Ancient & modern
INTERNATIONAL suicide terrorism was impossible in the ancient world (except for Samson?): the weapons and ideology did not exist. Its nearest equivalent in results was the revenge wreaked by victorious armies on local populations. In 427 SC, Mytilene had revolted against Athens. The ruling Athenian assembly (all Athenian male citizens over 18) decided to slaughter the entire male population of the town and enslave its women and children. Next day they changed their mind and the assembly met again.
Thucydides polarises the debate around Cleon and Diodotus. It centres on questions of justice and expediency, and its subtext hints at the tension between an empire's ability to control others by force, and a democracy's inclination to weakness and indulgence. True, America does not have an empire in the Middle East, but in the eyes of Middle-Easterners it behaves as if it does, and that is the problem.
'Because fear and conspiracy play no part in your daily relations with others, you imagine the same is true of others,' says the hawk Cleon (precisely the problem now facing the freedom-loving world-power America), and he goes on to say that the slaughter of the Mytileneans will be not only just but expedient, because it will send out a clear message to others considering revolt; besides, `If they were justified in revolting, you were wrong in holding power. If you wish to continue to hold power, your interest demands these people be punished. The only alternative is to surrender your empire. Then you can afford to go in for philanthropy.'
Diodotus disagrees. He argues that 'haste and anger are the two greatest obstacles to wise counsel', and that the big issue now facing them is not the present, but the future, especially 'how Mytilene can be most useful to us'. He then points out that a universal, as opposed to exactly targeted, death-penalty will get nowhere: 'Fear of death is no deterrent; no law or intimidation will stop a people once seriously set on their course from pursuing it, especially when they have the irrational view that their power is greater than in fact it is; . . . the right way to deal with free people is not to inflict random punishments after they have revolted, but so to deal with them that that point is never reached.'
The example of high-tech Israel versus no-tech Palestine should warn America what it might be getting into if it blindly follows the advice of the Cleons, and does not also consider why it is so hated. Peter Jones
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