Global Policy Forum

By Leslie Savan

In the war of words launched since Sept. 11, there have been a few bloopers: first, President George W. Bush's use of the word "crusade" was too much like the Crusades against the Muslims, forcing Secretary of State Colin Powell to go on camera and blue pencil in the word "campaign." Then the name of the campaign, "Operation Infinite Justice," was dropped because of Muslim objections -- only God can grant the infinite. (The new branding of the war against terrorism, "Operation Enduring Freedom," could eventually sag under its own confusing weight: does enduring mean "lasting" or "tolerating"?)

But the Office of Homeland Security, the name of the new Cabinet-level agency to be headed by Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge -- and a name we'll be hearing for years to come -- seems to have caught on overnight. Indeed, the conservative magazine Insight casually refers to homeland security as if it were the common parlance for defending our country; a New York Times op-ed headline last week read simply, "How to Protect the Homeland."

Nevertheless, for some people "homeland" creates a small disturbance in the air, resonating with something not quite American. "I have to inform you," a friend joked to me with a straight face, "that I'm now working with the Office of Homeland Security, and we have reports that you're not hanging your flag high enough."

Upon first hearing "homeland security," my association was Germany circa 1914 or 1939. But, no, Germany's longtime nickname is, of course, the Fatherland. Ah, Russia, I thought, homeland is Russian or Soviet -- but, no, Russia to its citizens is the Motherland, as are many other countries to their people. (Though not to us. Until now at least, our patriotic moniker has been nothing so familial, just a solemnly spoken "America" or a WWF-like "U.S.A.! U.S.A.!")

The oddness of the word may instead come from dim memories of the kinds of places that actually have been called homelands. When South Africa's Apartheid government wanted black tribal groups out of the way, it drew some lines in the bush, moved people in, and told them that those territories were now their "homeland." The other common use of the word, ironically, considering the circumstances, is "the Palestinian homeland."

While the word homeland itself is on the ancient side, "homeland security" has been used in our homeland only since the late '90s and primarily in military circles. Mark DeMier, editor-in-chief of the Journal of Homeland Security, believes the phrase first appeared in a 1997 report by the National Defense Panel. One member of that panel says, "If I had to think of anyone who really put that phrase together it was [another panel member] Richard Armitage," now the deputy secretary of state and onetime Reagan nuclear brinksman. (A spokeswoman for Armitage says, "he doesn't feel comfortable taking responsibility for coining the term, that it was a joint effort.") Homeland Security quickly entered the lexicon of subsequent commissions, like the U.S. Commission on National Security, headed by former Sens. Gary Hart and Warren Rudman, who, in February, called for a National Homeland Security Agency.