ANOTHER SIDE OF THE WAR
[Col. Writ. 10/25/01] Copyright '01 Mumia
Abu-Jamal
... [W]e have about 50% of the
world's wealth, but
only 6.3% of its population ...
Our real task in the
coming period is to devise a
pattern of relationships
which will have to dispense with
all sentimentality...
We should cease to talk about
vague and... unreal
objectives such as human rights,
the raising of
living standards, and
democratization.
--- George Kennan, U.S. State
Dept., Policy Planning
Study
23 (1948)
We live in an awkward age of
war, where discussion is
curtailed by the iron curtain of fear, and the
choking fog of
uncertainty.
At this time, when the American
military is embarking on
an open-ended, and virtually unlimited expedition
overseas,
in search of undefined 'enemies,' and in pursuit of
a goal
that seems more appropriate for international
police than
an imperial military, there is a strange
circumscription of
national dialogue. At this time, more than
any other, U.S.
foreign policy, which should be in the very
forefront of the
national debate, hides in the shadows, like sellers
of
illicit, somewhat tainted substances, like crack
cocaine,
or smut.
Nations, no less than people,
can be caught up in the
very real grip of madness, as Nazi Germany or
Fascist
Italy well-proved over a half century ago.
Apartheid South
Africa, which waged armed war against children,
who
were armed with little more than the righteousness
of
their African resistance, is yet another. And
one need not
go across the Atlantic to see similar instances of
national madness, as evidenced by the notorious
MOVE
bombing in Philadelphia, where, as one cop said
ominously,
"We saw the children as combatants!", or the
equally
mad expressions of state terrorism as shown in
Waco,
Texas, or the Ruby Ridge incidents.
"Power", to paraphrase Lord
Acton's well-known axiom,
"does more than corrupts, it makes men
mad."
It is precisely in this time of
madness, of emotional depth
and mental unhingement, that other voices need to
be heard,
and other perspectives leavened into the
debate. For, if
madness has one cure, it is reason.
Mr. Enver Masud may be one of
the voices that adds
some of that reason. An engineering
management consultant
who once worked for the World Bank, USAID in Egypt,
and
in half a dozen countries over the earth, Masud can
hardly
be termed an 'Islamic fundamentalist' (what-ever
that is),
or even a radical. He seems to be a fairly
bourgeois fellow,
who grew up in an Indian Muslim family of wealth,
means and
influence, who never really engaged the deeper
waters of
his faith, until later in life. His father
was the Indian ambassador
to Saudi Arabia, and his mother is the descendant
of a noble
family in India.
A year ago, Masud wrote and
published a book that was the
compilation of perhaps five years of commentaries
written
for the little-known Washington, D.C.-based
newspaper,
Eastern Times, called The War on
Islam (Arlington, Va.:
Madrasah Books, 2000). In it, Masud
critically engages,
questions, and controverts many of the big stories
of the
day, from the 1991 report that "Libyan terrorists"
were sent
to the U.S. by President M. Ghaddafi to assassinate
Americans,
including the President (in fact, these were 350
Libyans,
*trained by the U.S. CIA to knock off
Ghaddafi!*), to the
massacre of hundreds of Palestinians in Lebanese
refugee
camps under the direction of Israeli then-defense
minister
(now President) Ariel Sharon in 1982.
Using American, British, and
other sources, Masud raises
important questions, and also provides remarkable
answers.
While The War on
Islam was published long before the
events of 11 September, 2001, it still has
important lessons
for those who wish to examine an opposing
view. Consider
the comments he prints of Americans who were
critical of
the U.S. bombings in Sudan and (yes) Afghanistan in
1998:
"It is dangerous to divorce terrorism from
politics, yet the
U.S. media continue to talk about an abstract war
against
terrorism without mention of the issues or context
that lie
behind them." ; or, "Terrorism is a political act,
a response
to U.S. foreign policy. It is an act of war
waged by people
too weak to have a conventional army or one large
enough
to take on the United States."
The first quote was written by
Graham E. Fuller, former
vice-chairman of the National Intelligence Council
of the CIA,
for the L.A. Times (8/24/98); the second was
by Charley
Reese, an ex-soldier who does a column for the
Orlando
Sentinel (8/18/98), the title of which told
the story: "Face It:
U.S. Foreign Policy Contribute to Acts of
Terrorism."
One really wonders if these guys
could, or even would,
write the same kinds of things today.
What is perhaps more troubling,
is not whether either
man would write such thoughts today, but whether a
publisher of a newspaper would print it
today!
As experience has shown, this is
a very real question,
that becomes even more provocative in the face
of
reports that a number of newspapers in the nation
have
withdrawn the wildly popular comic strip,
Boondocks,
because of some of its pokes at the National
Security
State. Boondocks, for the few who don't
know, is a
daily feature which, ala Doonesbury, pokes fun
at
American political, cultural, and racial
mores. Its
central character, a tiny revolutionary boy
named
Huey Freeman, raises the ire of the adults
around
him, with his questions, observations, and
actions.
In one banned strip, he calls up the FBI's
so-called
terrorist hotline, to tell them that he knows
someone
who is a terrorist, and proceeds to spell,
"R-E-A-G--",
for former U.S. President (and Libya bomber)
Ronald
Reagan.
Although Aaron McGruder's strip
runs in over 200
U.S. papers, roughly a dozen have pulled the most
recent strips since the events of the 11th of
September.
Similarly, I doubt few of
America's papers would run
the thoughts, opinions and ruminations of Enver
Masud.
It is indeed, for this very reason that his
thoughts may
prove valuable to thinking people in America, who
really
take offense at how the corporate media treats
adults
like kids, who need to be protected, not from
bombs,
or plummeting planes, but from non-conventional
ideas.
(The War on Islam is published by
The Wisdom Fund,
Madrasah Book Division, P.O. Box 2723, Arlington,
VA
22202.)
Copyright '01 MAJ
===================================
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******************************************************
This
column may be reprinted and/or distributed by
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non-commercial use, and
only with the inclusion of the following copyright
information:
Text (c) copyright 2001 by Mumia Abu-Jamal. All rights
reserved. Reprinted by permission of the
author.
******************************************************
Mumia
Abu-Jamal is the author of three books: 'Live
from Death Row', 'Death
Blossoms', and 'All Things
Censored'.
Write to Mumia directly
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Waynesburg, PA 15370