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Lynching
served to reinforce white supremacy.
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Last
year at this time, we were watching images of Saddam’s statue
being toppled by a small crowd in Baghdad. This year, we watched
the bodies of four US contractors, security guards or
mercenaries, depending on who is telling the story, burned,
mutilated, dragged through the streets of Fallujah, and then
hung as another small crowd of Iraqis chanted “Fallujah will
be America’s graveyard.”
Last
April, like many Americans, I just wanted the bombing to stop. I
was sickened by the bravado of George Bush and the constant
repeats of the toppling of Saddam, but I thought at least now
the violence against Iraq would stop. Surely civilian relief
agencies would flood into Iraq with clean water, food and
medical supplies. My son, somewhere in Iraq, would soon be home.
This April, we now see the strange fruit of what has turned into
a long-term occupation by the US military, symbolically
broadcast around the globe as the lynching of four US civilians
in Fallujah.
News
agencies, as always, quickly worked to exploit this horrible
event, comparing it to events in Mogadishu some years ago. It is
widely known that it is against Islamic beliefs to treat bodies
in this manner, but this type of brutal and inhuman behavior has
been portrayed as deeply imbedded in Middle Eastern culture.
Iraq, like other countries in the region, are barbaric and
uncivilized, in need of a good dose of US democracy. But I
watched the footage as it played over and over on every channel,
and knew what this was - it was a lynching, a common practice in
the United States for decades. Particularly used against
African-Americans, lynchings were characterized by celebrating
mobs, at times numbering in the thousands, capturing, torturing,
burning, mutilating and hanging victims of local hatred. The
horrific violence of lynching served to reinforce white
supremacy.
Gone
are all the constant reassurances that the action against Iraq
was directed at Saddam Hussein and not the people. |
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Perhaps
the comparison ends there. Lynching in the United States was
used by the majority white society to reinforce racist
practices; in 2004, lynching in Fallujah was used to protest the
US occupation. In the United States, lynchings were often
commemorated by post cards, so that mob members could share the
glories of the event with distant friends and relatives. Lynch
mobs were not punished, despite the attempt by some to make
lynching a federal crime. Lynching was swept under the rug. In
Fallujah, however, although the cameraman who filmed the
incident remarked that most residents kept to their homes afraid
to go out on the street, the US Marines have blocked all roads
and are gathering forces to begin a massive retaliation directed
at the whole town. Gone are all the constant reassurances that
the action against Iraq was directed at Saddam Hussein and not
the people. The superficial concern for the lives of civilians
has disappeared.
Newspapers
around the country are demanding justice for the four dead
Americans. In an April 1 editorial,
the Dallas Morning News, calling Fallujah “a snake pit
of 230,000 souls,” recommends that the military use
“unflinching determination to subdue that lawless city.” A
letter to the editor in a Tennessee paper says that this
would not have happened in other occupations, suggesting that
the military is being too lenient with Iraqi citizens. “The
streets would have been strewn with the bodies of the
murderers” if things were like they were after World War II,
and any citizens who were involved, including those of women or
youths seen dancing, laughing or mugging for the cameras.”
Syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker begins a column
by saying, “I suppose it would be considered lacking in nuance
to nuke the Sunni Triangle,” and shows her disdain for Iraqis
by commenting that “Americans have the appealing if
self-defeating habit of projecting their values onto others who
haven’t enjoyed centuries of self-enlightenment.”
Self-enlightenment?
Do people who are self-enlightened invade countries and then set
out to subdue others with armed violence, all in the name of
democracy? Over the past year, how did the people of Iraq become
our enemies? The Bush Administration last year claimed to be on
a mission to liberate the Iraqi people from the evils of Saddam
Hussein. The toppling of Saddam’s statue was meant to
symbolize the dawn of an age of democracy in Iraq. Instead,
death and destruction have run free in Iraq for over a year,
with no end in sight. Rather than talk of freeing the Iraqi
people from a violent dictatorship, now the mission seems to be
subduing Iraqi citizens to force military rule by the United
States. The goal of the occupation in Iraq has become one of
punishing the Iraqi people for their ingratitude.
The
actions of the lynch mob in Fallujah pale beside the fervor of
the gigantic lynch mob that has grown in the US. |
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The
actions of the lynch mob in Fallujah pale beside the fervor of
the gigantic lynch mob that has grown in the United States,
based on ignorance and revenge. First, the people of Afghanistan
were made to pay the price for the attacks of September 11; now
the people of Iraq are the targets. I watched a young Marine
talking to the media shortly after the killing of the
contractors in Fallujah, a young man who has been in Iraq only a
few weeks, perhaps still believing that he was sent there to
help the Iraqis. Trying to explain the situation he found
himself in, he said that Iraqis must be made to understand that
the United States is there to help them. His voice trailed off;
he seemed to be unable to continue. Perhaps he realized that he
was now part of a force sent, not to help the citizens of
Fallujah, but to subdue them with violent force.
The
idea that Saddam Hussein and his regime were a threat to the
world spread by George Bush and Tony Blair is now proven to be a
lie. The people of Iraq, who struggled to survive throughout a
year of violent occupation, certainly pose no threat to anyone.
Those who continue to support the military occupation of Iraq
need to admit the truth. They are not innocent and
well-intentioned bringers of democracy to the unenlightened;
they are members of a dangerous mob. Historically, US lynch mobs
served to enforce white supremacy, to broadcast a terrifying
warning to those who challenged the racial order. Today’s
modern US lynch mob seeks to set an example to all who challenge
US supremacy in the world order.
Jeri
L. Reed is a PhD candidate in history at the University
of Oklahoma and member of Military
Families Speak Out, a group of families with loved ones in
the military who have opposed the invasion and occupation of
Iraq. Jeri is the mother of Cody, a US soldier who came back
from Iraq in March. Click here
to read a live dialogue with Jeri L. Reed.
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