On the Concepts of the Other and the Enemy by Vilho Harle

Pergamon History of European Ideas, Vol.

Copyright 19, 0 Nos 1994 1-3, Elswier pp.

1994 21-34, Science Ltd

Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved 0191-6599/94 $7.00+ 0.00

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 Vilho Harle

THE CONCEPTS

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 out- group.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 subject’s 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 of reEfexive empathy ~~~~e~~ver~~rze~~. In such a process “we” take the role of “you*‘, 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 Hitler’s 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. AhoZ6 has 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 ar’rd 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 transcendent- historical 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 of a 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. 34 We 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 successful, such a political union -like the state before-must be justified in political terms of the “Friend” and “Enemy”35: 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 that’nof 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 state- building 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 state- borders 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 Vilho Harle

NOTES

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 Schmitt’s 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

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.

12. Cf. Zur, op. cit. (1991); and Aho, op. cit. (forthcoming). 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid. 15. 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.

16. Suggested by Aho, op. cit.(forthcoming). 17. 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.

18. Aho, op. cit. (forthcoming). 19. Ibid. 20. 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”.

21. From the Mein Kumpf, trans. R. Mannheim (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1943), pp. 249 and 65; quoted by Aho, op. cit. (forthcoming). Original emphasis.

22. 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).

23. Zur, op. cit. (1991). 24. In Finnish, the Finnish and the Swedish sport teams, encountering in the traditional

national competitions, are said to be “beloved enemies” to each other. 25. 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).

26. Aho, op. cit. (1981), pp. 147-148, and p. 151. 27. 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.

28. 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.

29. Based on my forthcoming “Patterns of Chaos and Order in Ancient Cultural Thought”. In many opinions “Occidental” is synonymous with “Western” or “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.

30. See N. Cohn, Europe’sZnnerDemons(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).

31. 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 Reagan’s Language (California State University, M.A. Thesis 1990).

32. 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”.

33. See my Nationalism-No! Metanationalism -Yes?, History of European Ideas, 15, (l-3) (1992), pp. 39-46.

34. See e.g. V. Harle, op. cit. (1991), preface. 35. Carl Schmitt, op. cit. (1975).