Dear Rachel--
Thanks for your interesting thought-provoking message. Here is my
response. You wrote,
> If Jay had been one of those five thousand, had been one of those
people
> jumping from the top floors as the only alternative to burning alive,
how
> would you have felt? Would you have talked about justified revenge
for
> imperialist wrongs? If it had been Eugene's wife and child on one of
the
> highjacked planes, dying horribly with no hope of rescue, would he
have
> been so quick to talk about Afghani anguish as justifying American
> bodies? Perhaps it's just a little too easy to rhetoricize when it's
not
> the blood of people you know.
You are right that if this tragedy had happened with people I knew, I'd
be paralyzed. However, I'd hope that people who are not paralyzed would
help to avoid future tragedies like that, especially tragedies that
people close to me, living in the same country may be involved. I'd hope
that there would be people who would not allow some politicians to
hijack the tragedy for their own political purposes that often produce
more tragedies like that.
In his short term, I can see a pattern of how Bush administration
systematically uses, exploits, and promotes crises for its political
goals -- economic, energy, and now war. I wonder if this ruling by
crises is Bush's way to deal with his lack of mandate in the past
election....
Rachel, I do not think that anybody on xmca tries to justify what the
terrorists did on September 11th. What many of us try to do is to
understand what involved in that, what is going on, and how we can be a
part of that.
As you correctly noticed, I and many other xmca people do not have much
discussion of terrorist tendencies in Arab and Islam communities and
countries. But, since, I do not have much connection with Arab or Islam
communities, it is difficult for me to discuss the issues from and with
their points of view. Also, I think that my community and my country
have now more power and potential to do harm than their ones. I wish
xmca had more (or any) voices from Arab and Islam communities....
In my view, without discussion of what is terrorism, what causes it and
how to break its cycle, it is difficult if not impossible to deal with
it. Your historical examples are very good and helpful. However, I'm not
sure that retaliations, demonizing, or sweeping military strikes against
countries and peoples will help but rather can become part of terrorism.
What do you think?
Eugene
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Karen R Heckert [mailto:heckertr@juno.com]
> Sent: Sunday, September 16, 2001 1:15 PM
> To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> Subject: New York City
>
> I am reading a lot of agonizing about war-mongering and collateral
> damage. As a person who very recently lived in New York, who had
friends
> working close to Ground Zero (all, thank God, OK as of last check) I
> would like to add the following.
>
> Five thousand (5,000) people are currently dead somewhere in the
rubble
> of the World Trade Center. These people were ALL civilians, average
> working type clerks, secretaries, cleaning personnel, computer
> programmers (except for the firemen, who chose to be in harm's way out
of
> a sense of duty to their fellow New Yorkers). As was pointed out in
some
> news article, the VIP's, the real Capitalists, aren't at their desks
at 9
> AM. The dead were regular, normal CIVILIANS. Like in collateral
damage
> (?!).
>
> But note: in this case the objective was not to take out some
military
> target, with the civilians just unfortunate bystanders. In this case
the
> civilians were themselves the target. This is not just a "statement"
> about someone's suffering. This is mass murder and itself the cause
of
> unimaginable suffering. There are five thousand times how many
families
> who are grieving today. Not capitalists, not military, just average
> people like me and you.
>
> Is it somehow that civilian American blood just isn't as red as, say,
> civilian Afghan blood? If it's wrong to kill Afghani civilians (and
it
> is), isn't it also wrong to kill American civilians?
>
> If Jay had been one of those five thousand, had been one of those
people
> jumping from the top floors as the only alternative to burning alive,
how
> would you have felt? Would you have talked about justified revenge
for
> imperialist wrongs? If it had been Eugene's wife and child on one of
the
> highjacked planes, dying horribly with no hope of rescue, would he
have
> been so quick to talk about Afghani anguish as justifying American
> bodies? Perhaps it's just a little too easy to rhetoricize when it's
not
> the blood of people you know.
>
> So these militants (not terrorists, of course, just "somebody else's
> freedom fighters") must be allowed to on about their business of
making
> political statements with civilian blood because bringing them to
justice
> might involve collateral damage? Perhaps we should excuse Milosevic
> because, after all, the Serbian militants were only living out their
> distress at the collapse of the old order in Eastern Europe?
>
> No, I don't recommend carpet-bombing Afghanistan. And a lot of the
> people I work with are fine, normal people who are also Muslims. But
I
> know one person who was the only survivor of a large German-Jewish
family
> because when Hitler came to power, and threatened to destroy the Jews,
> they didn't believe it. They thought it was all rhetoric to comfort
the
> Germans in their anguish at the Depression's effects. She believed
> Hitler, and left, and every other member of her family who stayed
behind
> was exterminated in the death camps. When bin Laden and company say
they
> mean to destroy America with terrorism, they mean it. This isn't the
> "end of the beginning", to quote Churchill, it's only the BEGINNING of
> the beginning. As someone in the field of public health, I am now
> reading all I can get about disaster response and counseling, because
it
> looks like it's going to be a busy season.
>
> And if it's you or yours, next time, remember I told you so, and
remember
> the contempt you have been showing for the victims and their families
on
> this list.
>
> Rachel Heckert
>
> PS If you really believe the conflict between Islamic civilization
and
> the West is a recent development, try getting out a history book and
> checking out the Crusades (a millennium ago), one cause for which was
> Moslem interdict of European shipping on the Mediterranean Sea, or the
> battles in which Roland stopped the invading Moors at the foot of the
> Pyrenees (if he hadn't all Europe would be Muslim), the days when the
> Ottoman Turks reached the gates of Vienna, and so on. Islam is a
complex
> faith with many facets, and one of them indeed is quite martial. And
as
> for terrorism against civilian targets, one of my childhood memories
is
> of Algerian terrorists bombing in France in the Algerian civil war.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Oct 10 2001 - 15:49:16 PDT