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Thousands
of demonstrators crowded the streets carrying signs objecting to
the current U.S. attacks on Afghanistan. They clashed with
the police as they expressed their disenchantment with American
foreign policy which, in their view, caused the September 11th
attacks. They condemned the harassments witnessed by Muslims
and Arabs in Western countries, called for bringing an end to the
U.S. inflicted sanctions on Iraq, adopting a ‘fairer’ stand in
the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from
the Gulf. Those demonstrators did not come out of Al Azhar,
Baghdad or Gaza. They were American citizens who were clear
about their position regarding what happened. They turned
the question of who did it? To why did they do it?
It
appears confusing, especially when we discover that the vast
majority of the American population continues to support the
military option, albeit they wish to identify the people who did
it, and urge the American government to reconsider its foreign
policy in the Middle East.
On
the other hand, with the continuous flood of news on Arabs and
Muslims being subjected to physical harassment (CAIR reported over
600 cases of assault on people with different backgrounds, with
three killings: a Copt, a Sikh, and a Pakistani Muslim), it
becomes even more confusing when one tries to establish a
perspective; to allow for more interaction to undo misconception,
or to revert to a state of isolation to avoid further clashes.
This
complex scenario continues to raise more eyebrows. The
triggered anti-war demonstrations that go even further into
anti-political and economic globalization make us wonder whether
they were simple haphazard evens that highlighted the need for the
American people to become more exposed to world affairs, or the
result of more deeply embedded ideas in the nature and basis of a
capitalistic system of political and economic governance. A
more viable possibility is the latter. These movements
have their own reasons for those demonstrations but they act as a
significant basis of support for issues concerning Arabs and
Muslims alike. Similar to those was also the number of
people who rallied for the Palestinian cause in Durban.
Perhaps seeking a coherent analysis and explanation for those
movements could help in understanding the American society and the
complexities of the New World Order. This in itself is a
plus for people in our part of the world (Arab and Islamic) who
merely happen be geographically located in a region subject to
crossing interests and coalitions.
Seen
on Television: ‘We Wish to Inform You’
Feelings
of grief and sorrow have given way to more positive steps towards
action. Various forms of protests were shown on television
across American and European cities. In Los Angeles, for
example, hundreds of demonstrators gathered to denounce the war
rhetoric and condemn American foreign policy, seen as the main
reason behind the September 11th attacks. In Canada and in
Germany demonstrators held signs saying “Enough Victims, No to
Revenge.” In Britain, 5000 people gathered near the Prime
Minister office carrying signs saying “Shoulder to Shoulder for
Peace and Justice.”
“Why”
Instead of “Who”
Those
that questioned the war and those that demonstrated against it,
have been pushing the question into a different direction,
focusing on the root of the problem as a way to solve it, rather
than finding out who was involved and issuing punishment, with or
without evidence. Fred Goldstein mentioned in his report on
the International
Action Center (IAC) website “Bush, Capitalism, and the War
Crisis” that George W. Bush’s address, saying that he is
declaring war on those that attack the American way of life.
He points to the simple fact that there is no one way of living in
America. There are different races, different ethnic
backgrounds, and people with different social and economic status.
Each affects your main concerns and thus directs their ‘way of
life.’ Further, the peoples of the Middle East share a
growing rage at the United States, Europe, and the NATO alliance.
Their countries have been under the control of superpowers for
more than a century. They realize those countries’ role in
the killing of thousands of Palestinians and more than 1 million
Iraqis. They also realize that Washington stood behind
Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982 which resulted in the death
of 17, 500 Lebanese citizens in Beirut alone. Goldstein goes
further back in history and points to the death of 125, 000
Egyptian workers during the digging of the Suez Canal in the
nineteenth century, which again was under the auspices of the
French government. In conclusion, Goldstein points out that
the Arab peoples did not necessarily rejoice in the September 11th
attacks, but they will nevertheless face a new wave of military
intervention, clearly motivated by economic and strategic
interests in the region.
One
Basket, One Logic
It
is interesting to find that Goldstein’s above expressed views as
well as the views of other anti-globalization and environmental
movements, are all part of one whole. With a look at the
Gulf war, for example, we find that economic interests in Oil led
to a strategic interest and placed many U.S. military bases across
the region while, on the other hand, Oil is not only a vital
source of life for the everyday life of the industrialized world,
it is also the fuel for a sophisticated system of military
command.
What
Should We Do?
War
in the sense that the American president has mentioned may be a
war against anyone, in any place around the world. Brian
Becker, the assistant manager of the IAC, has shown that the
answer to global terrorism should be to withdraw most American
forces from the Middle East and the Gulf region, to end the
sanctions on Iraq which led to the death of 1.2 million people,
and to withdraw support from Israel. The question becomes
when and to what extent will those anti-war and anti-globalization
movements translate demonstrations and signs into systematic plans
of action? More important yet, to what extent are we, as
Muslims, going to continue to sit back and watch, completely
ignorant to the rules of the game, and hardly contributing to
world events?
Getting
the Masses to Talk
Much
effort is needed to lift the veil off the truth and make it known
to the world. Many scholars and journalists would agree that
war today is a war of information. Reality can take many
different meanings if presented in a twisted manner. The
September 11th events were full of ambiguities that stressed the
need for mutual understanding. People’s fear of the
‘unknown’ enemy, and the march to a war against that enemy
raises eyebrows and pushes towards further inquiry, for if the
masses truly understood, they would redirect the foreign policies
of their states. The recent attacks showed the ability of
the individual to turn the capital of the world into chaos.
Why can we not explore the potential of the individual to change
the world in a more positive and comprehensible direction?
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