September 5, 2003 - October 30, 2003
London mayor bans Martin from black history talks
Posted: Thursday, October 30, 2003
By Terry Joseph
October 29, 2003
Outrage among Britons of African descent, ignited by London Mayor Ken Livingstone's "dis-invitation" of Professor Tony Martin to speak at last Saturday's First-Voice – Dialogue with the Diaspora, has exploded into an international furore.
A highly acclaimed Marcus Garvey scholar who has delivered many lectures here, Prof Martin was invited since May to speak at the October 25 forum, London's contribution to annual British observance of Black History Month, arranged and funded by the mayor's office. On October 15, Lee Jasper, Livingstone's advisor on race relations, wrote Martin "dis-inviting him to the conference.
Even as he acknowledged Martin's intellectual integrity, Jasper wrote:
"Having confirmed with you that you attended and spoke at David Irving's 'Real History Conference' in 2001 and the Institute for Historical Review's annual conference in 2002 and that both of these conferences included speakers known for their anti-Semitic and racist activities including Holocaust denial, the Mayor's Office had decided to withdraw its invitation to you to address the First Voice conference on Saturday 25 October."
In a front-page article of its October 17 issue, under the headline "Livingstone bars 'anti-Jewish' historian from conference", The Jewish Chronicle quoted correspondence between Louise Ellman (Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside and vice-chair of the Inter-Parliamentary Council against Anti-Semitism) and Jasper, saying the exchange constituted the basis for the Mayor's "prompt and appropriate action" and noted Ellman's "delight at the mayor's quick move."
Blacks in London immediately set up an e-mail petition aimed at persuading other invitees to decline in solidarity, a protest that enjoyed massive support on home turf and quickly spread to the international community; attracting a flood of responses.
Trinidad and Tobago's Emancipation Support Committee (ESC), who have hosted Prof. Martin at conferences here, had added its voice. In a scathing letter signed by chairman Khafra Kambon, the organization waded into Jasper, expressing "abhorrence" at the last minute withdrawal of Prof. Martin's invitation to speak at the forum.
"The reasons presented by you for the withdrawal are irrational, offensive and worst of all, self-demeaning," the ESC letter said. "If your primary motivation is an acute sensitivity to anti-Semitism, how does that eliminate Dr. Martin?
"Intellectually he is a known quantity. There is profuse, publicly available material by which his views can be judged. We suggest you take another look at the dangerous principle which you are seeking to enshrine by your actions. Your letter did not suggest that Dr. Martin took part in meetings or rallies which were designed to incite hatred against Jews.
"The implication of your letter is that our intellectuals and academics should exercise a brutal self-censorship and ensure that they do not unknowingly or by design appear on platforms with persons who are targeted by Jews as an anti-semitic, a designation readily bestowed by hypersensitive Jews.
"What irony, in Black Heritage Month," the letter betimes an apology to Prof. Martin, the African community in London and the entire Pan African world and suggesting Jasper relinquish his position as (Policy Director, Equalities and Policing) at the Mayor's Office.
In his response to Jasper, dated October 15, Prof. Martin said (inter alia):
"I thought that you were just another overwrought Jew who sees "antisemites" everywhere, and annoying though partly explicable phenomenon. Now, however, I discover that you are that most singular of that phenomenon, to wit a black talking head for Jewish ventriloquism.
"I addressed the first abovementioned conference on the Jewish role in the African slave trade, a topic that overwrought Jews consider ipso facto anti-Semitic. I addressed the other on the tactics of organized Jewry against persons like myself who they disagree with," he wrote.
Prof. Martin added that if he was seen as anti-semitic for addressing conferences so perceive, then "this kind of reasoning would also make me a talking head for overwrought Jews for my willingness to speak at your conference," saying too, "I hope that someday you will become as diligent in the knowledge of your own history as you now appear to be in mindlessly parroting the misconceptions of others."
Other speakers invited were Ms Shabazz (eldest daughter of Malcolm X); Dr. Gamal Nkrumah (son of Kwame Nkrumah), Dr. Julius Garvey (son of Marcus Garvey), Paul Robeson Jnr. (son of Paul Robeson). All earlier references to Councillor Stephen Padmore, first described as the son of George Padmore, were later removed after authoritative sources questioned his bona fides. It is not the first time London has banned a black speaker, Louis Farrakhan having suffered the same fate in 1986.
Prof. Tony Martin Dis-Invited to UK!
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Why Reparations for Blacks is in Every White's Self-Interest
Posted: Sunday, October 26, 2003
By Rootsie, www.rootsie.com
"Let us look at ourselves, if we can bear to, and see what is becoming of us. First we must face that unexpected revelation, the strip-tease of our humanism. There you can see it, quite naked, and it's not a pretty sight. It was nothing but an ideology of lies, a perfect justification for pillage; its honeyed words, its affectation of sensibility were only alibis for our aggressions. A fine sight they are too, the believers in nonviolence, saying that they are neither executioners nor victims. Very well then; if you're not victims when the government which you've voted for, when the army in which your younger brothers are serving without hesitation or remorse, have undertaken race murder, you are, without a shadow of doubt, executioners. And if you choose to be victims and to risk being put in prison for a day or two, you are simply choosing to pull your irons out of the fire. But you will not be able to pull them out; they'll have to stay there till the end."
Sartre wrote this in 1961, when France was in the midst of its disaster in Algeria, but he describes well the moral predicament of the Western world after 500 years of African slavery and colonialism. Advocates for reparations for chattel slavery and genocidal African colonialism have presented a number of legal arguments to the United Nations and individual governments in the West, citing international law. My purpose here is to highlight not the legal arguments, but the moral and spiritual ones, to suggest to my fellow whites that reparations are in our own best interest.
Few but the richest among us would argue that these are great days. Much concern is voiced in Western societies about violence, particularly among our youth. Drug abuse and alcoholism and their attendant lawlessness and violence are plaguing families and communities. There is a radical fall-off in Church attendance; God just doesn't seem relevant anymore. Others of us worry about our rampant materialism, the degradation of our environment, the corruption of our governments, the stresses of our daily lives. Still others are disgusted by the proliferation of pornography, the sensational fear-mongering of the media, the flashy stupidity of 'popular culture.' Those whose eyes are turned towards the larger world are alarmed by what looks like a global corporate takeover. They are appalled by Western arrogance and aggression against the rest of the world. Still others are afraid of 'the terrorists', the dark foreign hordes of 'them' who for reasons unknown want to kill 'us.' Not great days. Indeed.
All at once it sounds hollow to hear ourselves say, "This is still the greatest country in the world." Back in 1976, we laughed at Jimmy Carter's speech about 'spiritual malaise', but if we are not in the United States a country literally ill-at-ease, I don't know what could better describe us. Shame, Karl Marx said, is a 'revolutionary sentiment,' a catalyst for change. What do we privileged ones in the West have to be ashamed of? The very sources of our privilege.
It seems that our historical chickens have come home to roost. We are ill-equipped to deal with this development, since history has never been one of our strong subjects. History is something we most often tell people to forget about. 'Forget about the past. Let bygones be bygones. That was then. This is now.' Unfortunately this is not how history works. I like to think of history as a flowing river in which we all swim. The past informs the present informs the future in an unending process. We are inevitably shaped by what has been, so much of our present identities determined by our ancestry, our personal and collective history. Marcus Garvey said that a people without the knowledge of their history is like a tree without roots. Well a tree without roots is one dead tree. Because we have forgotten or denied or distorted or chosen not to know our history, we are tossed about by forces we cannot even name, and this increases our anxiety and our attraction to diversions and distractions from our true purpose here.
But we are faced with even starker truths. White supremacy is not a thing of the past, but still mangles and maims both victim and aggressor to this very day. It is all very well for us to say, "I am not the bad guy. I am not a racist,' but if we, willingly or not, benefit from a global system of white domination, we are indeed Sartre's 'executioners,' and every move that's made by our governments and corporations to assert that domination over other human beings strips us of our humanity more surely than it does the victims. For what the slavemasters discovered was that to completely dehumanize a slave was to make him useless for work, and so the dehumanization was never complete. And because of this, because of the simmering rage of the enslaved ones, the only solution was brute force. This made our ancestors into murderers and torturers, and though we have laws against such things, they murdered and tortured with impunity. They got around basic moral law by putting dark-skinned people into another species, a sort of super-ape. Though I must say that even a man who beats a dog is looked upon with disgust. This is the white man's heritage. This is our history.
And it does us no good to say "well that's not me." Malcolm X's and Elijah Mohamed's "White Devil" is a description of a condition, and we only had to be born white to fit the bill. This is not 'fair'. But this is reality. And I do not hesitate to say that the moral disintegration of Western culture is directly attributable to our failure to honestly engage the consequences of our history of chattel slavery and colonialism.
In the United States, it is patently clear that American Blacks were never given a level playing field. The '40 acres and a mule' idea died in 1866, and Senator Charles Sumner wept and said that that day would be remembered in history as the day of destruction for America. The few Blacks who have 'made it' are the exception, and not the rule. They are a testimony to the resilience and tenacity of African people, and should not be cited in arguments about basic justice. The poorest people in the United States, the most-incarcerated, the least college-educated, the most unemployed, are Black and Native American. It was the slave-labor of Blacks and the colonial exploitation of Africa and Latin America that put the 'capital' in capitalism. Those who call for reparations are sending us a bill for services rendered, for resources consumed. We're the first ones to say in other contexts, 'there's no such thing as a free lunch.'
But my concern here is what it has cost us and continues to cost us to fail to act on a matter of basic justice. I have worked with teenagers for 15 years. I have watched them awaken with a shock to the world as it is. What they need from their elders in that moment is truth, and what they get is silence and attempts at diversion. We have abandoned our children to fend for themselves among themselves. They think us hypocrites and they are right. What's all this talk about freedom and liberty and justice for all? They are initiated by strangers into the 'adult world' of consumerism and moral chaos. And then we wonder why they are so oppositional, so 'delinquent', and so violent. They are our children. That is the answer. We, the world's war-mongers and weapons merchants and drug merchants are alarmed by and uncomprehending of the anger of our children. Our school systems, racist as are all of our institutions in the West, skirt the issues that are so crucial to the healthy development of children because truth is required, and in order to tell the children the truth we would have to admit it to ourselves. Toni Morrison's novel Beloved is a story about the angry little ghost of a murdered child, enraged because the circumstances of her death have been repressed by the mother who slit that child's throat rather than have her delivered into slavery. I have seen that little ghost again and again haunting the faces of my Black students, furious and not knowing why, victims of a denied history. This is not some romantic notion on my part. It was my experience as a teacher that taught me the power of history denied to destroy, and the power of history reclaimed to heal. The situation is no less serious for white children. In a system of injustice, oppressed and oppressor are both mangled.
Reparations for slavery and colonialism are in our self-interest for the same reasons that moral conduct is in our self-interest. For 500 years we have been trumpeting our moral superiority across the planet, a Bible in one hand, a sword in the other. I remember asking my 17 year-old-daughter why she refused to step into a church, even to hear her mother sing. Her eyes filled with angry tears. Moral conduct is not in our self-interest because it guarantees us a place in the heavenly choir. Moral conduct improves our lives, brings sense to stupidity, and order to chaos. Dealing honestly and honorably with the consequences of our history restores integrity, gives substance to our democratic ideals, and steadies us. Compensating the victims of a history of plunder from which we have benefited is the only way to close the book on that history. If we seriously believe that we can continue traveling through history with impunity for our actions, we'd best remember those planes smashing into those towers. That is just a foretaste of what is in store for us if we remain unwilling to engage history as an equal partner with everyone else on the planet.
So yes. The party's over. We have to get a whole lot more serious, and quick. There is not a little purple pill for this. It used to be that our ancestors would willingly give their lives before they would give offense to God. They knew that a life lived out of alignment with Divine Law was not a life worth living. These days in humanist circles it's more shocking and controversial to talk about God than it is to talk about the porn movie you jacked off to last night. Let's say Natural Law then, or karma, the law of cause and effect. And by the way, the guests at Deepak Chopra's new-age healing spa in La Jolla can meditate and stretch and actualize themselves till the cows come home, and as long as they are privileged whites living in America who do not use that privilege to end their privilege, it's dry bones in a dry land for them. It's La Jolla without the irrigation. Nothing they do will prosper. No happiness they think to achieve will last.
Reproduced from:
http://www.rootsie.com/articles/26102003.html
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Race, Athletes and Public Perception
Posted: Tuesday, October 21, 2003
O.J. REVISITED
Kobe Bryant, Marv Albert, & Latrell Sprewell
Race, Athletes and Public Perception
by Ellen Rosner, www.blackcommentator.com
Kobe Bryant, like OJ did, stands at the crossroads of two American myths:
Kobe is a Black man accused of raping a White woman
and
a beloved sports-figure.
What happens when America's dream meets America's nightmare?
When God Bless America meets Birth of a Nation?
What does race have to do with it?
The media would have us believe - nothing.
When Latrell Sprewell, an African-American professional basketball player, put his hands around the throat of his coach P.J. Carlesimo, he was given the harshest sentence in the history of the NBA. Although an arbitrator reduced his suspension from one year to seven months, Sprewell's fine of 6.4 million dollars was the largest in the history of professional sports. The public and media reaction was swift and almost uniformly condemnatory. As Peter H. King wrote in the Los Angeles Times, "One might think he had stabbed his wife to death."
He was called pathological, a sociopath, America's worst nightmare. When he sued the NBA for lost income, he was compared to Charles Manson!
Sprewell became a symbol first for the perceived "thug" mentality of the NBA (which term was somehow only applied to Black players), then for "violent Black male athletes" and by extension for all Black violence. Lurid headlines read: "Open Season: Patients Now Running the NBA Asylum", "Sprewell Story an Analogy for World Gone Mad", "Gang Chic as a Marketing Tool".
Consider the short, kinky saga of Marv Albert. The Knicks' broadcaster (originator of the ubiquitous "Yess!"), was accused of biting the back of his ex-lover and forcing her to perform oral sex. He was charged with forcible sodomy and assault and battery, and faced, if convicted, life in prison.
Albert denied all accusations. On the second day of the trial a second woman testified, describing two encounters in which Albert bit her and tried to force her to perform oral sex. In one of the encounters Marv was wearing a woman's panties and garter belt. Two days later he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault and battery. The felony charge of forcible sodomy was dropped. The judge deferred sentencing for a year and on October 9, 1998 his record was cleared of all charges.
From the time of his charge until the plea bargain, Albert continued to call NBA games for NBC. By December 1999 Marv is broadcasting Knicks games, MSG Sportsdesk nightly, Turner Sports, some basketball games for NBC, the Olympic Games in Australia for NBC, and the Goodwill Games.
A story of fall and redemption to warm the heart.
After Marv Albert, we did not read articles about the predatory nature of the broadcasting industry and its thug mentality.
But Spree, because of the intersection of race and sport, became a symbol for all that is "wrong" with the NBA:
too Black
too violent
too out of control
If a well-known African-American sports-figure had been accused of biting a woman while wearing panties and a garter belt, we'd still be reading about it five years later.
Mike Tyson bites off a piece of an opponent's ear in the ring.
Strange?
Yes. But stranger than Marv Albert's behavior?
This is not to denigrate what is purely a personal choice - one's manner of dress.
But Tyson is forever branded as an ear-biter. Latrell is still talked about as the man who choked his coach.
When did you ever hear Marv Albert referred to as the ‘cross-dressing, back-biting sportscaster'?
Mickey Mantle drank himself to death and remains a hero. Babe Ruth, throughout his career was a big drinker, a womanizer, irresponsible, and violated team rules. Yet his image is not tarnished, he is known - affectionately - as a "good ol' boy".
What Black athlete could have got away with The Babe's behavior, then or now, and not be pilloried?
Spree makes one mistake, and in spite of five and a half years of sin-free living his reputation is not rehabilitated.
The story of Kobe Bryant - whether he is found guilty or not - is guaranteed to churn out books about Athletes - their sense of entitlement, their violent behavior, their immoral lives. And what will be unspoken, but intended, is African-American athletes.
But the story of Marv Albert did not lead to studies of the pathology of broadcasters who assault women while wearing a garter belt.
All of which is to say that race is always present, whether stated or not. Race is why Sprewell became a symbol of black violence against white authority and why Marv Albert's "Yess" is again heard across the land.
Race is why White Legends - like Mantle, Ruth, Pete Rose - can have their transgressions forgiven, or at least overlooked.
After the Fall
The Black Athlete is never just an athlete - he is a "credit to his race" - like the early Jessie Owens, Jackie Robinson, or OJ.
(Simpson, before he was accused of a horrific crime, was the darling of the public and the media. He did what America demands of a star Black athlete - embraced racial neutrality and sold himself to the highest bidder. He was the first Black athlete to win major corporate endorsements. Before there was Michael Jordan, there was OJ.)
or
he is an affront to White people and the American way:
Jack Johnson, Muhammad Ali in his prime, Dennis Rodman, Latrell Sprewell
Why is forgiveness not available to the Black sports figure who falls from Grace?
The Black Athlete is not allowed to be multi-dimensional; he is demonized or deified.
(The two most popular Kobe web sites are FREEKOBE.com "Because we're running out of heroes" and FRYKOBE.com.)
And if the Black athlete falls from grace, he can expect no mercy. No redemption. This is what America does to its Star Athletes who are Black, or should we say to its Blacks who are Star Athletes.
It remains to be seen where Kobe Bean Bryant will fall in this mix.
But when a Black man stands accused of raping a White woman, know that race is not absent.
Kobe might well heed the words of Tupac Shakur in his Anthem to the Black Male Athlete: "Don't get caught up in the mix because the Media is Full of Dirty Tricks."
Ellen Rosner is a free-lance writer living in New Jesey.
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Gandhi branded racist in Johannesburg
Posted: Friday, October 17, 2003
Gandhi branded racist as Johannesburg honours freedom fighter
Rory Carroll in Johannesburg
Friday October 17, 2003
The Guardian
It was supposed to honour his resistance to racism in South Africa, but a new statue of Mahatma Gandhi in Johannesburg has triggered a row over his alleged contempt for black people.
The 2.5 metre high (8ft) bronze statue depicting Gandhi as a dashing young human rights lawyer has been welcomed by Nelson Mandela, among others, for recognising the Indian who launched the fight against white minority rule at the turn of the last century.
But critics have attacked the gesture for overlooking racist statements attributed to Gandhi, which suggest he viewed black people as lazy savages who were barely human.
Newspapers continue to publish letters from indignant readers: "Gandhi had no love for Africans. To [him], Africans were no better than the 'Untouchables' of India," said a correspondent to The Citizen.
Others are harsher, claiming the civil rights icon "hated" black people and ignored their suffering at the hands of colonial masters while championing the cause of Indians.
Unveiled this month, the statue stands in Gandhi Square in central Johannesburg, not far from the office from which he worked during some of his 21 years in South Africa.
The British-trained barrister was supposed to have been on a brief visit in 1893 to represent an Indian company in a legal action, but he stayed to fight racist laws after a conductor kicked him off a train for sitting in a first-class compartment reserved for whites.
Outraged, he started defending Indians charged with failing to register for passes and other political offences, founded a newspaper, and formed South Africa's first organised political resistance movement. His tactics of mobilising people for passive resistance and mass protest inspired black people to organise and some historians credit Gandhi as the progenitor of the African National Congress, which formed in 1912, two years before he returned to India to fight British colonial rule.
However, the new statue has prompted bitter recollections about some of Gandhi's writings.
Forced to share a cell with black people, he wrote: "Many of the native prisoners are only one degree removed from the animal and often created rows and fought among themselves."
He was quoted at a meeting in Bombay in 1896 saying that Europeans sought to degrade Indians to the level of the "raw kaffir, whose occupation is hunting and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with, and then pass his life in indolence and nakedness".
The Johannesburg daily This Day said GB Singh, the author of a critical book about Gandhi, had sifted through photos of Gandhi in South Africa and found not one black person in his vicinity.
The Indian embassy in Pretoria declined to comment, as it prepared for President Thabo Mbeki's visit to India.
Khulekani Ntshangase, a spokesman for the ANC Youth League, defended Gandhi, saying the critics missed the bigger picture of his immense contribution to the liberation struggle.
Gandhi's offending comments were made early in his life when he was influenced by Indians working on the sugar plantations and did not get on with the black people of modern-day KwaZulu-Natal province, said Mr Ntshangase.
"Later he got more enlightened."
© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003
More on Ghandi:
Gandhi and African Blacks
The Myth of Mahatma Ghandi
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Cuba and the Viciousness of the Bushites
Posted: Monday, October 13, 2003
By Kurt Nimmo
In order to please crucial "swing" voters in his brother's state, Junior has ratcheted up the anti-Castro rhetoric.
Bush has not threatened Castro outright -- not yet anyway -- but instead has said he will increase "restrictions" on Cuba. "The transition to freedom will present many challenges to the Cuban people and to America, and we will be prepared," declared Bush. He told Secretary of State Colin Powell and Housing Secretary Mel Martinez to "plan for the happy day when Castro's regime is no more and democracy comes to the island."
It wasn't all that long ago Bush said the same about Iraq.
In response to Bush's latest saber-rattling, Dagoberto Rodriguez, head of Cuba's diplomatic mission, said Bush should "stop acting like a lawless cowboy" and "start listening to the voices of the nations of the world."
Not likely. Bush doesn't know anything but the "lawless cowboy" routine. Like the run-of-the-mill playground bully, it's how he and the neocons deal with the world.
Of course, considering how strapped the Pentagon is with the whole Iraq imbroglio, chances they will invade Cuba anytime soon are slim to none. Instead, they will continue to make life miserable for a few million Cubans.
But then, thanks to over four decades of economic warfare, misery is common fare for the vast majority of Cubans.
Paying for the egregious sin of deposing the brutal military dictator Fulgencio Batista Zaldívar -- friend of both US business interests and gangster Meyer Lansky -- is a never-ending and ever-increasing debt for the Cuban people.
It seems the lawless cowboy in Washington wants them to hanker for the good old days when Havana served as an international drug port and as the "Latin Las Vegas" for the likes of Frank Costello, Vito Genovese, Santo Trafficante Jr., Moe Dalitz and other notable mobsters.
Neoconservatives, who like to call themselves "Conservative Internationalists," have always had it out for Castro and the communists of Cuba. But then so have any number of US presidents, from Kennedy to Clinton.
It's just that the Bushites are more operatic about it.
Last year Josh Bolton, US Under Secretary of State, gave a speech before the rabid rightwing Heritage Foundation entitled "Beyond the Axis of Evil." In the speech, Bolton designated Cuba, Libya and Syria as "rogue states," in other words states facing possible military action. Bolton went so far as to say "Cuba's threat to our security has often been underplayed," stopping an inch short of claiming Castro plans to attack Florida with biological weapons.
It was the other way around, though.
Back in 1961 and 1962, the CIA used biological weapons on Cuba's agricultural workers. A decade later, the CIA introduced swine fever into the island, precipitating an epidemic which culminated in the death of 500,000 pigs.
The Washington Post further detailed the US covert war against Cuba in 1979 when it published an article claiming the Pentagon had produced biological agents to use against Cuba's sugar cane and tobacco production. Other suspicious disease outbreaks include haemorraghic conjunctivitis, dengue fever, dysentery, ulcerative mammillitis, black sigatoka, and citric sapper blight, to name but a few. In 1977, CIA documents disclosed that the Agency "maintained a clandestine anti-crop warfare research program targeted during the 1960s at a number of countries throughout the world," according to the Washington Post.
"In 1984, Eduardo Arocena, leader of the terrorist group OMEGA-7, admitted to an American jury that he had taken part in operations to introduce deadly viruses into Cuba as part of a secret biological warfare programme against Havana," writes Marcia Miranda. Arocena was trained in the use of explosives by Cuban exiles who were trained by the CIA.
And then there was Operation Northwoods.
As James Bamford writes in his book, Body of Secrets, "Operation Northwoods called for a war in which many patriotic Americans and innocent Cubans would die senseless deaths -- all to satisfy the egos of twisted generals back in Washington, safe in their taxpayer-financed homes and limousines."
So fanatically anti-Castro was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Lemnitzer that he not only proposed killing scores of innocent Cubans, but also John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth. "Thus, as NASA prepared to send the first American into space, the Joint Chiefs of Staff were preparing to use John Glenn's possible death as a pretext to launch a war," Bamford writes.
As the Senate Foreign Relations Committee reported in 1961, right-wing extremism was prevalent in the Pentagon. "Among the key targets of the extremists, the Committee said, was the Kennedy administration's domestic social program, which many ultraconservatives accused of being communistic... much of the administration's domestic legislative program... would be characterized as steps toward communism." Not long after the Senate issued its report, Kennedy was assassinated.
Now we call "ultraconservatives" neocons.
No doubt this current crop of fascistic rightwingers would love to engineer the same sort of social chaos in Havana they engineered in Baghdad. Imagine Raul and Ramon Castro, the younger brothers of Fidel, suffering the same fate as Uday and Qusay Hussein. Imagine yet another deck of playing cards distributed by the Pentagon with pictures of Carlos Rafael Rodríguez, Ramiro Valdés Menéndez, Lázaro Peña, and other members of the Communist Party of Cuba.
Naturally, the Bushites will not be invading Cuba soon, especially considering how over stretched and bogged down they are in Iraq. No, there are more practical matters at hand, such as the United Nations vote on easing the embargo on Cuba next month. Junior has also warned that he will veto any measure approved by the Congress that gives relief to the Cuban people.
"Cuba sera pronto libre [Cuba will soon be free],'' said Bush from the Rose Garden the other day. In the meantime, however, he will settle for a spate of new visas and investigations by the Ministry of Homel
As to the former -- well, of course, the election is a little over a year away and closing in fast.
Let's not forget how instrumental Florida was in the last Bush coup d'etat. Recall the role played by Republican Party operatives and Cuban fascists in Broward County four years ago. Likewise tactics may serve well again, especially considering how bad the Bush economy is and how terrible the Bush occupation of Iraq is going. No doubt the political trickster and former Donald Segretti understudy Karl Rove understands all this very well. As the Valerie Plame affair demonstrates, there is no shortage of "necessary viciousness" (as John Dean terms it) on the part of the Bushites.
Junior's going to need all the extra votes he can get come November, 2004.
Kurt Nimmo is a photographer and multimedia developer in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Visit his excellent blog at www.kurtnimmo.com/blogger.html.
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Bad Calls on the Racial Playing Field
Posted: Saturday, October 11, 2003
by Kimberle Williams Crenshaw, CommonDreams.org
The mind numbing pathology around race in America was on display again as the reaction to Rush Limbaugh's completely predictable disintegration last week kicked into overdrive. The initial non-reaction to Limbaugh's inflammatory remarks, followed by shallow discussion and ambivalent criticism, bears a close resemblance to the cycle of reaction following the Trent Lott debacle. Indeed, there appears to be a pattern of reaction to such blatant racial performances; one that indicates a much deeper problem than the tendency of "blowhards" or "social neanderthals" to make "insensitive remarks."
The cycle reveals that there is a deep dissonance between conventions built on the fantasy that racism is a thing of the past or the preserve of the crazies, and the reality that racist influences are as enduring as Old Glory and as potentially hip and marketable as ESPN's wunderkind, Mark Shapiro, gambled it could be. The otherworldy alchemy of the official rhetoric of colorblindness, alongside the unapologic pandering to a racist subculture in the American social and political electorate, seems to create an invisible force that initially stills the tongue, and then causes mindless, contradictory and senseless babbling in its wake. What else can explain the odd fumbles, miscues, and offsides reactions following Limbaugh's snap. Let's cut to the tape.
The tape begins not with Limbaugh's prime time remarks, but with the muted reactions of commentators, owners, and the entire football industry to Shapiro's decision to hire him. Limbaugh's string of bigoted diatribes about African Americans leave no doubt about his fundamental hostility towards this group. In fact, Limbaugh had explicitly encouraged his fans to write African Americans out of any meaningful role in political or cultural discourse: "who cares about them, they're only 12% of the population." This was not simply an "unfortunate comment" or being "caught up in the moment." His racism was a credo, an article of faith, an essential element of who Rush Limbaugh was.
Although this attitude alone might make a reasonable person assume that Limbaugh was patently unqualified to assume the mantle of commentator on an all-American pastime, Shapiro anointed him to be the voice of the fan. Obviously, the fan Shapiro coveted was not the Black fan, who, with a few exceptions, would not be fooled into thinking that they were being channeled into the studio by Rush Limbaugh. Shapiro's marketing decision to hire Limbaugh despite his alienating racial histrionics betrays a Limbaugh-esque posture towards Blacks: "who cares about them, they're only 12% of the population."
Some say Shapiro can only be blamed for taking a losing gamble, one based on marketability rather than hostility toward African Americans. This claim fails to capture the extent to which Shapiro's willingness to lie down with a racist to make a dollar reflected his utter disregard for the interests and sensibilities of an entire population. Hiring Limbaugh was, in this sense, a profoundly racist act.
Despite the significance of Shapiro's decision, however, the reactions were surprisingly muted. At most, eyebrows were raised about the hiring of a "conservative" or "controversial" commentator to appear in a role designated as apolitical. The elementary "see no evil, speak no evil" version of racial etiquette that has been assumed in mainstream media nowadays effectively whitewashed Limbaugh. This process of normalizing racism as mere conservatism probably does as much to advance the cause of white supremacy as hooded marches, cross burnings, and other patently racist activities.
Lacking a socially sanctioned way of objecting to Limbaugh's "everyman" status within sports culture, perhaps it is not surprising that Rush's recent comments elicited a "deer in headlights" response from his co-commentators. Limbaugh co-hosts have taken a lot of heat for their silence, but, in fairness, it is difficult sometimes to know where the "pretend is supposed to end." Even as the frozen-in-time reaction to Limbaugh's comments began to thaw, Shapiro himself clearly didn't know when to stop pretending. He persisted in the utter denial that Limbaugh had said anything "racial" or even "political."
But in a caught-on-tape world, that level of denial-like the denial surrounding Trent Lott's faux pas----- could not last long. More troubling than the tendency of media commentators to use the "finger in the wind" test do determine if Limbaugh had crossed any lines is the way in which the same commentators are now describing the boundaries that, according to the wind, Limbaugh did cross.
Here is where the true blind spots on the racial playing field are revealed. Our referees are now declaring that Limbaugh's foul was not intentional, but incidental. He did say something racial, we are told, but it wasn't racially motivated. This peculiar explanation marks our entrance into the Twighlight Zone of colorblind racial discourse. A strange force field seems to suck up all common sense when the conversation moves to race in America. What in the world would one have to think "racially motivated" meant in order to assume that an assertion that a quarterback is overrated because he is Black is not racially motivated? It certainly is motivated by a belief, a zeal, indeed an agenda to put the Black quarterback in his place, a place obviously of lesser value and respect than he currently enjoys. Moreover, this "blacks are getting more than they deserve" mentality is not only shared by Limbaugh in the context of sports and other social goods. It is ubiqitous throughout American history. Indeed, African Americans have spent generations trying to address it.
There are others who suggest that Limbaugh's error was to bring up "the color of a person's skin" in a context where race is (supposed to be) irrelevant. This corollary to the "it wasn't racially motivated" rationale also misjudges the infraction. There are enormous complexities involved in the functioning of race and sports that ought to be considered and discussed. The entire process of becoming a quarterback, just like the process of becoming a head coach, an owner, or assuming any other leadership position, is influenced to varying degrees by race. The issue is not merely that Limbaugh failed to be colorblind, it is that his particular brand of color consciousness flies in the face of what we know about the history of sports and about the real racial obstacles faced by African Americans in their efforts to ascend to leadership positions in just about any institution.
Of course, this is all too much to say in a soundbite, which is why a lot of people who know better are so willing to make a bad call: personal foul-failure to be colorblind. But the fact that there's no easy language to capture the complexities of race in America -- particularly the complexities of "institutional racism," which Eagles owner Jeffery Lurie aptly invoked to contextualize the Limbaugh phenomenon -- does not excuse a lack of real thinking about the matter. Indeed, a lack of real thinking is part of what led to the failure to challenge Limbaugh's hiring in the first place.
Kimberle Williams Crenshaw (crenshaw@law.columbia.edu) is Professor of Law at UCLA and Columbia Law Schools. She is the Founder and Executive Director of the African American Policy Forum (www.aapf.org), and a leading scholar in the Critical Race Theory movement.
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1011-08.htm
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The Other Race Card
Posted: Saturday, October 11, 2003
Rush Limbaugh and the Politics of White Resentment
By TIM WISE
So now we know how Rush Limbaugh lost all that weight. It wasn't will power, it wasn't exercise, and it wasn't the Atkins Diet. Instead, it appears to have been a legal opiate called OxyContin: legal, at least, for those persons who have a prescription for it, which Rush doesn't. Limbaugh, according to the former housekeeper who scored drugs for him since 1998, is addicted to painkillers.
Rush's dope habit, however, is not the subject of this column, except insofar as it might explain in part his tendency to say some really stupid shit. People who are high, after all, are known to have clouded judgment, which is probably why Limbaugh hasn't denied the allegations of pill-popping, since pill-popping might end up being the last best defense he has against the charge that he's an ignorant, pompous blowfish.
Limbaugh's most recent outrage--claiming that NFL quarterback Donovan McNabb is overrated but avoids serious criticism because he's black and thus the media goes easy on him--is frankly mild compared to many things he's said over the years. Even in the realm of comments considered racist, as this one has been by many, the quip ranks pretty low on the bigot-meter.
After all, early on in Rush's radio career he told a black caller to "take that bone out of your nose and call me back," and since then has said that all composite sketches of criminals look like Jesse Jackson. Additionally, he once dismissed the notion that black opinions matter by ranting that "they're only 12 percent of the population. Who the hell cares?"
The comment about McNabb--a three-time Pro Bowler--which Rush made in his capacity as a recently-added ESPN Sunday football commentator is, to hear Rush tell it, no big deal. And the reaction to his remarks, again to hear him tell it, only indicates how far "political correctness" has gone. In fact, in Rush's mind, not only was the remark not racist, but he is now the victim of a liberal-left cabal intent on stifling any conservative commentary in the public arena: a strange claim to make when you're a multimillionaire who has gotten rich off of very un-stifled conservative commentary.
To be fair, Rush is right about one thing. His comment was not, in and of itself racist. He did not, after all, allege that McNabb's talent (or presumed lack thereof) was due to his being black, and therefore somehow incapable of commanding an NFL offense.
But at the same time, this is not where a proper analysis of his remarks (or racism for that matter) should end. For the simple fact is that racially-charged comments, which this surely was, take place against a backdrop of larger social commentary.
Statements of this nature exist not in a vacuum, as if mere isolated flotsam and jetsam on the national airwaves, but rather within a broader context, where their interpretation and symbolic value become greater than the sum of their linguistic parts.
In the case of a comment such as Limbaugh's, one must consider the effect, not simply the intent behind the words. It is this consideration that can legitimately cause Limbaugh's remarks to be viewed as racist or at least an example of white racial resentment, which in turn can feed the problem of racism, whether or not this was the goal of the speaker.
That Rush would likely never understand this is not surprising. Indeed, his understanding of racism, like that of most white Americans it seems, is so limited that it only allows the label to be used to describe the most vicious and deliberately bigoted of statements or actions. In other words, Rush, like most whites, views racism as requiring the evil intent of an individual racist, and thereby considers the event through the eyes of the perpetrator rather than the victim. If he didn't mean any harm, then there was no foul.
But just as football players can be penalized for holding whether or not they meant to do it, so too can someone be guilty of fomenting racism, with or without the conscious desire to contribute to such a thing.
Fact is, what Rush did on ESPN was to play the conservative and white version of the so-called race card. The one that goes like this: "Black people get treated with kid gloves, get coddled, get preferential treatment, get held to a lower standard, get away with sub-par performance in ways that no white person could."
It's a card that Rush and others like him have played for years in their diatribes against affirmative action. It's a card that Rush himself played a few months ago when he and other prominent conservatives insisted that New York Times plagiarist Jayson Blair got away with his dishonesty for so long merely because he was black, and because the Times had an overzealous commitment to "diversity" at the expense of quality. In fact, there is virtually no difference between Rush's treatment of Blair and McNabb: both black, both supposedly getting by on their skin color alone and being coddled by the typically-liberal media, desperate to find ability among black folks who aren't really that good.
Putting aside whether or not Rush is right about McNabb's abilities--and this is something about which honest football fans can disagree, I suppose--the remark can only be viewed as a continuation of the "undeserving black guy gets ahead" theme so common among an increasingly resentful white public.
And keep in mind this is a public that has already been fed lies about affirmative action for so long that today many seem to think that whenever they fail to get a job, it must have been because of some preference given to a person of color; or that if their kid didn't get into the college of their choice, it had to be because of quotas.
Ignore the evidence of course, since it gives the lie to such silliness. Ignore the fact that the very same blacks who presumably take white jobs are two to three times more likely to be unemployed, even when their credentials are equal to their white counterparts.
Ignore the fact that whites are more likely than members of any other racial group to get into their first-choice college, while blacks are the least likely to do so.
Ignore the study published in the Journal of Economic Literature--actually an analysis of over 200 other studies--which found that persons who have benefited from affirmative action perform equal to or better than their white contemporaries, indicating that not only are they not being held to a lower standard, but are meeting whatever standard exists for everyone else.
Even within the ranks of football, ignore the recent study indicating that black coaches are fired more quickly than their white counterparts, even when their records are just as good or better.
Ignore the fact that another black quarterback, Tennessee's Steve McNair, has long been under-appreciated by the national media, stretching back to his days in college at Alcorn State, where he was a Heisman Trophy candidate.
Why, one might ask, would the same media that falls all over itself to kiss the ass of Donovan McNabb just because he's black, constantly minimize McNair's talents on the field, rarely praising him beyond noting that he's "gutsy and plays with pain?"
Only this year, after four straight seasons of high passer ratings and 60 percent-plus completion rates is McNair starting to get some credit for the Titans strong play. But given Rush's worldview, this hardly makes sense. After all, if the media is itching to praise a black quarterback, why would they seemingly have been allergic to such praise in the case of McNair?
Speaking of McNair, imagine what white conservatives would say if he, or any other black football player or commentator were to suggest that the reason the media hasn't given him much credit for his QB skills was because he was black? In other words, what if McNair were to claim that racism against blacks was the reason he failed to get the credit he deserved? Odds are good that Rush and his loyal listeners would hit the roof, blow a gasket, and then have to pop twenty or thirty pills to ease the pain.
Such a claim by McNair would be viewed as stoking racial resentment on the part of blacks. It would be viewed as playing the race card in an arena where it didn't belong. It would be viewed, in short, as racist by many on the right, or at least an example of poisoning the well of race relations.
Well the same logic applies here. When the national dialogue on race includes an unhealthy dose of diversity-bashing from the right, replete with claims of blacks receiving unearned preferences, to then claim that this kind of favoritism explains McNabb's treatment by the press can only further that narrative. In doing so, it can only poison the well of race relations and engender white backlash against the mildest of civil rights efforts. And it can do all of this, irrespective of the self-proclaimed benign intentions of the speaker in question.
Of course the impact of Rush's remarks on McNabb will likely be negligible. After all, an athlete like Donovan McNabb isn't likely to care too much about an analysis of his skills coming from someone whose main form of exercise is washing down the equivalent of synthetic heroin with water. But the impact it can have on the black community generally--especially young black kids--is anything but insignificant.
For blacks to once again hear a white person insist they really aren't that good and that anything they achieve is only because of race, is for them to have planted in their minds the seeds of self-doubt that can cripple achievement. It is also to subject them to yet more proof that no matter what they do, many whites will never think they are truly competent.
Rush of course offers up one last defense, but if anything it actually makes the point of his critics. On his radio show, Rush recently noted that he has also criticized white quarterbacks Vinnie Testaverde and Kurt Warner as being overrated by a doting media, and thus, his criticism of McNabb cannot be seen as either unique, or racist.
Yet when casting doubts upon the skills of these white players, and when questioning the media's generally fawning attitude towards them, Rush naturally never suggested that their treatment might be due to the media's desire to have a "great white hope," at quarterback; or because, being white, Warner or Testaverde fit some racialized notion of "all-American boys."
Such comments could be made, one supposes, though with not any greater legitimacy than the ones Rush actually offered. That his criticism of white quarterbacks came without the racial angle attached leads one to wonder: if not race, then what else could possibly explain the media's love affair with Warner and Testaverde? And if there is an answer other than race available in these cases, then why wouldn't this also be true for Donovan McNabb?
Of course there are other answers, but for a flamethrower who has made his living pushing buttons, those answers don't matter. Rush's job, as it were, for fifteen years has been to serve as the voice of pissed off white men and the white women who love them: pissed off at blacks for everything under the sun; pissed off at immigrants for not learning English fast enough; pissed off at liberals for taxes; pissed off at Bill Clinton for blow jobs. Just plain pissed off.
Now we learn that if someone had simply asked this pissed off superstar to piss in a cup, his star would have darkened long ago. But like I said, this article isn't about the fact that Rush is a drug addict. Did I mention that, by the way?
Tim Wise is an antiracist educator, essayist and activist. He can be reached at timjwise@msn.com
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Africans launched Chinese civilisation
Posted: Tuesday, October 7, 2003
By Nsaka Sesepkekiu
Student of African and Asian Studies
Faculty of Humanities
University of the West Indies
Trinidad and Tobago
Whenever we hear the term "Chinese" we often associate the word with short slanted eyed people who can fight kung fu. With the recent celebration of establishment of the People's Republic of China, I wish not only to congratulate them but also to add some insight into their history.
The original, first, native, primitive inhabitants of China were black Africans who arrived there about 100,000 years ago and dominated the region until a few thousand years ago when the Mongol advance into that region began. These Africans who fled the Mongol onslaught can still be found in South East Asia and the Pacific Islands misnomered Nigritos or "small black men." The Agta of the Philippines is one such example. Indeed archeology, forensic and otherwise confirm that China's first two dynasties, the Xia and the Ch'ang/Sh'ang, were largely Black African with an Australoid, called "Madras Indian" or "Chamar" in Trinidad, present in small percentages. These Africans would carry an art of fighting developed in the Horn of Africa into China which today we call martial arts: Tai Chi, Kung fu and Tae Kwon Do. Even the oracle of the I-Ching came with a later African group, the Akkadians of Babylon.
Around 500 BCE an African living in India called Gautama would establish a religion called Buddhism which would come to dominate Chinese thought. Any one who is in doubt should consult Geoffrey Higgins's Anacalypsis, Albert Churchward's Origin and development of Religions, Gerald Massey's Egypt the Light of the World, Riunoko Rashidi's African Presence in Early Asia and J A Roger's Sex and Race Vol 1. Many Africans survived the Mongol invasion into the twentieth century only to be exterminated by Chairman Mao's programme of Cultural cleansing. Under this programme millions of Africans and Afro-Asians were killed from 1951-1956. Contribute we still did, giving the People's Republic of China its first Chief Minister in the name of Eugene Chen, a Trinidadian of George Street, Port-of-Spain, who was of an African mother and a Chinese father.
For further reading on this individual one should consult J A Rogers' World's Great Men of Colour Vol I. So next time the word China or Chinese is mentioned remember that Africans played a pivotal role in launching what is called Chinese civilisation, if such a thing exists.
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THE FIRST CHINESE WERE BLACK
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Ethiopian Scholars: Products of Flawed History
Posted: Sunday, October 5, 2003
By Asmerom Kidane, www.biddho.com
Visiting Professor of Econometrics
University of Dar es Salaam
Posted: October 05, 2003
1. Introduction
Every country, nation or nationality is expected to have a history of its own. We have been repetitively told that we can all learn from history-emulate or replicate the positive aspects and making sure that the negative components are either rectified or not repeated. We learn from our or other's history provided that the sequences of historical events are correctly recorded and objectively analyzed. I happen to be an applied statistician by profession; in this field we have a sub discipline which we call Time Series Analysis. This discipline is nothing but an empirical analysis of historical data. For example one may wish to study past growth of GDP or aggregate income; the historical data are plotted on a graph in order to detect past patterns of growth or decline. Next the investigator tries to objectively identify the reasons or causes for the past growth or decline. This approach presupposes that to the best of the statistician's ability, the historical data is recorded with minimum errors or biases. Otherwise what ever conclusion the statistician makes could not only be misleading but he may be offering wrong income policy prescriptions. The same analogy should apply when scholars study and interpret a country's or peoples or event history. It goes without saying that historians bear a burden of heavy responsibility when documenting events of historical significance and it is incumbent upon them to interpret their findings as objectively as possible.
When one reads or cruises over the various books and narratives written on Ethiopia's past by Ethiopian scholars, one may conclude that there is a lot to be desired. Not only are Ethiopian scholars subjective and selective but also their interpretation of historical events and personalities seems to be highly flawed. They fail to foresee the undesirable consequences of their flawed narratives on the future unity and sovereignty of their country. They may have to take joint responsibility for the sad state of affairs that Ethiopia is in.
In this exercise an attempt will be made to show how Ethiopian scholar/historians viewed their leaders over the past century and half (1855-2003). During this extended period, Ethiopia was ruled by four emperors, one colonel and the ones currently in power-the Weyanes. There were also three other leaders, Teklegiorgis, Eyasu and Zewditu but these were of little consequence - either their reign was brief or they were simply sidelined-. Ethiopian historians have made heroes out of the four so called emperors and Colonel Mengistu. Their verdict on the status of the Weyane leadership is not out yet. We will summarize the deeds/misdeeds of the four emperors along with the other two and check whether they deserve to be declared as heroes.
2. The Reign of Theodros (1855-1868)
Theodros ascended to power in 1855 at the age 33. He is believed to be from humble background and Ethiopian scholars credit him for uniting Ethiopia from the era of principalities (Mesafintis) without ever mentioning the means he followed to reach to the top. European travellers who were in and around Gondar during his reign have documented that Theodros was selfish and quick tempered.. Alan Morehead, in his book 'The Blue Nile' describes Theodros as '... a mad dog set loose...' in reaction of his treatment of both Ethiopians and foreigners.
Few months after he took power and after claiming that he had liquidated potential pretenders to the throne, the country begins to disintegrate again and moves towards anarchy. It is believed that Theodros spent most of his 13 years reign moving from one place to the other, killing most of his enemies and many of his friends. The way he was committing crimes against humanity is simply horrendous.- putting hundreds of would be conspirators in thatched huts, locking and then setting them on fire, throwing hundreds of prisoners and opponents into the deep precipice of Magdela, burning towns such as Gonder, imprisoning his brothers, relatives, foreign travellers and emissaries, looting and vandalizing villages. In the end he ended up being so unpopular and paranoid; he feared for his life and with his few remaining followers fortified and confined himself to the mountain top of Magdala. Finally he ended his life while resisting capture by Napier's British expedition. Theodros was succeeded by Teklegiorghis whose reign did not even last three years.
This is the personality of Theodros. One finds it difficult to comprehend why Ethiopian scholars admire, adore, glorify and make a hero out of such character. This is nothing but a flawed interpretation of history.
3. The reign of Yohannes (1871-1889)
Yohannes defeats Tekleghiorghis his brother in law (husband of his sister) captures him and literally blinds him by inserting a hot iron bar into his eyes! (What a moronic character!). This is not an allegation; it is simply the truth as it appears in a standard Ethiopian historical text authored by non other than Tekletsadik Mekuria, the so called Ethiopian historian. (In a later edition of the book the author withdraws the above allegation probably after protests and intimidations by the Yohannes royal house.) It should be noted that Yohannes victory over Tekleghiorgis was due to the fact that his army was equipped with modern weaponry; he was rewarded with armaments by the British Napier expedition for his anti Ethiopian services and for his treasonous activities against Theodros.
Once Yohannes ascends to power in 1871 he gives Ethiopian Moslems an ultimatum-either convert to Christianity or else. Many brave Ethiopian Moslems defied the edict; as a result thousands were massacred, disfigured and were forced to out-migrate to safe heavens such as Eritrea and Sudan. During the emperor's regime there was a rebellion in Gojjam region-Yohannes and his army march to the province, plunder and ravage the country side and leave the place completely ransacked. In the end Yohannes was defeated and beheaded in the battle of Metema while fighting the Mahdists of Sudan (1889). It is widely believed that the Ethiopian Moslems who were forced to leave their homeland because they did not wish to succumb to the Emperor's wild edict were responsible for his humiliating defeat. It is the Yohannes type misfits that the present day Ethiopian scholars admire and revere. They have named streets, airports and schools after them. This should not have been the case and that is why one can safely conclude that the Ethiopian history books are highly flawed.
4. The reign of Menelik
When Yohannes passes Menelik comes into the picture (1889-1913). Like Yohannes, Menelik came to power through treacherous and treasonable activities. He 'stabbed Yohanees in the back' by aligning himself with the Italians; at that time the latter were arch enemies of Yohannes; Menelik also failed to support Yohannes's bid to 'defend' Ethiopia from the Mahdists. He was probably praying that Yohannes would die in the battle field so that he will take over... and that is exactly what happened. Treason number one for Menelik. Current Ethiopian scholars and politicians regard Menelik as the architect of modern Ethiopia. This is not true; the stark reality is that, Menelik was a typical colonizer and an active participant in the scramble for Africa. He forcibly subdued the Oromos, the Welaitas, Kembatas, Afars, Somalis, Aderes and many other nations and nationalities in the South, Southwest and East of present day Ethiopia. He imposed an archaic Menz type culture on these otherwise proud people. He forced them to change their religion, values cultures and in some instances their truly democratic traditions (such as the Gada system). He treated the vanquished as slaves ready to be sold in an auction like market.
It should be noted that Menelik's conquest of the South was not a 'walk in'; he did encounter stiff resistance especially from the Welaitas, Arssi Oromos and the Aderes of Harar. He was able to defeat them using the relatively modern weapons he acquired from the Italians via Asseb. After defeating the southern nations and nationalities, he appointed his own native Amharas to be the warlords. Any historian with a slight semblance of objectivity cannot label Menelik as a hero. He is not – pure and simple. On the contrary many Ethiopian scholars admire this so called hero to the extent of almost worshiping him. This is nothing but a deliberate distortion of historical facts. Given this attitude, there is no way for the present day Ethiopian scholars to gain respect and credibility from the Oromos, Kambatas, and other oppressed nationalities.
5. The Reign of Haile Selassie
The next 'major' emperor of the Ethiopian empire is Teferi Mekonnen alias Haile Selassie (his imperial name is almost one km. long!). The real heir apparent to Menelik's throne was his grand son Eyasu. He was 17 years old when he became a national leader (what a shame) and only stayed in power for three years (1913-1916). As expected he was ousted by Teferi in the usual Abyssinian approach - through treason. This time Teferi's pretext for overthrowing Eyasu was his Islamic lineage and tendency as well as the fact that he was not a Shoan Menz par excellence! Once in power (1916-1930 as a regent 1931-1974 as an emperor) Teferi made a dummy out of Zewditu - the new empress - by sidelining her on the archaic pretext that she is a woman; he put his children and relatives in high places and placed behind the bars any would be opponent. Four years after he was crowned as emperor, Ethiopia was invaded by Fascist Italy. Instead of undertaking a protracted warfare, Haile selassie briefly appeared in Maichew battlefield not to fight but for a photo show; he abandoned his rug tag army and immediately returned to Addis; few days later he fled to Britain by a royal cruiser liner that was waiting him in Djiboutti. With him he took his family, relatives and what ever was available in the treasury.
Haile Selassie was residing in Bath, Britain waiting and praying for a miracle to happen... and... BINGO!!... miracle did happen. Italy along with Germany declared war on Britain. With the assistance of the British, Haile selassie was on his way to Ethiopia via Sudan after five years of seclusion.
Ethiopian scholars/historians declared Haile selassie as the liberator. Again this is far from the truth. The plain fact is that Italians in Ethiopia were defeated by the British not by Haile selassie and his forces. By the time he arrived in Khartoum in 1941 he did not have a credible army; he just assembled few hundred recruits from among the Ethiopian refugees in the Sudan and hired a military adviser in the name of Colonel Wingate (a weird character).
Before Haile Selassie crossed the Ethio Sudan border via Gojjam (he was scared to use Gonder as an entry point because there were many patriots waiting to capture him... remember Blata Takkele!!!... ) the British had already occupied most of Ethiopia by attacking Italian lines from the North that is from Sudan, via Eritrea... to Ethiopia and from the South, via Kenya and British Somali land to Ethiopia. In other words by the time Haile Selassie crossed into Ethiopia, he did not face any resistance. Every thing was 'ready made' for him. When Haile Selassie arrived in Debre Marcos, General Cunningham's British army had already occupied the capital Addis Abeba. The British officers instructed and warned Haile Selassie to stay in Debre Marcos and not move south to Addis. The British military were about to declare Ethiopia as a conquered enemy territory thereby establishing a colonial administration. Haile Selassie was believed to be in a state of depression. It was only through Churchill's instruction and the sympathy the British had for the Ethiopians that Haile Selassie was finally allowed to proceed to Addis Abeba and hoist the Ethiopian flag. Even then Ethiopia was still under British domination until 1944.
Contrary to what Ethiopian scholars lead us to believe Haile selassie cannot be a hero... this is another one of a series of making a hero out of a villains. As of late Ethiopian scholars also seem to be divided on whether Haile Selassie was a hero or not. Those who were active during hid reign label him as a hero; Mengistu and his intellectual followers call him a villain; Weyane and their sympasizers don't even know how to label him.
6. Mengistu and the Weyanes
We have two more 'villains' to go before we reach the twenty first century. This time I will try to be brief as many people know who Mengistu is and who the Weyanes are. One of the most vicious tyrants of the twentieth century is Mengistu (1974-1991). It will be time and energy consuming to narrate the atrocities and misdeeds of this psychopath. As usual he climbed to power through treason and deception by demystifying the invincibility of Ethiopian emperors; he simply murdered Haile selassie, massacred his grand children and relatives, his ministers and generals - one by one. He assassinated thousands of Ethiopians including many of the products of Ethiopia's flawed history. He launched the so called 'red terror' whereby thousands of children, adults and elders were massacred in broad day light; he charged a fee for parents who wish to take their dead relatives. In the end his half a million Ethiopian army was decimated by the gallant freedom fighters of Eritrea. Without showing any resistance he fled to Zimbabwe with his children and relatives. Mengistu is probably the most coward among Ethiopia's so called heroes.
Last and least we have the current leaders of Ethiopia-the Weyanes-. Fortunately they are not yet declared as heroes by the Ethiopian scholars. The ethnic group where the Weyane hail from constitute only 5% of the Ethiopian population making them unfit to lead a country of 65 million. Setting this aside for the moment, the Weyanes are the worst pathological liars of their kind. Because of this built - in habit, whatever they utter today is forgotten or denied the next day (witness Seyoum Mesfin's statements following the border ruling and afterwards). The Weyanes claim to have given Ethiopian ethnic groups their right to self rule and yet they arrest, torture and kill their best leaders; they claim that they are for free press and yet they are very brutal against journalists, they claim that the Ethiopian economy has shown magnificent progress and yet they have 14 million people on the verge of starvation and death, they claim that they have introduced a free market and yet they have depleted the Ethiopian treasury through capital flight to Tigrai and abroad. They claim that they stand for peace in the region and yet they opened war on a neighbor (Eritrea) whereby more than 100 000 mostly non Tigrean Ethiopians are believed to have been perished. They claim that they will abide by the decision of the boundary commission and yet they refuse to go along in the demarcation process. More can be said, has been said and will be said about the current misfits running the country. As usual they came to power through treason and deception. Chances are that they may not stay there much longer. It is every body's hope that, this may be the right time for Ethiopians to change leadership through democratic and peaceful means. Unfortunately this is doubtful.
7. Conclusion
We have gone over the true activities of six so called leaders that led Ethiopia down the drain over the past 148 years (1855-2003). They include four self styled emperors, one military dictator and the Weyanes. From their actions and reactions they cannot be declared as heroes. If at all there is anything to learn from them it is not to be or act like them and if possible not to remember them. One wishes that this tendency of 'wrong hero worship' should be put to a close. To the contrary this is not what the so called Ethiopian scholars and historians are propagating. It appears that there is little one can do because these same scholars are the product of Ethiopian flawed history. Because of this 'wrong hero worship' Ethiopian scholars, historians and their followers claim to be proud that they are Ethiopians. Surely they can be proud of Ethiopia's good climate, the hospitality of the people, its ethnic mosaic and her other positive attributes. To be proud of their villain leaders is simply an act of irresponsibility with symptoms of Fascism and Nazism.
Unless this 'wrong hero worship' is checked, unless the products of Ethiopia's flawed history come to their senses, unless they have a South African type truce and reconciliation, unless Ethiopian chauvinists atone, recant and publicly apologize for their ancestors' misdeeds Ethiopia will be there for more trouble. If the Ethiopians scholars - both within the country and in the Diaspora - do not return to their senses they will continue to be a problem, not only for Ethiopia but also for its neighbours. Their recent postings and utterances suggest that they are unlikely to return back to sanity. In my next posting I will try to summarize current activities of the so called Ethiopian scholars cum historians. God Bless.
Reproduced with permission from:
Asmerom Kidane, www.biddho.com
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The Global Hierarchy Of Race
Posted: Saturday, September 20, 2003
As the only racial group that never suffers systemic racism, whites are in denial about its impact
Martin Jacques
Saturday September 20, 2003
The Guardian UK
I always found race difficult to understand. It was never intuitive. And the reason was simple. Like every other white person, I had never experienced it myself: the meaning of colour was something I had to learn. The turning point was falling in love with my wife, an Indian-Malaysian, and her coming to live in England. Then, over time, I came to see my own country in a completely different way, through her eyes, her background. Colour is something white people never have to think about because for them it is never a handicap, never a source of prejudice or discrimination, but rather the opposite, a source of privilege. However liberal and enlightened I tried to be, I still had a white outlook on the world. My wife was the beginning of my education.
But it was not until we went to live in Hong Kong that my view of the world, and the place that race occupies within it, was to be utterly transformed. Rather than seeing race through the prism of my own society, I learned to see it globally. When we left these shores, it felt as if we were moving closer to my wife's world: this was east Asia and she was Malaysian. And she, unlike me, had the benefit of speaking Cantonese. So my expectation was that she would feel more comfortable in this environment than I would. I was wrong. As a white, I found myself treated with respect and deference; my wife, notwithstanding her knowledge of the language and her intimacy with Chinese culture, was the object of an in-your-face racism.
In our 14 months in Hong Kong, I learned some brutal lessons about racism. First, it is not the preserve of whites. Every race displays racial prejudice, is capable of racism, carries assumptions about its own virtue and superiority. Each racism, furthermore, is subtly different, reflecting the specificity of its own culture and history.
Second, there is a global racial hierarchy that helps to shape the power and the prejudices of each race. At the top of this hierarchy are whites. The reasons are deep-rooted and profound. White societies have been the global top dogs for half a millennium, ever since Chinese civilisation went into decline. With global hegemony, first with Europe and then the US, whites have long commanded respect, as well as arousing fear and resentment, among other races. Being white confers a privilege, a special kind of deference, throughout the world, be it Kingston, Hong Kong, Delhi, Lagos - or even, despite the way it is portrayed in Britain, Harare. Whites are the only race that never suffers any kind of systemic racism anywhere in the world. And the impact of white racism has been far more profound and baneful than any other: it remains the only racism with global reach.
Being top of the pile means that whites are peculiarly and uniquely insensitive to race and racism, and the power relations this involves. We are invariably the beneficiaries, never the victims. Even when well-meaning, we remain strangely ignorant. The clout enjoyed by whites does not reside simply in an abstraction - western societies - but in the skin of each and every one of us. Whether we like it or not, in every corner of the planet we enjoy an extraordinary personal power bestowed by our colour. It is something we are largely oblivious of, and consequently take for granted, irrespective of whether we are liberal or reactionary, backpackers, tourists or expatriate businessmen.
The existence of a de facto global racial hierarchy helps to shape the nature of racial prejudice exhibited by other races. Whites are universally respected, even when that respect is combined with strong resentment. A race generally defers to those above it in the hierarchy and is contemptuous of those below it. The Chinese - like the Japanese - widely consider themselves to be number two in the pecking order and look down upon all other races as inferior. Their respect for whites is also grudging - many Chinese believe that western hegemony is, in effect, held on no more than prolonged leasehold. Those below the Chinese and the Japanese in the hierarchy are invariably people of colour (both Chinese and Japanese often like to see themselves as white, or nearly white). At the bottom of the pile, virtually everywhere it would seem, are those of African descent, the only exception in certain cases being the indigenous peoples.
This highlights the centrality of colour to the global hierarchy. Other factors serve to define and reinforce a race's position in the hierarchy - levels of development, civilisational values, history, religion, physical characteristics and dress - but the most insistent and widespread is colour. The reason is that colour is instantly recognisable, it defines difference at the glance of an eye. It also happens to have another effect. It makes the global hierarchy seem like the natural order of things: you are born with your colour, it is something nobody can do anything about, it is neither cultural nor social but physical in origin. In the era of globalisation, with mass migration and globalised cultural industries, colour has become the universal calling card of difference. In interwar Europe, the dominant forms of racism were anti-semitism and racialised nationalisms, today it is colour: at a football match, it is blacks not Jews that get jeered, even in eastern Europe.
Liberals like to think that racism is a product of ignorance, of a lack of contact, and that as human mobility increases, so racism will decline. This might be described as the Benetton view of the world. And it does contain a modicum of truth. Intermixing can foster greater understanding, but not necessarily, as Burnley, Sri Lanka and Israel, in their very different ways, all testify.
Hong Kong, compared with China, is an open society, and has long been so, yet it has had little or no effect in mollifying Chinese prejudice towards people of darker skin. It is not that racism is immovable and intractable, but that its roots are deep, its prejudices as old as humanity itself. The origins of Chinese racism lie in the Middle Kingdom: the belief that the Chinese are superior to other races - with the exception of whites - is centuries, if not thousands of years, old. The disparaging attitude among American whites towards blacks has its roots in slavery. Wishing it wasn't true, denying it is true, will never change the reality. We can only understand - and tackle racism - if we are honest about it. And when it comes to race - more than any other issue - honesty is in desperately short supply.
Race remains the great taboo. Take the case of Hong Kong. A conspiracy of silence surrounded race. As the British departed in 1997, amid much self-congratulation, they breathed not a word about racism. Yet the latter was integral to colonial rule, its leitmotif: colonialism, after all, is institutionalised racism at its crudest and most base. The majority of Chinese, the object of it, meanwhile, harboured an equally racist mentality towards people of darker skin. Masters of their own home, they too are in denial of their own racism. But that, in varying degrees, is true of racism not only in Hong Kong but in every country in the world. You may remember that, after the riots in Burnley in the summer of 2001, Tony Blair declared that they were not a true reflection of the state of race relations in Britain: of course, they were, even if the picture is less discouraging in other aspects.
Racism everywhere remains largely invisible and hugely under-estimated, the issue that barely speaks its name. How can the Economist produce a 15,000-word survey on migration, as it did last year, and hardly mention the word racism? Why does virtually no one talk about the racism suffered by the Williams sisters on the tennis circuit even though the evidence is legion? Why are the deeply racist western attitudes towards Arabs barely mentioned in the context of the occupation of Iraq, carefully hidden behind talk of religion and civilisational values?
The dominant race in a society, whether white or otherwise, rarely admits to its own racism. Denial is near universal. The reasons are manifold. It has a huge vested interest in its own privilege. It will often be oblivious to its own prejudices. It will regard its racist attitudes as nothing more than common sense, having the force and justification of nature. Only when challenged by those on the receiving end is racism outed, and attitudes begin to change. The reason why British society is less nakedly racist than it used to be is that whites have been forced by people of colour to question age-old racist assumptions. Nations are never honest about themselves: they are all in varying degrees of denial.
This is clearly fundamental to understanding the way in which racism is underplayed as a national and global issue. But there is another reason, which is a specifically white problem. Because whites remain the overwhelmingly dominant global race, perched in splendid isolation on top of the pile even though they only represent 17% of the world's population, they are overwhelmingly responsible for setting the global agenda, for determining what is discussed and what is not. And the fact that whites have no experience of racism, except as perpetrators, means that racism is constantly underplayed by western institutions - by governments, by the media, by corporations. Moreover, because whites have reigned globally supreme for half a millennium, they, more than any other race, have left their mark on the rest of humanity: they have a vested interest in denying the extent and baneful effects of racism.
It was only two years ago, you may remember, that the first-ever United Nations conference on racism was held - against the fierce resistance of the US (and that in the Clinton era). Nothing more eloquently testifies to the unwillingness of western governments to engage in a global dialogue about the problem of racism.
If racism is now more widely recognised than it used to be, the situation is likely to be transformed over the next few decades. As migration increases, as the regime of denial is challenged, as subordinate races find the will and confidence to challenge the dominant race, as understanding of racism develops, as we become more aware of other racisms like that of the Han Chinese, then the global prominence of racism is surely set to increase dramatically.
It is rare to hear a political leader speaking the discourse of colour. Robert Mugabe is one, but he is tainted and discredited. The Malaysian prime minister, Mahathir Mohamed, is articulate on the subject of white privilege and the global hierarchy. The most striking example by a huge margin, though, is Nelson Mandela. When it comes to colour, his sacrifice is beyond compare and his authority unimpeachable. And his message is always universal - not confined to the interests of one race. It is he who has suggested that western support for Israel has something to do with race. It is he who has hinted that it is no accident that the authority of the UN is under threat at a time when its secretary general is black. And yet his voice is almost alone in a world where race oozes from every pore of humanity. In a world where racism is becoming increasingly important, we will need more such leaders. And invariably they will be people of colour: on this subject whites lack moral authority. I could only understand the racism suffered by my wife through her words and experience. I never felt it myself. The difference is utterly fundamental.
· Martin Jacques is a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics. The death of his wife, Harinder Veriah, in 2000 in a Hong Kong hospital triggered an outcry which culminated in this summer's announcement by the Hong Kong government that it would introduce anti-racist legislation for the first time.
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The Dying God
Posted: Sunday, September 14, 2003
The Hidden History of Western Civilization
by David Livingstone, www.thedyinggod.com
Essentially, the modern version of history, as one begun in Greece, and secluded to Europe, is one wrought by certain prejudices that can be traced back to the eighteenth century. In Europe, the Bible commanded had largely commanded the perspective of history. But, during the Renaissance, "Humanists" emphasized their regard for philosophy, and thus the importance of the pagan Greeks. Still though, the Greek heritage they thought was to be traced back to Hermes, an Egyptian, and Zoroaster, a Persian.
In the eighteenth century, with the discovery of the purported linguistic relationship between Sanskrit and European languages, as well as through the influence of occult legends, scholars created the notion of an original "Indo-European" race. And so, focused on India as a cradle of civilization, attributing its inception to Aryan invaders.
However, while Enlightenment scholars had initially turned to India, the German Romantics of the early nineteenth century, perceiving an affinity between the Greek and German languages, came increasingly to regard Greece as the lost Golden Age of Aryan civilization they had been longing for.
The reconstruction of history according to a Euro-centric perspective was further aided though the prestige of "Reason" established by the Enlightenment. Reacting to the insistence on "Faith" as the basis of belief in Christianity, Enlightenment philosophers stressed instead the use of "Reason", which, through science, came to be perceived as incompatible with the mounting inconsistencies made apparent in the Bible.
Thus, with the increasing acceptance of Darwinism, all history came to be seen as progress, specifically, the progress of "rationalism" or "Humanism", supposed to have been incepted by the Greeks, and crowned by the success of the French Revolution and its implementation of secular rule.
The first error in this equation was to have regarded the Greeks as the first "free-thinkers". Scholars' emphasis on the achievement of the Greeks has inhibited them from recognizing the cultural and scientific revolution that took place in Babylon in the sixth century BC, which had profound ramifications. Essentially, there, the ancient worship of a dying god was assimilated to astrology and magic, a cult known to the ancient world as that of the Chaldean Magi.
With the advance of the Persians, this cult was carried to those parts of the world that had come with the bounds of their immense empire, most notably, the Greek city-states of Ionia, on the western coast of Turkey. The adoption of Magian beliefs among the Greeks led there to the emergence of the cult of Orphism, and the philosophy of its greatest exponent, Pythagoras, and through him, Plato.
After the conquests of Alexander, these traditions, under Greek guise, were disseminated through the Roman Empire, flourishing particularly at Alexandria, where they fostered the creation of new mystical cults, namely, Hermeticism, Neoplatonism, and Gnosticism, all founded on the doctrines as taught in the "Ancient Mysteries".
In turn, and throughout the so-called Dark Ages, these were picked up by the Arabs, where they led to the formation of the Sufis and the heretical branch of Shia Islam known as the Ismailis. In effect, it was contact with these traditions, introduced to them by the Arabs during the crusades, which rescued the Europeans from centuries of obscurity, leading to the emergence of the Age of Scholasticism and the legends of the Holy Grail.
The continuing influence of these traditions led to the Renaissance. That period though, was not a rejection of Christianity and the progress of "rationalism", as offered by the Humanistic interpretation of history, but the revival of mysticism through the rediscovery of Neoplatonism and Hermeticism. The same tendencies were then perpetuated by the Rosicrucians, the Freemasons, and during the Enlightenment influenced the formation of Aryan race theory.
In effect, not only has history followed a course very different from that which has commonly been considered, but this ancient cult of a dying god, with its attendant beliefs in astrology, magic and alchemy, has shaped an alternate history, or, a hidden history, which has formed the basis of the Western occult tradition, and by that, much of Western culture, though in a manner that has yet to be fully discerned, due to its continuing suppression by the same emphasis on "rationalism".
For more information, I invite you to visit my website:
www.thedyinggod.com
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Remembering Chile's 9/11
Posted: Saturday, September 13, 2003
by Paul Street; September 10, 2003
"Close to Perfect:" A Different, Bloodier Nine-Eleven
The events of September 11th were horrific, tragic, and criminal on a monumental scale. Planes flew low over an American nation's leading city. Buildings erupted in flames. There was an official death toll of more than 3,000. Thousands of innocent people were ruthlessly slaughtered. Their loved ones were placed in horrible suspense, waiting to learn the fate of missing husbands, wives, sisters, cousins, and children. An American country was left in shock, with an uncertain future, as the perpetrators evaded capture and punishment. September 11th was a dark, bloody day of historic proportions. It was a prelude to regression, repression and heightened bloodshed.
Yes, the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Chile's president Salvadore Allende on September 11th, 1973 was a terrible watershed. The low-flying planes belonged to the Chilean Air Force. They came on the orders of Chilean General Augusto Pinochet to bomb La Moneda Presidential Palace, where Allende, a self-declared Marxist, killed himself before he could be assassinated. Hundreds of real and suspected Allende supporters were gunned down in Santiago's soccer stadium, fashioned into a torture center and concentration camp. Across the nation, in the streets and military detention centers, Pinochet's forces murdered 20,000 and tortured 60,000 in the first few months after 9/11/1973. One million Chileans were forced into exile. According to leading international relations analyst William I. Robinson, it was "the bloodiest coup in Latin-American history" (Robinson, Promoting Polyarchy: Globalization, US Intervention, and Hegemony [Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1996], p. 46).
According to a report from Patrick Ryan, the US Naval Attaché stationed with the United States Military Group in Chile that black September, the coup was "close to perfect." It was, Ryan told his superiors, a great victory for "free men aspiring to goals which are to the benefit of Chile and not self-serving world Marxism." (Situation Report, Navy Section, United States Military Group, Valparaiso, Chile, October 1, 1973, available online at http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB8/ch21-01.htm)
This state-terrorist rampage targeted the left and the mass popular social movements ("Marxist" and otherwise) that brought Allende to power in September 1970. Chilean trade unions and other popular organizations were dismantled. Clinics serving the poor were closed down. Twenty-six newspapers and magazines were shuttered. Chilean state and society, exceptional among Latin American states in the degree or its respect for civic freedoms and bourgeois-democratic political institutions, was militarized at every level.
Next came the restructuring of Chile's political economy along "free market" lines, meaning state protection for the wealthy and savage market discipline for the poor. Land, factories, mines, and mills that had been put under public direction for public service were returned to their "rightful" owners, "rescued" for the noble pursuit of egoistic, capitalist profit. This was consistent with the counsel of University of Chicago economic "experts," who arrived to spread Milton Friedman's delusional notion that capitalism and democracy are identical phenomena.
The socioeconomic consequences of the new "freedom" and "democracy" were striking. As the Chilean rich got richer during the first ten years of Pinochet's rule, the number of Chileans living below the official poverty line rose from 17 to 40 percent. The related slashing of health expenditures and programs led to an explosion of poverty-related diseases at the bottom of Chile's increasingly steep pyramid. Those who questioned the policies leading to these aristocratic outcomes did so at the risk of torture and murder by the fascist "free market" state.
"In Our Own Best Interests": Saving Chile from the "Irresponsibility" of Its Own People
It was all carried out to the applause and with the assistance and political cover of the US power elite. When the American ambassador to Chile expressed misgivings about Pinochet's use of torture, he received a sharp rebuke from US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who oversaw US covert actions and made sure that the ambassador was kept out of the "black-ops" loop during the early 1970s. For Kissinger and President Richard Nixon, humanitarian concerns were irrelevant. The higher Cold War goal was to protect global capitalism and American multinational corporate interests from the virus of "Marxism." Stated more accurately, the purpose was to crush the contagious notion that national social and economic policy should and could be conducted with collective and egalitarian purposes and national self-determination in mind. Kissinger seems to have been most concerned with the demonstration effect successful Chilean left-democratic governance might have on Italy, where left parties were in a position to make gains within the existing parliamentary political system.
Upon learning of Allende's election in 1970, Nixon informed Kissinger and CIA Director Richard Helms that the newly elected government of Chile was "unacceptable." He instructed his dark foreign policy stars to devise a scheme for keeping Allende out of office. "Not concerned risks involved," read Helms' notes on Nixon's instruction. "No involvement of the embassy. $10,000,000 available, more if necessary. Full-time job - best men we have...Make the economy scream. 48 hours for plan of action."
Kissinger saw "no reason," he once remarked, that the US should stand by and let a nation "go Marxist" because "its people are irresponsible." Consistent with that judgment, Kissinger and the CIA were centrally involved in efforts to de-stabilize and overthrow the Allende regime through various means, including military force. This pivotal, illegal US intervention in Chile's internal affairs is now a matter of voluminous documentary and scholarly record, much of which can be perused in a number of sources listed in an Appendix at the end of this article.
One year after the US-instigated coup, President Gerald Ford - in the oval office thanks to some domestic White House "black ops" that garnered unfavorable attention in the imperial homeland (Watergate) - claimed that US actions in installing Pinochet were "in the best interests of the people of Chile and certainly in our own best interests."
Historical Connections
Twenty-eight years to the day after Chile's 9/11, the world witnessed a different, more spectacular form of unimaginable violence, broadcast live on national TV, with different ideological and geo-political parameters. The culprits were almost certainly based in the extremist Islamic terror networks of the Middle East.
There are some interesting, dark connections, however, between these two Nine-Elevens. The US policy of deterring democracy and social justice in the perceived interest of US multinational corporations and world capitalism was hardly restricted to Chile and the official Cold War era (1945-1991). In pursuit of the same basic goals that informed the US/Pinochet coup, the US has supported and in some cases conducted anti-democratic coups against excessively (from a US perspective) "left" governments (any state that proposed to encourage development of its sovereign territory in significant autonomy from the US-dominated world capitalist economic system) in Syria (1949), Iran (1953), Iraq (1963), Indonesia (1965), and Greece (1967). It provided massive economic and military assistance to authoritarian Middle Eastern regimes that suppressed democratic and left opposition and kept their domestic economies open to foreign and especially US corporate penetration and domination. It armed Israel, waged war and enforced a deadly, decade-long sanctions campaign against Iraq, stationed troops indefinitely in the Islamic Holy Land, and provided cover for Israel's prolonged, racist annexation of Palestinian territory. The US funded the Arab far-right, supporting arch-reactionary Islamic extremists like Osama bin Laden, valued as weapons in the same Cold War that provided cover for the US campaign to crush national self-determination, democracy, and social justice in places like Iran, Vietnam, Nicaragua, and Chile.
By largely eliminating the left, undercutting democracy, and generally subjecting regional developments to imperial fiat both during and after the official Cold War, the US shrunk the available space for "normal" (Western-style/parliamentary) airing of social, political and related international grievances in the Middle East. This, in turn, brought "blowback" (an internal CIA term for the unintended consequences of secret US foreign policies) from America's imperial periphery to the skies and streets of New York City and Washington DC, where Pinochet's henchmen (part of a CIA-sponsored team of international assassins code-named "Operation Condor") killed a former Allende supporter and his American driver (Olando Letelier and Randy Moffit) in 1976. How darkly appropriate, then, that George W. Bush attempted to put Kissinger, a leading perpetrator in the state-terrorist events of 9/11/73, at the head of a federal commission to investigate US security lapses prior to 9/11/2001, which opened the door for new levels of US and US-sponsored state terrorism.
Worthy and Unworthy 9/11s
Of course, only a tiny percentage of the US population knows about Chile's 9/11, for reasons that go beyond obvious gaps of time, geography, and language. A relevant explanatory text here is the second chapter, titled "Worthy and Unworthy Victims," of Noam Chomsky and Ed Herman's Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of The Mass Media (New York, NY: Pantheon, 1988), published as the Cold War was nearing its partial conclusion with the collapse of the Soviet deterrent (itself part of the context for 9/11/2001) to American global ambitions. "A propaganda system," the authors noted, "will consistently portray people abused in enemy states as worthy victims, whereas those treated with equal or greater severity by its own government or clients will be unworthy." Identified with the official US Cold War "enemy" force of socialism or Marxism - really social egalitarianism and national self-determination (still the basic adversaries of US policy in the "post-Cold-War era") - Pinochet's victims have only recently attained a small measure of historical worthiness in dominant US corporate-state media. This slight retrospective legitimacy comes far too long after the terrible facts. It is no match for the worthiness bestowed on the most officially precious victims in US History: the Americans who died on the only 9/11 that matters in a nation that drifts through history in a dangerous fog of selective, top-down remembrance.
Paul Street (pstreet@cul-chicago.org) will speak on "State-Run Media" on Friday, September 26, 2003 at a conference titled "Is Our Media Serving Us?" at Columbia College, Hokin Annex, 623 S. Wabash, Chicago, IL, 12:45 PM.
Appendix: Selected Sources on US Involvement in 9/11/73 and Related Developments in Chile
US Senate, Select Committee to Study Government Operations With Respect to Intelligence Activities, Covert Action in Chile, 1963-1973 (Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1975); United States Congress, Select Committee to Study Government Operations With Respect to Intelligence Activities, Interim Report: Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders, 94th Congress, 1st Session, November 10, 1975 (Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1975); William Blum, The CIA: A Forgotten History (London: Zed, 1986), pp. 232-243; Seymour M. Hersh, "The Price of Power: Kissinger, Nixon, and Chile," Atlantic Monthly, 250 (1982), no. 6, 21-58; Poul Jensen, The Garotte: The United States and Chile, 1970-73 (Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus University Press, 1988); Christopher Hitchens, The Trial of Henry Kissinger (New York, NY: Verso, 2001), pp. 55-76; "Why Is the U.S. Mum About Pinochet?," CNN.com (November 25, 1998), available online at http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/europe/9811/25/pinochet.us/; National Security Archives, The Chile Documentation Project (2000-2001), available online at http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/latin_america/chile.htm.
Reproduced with permission from Paul Street
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Inequality Before and After 9/11
Posted: Saturday, September 13, 2003
by Paul Street
I'll always remember the day I tried to engage in that silly exercise called "speaking truth to power." It was early December of 2001. My topic was American policymakers' decision to place nearly a million black people behind bars and to mark more than one in three black males with a felony record. As a member of a Chicago-based council of advisers working to help ex-offenders "reintegrate" into the "free world," I was invited to a pleasant conference room to give my thoughts on these matters to Matt Bettenhausen, Illinois' "Deputy Governor for Criminal Justice and Public Safety." Along with eight other council members, I presented facts and reflections on the vicious circle of racially disparate mass incarceration. Among other things, I noted that there were nearly 20,000 more black males in the Illinois state prison system than the number of black males enrolled in the state's public universities. There were more black males in the state's correctional facilities just on drug charges, I added, than the total number of black males enrolled as undergraduates in Illinois state universities.
Bettenhausen, who hails from a local family of accomplished racecar drivers, arrived in time only for the last talk. He apologized for his lateness, explaining that he had been meeting with the state's Attorney General to discuss the "War On Terrorism." His eyes beamed with pride as he told us how much busier he had become since his appointment as the state's "first-ever Homeland Security Coordinator." With an American flag pin prominently displayed on his lapel, he regaled us with the latest reports on the United States military campaign in Afghanistan. He was clearly relishing his new supposed importance in the battle between planetary good and evil. "Wow," a fellow presenter muttered, "he watches CNN."
After thus communicating the relative insignificance of our issue at this moment of sweeping global consequence, Bettenshausen told us that then Illinois governor George Ryan would not be reversing his recent decision to eliminate higher education and vocational training for prisoners from the state's budget. These cuts, he claimed, were compelled by the "post-September economic downturn" – a dubious dating of an overdue correction in the capitalist business cycle.
Tires squealing, he apologized for racing off to another meeting related to "the war on terror." I was instantly reminded of James Madison's comment that "the fetters imposed on liberty at home have ever been forged out of the weapons provided for defense against real, pretended, or imaginary dangers from abroad." Another phrase also came to mind: plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose (the more things change, the more they stay the same).
"Everything Changed"
According to a great national myth propagated by the in-power right wing War Party and its allies and enablers in the dominant state-corporate media, "everything changed" on September 11, 2001. Before 9/11, this authoritarian narrative runs, Americans lived in peaceful division, pleasantly but naively stuck in their own little prosperous domestic spheres. We were cheerfully but innocently blind to the dangers of a still-precarious world and to the related greatness and vulnerability of our nation. We were too preoccupied with our busy little lives to grasp our creeping moral decline, epitomized by the sexual transgressions and lies of Bill Clinton.
Thanks to 9/11, we have lost our innocence and awakened to our national magnificence and the related threats we face from bad people who hate and envy our freedom and prosperity. United We Stand: we have transcended old divisions in shared allegiance to the "war on terrorism" – a new crusade against a new semi-permanent Evil Other that is the true replacement for Cold War predecessors in Moscow and Beijing. We have been morally, politically, and spiritually toughened, unified, and regenerated by violence: our own and that of our "freedom"-hating enemies.
Racially Disparate Residential Neo-liberalism
How curious, then, to pick up the "Metro" section of a recent (August 6th) issue of my leading local newspaper – The Chicago Tribune. The front page contains a photograph of 15 well-dressed white people relaxing in a plush and very predominantly Caucasian North Side neighborhood (Lincoln Park). They are positioned to permit a photographer to re-create George Seurat's late 19th century painting, titled "Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte."
It's a perfect image of bourgeois calm and oblivious, self-satisfied, imperial repose. The photograph, the Tribune reports, will be used for a "recruitment poster" by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, which does not seem terribly interested in attracting student's from the city and metropolitan area's large African-American population.
Things are a bit more stressful in another, blacker part of town. Further down on the same page of the same section, we can read the results of a recent research report on 1,587 African-Americans living in the decrepit Ida B. Wells housing project on the city's South Side. More than half of the households there have incomes less than $5,000. Less than a fourth of the heads of those households are employed. According to the Urban Institute, 1,000 people living at Wells may end up homeless as a result of the city's imminent demolition of the project. There's an endemic shortage, the Institute notes, of affordable housing for the project's residents and indeed for poor people throughout the city. Only a small number of the displaced will qualify to live in the "mixed income" dwellings the city will build where the facility used to sit.
This is terrible, but it's an old story. Since the early- and mid-90s, public authorities have been demolishing public housing projects with only minimal attention to the needs and limited resources of predominantly black public housing residents. The Chicago version is called the "Chicago Housing Authority Transformation Plan," a local monument to the market worshipping, privilege-friendly philosophy of global corporate neo-liberalism. Pushing disadvantaged inner-city residents and the idea of social justice to the remote margins of public concern, that philosophy holds that markets make the best decisions, that social action to improve your situation is self-defeating and silly, and that the best and only way to succeed in life is as a sovereign individual consumer and investor in a "free market society." Its triumph was proclaimed "inevitable" ("there is no alternative") by leading architects of American policy and opinion long before lunatics from a distant US-protected oil sheikdom turned flying gasoline-filled symbols (and agents) of petroleum-addicted corporate globalization into weapons of mass destruction.
As researchers and activists pointed out long before the jetliner attacks "changed everything," the available stock of such housing in Chicago is insufficient to absorb the displaced public housing population. That population is "free" to be homeless, thanks to the working of economic forces that carry social costs of secondary concern to local policymakers. Those policymakers, including the Mayor, are beholden to commercial and real estate property developers seeking to remove poor black inner city residents from choice urban investment locations. Those locations are slated for predominantly white professionals, who want to live and shop in proximity to their offices in downtown Chicago, a leading headquarters for heavily state-subsidized and global corporations like the Boeing Corporation, which equips such marvelous adventures in democratic free-market progress as the terrorist occupation of Palestine (1948 to the present) and the bombings of Baghdad (both pre- and post-9/11) and (pre-9/11) Belgrade.
Correctional Continuities
Another story on the exact same Tribune page also indicates that some situations remain "normal" in the post-September 11 era. It notes that seven inmates, mostly black, were recently beaten with pool cues by guards at the city's giant Cook County Jail. How pre-9/11: this is the third such high-profile incident reported in the last four years at Cook County. The latest revelations come just days after Cook County States' Attorney Richard Devine – notorious in the black community for his habit of putting innocent African-Americans on death row – announced that he would not file charges in connection with the beating of five shackled Cook County inmates in July 2000. Meanwhile, federal investigators are conducting a civil-rights violation investigation into an alleged mass beating involving 40 guards at the same jail in 1999.
Last July, the Chicago public was momentarily shocked – these things pass, as the media moves on – to learn of a terrible accident on Interstate 57, south of Chicago. Several blacks and Hispanics were critically injured and two died when a van rolled over while carrying 18 Chicagoans to visit loved ones warehoused in racially disparate mass penitentiaries located in the southern part of Illinois. Terrible, but not new: on January 26th of 2001, almost 9 months before "everything changed," a Salvation Army van carrying eleven people on Interstate 55 south of Chicago collided with a tractor-trailer, killing all ten of the van's passengers and its driver. Ten of the dead were Black and one was Hispanic. The van was part of a regular service that took people from Chicago's predominantly black West Side to visit relatives and mates doing time in state prison.
After both crashes, nobody in the local media or politics had much to say about the relationship between the victims' race and the nature of the van's destination. There were no connections made between the tragedy and the state's policy decision to dramatically increase the number of prisoners in Illinois – mostly black and from the Chicago area – from 27,000 in 1990 to nearly 47,000 in 2000 (even as crime fell) and its related building of 11 new mass correctional facilities in Illinois during the same period; massive job-programs for de-industrialized downstate whites that are placed at increasingly vast distances from the "offenders'" home communities (See Paul Street, The Vicious Circle: Race, Prison, Jobs and Community in Chicago, Illinois, and the Nation, Chicago: Chicago Urban League, October 2002).
Last Hired, First Fired
Speaking of jobs, an excellent recent front-page article in the Tribune notes that mass lay-offs enacted during the curiously "jobless" Bush "recovery" have hit Chicago's black population especially hard. Blacks "feel frozen out of the work world," as local activist Eddie Read told the Tribune. The feeling among black workers and job applicants, the paper explains, is very different from the late 1990s, when increased labor demand significantly cut black unemployment, even among lesser-skilled inner city workers. It is worth noting, however, that the black unemployment rate (18.2 percent) was more than four times higher than the white unemployment rate (less than 5 percent) even at the peak of the "Clinton boom" – which "lifted more yachts than rowboats" as the Tribune noted last year. Also meriting mention is the fact that Chicago area job growth in the booming 90s was dramatically higher in white communities than in black communities (see The Color of Job Growth, a 2002 report of the Chicago Urban League). Here we are dealing with continuities that go back much further than 9/11. They reach back further than the Great Depression, when blacks were the "last hired and first hired" for neither the first nor the last time in American history.
Ghetto Lives
To more directly sense the rich continuities of racial homeland inequality in Chicago before and after "everything changed," you don't need to read newspapers or studies. You can drive west out of the city's downtown on Madison Avenue, past the stadium that Michael Jordan built (the United Center) and into the heart of desperately impoverished West Side neighborhoods like North Lawndale and West and East Garfield. A large number of teen and younger adult males gather on street corners. Most of them are part of the city's large and very disproportionately black concentration – estimated at 97,000 strong in 2001 by the Center for Labor Market Studies (Northeastern University) – of "disconnected youth," 16- to 24-years olds who are both out of school and out of work. Many of them are clearly enrolled in gang organizations and engaged in the narcotics trade. Many of them have already served or will soon serve as raw material for the aforementioned "downstate" prison industry. Older unemployed males, many unrecorded in the nation's official unemployment statistics (their "discouraged" status means they are no longer actively participating in the labor force), congregate around liquor stores and missions. The endemic stress, disappointment, and danger of inner-city life is etched on their faces.
Equally evident is the relative absence of retail facilities, services, and institutions that are standard in richer, whiter neighborhoods: full-service modern grocery stores, drugstores, bookstores, restaurants, doctors, dentists, lawyers, dry-cleaners, banks, personal investment and family insurance stores, boutiques, coffee shops, and much more. Businesses and homes are visibly dilapidated, with many of the former relying on hand-painted signs to advertise their wares. Local business owners, many of whom are Arab, protect their enterprises from burglary with bars and gated shutters. Pawnshops and barebones storefront churches are widely visible, as are liquor stores and currency exchanges advertising super-exploitive Payday loans. Taxicabs are scarce and those that do serve the neighborhoods are generally low-budget, fly-by-night "jitney" firms.
The small number of whites seen in these neighborhoods and their South Side counterparts are males working in traditional working-class "jobs that pay" – street and sewer repair, construction trades, firemen, and the like – that appear to be unavailable to black males.
Police cars cruise warily, their occupants donning bullet-proof vests deemed necessary in waging the war on drugs in neighborhoods where people with felony records outnumber legitimate jobs.
This is pretty much how these neighborhoods looked and felt before 9/11. Truth be told, they look a lot like they did in the 1960s, even before the riots that are supposed to have taken away their vitality, actually stolen by a process of disinvestment that was already well underway.
Accelerated Continuity
How have things changed since 9/11 in these neighborhoods? Simply put, the core continuities of human suffering and hopelessness have been accelerated. Things have gotten worse at a quickened pace, thanks in large part to the racially disparate joblessness of the current recovery. Also part of the unpleasant equation is 9/11 itself, or more accurately the official, right-led public and media response to the terror attacks. September 11th gave the radical-right Bush junta – falsely labeled conservative – a precious opportunity to divert public attention away from the causes and consequences of urban inequality, to starve, cripple, and pre-empt programs that might alleviate the suffering caused by racism and related socioeconomic inequality, and to conflate dissent with treason. These masters of war at home and abroad have seized on the opportunity with all deliberate speed, consistent with the timeworn conduct of concentrated power, before and since "everything changed." Empire abroad has always been and remains both reflection and agent of inequality and repression at home.
Paul Street is an urban social policy researcher in Chicago, Illinois. His book Empire Abroad, Inequality at Home: Essays on America and the World Since 9/11 (Paradigm Publishers) will be available next year.
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Lift Sanctions Against Zimbabwe
Posted: Friday, September 12, 2003
President Thabo Mbeki
Of South Africa,
Pretoria.
President Olesugun Obasanjo
Of Nigeria, Abuja.
Prime Minister Howard,
Of Australia Canberra.
8TH- SEPTEMBER - 2003
Your Excellencies, and Rt. Hon. Prime Minister,
LIFTING OF SACTIONS AGAINST ZIMBABWE
1. Africa Strategy wants to commend the work of the two Commonwealth Heads of State namely Nigeria and South Africa for their concerted efforts of resolving the British sponsored violence in Zimbabwe. The pursuit for an African solution to the Zimbabwe political conflict adds weight to the integrity and dignity of the AU. This is a welcome gesture and a sign of political maturity. This goes a long way to solidify the principles of natural democracy and heals the wounds that the British and Australian systems opened in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe's democracy is the only vibrant one on the continent. A multiparty system that has endured a barrage of criticisms of the Western so called older democracy.
Our experience in Zimbabwe Politics has shown that this is a nation that can be reunited in thoughts. Zimbabwe has been peaceful since it gained independence from the murderous regime of Ian Smith, which was supported by the same stooges of capitalism like Australia and Britain. Africa Strategy notes with great sadness the way Prime Minister Howard has degraded himself to a level of a hooligan by openly denouncing a system that has reconciled with the past heinous crimes against humanity. His election on the troika therefore stands questionable by all African Commonwealth countries.
2. Disintegration of Commonwealth:
Africa Strategy has observed that the prototype violence in the commonwealth and the degree of political vigilante violence is about to disrupt the club of nations that HM the Queen helped to mould. The form of illegal violence, which leaders of Britain and Australia exhibit in the organisation, has caused disaster for Zimbabwe. The political vigilante clique headed by Howard an offspring of criminality and Blair a master of lies has driven the organisation to increasing disorder and political anarchy. The state of Mafia vigilantism in the Commonwealth has given rise to pilgrims of war and hatred among the great nations of the Queen. The actions of Australia and Britain have created suffering to the peaceful people of Zimbabwe and to a certain extent the whole of Southern Africa. We are now witnessing a right wing Anglo-Saxon Protestantism, which opposes perceived political, cultural, economic, social and moral liberation of the people of the Commonwealth and the world at large. The hatred of the land redistribution in Zimbabwe is a typical example of how the British and Australians have exposed their hypocrisy to the world. Africa Strategy therefore warns that the Common wealth will be divided on black and white lines if the current smear campaign on Zimbabwe does not end. The organisation stands to loose credibility and will disintegrate after the Abuja conference if the matter of Zimbabwe is not resolved.
3. Long route to dialogue in Zimbabwe
Africa Strategy has watched and followed with keen interest the long road to political settlement and reconciliation in Zimbabwe. There is a window of hope and good faith towards the strand of dialogue in Zimbabwe. But this can only be achieved if Australia as a member of the troika behaves professionally and does not behave like a lunatic in their political pronouncements. The road map for dialogue does exist in Zimbabwe and the people of Zimbabwe have realised that Howard and Blair have been feeding them on lies since the year 2000. They are now united and they intend to throw out imperialism to Victoria Falls. Zimbabweans themselves should be left to decide the direction of this long route to dialogue with the help of African peace brokers of Nigeria and South Africa. There is nothing Prime Minister Howard of Australia or Prime Minister Blair can offer because they are liars to the eyes of most African people.
4. Political harassment of the government of Zimbabwe.
The constant harassment of President Mugabe who has UNITED this country for 23 years under the principles of good governance should stop and a durable and viable way found to resolve the stalemate of Zimbabwe. Africa Strategy prays that targeted sanctions against Zimbabwe will be lifted soon so as to allow diplomacy to take shape and root. You cannot put a nation, which is under a humanitarian crisis to negotiate without giving concessions to encourage good will. Africa Strategy has maintained that Britain and Australia were politically naïve to cut of political channels with Zimbabwe too early. They have created the negative political debacle we see in Zimbabwe.They have to show good gestures to enable fruitful dialogue. Dialogue can be achieved by respect for the current leadership of Zimbabwe. It is therefore deplorable that Australia and Britain who are member states in the Commonwealth to on harassing and intimidating Zimbabwe and the rest of the organisation.
5. Lifting sanctions will enhance political negotiations in Zimbabwe.
The lifting of sanctions will show a good sign of diplomacy. Targeted sanctions, which have caused economic hardships, should be removed to allow the spirit of conflict resolution to prevail.
The government of President Mugabe has many friends in Australia and Britain who can help to remould the political landscape of Zimbabwe and advise on the way forward. There is need to seek international and regional advise on the way forward by engaging the wise wisdom of those who have been on the side of President Mugabe for 23years. It was morally wrong and politically shallow for Britain and Australia to have closed the doors of open diplomacy when they're continued presence and contacts with Zimbabwe would have blossomed into a powerful pact of political magic for Zimbabwe. It is a shame to hear that the British government have now secretly admitted that Clare Short as the Minister in charge of Africa misled them on Zimbabwe.
6. Forced regime change will create power vacuum
Negotiations cannot be meaningful when a rope is tied around the neck of President Mugabe of Zimbabwe. His nation is facing economic hardships inflicted on it by the British and Australian sanctions. The same nations are calling on him to leave power when they know that a power vacuum could create chaos in Zimbabwe like what we see in Iraq. This strategy of divide and rule that has been embedded in the political history of these so-called old democracies must be exposed and we are delighted that Presidents Thabo Mbeki and his counter part Olesegun Obasanjo have taken a tough line to ensure that Australia and Britain do not bulldoze their way in the Commonwealth without checks and balances.
7. Wrong impression painted on Zimbabwe by Britain and Australia:
To date Africa Strategy has visited Zimbabwe 32 times to see itself the movement towards unity and reconciliation. Africa Strategy is pleased to state that contrary to the fantasy what the BBC and other imperialistic media houses have beamed around the world there is plenty of peace in this nation. This credit goes to President Mugabe's good policies that have not allowed Zimbabwe to go the Liberia Street.
There is peace and security in Zimbabwe than the streets of London or the shores of Australia. It is safer to walk in Harare at night than London because one does not know when the Real IRA will strike. The notion of insecurity in Zimbabwe is a design to divert attention on the high figures of gun crime in Britain and Australia. Considering the number tourists on British Airways route from London - Harare we find no reason of insecurity in Zimbabwe. Hospitality in Zimbabwe tourist resorts is better than in London or Australian Hotels. Zimbabwe needs encouragement not isolation.
8. Targeted sanctions in third world hurt masses not regime
We have stated and we have continued to state that sanctions in any African country hurt the masses not the governments. Sanctions in politics can only work when there is no consensus on national matters. In the case of Zimbabwe land is a common bond and no human being can tear that bond. This has given the government of Zimbabwe popularity amongst its people. That is why all attempts by the opposition to stifle people have failed because they have also acquired land in President Mugabe's land empowerment programme to the people. There is no need of hurting the same people with sanctions under the pretext of democracy. Do we want changes to come in Zimbabwe for the dead people? Is democracy a tool to kill Zimbabweans one by one under sanctions? Australia and Britain have pretended to be fighting for Zimbabwe's freedom by imposing the harsh economic sanctions to starve the masses. Is this the new form of tools of imperialistic liberation by torture and hunger?
9. Looming humanitarian crisis widens the gap of dialogue
If we want the parties in Zimbabwe to move closer to dialogue then the world should pay more attention to the humanitarian crisis that Britain and Australia imposed on the government of Zimbabwe.
The current humanitarian crisis was created and reinforced by the same big brothers of the Commonwealth. Is this the democracy of doom or double standards for Africans? Does democracy mean you kill people by strangulating them through economic embargoes and travel bans then you send food packages when they are on their deathbeds? If this is what Australia and Britain want in Zimbabwe then they are bound to upset the racial harmony in the whole Southern Africa. Australia and Britain should have learnt from Ugandan history where they created the late Idi Amin and he later turned Uganda into a jungle of cannibalism.
10. Is Commonwealth history repeating itself?
The world must be reminded that when Rhodesia was under Ian Smith the former British Prime Minister Edward Heath told the Common wealth leaders meeting in Singapore in 1971 that the British government would not force a solution for Rhodesia.
The same double standards tactic which older democracy used during the struggle for independence in Zimbabwe is the same applied by Prime Minister Howard on Zimbabwe today. Prime Minister Howard and his counter part in Britain encouraged violence through the MDC. That violence has destroyed the moral and political fabric of a vibrant democracy in Africa. The so-called sanctions have killed the economy of Zimbabwe. Yet today they are the same countries at the forefront of calling and forcing a solution on Zimbabwe. This is a double tragedy for the Commonwealth.
On the part of Ugandans who endured the brutality of the British double standard strategy under Amin will never mourn the death of former Prime Minister Edward Heath if it occurred. The British plotted a coup on Uganda on 25th January 1971, which led to the death of our fathers. This is why I warn many of my brothers and sisters in Zimbabwe not fall victims of international conspiracy. Those in MDC who have attacked me for defending President Mugabe against the British fangs should know that Uganda lost its shape because of former Rhodesia.
The then leadership of former President Dr. Milton Obote had wanted Britain to impose tough sanctions on the MURDEROUS IAN SMITH at Singapore Commonwealth Conference. But Britain instead plotted a coup with Amin. The political journey of Uganda in 1971changed for the sake of new Zimbabwe. The suffering and misery brought to Ugandans through the British sponsored coup and by advocates of regime change in 1971 has left lots of scars on the nation. Today history is repeating itself by the same countries at their usual game of changing leadership forcefully. Those who can remember history will not want it to happen in Zimbabwe as it happened in Uganda.
11. A reminiscent of political blunders by white Commonwealth
Africa Strategy knows that many British companies gained out of the Apartheid regime and UDI. We are also aware that many British and Australian companies burst the commonwealth and UN sanctions on the former Rhodesia. The African people would not like to see a reminiscent of the same blunders on the African soil. The leaders of the older Commonwealth should look at such historical reflections of the organisation to see the litany of lies and sorrow that their countries sowed on Africa before they talk of regime change.
It is now evident that Britain and Australia benefited from the former Rhodesian government of Ian Smith and the former Apartheid regime of South Africa. No African scholar of political science would like to witness such political brutality on Zimbabwe again. Imperialist intervention and call for regime change in Zimbabwe will harm inter -racial balance and will be a reminiscent of the disaster and cause disunity not only to Zimbabwe but also to the whole of Southern Africa. If the Zimbabwe issue is not handled with care it will explode into a time bomb that is in that region. There is a political accident in waiting in this region on the question of land and we must take a clear line not to upset the balance of forces and type of nationalism in the Southern African region.
12. Land redistribution programme is a foregone conclusion
Africa strategy knows that aspirations, passion, hope, volition and choice, belong inalienably to the life of the mind and the spirit of Zimbabweans. Without these tenets the people of Zimbabwe would languish and perish. As Africans we must not allow our selves to be paralysed by thought, rather as Africans we must use the Zimbabwe method to stand together and fight for freedom based on African values. Africa Strategy warns that we dare not stand and wait for foreigners from Europe and else where to set pace for us. President Mugabe has set pace for Africa to rethink. No political independence can be meaningful without the fruits of freedom, which are economic in nature. LAND is the final asset that Africans have and it must be shared equally without any obstacles from the former colonial masters.
The land re-distribution programme, which many countries like Australia and Britain used as ploy against President Mugabe, has been completed. President Mugabe has empowered and cared for his people. Most black and white people in Zimbabwe are in agreement of the removal of imbalances and inequalities, which were an accident in waiting and a time bomb similar to ultra nationalism of the Balkans The Commonwealth politically needs to move forward and look at a wider context of the African politics that has kept the people of Zimbabwe alive. Despite the threats from the former colonisers the country have survived and it is soldiering on with its Unity. This is a great political asset that most African countries lack. There is Unity of purpose in Zimbabwe unlike in countries like Uganda where the government only governs the Southern part of the country and the rest is under different rebel groups.
13. Awkward world order
The so-called world order that is bent on war and fails to learn to resolve crisis is an incompetent institution of political squalor. This is a reality given that there is peace in Zimbabwe up to this date although Prime Minister John Howard and Ton Blair in 2002 predicted war in Zimbabwe. It must be understood that in Zimbabwe there is a population that is resilient and determined to keep Zimbabwe as one nation. No political party today or in the near future will return the land to 1% of the white commercial farmers who owned 80% of arable land in Zimbabwe. We must recognise this as a fundamental change that we have to live with for generations to come. History always repeats itself. White colonisers never asked for land peacefully in Zimbabwe. They also grabbed this land forcefully from the black majority 120 years ago. The truth is that what President Mugabe has done in Zimbabwe is more orderly than what Cecil Rhodes did long time ago.
14. What Cecil Rhodes did 120 years ago has been annulled
The land is in the hands of the owners both black and white that are Zimbabweans. This is political dynamism and no mankind can stop the flow of freedom to the people. The skewed land policies that were created by the barbaric colonial laws have been destined to the dustbin of political history and those in the Common wealth who value sanity must accept this and focus on the economic hardships that Zimbabwe faces today.
The truth is that no political party in Zimbabwe can undo what Mugabe has done for his people. Let Britain and Australia learn this hard fact. The land is the given back to its owners both black and white on equal basis. Not even the foreign traitor clique in the MDC can derail the land programme. Politics is not therefore static it is dynamic and to cry over history is to create room for disaster. Africa and Zimbabweans in particular are not prepared to see what is in Iraq happen on their farms. Africans are usually very modest people who have no desire to let out blood. But the drums of war by Prime Minister Howard and Tony Blair of Britain can cause political mayhem to the continent.
15. Zimbabwe is a victim of rotten political spin from Britain and Australia.
Africa as a continent is faced with many forces of political immaturity, which destroy the young democracy that has not, evolved for over 1000 years like that of Australia or of Britain. The so-called older democracies are the key allies behind the Zimbabwe saga and isolation. The Zimbabwe case study is a classic example where dark imperial forces of political immaturity have prevailed. It must be remembered that most those used by the British and Australia today in MDC are either deserters from the main ZANU-PF or are re-positioning themselves for political office after the so-called advocated changes in Zimbabwe. Most of them are young people and University leavers who have no knowledge of running a government. If these groups are allowed to take the whims of power Zimbabwe will be Liberia.
The opposition in Zimbabwe is not home grown opposition but a foreign agitated opposition to protect a minority syndrome in Zimbabwe. Britain and Australia have a track record of grooming and using leaders in Africa whose thinking and reasoning capacity is equivalent to that of the late Amin Dada of Uganda. The politics of Unionism has failed in Zambia and has created chaos in Britain where the British are trapped in a shadow of spin doctoring. It is now crystal clear that Britain and Australia wanted to alter the political landscape of Zimbabwe in favour of the anointed leader of the MDC but failed.
They wanted to use the election exit strategy to destroy President Mugabe and that too has failed. They have tried to create insurgency in Zimbabwe through Baroness Lynda Chalker that too has failed. They have tried to use the Secretary General of the Common wealth destroy Zimbabwe that too failed. The only route left for political face saving for these nations is to talk directly to the government of Zimbabwe. That can be achieved by lifting sanctions that will allow free movement of all parties concerned.
16. The efficacy of the Commonwealth is dead by using the tainted middle class in MDC that values money more than patriotism.
To make democratic changes in Africa needs patriotism and a strong middle class that is not tainted by colonial handouts, which can only help to expose the ignorance of the opposition. The above cases of politics of unionism and spin doctoring are closely related to the presence of a small middle class that has no bearing to the current situation on ground in Zimbabwe. This small middle class is supported by the older democracies in the Common wealth to unleash violence against the state in Zimbabwe. Africa Strategy has documented these acts of violence by the MDC, which shows how the two older democracies have been responsible for acts of political vandalism in Zimbabwe.
The support given to the opposition MDC in Zimbabwe since the year 2000 has killed the efficacy of the Commonwealth. In fact there must be an investigation or commission of inquiry into the conduct of the Commonwealth Secretariat in London as regards Zimbabwe. Millions and millions of USD dollars have been poured to the opposition in Zimbabwe to instigate and orchestrate chaos. The books of Accounts at the Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD) reveal that money was paid to opposition papers in Zimbabwe like the Daily News to maintain sanctions and distortion of Zimbabwe's image abroad. The resources channelled to MDC as late as September 2002 have killed and stalled peaceful solutions for Zimbabwe. The older democracies have tainted the small middle class in Zimbabwe politics with blood money that has now haunted the Commonwealth.
17. Election exit strategy
Older democracies now use election exit strategy against third world countries that have no means of answering back. Electoral politics in Africa constitutes a worrying phenomenon on the transition to stable democracy. Elections in almost all postcolonial commonwealth were regarded as free and fair in the 1960s and 1970s. Both contenders and electorate generally accepted them as credible, free and fair. The Australian Prime Minister should note that these elections of postcolonial Commonwealth were held without the so-called outfit of imperialism called OBSERVERS. Zimbabwe's case was sad because the Commonwealth Secretary General sent a team "for a summer holidays and social spree". The report which the team produced on Zimbabwe elections was "doctored" and "sexed up " to the pleasure of the older democracies of Australia and Britain in the Commonwealth. "W e now have ample evidence that shows that all words the two Prime Ministers Blair and Howard speak are lies. Africa Strategy wants the Commonwealth to revisit the Zimbabwe election story and we shall find many areas where the two countries have lied on ZIMBABWE." Then Britain using its other proxies in the European Union also sexed the report further to force sanctions to the great basket of Africa Zimbabwe
18. Culture of political corruption in the Commonwealth
There is a serious political syndrome called a culture of political corruption in Africa. There is corrupt tendency that no election in Africa is credible unless the so-called bunch of elite foreign observers like General Abubakar and his mercenaries of doom in Zimbabwe certify it. "The Common wealth team that was sent to Zimbabwe elections became voters instead of observers" The Common wealth failed and ignored its role as an organisation founded for those with a common cause of humanity and one that has closer links with Britain and HM the Queen of United Kingdom. It has turned itself into an international surveillance camera that is always superficial or comes late to spoil the electoral process of several nations in the world. The Australian and British governments have both legitimised opposition parties in many countries where they have gone to observe elections. This is a very worrying strategy on the side of the older democracies. The blood bath that we see in most parts of the world is as a result of doctored and faked evidence by the so-called observers on all political issues in the Commonwealth. The question of Uganda is an example where a political opponent of Museveni was exiled in the eyes of the Commonwealth. Zimbabwe does not need that fallacy. Zimbabwe has made strides towards good governance and political maturity where the elections are won on merit.
19.Losers of election in Africa never defeat
Africa Strategy notes that there is a very disturbing development where the losers even those who take part in elections that are widely seen as free and fair never accept defeat. The case of Nigeria where the opposition rejected the verdict of the ballot box. Some countries in the European Union wanted to side with the opposition to derail the democratic process. This is an area where Africa needs ample research. The Common wealth must ascertain whether the claims of such dubious opposition are true. The trend that creates warlords and separatists whose desire for blood and violence is overwhelming must be discouraged. These dirty opposition parties like the MDC in Zimbabwe have brought humanitarian crisis in most countries where Australia and Britain send their troops and food packages for dead Africans. Why was Zimbabwe able to survive for 22years with prosperity and then the 2002 elections brought misery? This is the question for those who blame President Mugabe to answer.
20. Imperialism has overridden logic
The Zimbabwe case is the political benchmark where imperialism has overridden logic. Most of the countries that have hated President Mugabe do so for glory and adventurism. The Mercantile capitalism system has roots in the hate campaign against Zimbabwe. The government in Zimbabwe has allowed opposition freedom to publish in the media, it has allowed the opposition to sort differences through courts and above all Zimbabwe has no political prisoners like in Uganda and other countries that Britain and Australia praise. These are all signs of good governance. The colonial hangover policy has destroyed the development initiated by the Commonwealth. Australia and Britain should learn from the Iraq scandal that has blown up into political chaos both in their countries and in Iraq itself. We should not create unnecessary wars that will drain the resources that would have been used to cure HIV/ AIDS. Imperialism must not thrive and kill the spirit of democratisation in the emerging democracies that have balanced a political base like that of Zimbabwe.
21. Polarised Commonwealth has not mandate:
Africa Strategy has watched the Secretary General of the Common wealth grow from political ignorance to stalemate since the Zimbabwe March 2002 Elections. We recognise and welcome the recent statements made during his visit to Abuja for the preparations of Commonwealth conference. But they are not sufficient to remove the burden that is on the shoulders of Zimbabweans. The Secretary General has on a number of occasions issued statements that add agony and anguish to the people of Zimbabwe. He has shown bias and negativity as an administrator of policy in the Commonwealth. This has led to the current status quo in Zimbabwe. He has no coherent programme for dialogue in Zimbabwe. He has been listed as conduit of misinformation and has opened a Pandora box of complex issues that create more chaos than solutions on the crisis Zimbabwe. This is regrettable episode for an administrator who is mandated to find ways and means of resolving the political debacle that was supported by some member states of the Commonwealth on Zimbabwe. He has in summary caused rifts in the Commonwealth and opened more wounds than any of his predecessors.
22. Tactics used in the Ottoman Empire
The question of Zimbabwe reminds us of the tricks that the old British imperialism used to reshape the Ottoman Empire in 1924 by leaving behind the current Iraq as it is and giving green light to the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. The use of the Common wealth to cause a pre-emptive war of regime change on Zimbabwe is the aim of having an indirect rule through pseudo-democracy spearheaded by the MDC under the supervision of the Secretary Generals office in London. Africa Strategy finds most of these acts treasonable in the Commonwealth and that is why we are appealing to you leaders to raise these issues to your fellow Heads of state in the Common wealth in Abuja.
23. Australian lobby for extension of sanctions on Zimbabwe
Reports and documents we have obtained from most Australian High Commissions abroad indicate that the government of Prime Minister Howard has directed its staff to lobby for support in order to expel or extend the harsh conditions that Zimbabweans are living in today for another term. The huge amounts of donations to some poor Common wealth countries in return for their support on Zimbabwe is not only appalling but an act of political immaturity on the part of the member of the troika which the Commonwealth should condemn.
Africa Strategy does not take it lightly as this has created corruption and political arms twisting which the Harare Declaration of 1997 on Accountability and good governance does not subscribe to. Many small countries and some in East Africa have been paid or are about to be paid to support Zimbabwe's expulsion from the Common Wealth. These actions renders the Prime Minister of Australia not fit to sit on the TROIKA.
24. Covert and overt operation against Zimbabwe.
It is now very clear that the weaker nations have become vulnerable or open to overt or covert manipulations that have included the financing of the wars. The case of Liberia where the British oligarchy and Australia financed the LURD rebels in return for the diamonds from the rebels. Going by norms of international standards of governance the two should be censored by the majority in the Common wealth. We should not allow Zimbabwe to become another Anglo-American elite network of "silent diplomacy" that has created trouble and hidden under global terrorism to dismember nations.
25. Conclusion and way forward
Africa Strategy wants to alert the two leaders of the Commonwealth on the troika of the dangers of the Australian agenda that has already decided the fate of Zimbabwe. We want to ask the Common wealth through you to revamp the dialogue based on the conditions that don't create chaos like the one we have in Liberia where we had to stop the democratically President for the sake of British and American hegemony. This has set wrong signals to all other developing democracies on the continent. We must as Africans and for Africans whatever the colour of skin must have the cause for our continent. We must only support programmes of recovery that will not tie us and remind us of slavery and Apartheid era. Dialogue based on African values and accepted by the people of Zimbabwe will stop the madness of vagaries of imperialism and neo-colonialism.
26. Fangs of colonial hangover
The poisonous fangs of colonial legacy of the older democracies can be stopped by the firm determination and courage that the leadership on the continent can exhibit in terms of political maturity. Not by decisions made from Australia or Britain. Africa needs an African solution bases on African values not an imposed solution that will apex to chaos as soon as the ink dries on paper. The political crisis in Zimbabwe sponsored by Westminster Foundation for Democracy WFD to destroy nation is a deliberate attempt to re-colonise Africa through third door democracy of globalisation. The Common wealth has failed to invest in the mature civil society on the continent. They always look for weak political opposition like the one in Zimbabwe to create anarchy. If Australia had invested in a patriotic civil society in the Commonwealth there would have been no need for the so-called Foreign Observers misguiding the Common wealth on elections.
27. Time to lift sanctions on Zimbabwe
Every time we travel to this country we witness the scars of imperialism opening up slowly. We have seen in the last 2 years a Zimbabwe that was prosperous heading for a total collapse in economic infrastructure. President Mugabe has been tremendous in upholding the instruments of power and we should award him the respect he deserves. No leader on the continent can keep his former enemy after power takeover like what President Mugabe has done in ZIMBABWE. President Mugabe is a true statesman of the continent who is committed to principles of reconciliation that have failed in Uganda, Congo, Liberia, and many nations that are on war footing. The World Bank and IMF should be encouraged to return to assist in rebuilding the economy that the Australia and Britain have helped to destroy.
Africa Strategy wants be on record and to be known that we are calling for an immediate lifting of sanctions on Zimbabwe. We also call for a complete halt to all hostile actions on Zimbabwe by the Commonwealth "big brother syndrome" that has yielded a humanitarian crisis against Zimbabwe. W e call upon Nigeria and South Africa as strong African economic and political models to resist all temptations of being ordered around on the issue of Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe has a bright future under President Mugabe and there has been a smooth transition to democracy. Our goals as Africans are to value humanity not the mad principles of mercantile capitalism, which have led to bloodbath in Iraq.
28. The Way forward
If Tony Blair was not sure of history of Iraq then it has now judged him harshly and he is regretting. Zimbabwe cannot be an experimental case of freedom on the continent. Zimbabwe should not fall the way Liberia went due to political ignorance of the leaders of Australia and Britain who have put more emphasis on material gains than the life of the black Africans.
History has repeated itself in Iraq. The Liberian case shows that Britain and Australia have always left a trail of carnage. We have documents in our possession, which indicate that Britain supported the rebels of LURD in Liberia for the lucrative diamond trade. Britain supplied arms to these rebels as shown by end-user certificates. This is we what we want to avoid in Zimbabwe.
29. Political weakness of Blair and Howard at home.
Both Prime Ministers of Britain and Australia are politically weak at home now. They face daunting tasks to salvage their political life span. The Iraq fiasco where they lied to voters about Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) is now haunting them. The world knows for sure that Blair and Howard are habitual liars. It is common knowledge that very few people can trust these sons of soil on Zimbabwe or any other issue in the world politics. This is where the integrity of Presidents of South Africa And Nigeria is at stake in African politics if you don't deliver Zimbabwe back to the world harmony peacefully. Africa Strategy will always be with you all the way to Abuja and until we return Zimbabwe to its former glory.
This letter will be copied to the Secretary General for information to Member states of the Commonwealth. The research we have conducted on Zimbabwe indicates that 85% Common wealth States prefer lifting sanctions and having direct talks with the Government of Zimbabwe on the issues that were more of bilateral nature.
God bless you all,
Thanking all of you advance
Yours sincerely
David Nyekorach- Matsanga (Dr)
Africa strategy.
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Pseudo-Cons Glee In Taking Opportunities
Posted: Friday, September 5, 2003
PSEUDO-CONS GLEE IN TAKING OPPORTUNITY FROM THE EXPERIENCE OF BABIES
The attempt to "privtize' Headstart is yet another attempt by the false "conservatives" to continue the process of destroying the Black, Hispanic and poor White communities in this nation. The idea that headstart should be curtailed, elimimated or 'privatized," when these attempts would destroy that program needs to be reexamined.
All research done has shown that Headstart has helped millions of people and has contributed to the saving of millions of dollars. In fact, headstart has done more than given a head-up to millions of Black, Hispanic, White, American Indian and a large percentage of the people of the US. It has helped contribute to a better America.
PSEUDO-CON AGENDA WHETHER IN CALIFORNIA OR THE ENTIRE NATION IS DESTROYING THE US
The false "conservatives" (former 'flower power,' liberals and one-issue armageddonists) seem to be on a roller coaster track in their conspiracy to destroy America and make it suitable for their own corporate friends and interests.
Why then would the false 'conservatives' wnat to destroy headstart and promote the type of atmosphere where the training and upbringing of young children will be left to a system that expects the destroyed children of America to be criminals and without the proper training to succeed in the job market.
If the false conservatives want all of America's billions to be funnelled into the Middle East to support their parents 'homeland' rather than using America's money for America's children, then these false conservatives need to reexamine their priorities.
If the false conservatives are really about creating a stable economic environment, as they have tried to do with devastation in California, they would not contribute to more of the 'high tech' slavery that has brought about the waste of trillions of dollars around the nation with absolutely no positive return.
FALSE CONSERVATIVES ARE DESTROYING THE AMERICAN ECONOMY
The false conservatives are being systematic in their destruction of the American economy. First, anyone with any intelligence will see that the deficit has increased over the past two years and the economy is going into collasp in states like California, where conservative policies have contributed to the destriction of people and the taking of jobs to overseas locations where labor is cheap.
False conservatives have also pushed the "law and order," and "war against drugs" issues. Both of these 'wars" have also caused billions and have led to the elimination of a strong class of people between 18 to 30 who have been criminilized rather than trained for jobs and employment. At the same time, these same victims of this neo-facist economic agenda who could have been contributors to the economy are now 'slaves' of the drug war while the jobs are all going overseas.
It may shock some to realize that in 1670's just before slavery was officially established and Blacks in the English colonies were at an equal economic level to whites, the conservative Calvinists and others were having the same type of discussions that are common today. They introduced chattel slavery out of sheer envy of the Black colonists. Thus, the bible was interpreted to support slavery and both American Indians, Blacks native to North and South America and Africans all fell victim to slavery. The text, "A History of Racism and Terrorism, Rebellion and Overcoming," published by 1stBooks Library, 1stbooks.com and Barnesandnoble.com ), discusses this aspect of history in a thorough manner and traces the history of racism from the time of the nomadic infiltration into India in 1700 B.C. and introduced the racist caste system which continues to this day in India (see the June issue of National Geographic Magazine).
Nubianem
Black Nubian empire
nubianem2@webtv.net
http://community.webtv.net/nubianem
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