[kj] ot - manage fear or it will manage you

[fluw]

Albert Scardino and John Scardino
Wednesday March 24, 2004
The Guardian

Fear has had a cabinet position in two of the most radical presidencies in American history, those of Franklin Roosevelt and the current Bush. Spain has known similar fear at similar times, but the Spanish response has been a mirror image of the American reaction. 

Roosevelt devoted his time in office to management of fear, from the economic horror of the Depression, through the massacre of 3,000 soldiers and sailors at Pearl Harbor, to the invasion at Normandy. Bush has chosen to manage by fear, through a simpler war of his own making, against an enemy that is little more than a gang of murderous thugs.

While Americans embraced an elected leader in the 1930s who coped with the threat of chaos by altering the size and scope of government, Spain suffered a military revolt that imposed order and maintained it through fear for two generations. 

Where the current US leader declared himself a war president in the aftermath of a violent assault, Spaniards suffered their own assault from the same enemy, then gathered silently to declare themselves in favour of one word printed on millions of cards, "Peace". 

Roosevelt declared war on despair in the opening sentences of his term. "We have nothing to fear but fear itself," he said at the start of his inaugural address in 1933. Bush, in his state of the union address in January, used a form of the word "terror" more than 20 times, exceeded in frequency only by the word "I" (more than 30). Judging by his rhetoric so far in this election year, he intends to make terror his by-word. 

Roosevelt's landslide victory in 1932 left him in charge of a wasted country. When the stock market bubble of the 1920s popped, there was nothing inside to keep the economy moving. With no regulatory infrastructure and no social support system, millions of people lost their jobs, their homes and their farms. 

The failure of many of the country's banks wiped out savings. The demand for charity overwhelmed charities. Health care came from a doctor willing to dispense for free, or it didn't come at all. Food came from soup kitchens, shelter provided by a bridge or a cardboard box. Virtually all Americans fell down a rung or two, but tens of millions fell off the ladder all together. 

Roosevelt put America back to work, with the government as employer when necessary. Civilian government workers built dams and post offices, reforested eroded land, painted murals, photographed the dust storms and the tent cities, paved roads and constructed schools, hospitals and courthouses, all as part of public works programmes designed to restore self-esteem, faith and hope - and to keep fear under control. 

Things might have turned out differently in the US with different leadership. In Germany and Italy elected leaders pandered to the fear, ignited Christian fervour, intimidated political expression. In Spain they used it as the hood ornament for tanks that crushed an elected government, then decorated the regime's standard with it for two generations. 

Like Roosevelt, Bush has mobilised the country with his radical vision, in many ways the mirror image of Roosevelt's philosophy, in some ways mimicking his tactics. 

He introduced a tax programme to redistribute wealth upwards, sought to unwind social security programmes his predecessor had introduced and worked hard to open public land for private development that Roosevelt had set aside as national forests and public reserves. 

Roosevelt sought to pack the courts with judges who would alter the relationship between government and those in power. Bush's packing involves those who would limit the power of the individual in favour of those in authority. 

Spain celebrated the end of fascism only 29 years ago. Most of those old enough to vote remember living in a state of fear imposed by their leaders. In the generation since Franco's death, they have learned to laugh again. Their national wealth has soared. They have rejoined their European neighbours with a commitment to civil liberties at home and full participation in the international community. 

Had they reacted differently, the train bombs two weeks ago might have ended their generation of freedom. They might have wallowed in the fear that a pathetic band of murderers could somehow destroy their society. They might have moaned about the worst attack on Spanish soil in modern history. 

That would not have been true. Many more died in many of the battles of the Spanish civil war, just as many more Americans died in many of the battles of the US civil war than were killed at the World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001.

They might have wallowed in the self-indulgence that this was an attack on Spain unlike any other. That would have been more valid. Few of the dead or injured aboard those trains came from other nations, unlike the victims in New York. 

In one way at least, they, or at least the government, reacted the same as the Bush government. They suffered from an instinctive reaction to strike out at the wrong enemy. For Aznar, it was the Basque separatists. For Bush, according to his former counter-terrorism tsar, it was Iraq.

Roosevelt's address at his inauguration also referred to terror, "nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyses needed efforts to convert retreat into advance." 

To his fellow citizens on his first day in office he said: "We face our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, only material things."