological approach James A. Aho suggests that the life world is experienced as a coherency of objects with definite characteristics. Among them, there are first of all me and what is not-me. The latter is made up of both natural things and persons called you. Furthermore, a distinction is made between intimate you (called by the first name), and distant others (called by the title and surname), Finally, me and the intimate you form us, while aggregates of alien you form them. The Other has an important social function: to have social order one must tell the difference between those who commit crimes and those who follow the law. There can be, RenC Girard says, no cultural themes without ana-thema. A sense of otherness is definitely required for self-identity: just as one cannot know what large means without a sense of the small, one cannot comprehend himself fully if he has no appreciation of who and what he is not. In particular, one cannot experience himself as righteous in all the significance of this word, without an unrighteous alter-ego against whom to compare himseX So, it is conspicuous that the Other is a general expression covering the cases where linguistic and other cultural differences are recognised, and constitute the basis of the identity of us. The difference is definitional, it does not appear as a hostile or violent relation between us and them. Typically, for Kristeva9 the Other represents the unique in every individual person; the Other is nothing more than foreigner or outsider. Such a person often belongs to the highest intellectual elite, just like Kristeva herself in France does. While the Other is applied to a number of situations where otherness is connected to the identity-building process, I maintain that the Enemy suggests something more, so becoming a special case of the Other. The major point I wish to make is: while an enemy image tells how our adversary, opponent or military enemy looks like in a subjects perception or war propaganda, or while the Other simply defines our identity by excluding the Other, the Enemy tells wha? the conflict between the *Enemy*, and the Friend is ail about. It tells who is the Enemy and what is its basic nature; furthermore, it explains why this is so.lO I should like to maintain that the Enemy emerges if and only if us and them are thought to be fundamentaIly different; i.e. when the distinction is

understood to reflect the srrugg& between good and evil, and when good is associated with MS but evil with them. If and when somebody is defined as the Enemy, he is not a human being any more: it (sic!) has become a beast to be eliminated in gas chambers or by atom bombs.12 Aho has F~i~tedly mainiained that the Enemy represerzts Death and its i~trument~ its a~~mplishment~ its Iacatirtll {dirt, filth, etc.), its carriers [vermin, pests, and bacilli), or all of these together**. The Enemy is experienced as issuing from the lower parts of society, and one might well add, from outside the society, from the Third World. The Enemy implies disorder, His presence in our vary midst represents a pathology of tha social organism, But we always represent justice, right, law and morality, The Enemy represents injustice, wrong, left, that which remains. The Enemy is the waste produced by living creatures and societies: the waste must be excluded and destroyed in order to purify the society and maintain its existence and order; moral campaigns purge the social body of its refuse.$ The fundamental darkness of the Enemy is reflected in linguistic expressions, tooI as some examples will reveal; e.g, accident, normally implying the setting westerly sun, can be suggested to have tha darker meaning. It derives from the Latin infinitive OCC&?RZ, which means to strike something dead, to fall down.s Diabo&s, the Greek term from which diabolo (Spanish). Teufel @errnan) and Devil derive, means that which occasions separation or otherness: the devil is dia~l~l, it is that whiih is different from us or me, or occasions a sense of separation. The English *gook is defined as a dirtyl sludgy, or slimy substance; its second meaning is Oriental. In the American Christian Identity movement mud people refers to supposedly non-human negroidal species.16 In conclusion: the Enemy, is always the Other, but not all ccOthers CELL be defined as Enemies, however important they are from the viewpoint of our ide~tity.~~ James A, Aho* bits the mark by asking: As pivotal as otherness is for my sense of self, must you aks be my enemy? As essential as projection is to my coming to understand you, must these projections invariably be negative? Therefore, we must ask why the Other sometimes becomes the Enemy. The psychological and sociological roots of the Enemy are easy to understand. Phenomenalogical psychology speaks of the objectification of evii as unconsciaus negative transference by an individual of his own alien substance onto a scapegoat, distant enough from the in~vidual in skin colour, or the like. The way in which I know you to be an Enemy is a special case ofreEfexive empathy ~~~~e~~ver~~rze~~. such a process we take the role of you*, In imaginatively occupying your situation, feeling into the meanings you presumably have toward the world, including us. That is, we project our own mental life onto you, reconstructing what your response would mean if we, similarly situated, were to exhibit it. In the case of defming the Other as the Enemy, we objectify our own evil by attributing it to you. But, in so creating the Enemy, we always forget our ~~pon~bility for doing so, experiencing it instead in a taken-for-granted way as part of the nature of things, Phenomendogi~al sociology, in addition, attracts attention to mediation by groups, i.e. the process called rectification. It maintains that the Enemy is a

30

Vi/ho Harle

joint production, constituted socially, by all of us together, nat usually a phenomenon any one person a~mplishcs alone.9 However, we cannot say that the Other automatically becomes the Enemy in the psychological and sociological processes. To positively show that there is no such one-to-one relation between the Other and the Enemy, Aho suggests that from the standpaint of phenomenology there exists a possibility that persons fully conscious of the darkness of their own souls might inhabit a world free of enemies: for having come to acknowledge and embrace their own putrefaction they would have no psychological need to transfer it to some external thing.20 In order to find another, less psychological explanation, we must note that while the Other* and the Enemy are human fabrications, they represent the Truth to the person speaking of them. My violation of you grows from my yearning to rectify the wrong I sense that you have done me. Violence emerges from my quest for good and my experience of you as the opponent of good. To the prototypical Nazi the world is over-run by Jewish-Communists and Freemasons who secretly plot his destruction; in Hitlers word: Blood sin and desecration of the race are the original sin in this world . . . I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: 6~ defend~~gmy~eif against the Jew f amjightingfor the work of theLor@.2L One might ignore such a statement as paranoic, but then the point will be totally missed. We must understand that there are no absolute or objective truths, the Truth is always defined by the tradition transported by the cultural heritage. This tradition is the source of the *Eneiny. THE EVIL ENEMY= Following Ofer ZurZ we can distinguish between two major types of the Enemy: the worfQr4 and the evil. The worthy enemy is an equal partner in a (ritualistic) war or in a friendly contest. This status is never given to the evil enemy, who is understood to be fundamentally different from us. We can have nothing in common with the evil enemy. We must destroy him: this is not only justified but the uppermost duty. The evil enemy is, actually, the enemy of God, and the war against it is the holy war. The enemy gust be eliminated from the face of the earth so that our God will be safe.25 Indeed, the Enemy has its basis in religious conceptions. James A. AhoZ6has divided religious mythologies into two groups: the immanent&-cosmologicaland the transcendent-historical. The former is exemplified in varying degrees by Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Nahuatlism and medieval Christianity; the latter is appro~mated in ancient Hebraism, Islam arrd Protestantism. The worthy enemy appears mainly among the ~manentist~osmologica1 cultures (i.e. in the Occident), while the evil enemy is more typical of the transcendenthistorical onest7 Undoubtedly, some occasions of the beloved enemy are known within the Occident,Z8 but we can concentrate our attention on the tradition of the evil enemy, Much more typical to the European mind. As to the religious roots of the Enemy, the basic idea, i.e. the dualistic strugg1e between good and evil, was born in ancient Iran,29 where Zarathushtra

On the Concepts of the Other and the Enemy

31

spoke of the struggle between Ahura Mazda (the Lord of Light, the Wise Lord) and his staunch opponent, Angra Mainyu (the Evil Spirit), suggesting that history consists of the conflict between the powers of Light and Darkness, good and evil, ending in the Last Battle. While one cannot decisively prove the impact of Zoroastrianism on later Judaism, Christianity and Islam, it is clear that the Enemy thought appears in various forms in all of them.30 As to political roots of the same pattern, the European Mind knows all about the struggle between Sparta and Athens, who according to the tradition, was defending democracy against dictatorships; that it waged war for freedom, defending the weak and the poor against the rich and the strong. Due to Demonsthenes we have also learnt that tyranny is diametrically opposed to freedom and law; that there can be no good feeling between the desireforpower and the aim ofa Iif of equality;that democracies have only one choice, resistance and war against the aggression by tyrannies.31 The tradition of the evil enemy has been justified through historical experiences or better, certain interpretations of them. Indeed, the basis of the European identity is mainly related to the Enemy, which has threatened Europe and against which Europe has fought. There have been several such enemies, but the Orient, in many senses, has played the most central role.32 Approaching more recent times, the Cold War was an example where two opposing age-old dualistic traditions encountered each other. But while both partners in the Cold War shared the same traditions, they had diamet~ca~y opposed views about who was fighting for good and who for evil.

THE CASE OF CONTEMPORARY

EUROPE

The end of the Cold War did not make Europe free of the Enemy, but instead re-introduced a number of old and new ones.33 Indeed, the re-emergence of nationalism, racism, neo-nazism, hate and violence against minorities has been predictable in the light of tradition. 34We are, once again, living in the very midst of it. Furthermore, the concept of the Enemy helps us to understand the political nature of current European integration. The Maastricht model, aiming at a political community, the European Union, presupposes the Enemy. To be be justified in successful, such a political union -like the state before-must political terms of the Friend and Enemy35: the economic justi~cation, even in terms of the throat-cutting competition with the US, Japan-and the Third World-is not sufficient to make the union to replace the sovereign states. The fact is thatnof all Europeans will share the goal ofthe independent Europe in the sense of making it willing and capable-independent of the US-to define who is the Friend and who is the Enemy. This is simply too abstract, however the matter is expressed, to motivate men to break the loyalty towards their native states and turn it towards the Union. Instead, it is more likely that age-old hostilities within Europe will increase rather than disappear in the unification process. Therefore, alternatives are required for building a community of equality and freedom (including the economic ones) in Europe. For example, the Nordic

32

ViIho Harie

model (of the co-existence of severalstates andthe civil society extending through all of them) might deserve more discussion as an alternative to the Maastricht one. The Nordic experience has proved it possible to have an international civil society without any support from the dark friend-enemy logic. The similar need for a more tolerant alternative is painfully evident in the statebuilding processes in the former Communist area. The establishment of the state there, as anywhere, is based on the Enemy thinking. To make the co-existence of various nationalities possible, the civil-society extending over new stateborders should be strengthened, not destroyed. Unfortunately, the still continuing influence of the powerful Enemy thinking, in the form of extreme nationalism, makes this suggestion sound a simplistic utopia.

In editing the present collection from the workshop I have categorised the selected papers into four sub-topics: (a) Conceptual Issues (papers by Harle, Ginsburg and Flohr and Kort and Greisman), (b) The Enemy in Europe(Welsh, Neumann and Guiraudon), (c) The Case of Criminals (Becker and Madapusi), and (d) The Cold War and the Iron Curtain (McKinley, Longstaff and Cook).

University

of Helsinki
NOTES

Vilho Harle

1. The present, edited, collection represents a contribution to the international research project on Otherness, Identity and Politics. The project is financed by the Academy of Finland. A Iist of publications is available on request. 2. Cf. H.R. Alker Jr, The Humanistic Moment in International Studies, ~nte?~utju~a~ Studies Quarteriy, 36, (4) (1992). 3. The Other in European Self-Definition, Review of InternationalStudies, 17, (4) (lb91). 4. Ofer Zur, The Love of Hating, History of European Ideas, 13, (4) (1991), p. 350. 5. Discussed in Simon Dalby, Geopolitical Discourse: The Soviet Union as Other, AItemarives, 13, (4) (1989), pp. 416-417. 6. James A. Aho, This Thing of Darkness (Seattle: The University of Washington Press, forthcoming). 7. Ibid., and RenC Girard, Violence and the ~~cred(London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977), pp. 89-118. 8. Aho, op. cit., (forthcoming). 9. &angers a nous-memes (Paris: Gallimard, 1988). Cf. George Mikes writing in How to be an Alien (from The Best of Mikes, London: Pan Books, 1962), p. 11: I am alien myself. . , . I have been alien all my life. Only during the first twenty-six years of my life . . . I was living in my own country, a country full of aliens. 10. We may conclude that man needs the Enemy on which to blame for the bad things in life. See Aho, op. cit. (fo~hcoming). 11. While Carl Schmitt [in The Concept of the Po~jtjca~, trans. G. Schwab (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1975); cf. Bernard Wiilms, Politics as Politics: Carl Schmitts Concept of the Political and the Tradition of European Political Thought, History OfEuropeanZdeas, 3,(4), (1991)] argues that the dichotomy

On the Concepts of the Other and the Enemy

33

12. 13. 14. 15.

16. 17.

18. 19. 20.

21. 22.

23. 24. 25.

26. 27.

28.

29.

30.

of the Friend and the Enemy defines the political without any moraldistinctions between good and evil, he actually makes the nature of the Other fundamentally different from us in emphasising: he is, nevertheless, the other, the stranger;. . .he is, in a specially intense way, existentially something different and alien . . . (emphasis mine). This openly leads to the moral dichotomy. Cf. Zur, op. cit. (1991); and Aho, op. cit. (forthcoming). Ibid. Ibid. From the feminine noun occidio (ob to + cudo)=complete slaughter, extermination, utter destruction. The interpretation has been suggested by Jussi Vahlmlki, a Research Fellow in the Otherness project. Suggested by Aho, op. cit.(forthcoming). Furthermore, not all differences imply the Enemy. Humans, like all living things, are capable of differentiating good food from rotten and safe encounters from those that are dangerous. The general ability to differentiate and judge is essential for the survival of any species. See Zur, op. cit. (1991), pp. 345-346. Aho, op. cit. (forthcoming). Ibid. Sure, social phenomena are not simple like that. Aho (forthcoming) makes the dangers explicit: we are likely to become the Good One, Enlightened lighting-unfortunately often with deadly weapons!-against the Heretic. From the Mein Kumpf, trans. R. Mannheim (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1943), pp. 249 and 65; quoted by Aho, op. cit. (forthcoming). Original emphasis. Earlier versions of this chapter have been published under various titles in Peace and the Sciences, No. 2, 1988; in V. Harle (ed.), European ValuesinZnternationalRelations (Pinter Publishers, London, 1990); and in I.S. Andreeva and U. Vesa (eds), European Security and Cultural Values (Tampere Peace Research Institute, Research Reports, No. 45, 1991). Here as elsewhere I use material from my The European Cultural Heritage, Euronationalism, and the Enemy (in Swedish), in P.Ahlin and P.Wrange, (eds), Den evigu freden? (Stockholm: Juristfiirlaget, 1992). Zur, op. cit. (1991). In Finnish, the Finnish and the Swedish sport teams, encountering in the traditional national competitions, are said to be beloved enemies to each other. Based on James A. Aho, ReligiousMythologies and the Art of War, (London: Aldwych Press, 1981); cf. M. Eliade, Cosmos and History (New York 1959), and I. Chernus, War and the Enemy in the Thought of Mircea Eliade, History ofEuropean Ideas, 13 (4) (1991). Aho, op. cit. (1981), pp. 147-148, and p. 151. Aho (op. cit., forthcoming) suggests that the traditional enemies of the Christian Occident-Jews, witches, and Orientals-have been indicted by his protagonist with what are called archetypal crimes. In the epic literature (Homer and Virgil) there is no Hero without the worthy enemy; and Aho (op. cit., 1981) discusses the interesting case of the medieval chivalry. Interestingly, such cases reveal that the worthy enemy strengthens the common identity of the partners. Based on my forthcoming Patterns of Chaos and Order in Ancient Cultural In many opinions Occidental is synonymous with Western or Thought. European. However, I maintain that some central roots of the Occidental culture can be found outside the current Western world; this is important especially in the connection of the European cultural heritage. See N. Cohn, EuropesZnnerDemons(New York: Basic Books, 1975); G. Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls in English (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984); Y. Yadin. The ScroNof

34

Who Harle
the War uf the Sons of Light against the Sons of the Darkness (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962); and my From the Word to the Church-Bases ofOrder and Power in Early Christianity in V. Harle (ed.). Studies in the History of European Peace idea (Tampere Peace Research Institute, Research Reports, no. 37. 1989). See Greek Political Oratory, selected and trans. by A.N.W. Saunders (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984), p. 183, and pp. 235-236. Cf. my Burke the International Theorist, in V. Harle (ed.), European Values in International Relations (London: Pinter, 1991); I. Kramnick, The Rage of Edmund Burke (New York: Basic Books, 1977); and H. Halmari, On Dichotomous Political Rhetoric. With Special Reference to Ronald Reagans Language (California State University, M.A. Thesis 1990). See e.g. S. Dossa, Political Philosophy and Orientalism, Alternatives, 12, (3) (1988); M. Rodinson, Europe and the Mystique of Islam (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1987), pp. 3-8, 64-67; E.W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978). Furthermore, Neumann and Welsh (op. cit., 1991) document the interesting case of the Turk. Metanationalism History of European Ideas, 15, -Yes?, See my Nationalism-No! (l-3) (1992), pp. 39-46. See e.g. V. Harle, op. cit. (1991), preface. Carl Schmitt, op. cit. (1975).

31.

32.

33. 34. 35.