\r\nHow do we respond to the ferocious and unjustifiable acts of terror on\r\nSeptember 11? Some people -- starting with the pResident and the media --\r\nare whooping and hollering for \"war,\" but I don't buy the polls that claim\r\nvirtual unanimity for seeking military revenge and retribution. What the\r\npollsters are really asking is, \"Do you think the people who did this should\r\nget away with murder?\" and of course 99.9 percent of people say \"No!\" But\r\nlook into your own heart. In addition to anger, we are experiencing pain,\r\ngrief, loss, bewilderment, denial -- all the stages of contradictory\r\nemotions that you go through when somebody you care for dies, written 10,000\r\ntimes larger.\r\n\r\n<\/p>
\r\nIt's only natural that we want to pull together for support and comfort, to\r\ndeal with strong and disturbing feelings of powerlessness that came out in\r\nresponse to the shocking attacks, death and destruction. But George Bush and\r\nhis plans for war are a slim reed on which to hang our desire for unity and\r\nsecurity. It is up to us, the people ourselves, to put forward a positive,\r\nhumane, and effective vision at a moment of anguish and danger. Military\r\nforce will feed terror, not defeat it, and in the process it will grind up\r\nand destroy the last of the freedom, creativity and hope for a better world\r\nthat we rightly value.\r\n\r\n<\/p>
\r\nThe politicians and pundits want to hype up our anger, frustration and\r\nfeelings of vulnerability into a war fever and a police state. I am just one\r\nperson, a teacher and union member, a parent, who cannot command the\r\nattention of the media or the battalions of the largest military machine on\r\nthe planet. But I know the average person has a much more complicated and\r\nreally more profound set of reactions to what has happened. I know that as I\r\nand others have gone out in these weeks since the attack with a message of\r\npeace, justice and solidarity, against war and racism, we have drawn a great\r\ndeal of support and interest.\r\n\r\n<\/p>
\r\nFor each of us, in dealing with our feelings, with our ideas, or with\r\nquestions about how to combat terror, there is a lot of sorting out to do.\r\nIf we are each divided within ourselves, what part of ourselves should we\r\nunite with? What should we reconsider? The contradictory feelings and ideas\r\nwe are experiencing are manifestations of deeper contradictions within our\r\nsociety and our selves, contradictions between privilege and oppression,\r\nbetween aspirations and reality. We must begin to resolve these to deal with\r\nthe situation that we now find ourselves in, and we must begin by abandoning\r\nthe illusions and self-deceptions that died with the thousands on September\r\n11. We have refused to confront the terrorism that we have harbored in our\r\nown midst; we have depended on the trappings of imperial might for security,\r\nand they have failed us. We can no longer refuse to face the contradictions\r\nin our history and society.\r\n\r\n<\/p>
\r\nIt is these contradictions which account for the warring emotions we have\r\nexperienced in the wake of the attacks. For example, we felt an enormous,\r\nheartfelt upwelling of identification with those who died, of pride in those\r\nwho sought heroically to deal with the catastrophe. We want to support the\r\nvictims, the families, to mend what was torn. This grief, the sense that \"it\r\ncould have been me,\" is the basis for a positive and human feeling of\r\nsolidarity and identification with those who are suffering more directly.\r\nThis is not a trait of just the American character, but of the human\r\npersonality. We need to extend that feeling, to open our hearts not just\r\naround the city of New York or across the United States, but really to\r\npeople everywhere on this small planet. We are one human family. We\r\nunderstand the suffering of the people blown out of or jumping off those\r\nflaming towers, of the parents and spouses who exchanged a last word by cell\r\nphone with loved ones about to die. Can we then be less sensitive to the\r\ndevastation experienced by the victims of death squads, \"collateral damage,\"\r\nUS military hardware or direct intervention in Iraq or Colombia, Palestine\r\nor Puerto Rico?\r\n\r\n<\/p>
\r\nThere's a disconnect between our feelings of solidarity and the desire to\r\nstrike back or lash out. Take a moment to reflect, and we must see that we\r\ncan't lament the deaths of innocents and in the next breath propose that we\r\nbomb whole societies \"back to the Stone Age.\" We would be doing exactly what\r\nwe condemn, giving others a taste of what we just experienced. The\r\ngrievances, hurt and rage of the hijackers -- whoever they may have been --\r\ncould never justify the attacks they carried out on innocent civilians, and\r\nneither would our feelings justify the same kinds of attacks by the U.S. To\r\nattack in kind would really concede to the perpetrators the 'right' to do\r\nwhat they did, and to escalate in return. What would be next? Germ warfare\r\nor nuclear weapons? Cheney and Bush have already talked about using the\r\n\"totality of our resources,\" about a \"long war.\" They are chasing the\r\nperpetrators into the briar patch, and they are taking us with them unless\r\nwe resist.\r\n\r\n<\/p>
\r\nIn response to the September 11 attack, many of us feel very unsettled and\r\npowerless. This is psychologically disturbing on a very deep level, and we\r\nsometimes want quick fixes. But we have to acknowledge that powerlessness\r\nbefore we can assert a more positive kind of power. Bush's war will deepen\r\nsuch feelings, not resolve them. I ask myself, did that sense of futility\r\nand helplessness come only from the acts of terror? Or are we powerless\r\nbecause the impersonal forces of economic and political domination within\r\nour own country and society have eaten away at our rights and civic\r\nparticipation? Could our sense of futility have as much to do with the\r\noutcome of the last election, which put Bush in power through racist\r\ndisenfranchisement, intimidation and legal and electoral manipulation, as it\r\ndoes with the attacks? Is our powerlessness due perhaps to the dawning\r\nrealization that in the world of NAFTA and the WTO we have to dance to the\r\ntune of global corporations? We need to gain the liberating power to shape\r\nour own lives. Power to destroy or dominate others is no substitute.\r\n\r\n<\/p>
\r\nIn our grief, our frustration and even in our anger, what is really\r\nhappening is a painful breakdown in our identification with the oppressor,\r\nand a growing if unnamed recognition of what it means to be oppressed. The\r\nSeptember 11 attacks drove home clearly that we live in an empire, and in an\r\nempire, colonizers and colonized alike, no matter how privileged, are all\r\nsubjects, not citizens. The attacks were a manifestation of the growing\r\ninterpenetration and seamlessness between the global and the continental\r\nempire. This blurring between the imperial center and the colonized people\r\nis a process which is irreversible, short of dismantling the empire\r\nentirely. \r\n\r\n<\/p>
\r\nDid Bush's proposal for a cabinet secretary for \"Homeland Security\" make you\r\nfeel more secure, or did it raise the hairs on the back of your neck with\r\nits scent of the \"Fatherland\"? Bringing the methods of rule of colonialism\r\ninto the colonizing society is the true definition of fascism. Bush's long\r\nwar and his militarization of life within the U.S. will only deepen and\r\nhasten this process. Who will be made more 'powerful' if the U.S. military\r\nand counter-insurgency machine wages war and buys 'security' by means of\r\ninvading and subjugating other nations while infiltrating and regimenting\r\nU.S. society itself? Nobody except the politicians and corporations that\r\nhave too much power already.\r\n\r\n<\/p>
\r\nWe are all looking for answers amid the confusion. This, too, can be a good\r\nthing, a recognition that we have left ourselves in the dark about what's\r\ngoing on in the world. Some of us have been glued to the tube or the PC\r\nmonitor for days, afraid we will \"miss something.\" Of course, we have\r\nalready \"missed something;\" we let the dangling fruit and distractions of\r\nmaterial striving and temptation blind us to the darkening forest of thorns\r\ngrowing in the soil of America. The failure of \"intelligence\" was not only\r\non the intelligence agencies. Our media have screened out information and\r\nopinions that might make people uneasy. As more and more power and wealth\r\nhas accumulated in fewer and fewer hands in this country, the acceptable\r\nspectrum of opinion or dissent has narrowed so much that we the people have\r\nbeen closed out of the political process along with any ideas and challenges\r\nthat are considered subversive of the established order.\r\n\r\n<\/p>
\r\nSo to find answers, we must examine the facts and ideas which have been\r\nforbidden, or hidden by self-imposed blinders. History did not begin on\r\nSeptember 11 any more than it had ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall.\r\nThe U.S. was involved in wars to build and maintain an empire long before\r\nthe Cold War. It has remained involved in such wars for over a decade after\r\nthe Cold War ended and the communist bloc vanished. In fact, the U.S. has\r\nbeen at war, with Iraq, over that entire period, destroying its potable\r\nwater system, bombing that country regularly, maintaining an area of\r\nmilitary overflights over Iraqi territory while simultaneously enforcing\r\nthat as a zone in which the Iraqis cannot fly over their own territory, and\r\nor course enforcing an embargo which has cost hundreds of thousands of\r\nlives. We could ignore or deny that war (as Bush did in calling his\r\ndeclaration the \"first war of the 21st Century\"); but we cannot deny this\r\none. \r\n\r\n<\/p>
\r\nPeople ask \"why?\" and the honest explanation is one that Bush can never\r\nprovide. The answer really is simple -- the perpetrators have learned the\r\nugly lesson of \"might makes right\" that the US has stamped on its behavior\r\nin the world for decades. The wars of the last century were wars on\r\ncivilians, from Kristallnacht, Stalingrad and the German V-2, through\r\nHiroshima, No Gun Ri and My Lai. Long before that, the wars of settlement in\r\nthis country decimated and uprooted the indigenous people and took an\r\nenormous toll in Native non-combatant casualties. What happened on September\r\n11 is ultimately no more complicated than a network of people willing to\r\ngive their own lives in order to dish out that same type of treatment to the\r\nU.S., in pursuit of their \"policy objectives.\" Their relative powerlessness\r\ndoes not justify it, any more than the relative power of the U.S. justifies\r\nits acts of terror in Iraq or Yugoslavia. There has been wild speculation in\r\nresponse to Bush's insistence that Bin Laden is responsible -- maybe it was\r\nreally militias, Israelis, rogue elements in our own military or\r\nintelligence -- but ultimately, it doesn't matter who did it. The motivation\r\nand the potential outcome is the same -- to strike fear into our hearts, to\r\ncloud our thinking and to draw the U.S. into a protracted war -- whether it\r\nwas carried out by Bin Laden's followers to provoke a war with Islam, or by\r\nsome secret cabal in this country to use a war to salvage the economy and\r\nsquelch dissent.\r\n\r\n<\/p>
\r\nI've heard a lot of claptrap both from the right and left about this. The\r\nright wants to look for scapegoats. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson blamed\r\nthe disaster on gays, feminists and the ACLU for bringing down the wrath of\r\ngod on the U.S. A lot of other people immediately took it into their heads\r\nto find an Arab or a Muslim to threaten, harass or even kill. In their\r\nignorance, they have gone after Egyptian Christians, Hindu Sikhs from India.\r\nI have no doubt that some will begin attacking Jews, just like during the\r\nGulf War. Freedom and solidarity are indivisible. If we want to protect\r\ncivilians from indiscriminate attack or communities from racial or religious\r\nprejudice, we have to extend it to everyone. The \"golden rule\" used to be\r\n\"love your neighbor as yourself\" -- until it became \"he who has the gold\r\nmakes the rules.\"\r\n\r\n<\/p>
\r\nSome on the left offer half-baked explanations of their own. I've heard a\r\nlot of people saying, \"terrorism is the war of the poor and weak against the\r\nrich and powerful.\" When you think about it for a second, that's the same\r\nb.s. Bush is putting out. If it was Bin Laden, he had no interest in the\r\ndowntrodden and no program for liberation. Terror is terror, whether by the\r\nstate, the racists or whoever carried out the September 11 atrocity. I have\r\nbeen involved with \"People Against Racist Terror\" for 15 years, because I\r\nknow that the strong use terror against the weak all the time. That's the\r\nbully mentality. The Ku Klux Klan is historically a terrorist organization.\r\nThe US waged a war of terror in Vietnam. Slave overseers and slave patrols\r\nterrorized slaves to control them and the fruits of their labor.\r\nAnti-abortion groups use terror to try to deny women their reproductive\r\nrights. Andrew Jackson terrorized the Cherokee Nation and other indigenous\r\npeople out of the east coast. Germany used terror against England, against\r\nthe Jews, against the Slavs and against its own people during World War II.\r\n\r\n<\/p>
\r\nThe dividing line on terror is not between governments and groups that\r\ndon't have state power. It's not between Christians, Muslims or Jews; nor\r\nbetween so-called civilized nations and alleged barbarians. The dividing\r\nline is whether or not deadly force gets used against civilians for the\r\npurpose of amassing and imposing power over them. George Bush wants to draw\r\na line between Bin Laden and himself. If the dividing line is terror, in\r\nfact they both end up on the same, wrong side of the line.\r\n\r\n<\/p>
\r\nWho taught all these \"demonic, terroristic\" opponents of ours how to wage\r\ntheir campaigns? Manuel Noriega, creature of the CIA, part of the\r\nIran-Contra drugs for guns deal; the Ayatollah Khomeini, ushered in to Iran\r\nto replace the Shah who had become too weak to suppress the Iranian\r\nrevolution; Saddam Hussein, worked with the CIA, armed by the U.S. to use\r\npoison gas on his own people; Slobodan Milosevic, useful to the CIA plan to\r\nbreak up the old Yugoslavia through ethnic rivalries; Osama bin Laden, part\r\nof the CIA plan to tie down the Soviets in Afghanistan, on the US backed\r\nside in Bosnia and Kosovo; Timothy McVeigh, trained to kill in the Gulf War;\r\nthe Taliban, recipients of a massive aid package from George W. Bush for\r\n\"drug interdiction\" even while 'harboring' Bin Laden and terrorizing the\r\nAfghani population, particularly women. The enemy of my enemy is not\r\nnecessarily my friend. Saddam Hussein, Milosevic or Bin Laden are no friends\r\nof oppressed people, and their program and tactics, like those of Bush, are\r\nshaped by their desire to consolidate power and impose their will.\r\n\r\n<\/p>
\r\nAnother contradictory set of feelings many people are gripped by is the\r\nsense that \"everything has changed\" and the opposite desire to get \"back to\r\nnormal.\" The latter is a deadly tendency within us to slip back into denial\r\nand complacent arrogance. Normal is what got us into this situation. It will\r\ntake an extraordinary effort -- far greater than that of the rescuers -- to\r\nget us out. Simply turning away from war, repudiating terror, is not enough.\r\nWe need more fundamental change. The world did not change on September 11,\r\nbut our view of the world and our place in it did. The acts of September 11\r\nwere spectacular, perhaps designed particularly for a nation numbed by\r\nHollywood depictions of terror. But US policies in Iraq alone have taken\r\nmore lives, month after month for a decade -- just one of many forms of\r\nterror carried out by our government to protect \"the American way of life.\"\r\nEven more than U.S. policy in the Middle East or Central Asia, it is the\r\ncontradictions within that way of life that fuel the crisis facing us.\r\n\r\n<\/p>
\r\nThat way of life is going to change; the only question is, how? Bush intends\r\nto make this a garrison state. Do we have other plans, and how can we\r\nimplement them under the current circumstances? How can we transform this\r\nsociety so it is more sustainable and less vulnerable? We could make a start\r\nby turning the site of the now destroyed twin towers into an international\r\npeace park dedicated to the memories of the people who lost their lives. Our\r\nspirits could soar higher than the tallest building under a few trees and\r\nthe open sky amid the concrete canyons. It wouldn't be a bad idea to do the\r\nsame with the Pentagon. Yet to talk of turning the Pentagon into a monument\r\nto peace is to demonstrate how basic militarism is in the U.S. Endless war\r\nand terror are the inevitable byproducts of a system based on empire. Many\r\nof us have woken up from a fantasy of invulnerability and the illusion that\r\none can wage a one-sided war, and have begun to see the consequences of\r\nempire. Remember that Pentagon war-fighting doctrine is still predicated on\r\nfighting 2.5 wars at a time. Congress may have back-burnered medical\r\ninsurance reform; but U.S. involvement in the war in Colombia continues to\r\nescalate on a daily basis even while fleets and fighter planes steam to the\r\nGulf.\r\n\r\n<\/p>
\r\nThere was nothing revolutionary about the September 11 attacks, but\r\nultimately we need a revolution if we are to avoid an endless vicious cycle\r\nof attack and counter-attack. We need to de-colonize our own society and\r\neconomy. Consider the repeated comments about \"acts of terror on U.S. soil.\"\r\nPrior to this attack, the U.S. had reserved to itself the \"right\" to carry\r\nout terror in these territories -- terror against African slaves, against\r\nNative people, against Mexicans, against immigrants, against organized\r\nlabor, against women. If we want to build unity, dismantling that\r\ncontinental empire is a place to start. We need to oppose the militarization\r\nof police, prisons, schools and the border. They do not secure us, only the\r\nwealth and power of our exploiters.\r\n\r\n<\/p>
\r\nSimultaneously, we need to think about non-state solutions to our problems.\r\nWe need to develop civilian-based defense against terror or invasion. It was\r\ncivilians, for example, who stopped one of the hijacked planes from carrying\r\nout the terrorist mission while the Pentagon was stymied, itself under\r\nattack. Prevention, security measures at airports are all well and good, but\r\nthe surest guarantee that no such attacks can take place again is the\r\nknowledge that every passenger on every plane in the sky understands quite\r\nclearly the fatal consequences of the next attempt, and will act\r\naccordingly. What threat could hijackers possibly make now that would deter\r\nthe passengers and crew who know that death is inevitable in any case from\r\noverwhelming them at any cost?\r\n\r\n<\/p>
\r\nThe globalization movement provides a model for the kind of direct,\r\nperson-to-person and movement-to-movement international relations we need to\r\nbuild, in place of the imperial war machine. We need to develop\r\ninterconnected communities of resistance that can sustain themselves through\r\nwar and repression. If people are panicky about terrorist attacks on nuclear\r\npower plants, perhaps it is past time to think about renewable, sustainable,\r\nnon-toxic forms of energy, about reducing energy consumption and dependency\r\non fossil fuels, not just foreign ones. Every nuclear plant in the U.S.\r\nshould be shut down, immediately and permanently. Transforming the economic\r\nsystem of the U.S. from one based on expansion and penetration of other\r\nsocieties into one based on cooperative, environmentally sound enterprise is\r\nvital. Eliminating U.S. strategic interests in the Middle East (read, \"oil\")\r\nwould allow Arab societies to slip off the stifling yoke of reactionary\r\nregimes and colonialism.\r\n\r\n<\/p>
\r\nWe need to take this same approach of non-state action to the issue of\r\nterror. Counter-terrorism that uses terror will only increase the amount and\r\nlevel of terror in the world and in this country. If guns and bombs will\r\nonly feed terror, if our own government has been guilty of terror at Wounded\r\nKnee and Hiroshima, then how do we defeat terror? By the same weapons we\r\nmust use against the impulse to terror that we ourselves have just\r\nexperienced. Terror is fought in a battle for hearts and minds, in a\r\nstruggle against oppressive power. Terror is fought by building solidarity.\r\nTerror must be dried out from below. Israel and the U.S. actually promoted\r\nthe Muslim fundamentalist groups that turned to terror, as part of an\r\nimperialist strategy to divide oppressed people and to blunt the dynamic of\r\nsocial revolutionary forces. Only by building such forces in our own\r\nsociety, opposing the terror of our own government, struggling for economic\r\njustice and equality, can we develop the capacity to unite with similar\r\nmovements in other countries that could eliminate the sources of terror\r\nwithin their people as we must within ours.\r\n\r\n<\/p>
\r\nIt is only by rebuilding the revolutionary capacity and unity of oppressed\r\npeople that terror can be uprooted. Such a process of rebuilding must be\r\nself-critical. Oppressed people are not saints. Experiencing Hitler's\r\ngenocide, for example, did not prevent many Jews from embracing Zionism and\r\ncolonialism. Within the imperialist system, everyone experiences a mix of\r\noppression and privilege, whether in the form of white skin privilege or\r\nneo-colonialism. The system offers people options to surrender and\r\nincorporate into the imperialist structure by stepping on somebody else's\r\nneck. The great strength of this system, the reason it is now a global\r\nsuperpower, has been its capacity to capture our consent. It uses the\r\nprivileges of participation in empire and settler colonialism to generate\r\nwithin us an identification with our own oppressors and an internalization\r\nof our own oppression. But those privileges in the form of white supremacy\r\nor neo-colonialism blind us and bind us to our own exploitation and\r\noppression, along with that of others. The wealth and power we see around us\r\nis extracted from us and from millions around the globe.\r\n\r\n<\/p>
\r\nTo counter the tendencies toward either collaboration or terror, we need to\r\nemphasize the creative power of resistance. We need to develop the\r\nunderstanding that all the power and wealth of the oppressor's system is\r\nderived from the oppressed and exploited, used against us by virtue of our\r\nown participation in that system. Yet the days of this system are numbered.\r\nWar may defer but cannot eliminate its insoluble economic contradictions.\r\nEvery globalized factory, every worker bled and sweated, generates a\r\nproductive capacity whose output can never be profitably accommodated. Every\r\nempire in history has crumbled into dust, and this empire is no exception.\r\nThat understanding, coupled with the realization that we have the capacity\r\nto create something much better in its place, will give people the hope and\r\ncourage to persevere. The working, oppressed and colonized people of the\r\nworld can and will unite. No condescending saviours, no unity with our\r\nrulers! We are our own liberators!\r\n\r\n<\/p>
\r\n\r\nThis will appear in the upcoming issue of \"Turning the Tide: Journal of\r\nAnti-Racist Action...\" PO Box 1055, Culver City CA 90232; Vol. 14, #3.\r\n\r\n<\/p>
\r\nFor more information, contact People Against Racist Terror\/Anti-Racist\r\nAction (PART\/ARA) at the above address; by phone 310-495-0299; or email\r\npart2001@usa.net Call or write for a sample copy and information on how to\r\nsubscribe.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/p>\n","contact":"part2001@usa.net","link":"","address":"","phone":"310-495-0299","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/html","summary":"A call for unity against all forms of domination. Against Bush and bin Laden, and for people.","numcomment":0,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/2001\/09\/we_cannot_.html","filesize":"23.1 kibibytes","article_url":"\/news\/2001\/09\/10643.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[]}