21 Lessons for the 21st Century

by Yuval Noah Harari

  You can hardly blame a dark-skinned person for not whitening his skin, but people can and do accuse Africans or Muslims of failing to adopt the norms and values of Western culture. Which is not to say that such accusations are necessarily justified. In many cases, there is little reason to adopt the dominant culture, and in many other cases, it is an all but impossible mission. African Americans from a poverty-stricken slum who honestly try to fit into the hegemonic American culture might first find their way blocked by institutional discrimination – only to be accused later on that they did not make sufficient effort, and so have nobody but themselves to blame for their troubles.

  A second key difference between talking about biology and talking about culture is that unlike traditional racist bigotry, culturist arguments might occasionally make good sense, as in the case of Warmland and Coldia. Warmlanders and Coldians really have different cultures, characterised by different styles of human relations. Since human relations are crucial to many jobs, is it unethical for a Warmlander firm to penalise Coldians for behaving in accordance with their cultural legacy?

  Anthropologists, sociologists and historians feel extremely uneasy about this issue. On the one hand, it all sounds dangerously close to racism. On the other hand, culturism has a much firmer scientific basis than racism, and particularly scholars in the humanities and social sciences cannot deny the existence and importance of cultural differences.

  Of course, even if we accept the validity of some culturist claims, we do not have to accept all of them. Many culturist claims suffer from three common flaws. First, culturists often confuse local superiority with objective superiority. Thus in the local context of Warmland, the Warmland method of conflict resolution may well be superior to the Coldian method, in which case a Warmland firm operating in Warmland has a good reason to discriminate against introverted employees (which will disproportionally penalise Coldian immigrants). However, that does not mean that the Warmland method is objectively superior. The Warmlanders could perhaps learn a thing or two from the Coldians, and if circumstances change – e.g. the Warmland firm goes global and opens branches in many different countries – diversity could suddenly become an asset.

  Second, when you clearly define a yardstick, a time, and a place, culturist claims may well be empirically sound. But all too often people adopt very general culturist claims, which make little sense. Thus saying that ‘Coldian culture is less tolerant of public angry outbursts than Warmland culture’ is a reasonable claim, but it is far less reasonable to say that ‘Muslim culture is very intolerant’. The latter claim is just far too hazy. What do we mean by ‘intolerant’? Intolerant of whom, or what? A culture can be intolerant towards religious minorities and unusual political views, while simultaneously being very tolerant towards obese people or the elderly. And what do we mean by ‘Muslim culture’? Are we talking about the Arabian peninsula in the seventh century? The Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century? Pakistan in the early twenty-first century? Finally, what is the benchmark? If we care about tolerance towards religious minorities, and compare the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century with western Europe in the sixteenth century, we would conclude that Muslim culture is extremely tolerant. If we compare Afghanistan under the Taliban to contemporary Denmark, we would reach a very different conclusion.

  Yet the worst problem with culturist claims is that despite their statistical nature they are all too often used to prejudge individuals. When a Warmlander native and a Coldian immigrant apply for the same position in a Warmlander firm, the manager may prefer to hire the Warmlander because ‘Coldians are frosty and unsociable’. Even if statistically this is true, maybe this particular Coldian is actually far more warm and outgoing than this particular Warmlander? While culture is important, people are also shaped by their genes and their unique personal history. Individuals often defy statistical stereotypes. It makes sense for a firm to prefer sociable to stony employees, but it does not make sense to prefer Warmlanders to Coldians.

  All this, however, modifies particular culturist claims without discrediting culturism as a whole. Unlike racism, which is an unscientific prejudice, culturist arguments may sometimes be quite sound. If we look at statistics and discover that Warmlander firms have few Coldians in senior positions, this may result not from racist discrimination, but from good judgement. Should Coldian immigrants feel resentment at this situation, and claim that Warmland is reneging on the immigration deal? Should we force Warmlander firms to hire more Coldian managers through ‘affirmative action’ laws, in the hope of cooling down Warmland’s hot-tempered business culture? Or perhaps the fault lies with Coldian immigrants failing to assimilate into the local culture, and we should therefore make a greater and more forceful effort to inculcate in Coldian children Warmlander norms and values?

  Coming back from the realm of fiction to the realm of facts, we see that the European debate about immigration is far from being a clear-cut battle between good and evil. It would be wrong to tar all anti-immigrationists as ‘fascists’, just as it would be wrong to depict all pro-immigrationists as committed to ‘cultural suicide’. Therefore, the debate about immigration should not be conducted as an uncompromising struggle about some non-negotiable moral imperative. It is a discussion between two legitimate political positions, which should be decided through standard democratic procedures.

  At present, it is far from clear whether Europe can find a middle path that would enable it to keep its gates open to strangers without being destabilised by people who don’t share its values. If Europe succeeds in finding such a path, perhaps its formula could be copied on the global level. If the European project fails, however, it would indicate that belief in the liberal values of freedom and tolerance is not enough to resolve the cultural conflicts of the world and to unite humankind in the face of nuclear war, ecological collapse and technological disruption. If Greeks and Germans cannot agree on a common destiny, and if 500 million affluent Europeans cannot absorb a few million impoverished refugees, what chances do humans have of overcoming the far deeper conflicts that beset our global civilisation?

  One thing that might help Europe and the world as a whole to integrate better and to keep borders and minds open, is to downplay the hysteria regarding terrorism. It would be extremely unfortunate if the European experiment in freedom and tolerance unravelled because of an overblown fear of terrorists. That would not only realise the terrorists’ own goals, but would also give this handful of fanatics far too great a say about the future of humankind. Terrorism is the weapon of a marginal and weak segment of humanity. How did it come to dominate global politics?

  PART III

  Despair and Hope

  Though the challenges are unprecedented, and though the disagreements are intense, humankind can rise to the occasion if we keep our fears under control and be a bit more humble about our views.

  10

  TERRORISM

  Don’t panic

  Terrorists are masters of mind control. They kill very few people, but nevertheless manage to terrify billions and shake huge political structures such as the European Union or the United States. Since 11 September 2001, every year terrorists have killed about fifty people in the European Union, about ten people in the USA, about seven people in China, and up to 25,000 people globally (mostly in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria and Syria).1 In contrast, each year traffic accidents kill about 80,000 Europeans, 40,000 Americans, 270,000 Chinese, and 1.25 million people altogether.2 Diabetes and high sugar levels kill up to 3.5 million people annually, while air pollution kills about 7 million people.3 So why do we fear terrorism more than sugar, and why do governments lose elections because of sporadic terror attacks but not because of chronic air pollution?

  As the literal meaning of the word indicates, terrorism is a military strategy that hopes to change the political situation by spreading fear rather than by causing material damage. This strategy is almost always adopted by very weak parties who cannot inflict much materia
l damage on their enemies. Of course every military action spreads fear. But in conventional warfare, fear is just a by-product of the material losses, and is usually proportional to the force inflicting the losses. In terrorism, fear is the main story, and there is an astounding disproportion between the actual strength of the terrorists and the fear they manage to inspire.

  It is not always easy to change the political situation through violence. On the first day of the Battle of the Somme, 1 July 1916, 19,000 British soldiers were killed and another 40,000 wounded. By the time the battle ended in November, both sides together suffered more than a million casualties, including 300,000 dead.4 Yet this horrific carnage hardly altered the political balance of power in Europe. It took another two years and millions of additional casualties for something to finally snap.

  Compared to the Somme offensive, terrorism is a puny matter. The Paris attacks of November 2015 killed 130 people, the Brussels bombings of March 2016 killed thirty-two people, and the Manchester Arena bombing in May 2017 killed twenty-two people. In 2002, at the height of the Palestinian terror campaign against Israel, when buses and restaurants were bombed on a daily basis, the yearly toll reached 451 dead Israelis.5 In the same year, 542 Israelis were killed in car accidents.6 A few terrorist attacks, such as the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie in 1988, kill hundreds.7 The 9/11 attacks set a new record, killing almost 3,000 people.8 Yet even this is dwarfed by the price of conventional warfare. If you add all the people killed and wounded in Europe by terrorist attacks since 1945 – including victims of nationalist, religious, leftist and rightist groups alike – the total will still fall far short of the casualties in any number of obscure First World War battles, such as the third Battle of the Aisne (250,000 casualties) or the tenth Battle of the Isonzo (225,000).9

  How, then, can terrorists hope to achieve much? Following an act of terrorism, the enemy continues to have the same number of soldiers, tanks and ships as before. The enemy’s communication network, roads and railways are largely intact. His factories, ports and bases are hardly touched. However, the terrorists hope that even though they can barely dent the enemy’s material power, fear and confusion will cause the enemy to misuse his intact strength and overreact. Terrorists calculate that when the enraged enemy uses his massive power against them, he will raise a much more violent military and political storm than the terrorists themselves could ever create. During every storm, many unforeseen things happen. Mistakes are made, atrocities are committed, public opinion wavers, neutrals change their stance, and the balance of power shifts.

  Hence terrorists resemble a fly that tries to destroy a china shop. The fly is so weak that it cannot move even a single teacup. So how does a fly destroy a china shop? It finds a bull, gets inside its ear, and starts buzzing. The bull goes wild with fear and anger, and destroys the china shop. This is what happened after 9/11, as Islamic fundamentalists incited the American bull to destroy the Middle Eastern china shop. Now they flourish in the wreckage. And there is no shortage of short-tempered bulls in the world.

  Reshuffling the cards

  Terrorism is a very unattractive military strategy, because it leaves all the important decisions in the hands of the enemy. Since all the options the enemy had prior to a terrorist attack are at his disposal afterwards as well, he is completely free to choose among them. Armies normally try to avoid such a situation at all costs. When they attack, they don’t want to stage a frightening spectacle that would anger the enemy and provoke him to hit back. Rather, they seek to inflict significant material damage on the enemy and reduce his ability to retaliate. In particular, they seek to eliminate his most dangerous weapons and options.

  That is, for example, what Japan did in December 1941 when it launched a surprise attack on the USA and sank the US Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor. This wasn’t terrorism. It was war. The Japanese could not be certain how the Americans would retaliate after the attack, except about one thing: no matter what the Americans decided to do, they would not be able to send a fleet to the Philippines or Hong Kong in 1942.

  Provoking the enemy to action without eliminating any of his weapons or options is an act of desperation, taken only when there is no other option. Whenever it is possible to inflict serious material damage, nobody gives that up in favour of mere terrorism. If in December 1941 the Japanese torpedoed a civilian passenger ship in order to provoke the USA, while leaving the Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor intact, this would have been madness.

  But the terrorists have little choice. They are so weak that they cannot wage war. So they opt instead to produce a theatrical spectacle that will hopefully provoke the enemy and cause him to overreact. Terrorists stage a terrifying spectacle of violence that captures our imagination and turns it against us. By killing a handful of people the terrorists cause millions to fear for their lives. In order to calm these fears, governments react to the theatre of terror with a show of security, orchestrating immense displays of force, such as the persecution of entire populations or the invasion of foreign countries. In most cases, this overreaction to terrorism poses a far greater threat to our security than the terrorists themselves.

  Terrorists don’t think like army generals. Instead, they think like theatre producers. The public memory of the 9/11 attacks testifies that everyone understands this intuitively. If you ask people what happened on 9/11, they are likely to say that al-Qaeda knocked down the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Yet the attack involved not merely the towers, but two other actions, in particular a successful attack on the Pentagon. How come few people remember that?

  If the 9/11 operation was a conventional military campaign, the Pentagon attack should have received most of the attention. In this attack al-Qaeda managed to destroy part of the enemy’s central headquarters, killing and wounding senior commanders and analysts. Why is it that public memory gives far more importance to the destruction of two civilian buildings, and the killing of brokers, accountants and clerks?

  It is because the Pentagon is a relatively flat and unassuming building, whereas the World Trade Center was a tall phallic totem whose collapse made an immense audiovisual effect. Nobody who saw the images of its collapse could ever forget them. Because we intuitively understand that terrorism is theatre, we judge it by its emotional rather than material impact.

  Like terrorists, those combating terrorism should also think more like theatre producers and less like army generals. Above all, if we want to combat terrorism effectively we must realise that nothing the terrorists do can defeat us. We are the only ones who can defeat ourselves, if we overreact in a misguided way to the terrorist provocations.

  Terrorists undertake an impossible mission: to change the political balance of power through violence, despite having no army. To achieve their aim, terrorists present the state with an impossible challenge of their own: to prove that it can protect all its citizens from political violence, anywhere, any time. The terrorists hope that when the state tries to fulfil this impossible mission, it will reshuffle the political cards, and hand them some unforeseen ace.

  True, when the state rises to the challenge, it usually succeeds in crushing the terrorists. Hundreds of terrorist organisations were wiped out over the last few decades by various states. In 2002–4 Israel proved that even the most ferocious terror campaigns can be suppressed by brute force.10 Terrorists know full well that the chances in such a confrontation are against them. But since they are very weak, and have no other military option, they have nothing to lose and much to gain. Once in a while the political storm created by counter-terrorist campaigns does benefit the terrorists, which is why the gamble makes sense. A terrorist is like a gambler holding a particularly bad hand, who tries to convince his rivals to reshuffle the cards. He cannot lose anything, and he may win everything.

  A small coin in a big empty jar

  Why should the state agree to reshuffle the cards? Since the material damage caused by terrorism is negligible, the state could theoretically do nothin
g about it, or take strong but discreet measures far from the cameras and microphones. Indeed, states often do exactly that. But every now and then states lose their tempers, and react far too forcefully and publicly, thus playing into the hands of the terrorists. Why are states so sensitive to terrorist provocations?

  States find it difficult to withstand these provocations because the legitimacy of the modern state is based on its promise to keep the public sphere free of political violence. A regime can withstand terrible catastrophes, and even ignore them, provided its legitimacy is not based on preventing them. On the other hand, a regime may collapse due to a minor problem, if it is seen as undermining its legitimacy. In the fourteenth century the Black Death killed between a quarter and a half of European populations, yet no king lost his throne as a result, and no king made much of an effort to overcome the plague. Nobody back then thought that preventing plagues was part of a king’s job. On the other hand, rulers who allowed religious heresy to spread in their dominions risked losing their crowns, and even their heads.

  Today, a government may take a softer approach to domestic and sexual violence than to terrorism, because despite the impact of movements such as #MeToo, rape does not undermine the government’s legitimacy. In France, for example, more than 10,000 rape cases are reported to the authorities each year, with probably tens of thousands of additional cases left unreported.11 Rapists and abusive husbands, however, are not perceived as an existential threat to the French state, because historically the state did not build itself on the promise to eliminate sexual violence. In contrast, the much rarer cases of terrorism are viewed as a deadly threat to the French Republic, because over the last few centuries modern Western states have gradually established their legitimacy on the explicit promise to tolerate no political violence within their borders.