Welcome to The Cahokian...
A thousand years ago Cahokia — across the Mississippi from what is now St. Louis — was one of the biggest cities in the world. Now it's an empty green spot next to the highway. I'm a middle-aged gay man living in New York City, center of the world, future footnote on somebody's future map. Welcome to the new world.
I'm not entirely sure of the provenance of this image. It started appearing on my Facebook feed after the massacre of Ikhwan supporters in Egypt after the military coup. It shows a deadly spectre leaving a trail of blood as it moves along a hallway with doors marked "Pakistan," "Iraq," "Libya," "Syria" and "Egypt." The spectre is decked out in the stars and stripes, and its scythe is wrapped in the colors of the Israeli flag.
It is remarkable to me that the U.S. has, at least among its own citizens, preserved the laughable notion of being a benevolent, pacific world power gently using its influence for the greater good of the world's people. President Obama has displayed a remarkable clumsiness in foreign policy, as his speeches full of moral platitudes and lofty sentiment collide with American realpolitik, self-interest and remarkably self-evident hypocrisy. Sooner or later, all empires fall.
Anti-Americana is an ongoing series of anti-American propaganda art and caricature.
(Photo: Right-wing Israeli Prime Minister and U.S. presidential advisor Benjamin Netanyahu shown in front of the Islamic Noble Sanctuary in occupied Jerusalem).
President Obama made a speech on Thursday that was billed as a major policy speech on the Middle East, touching on both the wave of "Arab Spring" revolutions and the Palestine/Israel conflict. Perhaps you missed this bit of reporting from the New York Times:
"The Israeli government immediately protested, saying that for Israel to return to its pre-1967 borders would leave it “indefensible.” Mr. Netanyahu held an angry phone conversation with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday before [emphasis added —ish] the speech, officials said, in which he demanded that the president’s reference to 1967 borders be cut.
Israeli officials continued to lobby the administration until right before Mr. Obama arrived at the State Department for the address. White House officials said he did not alter anything under Israeli pressure, though the president made changes in the text that delayed his appearance by 35 minutes. "
Yes, you read that correctly. The White House submitted Obama's speech to Israel for approval before he delivered it and the Israeli government was making demands on what President Obama could say before he said it. And why not? United States policy is, in reality, identical to the ethnic cleansing, racist, and brutal collective punishment policies of the Apartheid state of Israel. The U.S. is Israel's major economic and political partner, and Israel knows it has carte blanche for absolutely whatever it wants to do. And furthermore by the utterly insane logic of American politics, it is widely believed that it is political suicide for politicians — and Presidents — to offend either the Israel lobby or pro-Israel Jewish voters and therefore successful American politicians must remain firmly in the pocket of Israel if they want to remain successful.
Shortly before the speech and prior to his departure to meet with Obama in Washington on Friday, Netanyahu was meeting with Israel's Interior Ministry to discuss expanding Israeli settlements near occupied East Jerusalem. Israeli settlement-building — actually ethnic cleansing and land theft illegal by international law — was not mentioned by President Obama in his speech.
Nevertheless, Obama went on his speech to suggest that the future negotiated state of Palestine be based on the 1967 borders of Israel, "with agreed-upon land swaps." This mild statement recognizing the bare minimums of accepted international law drew harsh criticism from Netanyahu who said before, during, and after his meeting with Obama on Friday, "it's not gonna happen." But the meeting between Obama and Netanyahu went great according to the Huffington Post: Benjamin Netanyahu went into the White House Friday "worried, but came out encouraged," according to a senior Israeli official briefed on the prime minister's frank meeting with President Barack Obama. Obama issued a statement, "So, overall, I thought this was an extremely constructive discussion. And coming out of this discussion, I once again can reaffirm that the extraordinarily close relationship between the United States and Israel is sound and will continue."
(Photo: Israeli arms supplier and ethnic-cleansing enabler Barack Obama speaking on the Middle East in Washington on Thursday).
So what did Obama say in his speech? He discussed the pro-democracy protests sweeping the Arab world. He did not, of course, mention the decades of support given to Arab dictators by the United States. Somewhat surprisingly Mr. Obama did criticize the crackdown by the Bahraini government against democracy protesters. (Though of course he had nothing to say about it when it was happening.) Obama notably failed to name one country in particular, and that is close U.S. ally Saudi Arabia, a dictatorship and religious theocracy that actually sent in troops to Bahrain so that Bahraini security forces could do the actual dirty work of crushing the protest movement.
Speaking of religious theocracies, Mr. Obama endorsed the official Israeli line: "Israel as a Jewish state and the homeland for the Jewish people." Which of course is great news for the soon to be ethnic-cleansed Christian and Muslim Arab citizens of Israel proper. (Israel is now in fact requiring loyalty oaths of new immigrants to "the Jewish state.")
Obama did not mention Israeli "settlements" in the occupied territories. And he implied discussion of the right of return of Palestinian refugees displaced by Israel and the status of Jerusalem could be left til later. He said the future Palestine would share a border with Jordan, and this is what really pissed off Netanyahu. In Netanyahu's vision the Israeli military will keep possession of the Jordan Valley, and any Palestinian microstate Bantustan will be isolated from direct borders with the outside world. But never fear, Netanyahu, because Obama said that Israel had the right to defend itself, while Palestine would be a "non-militarized state." One might suggest Obama study the historical definition of the term "state."
To my mind the worst thing Obama said about Israel and Palestine was this: "For Israelis, it has meant living with the fear that their children could be blown up on a bus or by rockets fired at their homes, as well as the pain of knowing that other children in the region are taught to hate them. For Palestinians, it has meant suffering the humiliation of occupation, and never living in a nation of their own." He repeats the Zionist propaganda lie that Israel is the victim of violence, and Palestinians merely the victims of symbolism. The truth, as Omar Barghouti points out below, is that Palestinians are actually, now, being ethnically cleansed. They are actually the victims of violence on a scale far beyond the (tragic and occasional) victims of terrorism.
Obama's conclusion, "That is the choice that must be made -– not simply in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but across the entire region -– a choice between hate and hope; between the shackles of the past and the promise of the future" seems to me particularly hollow. Because despite all the rhetoric about hope when it comes down to actual actions on the ground, the U.S. can be counted on to back the status quo, to take the side of Israel, and to hang on to the coattails of regional dictators until the last possible moment. The American government has claimed to oppose illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied territories for years. But when it came to a U.N. vote to condemn those settlements just this past winter, the U.S. took Israel's side and vetoed the U.N. criticism. There is no heroism, no hope, no principle, no audacity in that move. It was the same old crass complicity in the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.
On Nakba day, thousands of nonviolent unarmed Palestinians rushed Israel's boundaries, in the case of the Golan Heights on the border with Syria, successfully breaching the territory occupied by Israel since 1967. Israel responded by shooting dozens. It is those people, the people of the Arab Spring, who will ultimately solve this problem. The Middle East does not need another ethnic theocracy: it needs a democratic and secular state in Palestine. It can be a homeland for Jews as well as non-Jews, but it cannot be built on the basis of injustice and denial of rights to the people who live there or were forced out in the past sixty years. To coin a phrase, a two-state solution where the Palestinians are locked in a unsustainable prison at the mercy of a military machine armed by the most powerful nation on earth "just isn't gonna happen."
Independent (and secular) Palestinian activist Omar Barghouti was asked by The Real News to comment on President Obama's speech. He said that he thought it was irrelevant, and that nobody in the region but the Israelis and Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas was that interested in what Obama had to say on the matter. "The best thing that the U.S. can do is leave us alone." The interview with Barghouti is extraordinary, and should be required viewing. It follows below.
It was a very small item on the Angry Arab news service a few days ago: a link to one of the classified documents that have been obtained and published, Wikileaks-style, by the leftist Lebanese newspaper Al-Akbar. A lot of classified documents have been released lately: it's hard to wade through them with their lists of codes and bureaucratic new-speak. It's almost hard to summon up the necessary outrage as the sheer volume of information has a sort of numbing effect. But I read this document, and it's fascinating, instructive, and disturbing. It's probably not a very important document at all, as these things go. But what is clear from this document is how, beyond any far-fetched conspiracy theory, the U.S. goes about specifying talking points for government politicians and media alike in an attempt to propagandistically influence the events of the region.
It dates from 2008, and wasn't supposed to be declassified until 2018. It's from the American charge d'Affaires in Syria, Michael Corbin and was entitled "SARG PRESSURE POINTS IN CURRENT LEBANESE CRISIS." 'SARG' seems to refer to the Syrian government. It's basically a plan to fuck with Syria and by extension its alleged allies in Lebanon and get it in regional trouble by badmouthing the country and claiming it's an Iranian puppet. It goes on to recommend steps to sow regional discord. Here are a few quotes from the document:
". (C) Summary: As Washington assesses options for pressuring Syria on its Lebanon policy, Post suggests six possible measures for consideration. We believe Syria is vulnerable to a PD focus on the Shia/Iran aspect of Syria's support for Hizballah. Immediate designations of additional Syrians under E.O. 13460 as a follow up to the Rami Makhluf designation would send a strong signal and likely resonate with the Syrian public. Emphasis on the Lebanon Tribunal and acceleration of its implementation would focus Syrian regime figures on possible exposure to prosecution and embarrassment for the regime. We believe Syrian economic vulnerabilities are a source of pressure, and we may be able to influence Syria's efforts to establish better trade relations with Iraq. Syria cares about its relationships with Turkey, the UAE, Kuwait, and India, and we should pressure these countries to cancel planned trips by Bashar and deliver a strong message on Lebanon. Coordinated action with European countries will signal continuing isolation; EU countries publicly criticize Syria on human rights practices, and we should seek to tie this to Lebanon by stressing some Syrian dissidents are in jail for advocating support of the Cedar Revolution. End Summary....
(C) While being careful to avoid crossing the line into encouraging sectarianism, Post strongly urges more focus on Syria's close relationship with Iran and Hizballah as Shia focused on attacking the Arab world. We believe talking points should emphasize IRGC's material support for Hizballah's violent attacks on Arabs. The message that Syria is simply doing the bidding of Shia Iran will tarnish Bashar's image domestically and in the Arab world and complicate his attempts to portray himself as a "Sunni" Arab leader....
6. (C) Syria's greatest vulnerability currently is economic. We see few levers to pressure the Syrians, since the Europeans and others are extremely hesitant to invest now, and Syria has no relationships with international financial institutions (IFIs). The one area in which we might have some influence is Syria's attempt to improve its economic circumstances by cooperating with Iraq....Absent greater security cooperation by the SARG, a subject which has seen no progress, the GOI [Government of Iraq] might be encouraged to deflect these Syrian overtures and even postpone the Committee meetings indefinitely. "
It's clear this so-called American diplomat Corbin was doing his best to subvert the Syrian government. How is that an appropriate job for a diplomat unless he is a spy or agent provocateur? His posting to Syria ended shortly after this set of propaganda instructions was issued...and in fact he's just been nominated to be Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, the same country who it was just revealed has hired the notorious Blackwater/Xe Corporation to build a mercenary army of expatriate Colombians and South Africans to put down any local unrest. The conspiracy theories write themselves, don't they?
It doesn't take a genius — or a paranoid loonytune — to notice that the American newsmedia took the bait offered by this disinformation campaign. The main story the news focused on until the current wave of unrest in Syria has been the alleged axis between Syria, Hizbollah and Iran. It also doesn't take a genius to see that the real story is not nearly that simple, and that the promotion of communal sectarianism by these U.S. spies, despite their disingenuous calls for restraint, is a kind of deadly provocation not unlike the short-sighted blowback-producing idiocy American foreign policy has pursued for decades. Hello Afghan Mujahedeen and Osama Bin Laden. Any news media who followed the manipulations offered by this government campaign to destabilize Syria should be considered something else altogether than reputable news organizations.
Now, three years after this memo, Syria's dictatorial regime is threatened by civil unrest. It's clear many of the demands of the protesters there are just. But one wonders what shit-stirring State Department memos have been issued by the current crop of American spies sitting in Damascus...and how many innocent lives will be lost by its meddling manipulations.
Leaving work on Friday I ran smack into this small but spirited solidarity protest apparently organized by Bahraini exiles in support of the now silenced revolutionary protest movement in that tiny Arabian Gulf nation. The protest was fenced into a small pen (f.u. NYC police!) on Seventh Avenue right below Times Square. They passed out flyers calling for "Justice for Bahrain!"
Bahrain, you will recall, is a tiny island kingdom that was gripped by a mass democracy protest about the same time as the uprising in Libya began. Hundreds of thousands of people occupied Pearl Square in a very small country, calling for democracy and reform. At precisely the moment the Western powers chose to intervene in LIbya, they greenlighted the crushing of the Bahraini democracy movement by the Bahraini monarchy acting in concert with military forces from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies. The U.S. has a military base in Bahrain and Obama was quick to avert his gaze lest the base be jeopardized. The forces of government repression actually destroyed the national "Pearl" monument at Pearl Square shortly after driving off the protesters to keep it from ever becoming a rallying point again.
The signs carried at the rally were a really interesting bunch: my favorite is the one of the now destroyed Pearl Square monument re-envisioned to show clenched fists holding up the iconic pearl of Bahrain's history. Notable also are the ones shown at top showing the link between the popular uprisings in Libya, Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt and Tunisia; and the one shown above "Not Shia Not Sunni Just Bahraini" giving the lie to the common media claim that the uprising was just a sectarian one (the majority of Bahrain's citizens are Shia though the monarchy is not; but the protesters were from both communities).
The protest called attention to ongoing repression against not only the democracy movement but against medical professionals who witnessed and treated victims of the government violence. And they call out the hypocrisy of the West's professed support of democracy movements elsewhere in the Middle East while remaining silent on the repression of the Bahraini people by the Bahraini and Saudi dictatorships. The organizers of the protest can be contacted on their facebook page, "Voice Against Oppression."
Today the United Nations Security Council voted to intervene in the Libyan civil war and authorize airstrikes against the forces of Moammar al-Qaddafi. According to the New York Times: "The United States, originally leery of any military involvement in Libya, became a strong proponent of the resolution, particularly after the Arab League approved a no-fly zone, something that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called a “game changer.” Not reported by the Times but widely speculated elsewhere is that the Arab League cut a deal to approve the air strikes on Libya in return for aquiescence to Saudi Arabian/Gulf Cooperation Council intervention in Bahrain on behalf of the beleaguered and unpopular royal family fighting off a mass uprising. While a few stern words have been tossed the way of the Bahrain government by the Obama administration, it's clear that Obama and Clinton completely sold out the Bahraini democracy movement, fearing the loss of a crucial U.S. military base, Iranian influence, and any potential spread of unrest from Bahrain's majority Shi'a population to the Shi'a region of Saudi Arabia. While the Shi'a are a minority in Saudi Arabia, they're a majority where the oil comes from. An invasion of Kuwait by Iraq might have been a big deal back in the day but apparently a Saudi invasion of Bahrain is not; even though the percentage of the population involved in the uprising's protests in the tiny island nation -- now brutally suppressed -- is staggeringly huge.
Back in Libya, things have not been looking good for the Libyan revolution. Government forces seized the upper hand, repressing protests in the capital, Tripoli, and then turning the protest movement on a military defensive. Government forces have retaken most of the cities which threw off allegiance to Qaddafi, leaving now only Misurata, Tobruk and Benghazi under the control of rebel protesters. Qaddafi's propaganda machine seems to have somewhat successfully rallied some of the population behind a wide range of accusations against the opposition ranging from the absurd (they're all on drugs) to the unlikely (they're all Al Qaeda) to the partially true (some of them support foreign intervention).
The hypocrisy is flying fast and furious in the Middle East. The Arab League and the United Nations looked the other way when hundreds of innocent people were being murdered by Israeli offensives in Lebanon and Gaza in recent years. Indeed the "Palestine Papers" released by Al Jazeera tell a story of massive complicity between the region's governments, Israel and the U.S. to destroy Hamas and the Lebanese resistance, no matter how many innocent people suffered. Now that oil supplies to Europe are threatened, and that Europe is gazing nervously at a potential new wave of brown-skinned immigrants, suddenly Qaddafi is enemy number one again. Never mind that just yesterday he had become Europe and America's best friend; an "ally in the war on terror" and fully embraced by Italy's incredibly corrupt Berlusconi as a bulwark against African immigration. Just a couple months ago the dictator's son Seif al-Islam al Qaddafi was being heralded in the American media as the LSE-graduated face of reform and reconciliation. Now Seif al-Islam is leading the counterattack against the popular uprising. Wednesday Hillary Clinton was on a visit to Egypt: walking around Tahrir Square in the aftermath of that country's revolution she said ever so wide-eyed, "To see where this revolution happened, and all that it has meant to the world, is extraordinary for me." Never mind her office's massive ambivalence about the Egyptian protests when they were actually happening. A group of revolutionary youth refused an invitation to meet with her. By the time she got to Tunisia Thursday there were protests against her. According to the Angry Arab News service"Demonstrators chanted: "No to normalisation, Tunisia is free and not for sale" or "Tunisia is an Arab country, neither imperialist nor Zionist."
It's deeply ironic that President Obama is now once again emulating Ronald Reagan, who famously authorized airstrikes on Libya back in 1986. While one of Qaddafi's children was killed by those airstrikes, Qaddafi and his regime survived, his fake anti-imperialism given credibility by American enmity. It is terrible that Qaddafi is making headway against the rebels. But we've seen this story before. There's a short one word answer for those who think this will end well: I-R-A-Q. So much for the antiwar President.
It's not clear to me how the UN resolution will now be carried out: no doubt if airstrikes begin they will be done under cover of "NATO." But the world just got a little more dangerous. The U.S., NATO, the U.N., the Arab League: they don't care about the Libyan people. They care about power. About stability. About preventing the spread of uncontrolled popular uprisings. About oil.
And who the fuck thinks the U.S. needs another war?
The stunning wave of popular protest in the Middle East continues. The latest reports suggest that the 40+ year dictatorship of Muammar El Qaddafi is about to fall. Cities like Benghazi in the east of the country are rumored to be under the control of a popular uprising; Libyan diplomats worldwide are renouncing Qaddafi; and Qaddafi's military is apparently splitting under his orders to repress the uprising with live fire and bombs. The BBC radio today claimed two Libyan jet fighters defected to Malta rather than follow their orders to fire on protesters. Hundreds of people are rumored to have been killed.
Economists are raising concern about Libya's stability, because despite Libya's one-time anti-imperialist posturing it is today a key oil supplier to Europe. The economies of former colonial powers Italy and the U.K. are intertwined with Libya's. See the always insightful Lenin's Tomb ("A Regime in Mortal Freefall") for the story of how Libya "came in from the cold" and traded in its leftwing posturing in return for better relations (lots of money) with the West. (Cahokian readers can see plenty of evidence of Libya's strained relationship with the U.S. in my "Anti-American Art" series in stamps which document the US bombing raid on Libya in 1986). European countries are freaking out at the events in Libya, worried that the flow of oil will be replaced by a flow of asylum seekers. Europe has always preferred docility in its southern neighbors.
Qaddafi came to power in a 1969 military coup that overthrew a Kingdom that had been set up in a process of decolonization following World War II. He assumed first the mantle of Arab nationalism and later Pan-Africanism. He developed a self-serving faux egalitarian ideology that accused political parties of being anti-democratic. So of course they were banned. Not officially the ruler of the country, he is the Great Man and Brother Leader, who guides the "people's authority" that has titular role of what he calls "The Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya." But his messianic ideology of mass autonomy is all for show, window dressing on a hard-fisted military dictatorship. He has of late championed African unity, and making the United Nations more representative, both of which seem completely self-serving.
In the Libyan story there's a cautionary tale for leftists. In the 1970s Qaddafi tried to use his oil wealth to buy supporters. Among various adventures supporting revolutionaries, he bankrolled the English Workers Revolutionary Party of Gerry Healey, a hitherto Trotskyist Party, which soon began to promote the Green Book, the impenetrable bible of Qaddafi's ideological pretension. (The WRP was notable at the time as home to actors Corin and Vanessa Redgrave; Vanessa Redgrave's heroic defense of the Palestine Liberation Organization is sadly tainted by the corrupt relationship of her faction to this faux revolutionary dictator). Ultimately the WRP was accused of spying on Libyan (and Iraqi) dissidents in England and sending reports back to Qaddafi and Saddam Hussein. I actually remember back in the late 1970s when I was active on the left how the American supporters of the WRP, called the Workers League, started acting like complete kooks. At the same time they had a major slander campaign that the leadership of the also-Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party were actually police spies and Russian agents, so the addition of Qaddafi's Green Book to their literature tables just seemed like icing on a bizarre cake.
There's an excellent blog post by David Osler that warns against taking the self-professed anti-imperialism of otherwise questionable figures too seriously: "There is one obvious moral in all this for revolutionary socialists; if you align yourself with people like this, you are reneging on the basic understanding that the emancipation of the working class is an act of the working class itself, not of any old hoodlum who espouses populism of Islamic colouration. And no matter how much money you get for it, it isn’t worth it."
Qaddafi is the last of the old-school left-talking military rulers in the Middle East. Hopefully he hasn't completely poisoned the well of hope that real, democratic socialism represents.
I snagged this picture from an amazing collection of photos of Egyptian women in the current protests. It's on a facebook album compiled by Leil-Zahra Mortada.
Could it be any clearer? It's humanity vs. a faceless insectoid force. How inspiring moments like these are when fear is laid down and hope takes hold: hope that there is something better that can be grasped in the hands of people acting together. I hope the people of Egypt are not only able to stay resolute but able to win the hearts of these men dressed as insects, and have them shed their carapaces of repression and violence, and come over to the side of humanity.
Meanwhile on the side of the insects, Republican Weeper, er, Speaker of the House John Boehner said "What we don't want are radical ideologies to take control of a very large and important country in the Middle East."
"'We are not taking sides' regarding the deadly clashes between protesters and government forces in Tunisia, US State Secretary Hillary Clinton said according to an English-language transcript of an interview with Al-Arabiya television, received by AFP on Wednesday." Reported on an Egyptian website (now offline due to state repression) and linked by the Angry Arab, January 12, 2011.
Two days later on January 14, a week of massive demonstrations sent the U.S. backed Tunisian dictator Zine Abedine Ben Ali packing to Saudi Arabia, legendary home of deposed tyrants. And so the U.S. backtracked and announced its support of the Tunisian revolution -- as though there was a choice -- to the point where President Obama even mentioned it in his State of the Union speech this week. But along the way the people of the Middle East noticed something: how easy it was to overthrow a tyrant.
In quick succession two more things happened stirring the political pot in the Arab world. First, the Lebanese national resistance movement Hezbollah, derided in the West as terrorists, but actually something much more complicated, flexed its muscles and caused the Lebanese government to fall. The pro-American prime minister was quickly replaced by one picked out by Hezbollah and its allies. Then, the Qatar-based Al Jazeera network released a wikileaks-like trove of documents that have come to be called "The Palestine Papers" documenting years of diplomacy between the Palestinian Authority, Israel, the U.S. and Egypt. The papers are dynamite: they show the PA cravenly giving in to Israel, and then show the Israelis turning away. They show plans for massive population transfers of Palestinian citizens of Israel to the West Bank and plans to give away huge swaths of Palestinian land in return for recognition of a PA microstate. They show massive collusion between Arab governments like Egypt and the Palestinian Authority with Israel during its brutal attack on Hamas-ruled Gaza two years ago. And they detail American betrayal after betrayal from the Bush era clear through to today's Obama administration. And they remind the world that when the Palestinians exercised free and fair elections and voted in a movement that the U.S., Israel and so-called moderate Arab regimes didn't approve of, these forces united against democracy and tried to crush that Palestinian will of the people.
Which brings us to this week.
"O Mubarak. O Mubarak. Saudi Arabia is waiting for you!" -- chanted by demonstrators at the beginning of this week in Egypt. And so it began. Egypt is suddenly rocked by demonstrations, modest at first but soon massive. The Egyptian dictator Mubarak who has ruled Egypt since the assassination of Sadat thirty years ago is being put on notice by a mass pro-democracy movement. The Egyptian government sent out its forces of repression, at first sending the police and military into the streets, and then today shutting down telecommunications and the internet. The photo above shows where the teargas came from: here in the United States of America. (It's fitting to note that last month a middle-aged Palestinian woman was killed by American teargas wielded by Israelis in the town of Bilin.)
Last night Vice President Biden spoke on public television. Did he call for democracy? Hah! As reported by the Christian Science Monitor, reposted on Lenin's Tomb blog: "NewsHour host Jim Lehrer asked Biden if the time has "come for President Mubarak of Egypt to go?" Biden answered: "No. I think the time has come for President Mubarak to begin to move in the direction that – to be more responsive to some... of the needs of the people out there." Asked if he would characterize Mubarak as a dictator Biden responded: “Mubarak has been an ally of ours in a number of things. And he’s been very responsible on, relative to geopolitical interest in the region, the Middle East peace efforts; the actions Egypt has taken relative to normalizing relationship with – with Israel. … I would not refer to him as a dictator.”
Moderate Egyptian opposition figure Mohamed ElBaradei who has now joined the protests, reacted late this week to the American response in the New York Times: "He was stunned, he said, by the reaction of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to the Egyptian protests. In a statement after Tuesday’s clashes, she urged restraint but described the Egyptian government as “stable” and “looking for ways to respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people.” “ ‘Stability’ is a very pernicious word,” he said. “Stability at the expense of 30 years of martial law, rigged elections?” He added, “If they come later and say, as they did in Tunis, ‘We respect the will of the Tunisian people,’ it will be a little late in the day.”
(Photo from today of a confrontation on a bridge over the Nile river from a Twitter feed.)
Today the demonstrations were more massive than ever, and military violence was unleashed. Demonstrators were bloodied and many were arrested; though there were some encouraging reports of demonstrators fraternizing with soldiers. Mubarak got on TV to say he would dismiss his government but would not give up power, and he threatened to unleash the full repressive power of the state. President Obama got on TV to call on Mubarak to respect the human rights of Egyptian citizens. But he also lectured the demonstrators against violence: "Violence and destruction will not lead to the reforms they seek." (Afghanistan, anyone? Anyway....) And he certainly failed to advocate Mubarak surrending to the democratic will of the people.
Meanwhile, demonstrations have been reported in Yemen.
Here's the sad truth, plain for all to see. While it's too soon to know what will ultimately happen, and too soon to know how any new governments in the region might orient to the United States and Israel, the first impulse of the United States has now been plainly and repeatedly shown to be backing dictatorships against mass popular democratic forces. All President Bush's trite claims of bringing democracy to the Arab world and President Obama's claims of new international relationships based on mutual respect are shown to be nothing more than empty tear-gas canisters.
The U.S. and its main ally Israel are shown to be more nervous about the threat of independent uncontrolled regimes than they are hopeful about an end to tyrants. No matter how in the end American diplomats might come to praise any revolutionary progress, their first choice was to defend the dictatorial status quo.
But these potential revolutions give me great hope. In them one might see a glimmer of hope that the collusion between corrupt gangs of thieves that prop up the Israeli apartheid state, that victimize the Palestinian people, that indeed dispossess regular people across the Middle East, might now finally be swept away. And no thank you, America.
Democracy FAIL.
(P.S. In addition to the blogs already mentioned check out Mondoweiss for great ongoing coverage of Egypt.)
Something amazing is happening in the Middle East. Revolution in Tunisia, directly threatening US (and Israeli) support of dictators; the resistance in Lebanon flexing its muscles; the amazing revelations from Al-Jazeera about the U.S., Israel and Fatah teaming up to sell out the Palestinian people; the Israeli government's whitewash about the Mavi Marmara. And now in Egypt. I'll compose my thoughts on all this in an upcoming post but meanwhile watch this incredible video just filmed in Egypt, as demonstrators stare down a police water cannon...shades of Tienanmen. Amazing and inspiring. First seen on Mondoweiss.
"In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful" is what this calligraphy reads; it's the first line of the Holy Qur'an, the sacred book of Islam. It's an invocation, meant to sanctify the words that follow. Now I am not a Muslim, and, secure in my own faith, I've not studied Islam and don't see myself ever walking down that path. But I have tremendous respect for this religion that seeks to recognize the presence of God in all we do in life, and attempts to turn the very act of living into the act of worship. In my own experience of worship, I can see how powerful the act of submission is, of bowing down to God, that Muslims are supposed to commit several times a day in reverent unison as an act of prayer.
I'm writing this post today as it's reported that American-born Yemeni cleric and spokesperson for Al-Qaeda Anwar al-Awlaki has called for the death of the Seattle cartoonist who a few months ago proposed "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day." Liberals have rushed to condemn this cleric's fatwa--as it should be condemned--and people up and down the spectrum have cited this cleric's edict as proof of what a horrible religion Islam is and how they're going to stand firm against the censorial urges of terrorists. Read the comments on any of today's blogs and weep.
"Everybody Draw Mohammad Day" was the brainchild of Seattle cartoonist Molly Norris, and was championed by Seattle blogger, sex-columnist, gay activist, and racist provocateur Dan Savage in reaction to the censorship imposed on an episode of Comedy Central's shock-humor cartoon South Park, and is the latest salvo in the conflict that came to a head after a Danish cartoonist was widely protested by conservative Muslims for drawing an insulting cartoon of the prophet Muhammad.
Let me say that I think censorship is wrong. Let me say that free speech is one of those few blessings we in the U.S. are lucky to have. Let me say that artists have the right to provoke us to thought, to challenge our assumptions and our prejudices; they have the right and indeed the obligation to play with symbols both secular and sacred. I contest none of this.
But I contest the willful campaign to insult Muslims by provocatively, carelessly, and wantonly violating a belief held by many Muslims that the Prophet Muhammad is not to be depicted in graven image. One piece of art, two pieces of art, a cartoon, is something to think about, to debate, maybe to embrace or maybe to protest. All of these things are appropriate (as death sentences and fatwas are inappropriate).
But what's happening with those who embraced "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day" (which was to be last May 10 and seems to have passed more or less forgotten, til today's news headline), is that the ugly side of American arrogance is revealed. As people rush to defend their right to collectively lump all Muslims together with terrorists, with censorship, with fundamentalism, with those dangerous others who we must dehumanize or win to our own, morally superior vision of the world, this is revealed as a something quite different than a free-speech protest. Above all the "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day" movement is a racist movement, which willfully and ignorantly juxtaposes the right of Americans to insult anybody they want to. In the end, "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day" is about inspiring hate, and far from proving the moral superiority of the American way, be it secular or Christian, proves only arrogant self-centeredness.
This is the arrogance that lead George Bush to attack and invade Iraq in revenge for 9/11 despite Iraq having absolutely nothing to do with that day's terrorist attack. This is the arrogance that leads America to meddle -- under Bush's predecessors and his successor Obama -- over and over again in the Middle East to the benefit of American strategic and financial interests and the detriment of the people living there. This is the arrogance that allows the Obama administration to put this heinous Al-Qaeda spokeperson (and American citizen) Al-Awlaki on a list -- not of those to be brought to justice and tried -- of those to be assassinated or executed without right of due process should the opportunity arise. This is the arrogance we must fight against. Just as much as it is terrorists standing in the way of peace in so much of the Middle East, it is American arrogance standing in that same place.
I don't know if my experience of God, of spirit, is the same as what Muslims experience. I know their religion, like so many others, says their duty is to convert me to to their vision, and I disagree with that. My faith is also strong enough to withstand that. My religion has no such moral certainty that it is the only way, and I like it that way. I know I have many theological differences with Islam, as I do with most religions I know a little bit about. But my religious convictions allow me to find common ground with other people trying to make sense of an experience of living life that is mysterious, confusing, often wonderful and sometimes hard, despite those differences, even when they seem fundamental.
So I won't be drawing any pictures of Muhammad. Peace be upon him. I extend my hand in friendship.
"I have never chewed qat. But I was thinking: if I had a choice of chewing qat with Thomas Friedman, or chewing my shoes by myself, I would go with the shoe, any day." --Angry Arab News Service, Feb 10, 2010 referencing the wealthy narcissist and NYT columnist Friedman's recent visit to Yemen
So just to get it out of the way, a massacre of students in a school is a pretty awful thing, even if that school was a training ground for the racist ultra-zionist Israeli settler movement. It's despressing to think that the soul-deadening mathematical response is necessary, but I point out that Israel just killed a hundred people in Gaza, certainly no less an awful thing, the disgusting display of official Israeli "regret" at civilian casualty notwithstanding. (I always learned that regretting something meant you intended not to do it again. The Israeli "regret" is complete and utter racist bullshit.)
All of that said I find it fascinating that the attack on the school was immediately reported as an attack on a seminary. One could argue that seminary is a fair translation for yeshiva. But then isn't it a fair translation for madrassa as well?
A seminary is full of earnest young spiritual seekers, learning the details of faith so that they might commit their lives to prayer and betterment of mankind. A yeshiva is a walled-off temple of mystery, where weirdly-dressed quaint, if somewhat distasteful strangers go to engage in weird mumbling, seeking ancient knowledge to preserve their alien presence in the world of normal people. A madrassa is a nest of terrorist vipers, where they keep their machine guns and scimitars (the ones for cutting off human heads), where crazed and delusional fanatics rouse themselves into an anti-human frenzy before going off and murdering innocents.
The problem here is that seminaries, yeshivas, and madrassas are all the same thing, just as all blood is red. It's really the problem, isn't it, with discussions of the middle east, that the mathematics of this tragedy and its translation are in the hands of manipulators, liars, and killers, and the ones who love them.
I was too sick to post about this when I first heard it, and it seems to be oddly under-reported, but apparently it has been confirmed that longtime Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat died of AIDS. And it seems to be confirmed that this was sexually transmitted, and that Arafat had well-known homosexual proclivities. In my mind this explains much of why Arafat has not been lionized since his passing, which I've always thought was odd since he was such a symbol of the Palestinian struggle during his lifetime.
While much could be said about Arafat and his choices, I choose to remember him as a hero, and now a gay hero. He never gave up, or sold out, the fight for Palestinian freedom: something that could not be said of the current Palestine authority coup leaders/Israeli collaborators under Abu Mazen. He resisted that final temptation to sell out Palestinian dreams to an intolerable ministate in the last negotiations under President Clinton. Although reviled for his refusal to clinch an almost done deal, I think he showed true wisdom and bravery. While many of his actions could be criticized over the years, this last one, and his heroic last stand in the ruins of Ramallah, redeem much of his blustery checkered past.
I am one gay man who welcomes him into the ranks of beloved AIDS dead.
