|
[continuation]
Those who descend so easily into the pit of racist abuse would do well
to remember the hundreds of thousands of American and British citizens
who protested against their country's stockpile of nuclear weapons. And
the thousands of American war resisters who forced their government to
withdraw from Vietnam. They should know that the most scholarly,
scathing, hilarious critiques of the US government and the "American way
of life" comes from American citizens. And that the funniest, most
bitter condemnation of their prime minister comes from the British
media. Finally they should remember that right now, hundreds of
thousands of British and American citizens are on the streets protesting
the war. The Coalition of the Bullied and Bought consists of
governments, not people. More than one third of America's citizens have
survived the relentless propaganda they've been subjected to, and many
thousands are actively fighting their own government. In the
ultra-patriotic climate that prevails in the US, that's as brave as any
Iraqi fighting for his or her homeland.
While the "Allies" wait in the desert for an uprising of Shia Muslims on
the streets of Basra, the real uprising is taking place in hundreds of
cities across the world. It has been the most spectacular display of
public morality ever seen.
Most courageous of all, are the hundreds of thousands of American people
on the streets of America's great cities - Washington, New York,
Chicago, San Francisco. The fact is that the only institution in the
world today that is more powerful than the American government, is
American civil society. American citizens have a huge responsibility
riding on their shoulders. How can we not salute and support those who
not only acknowledge but act upon that responsibility? They are our
allies, our friends.
At the end of it all, it remains to be said that dictators like Saddam
Hussein, and all the other despots in the Middle East, in the central
Asian republics, in Africa and Latin America, many of them installed,
supported and financed by the US government, are a menace to their own
people. Other than strengthening the hand of civil society (instead of
weakening it as has been done in the case of Iraq), there is no easy,
pristine way of dealing with them. (It's odd how those who dismiss the
peace movement as utopian, don't hesitate to proffer the most absurdly
dreamy reasons for going to war: to stamp out terrorism, install
democracy, eliminate fascism, and most entertainingly, to "rid the world
of evil-doers".)
Regardless of what the propaganda machine tells us, these tin-pot
dictators are not the greatest threat to the world. The real and
pressing danger, the greatest threat of all is the locomotive force that
drives the political and economic engine of the US government, currently
piloted by George Bush. Bush-bashing is fun, because he makes such an
easy, sumptuous target. It's true that he is a dangerous, almost
suicidal pilot, but the machine he handles is far more dangerous than
the man himself.
Despite the pall of gloom that hangs over us today, I'd like to file a
cautious plea for hope: in times of war, one wants one's weakest enemy
at the helm of his forces. And President George W Bush is certainly
that. Any other even averagely intelligent US president would have
probably done the very same things, but would have managed to smoke-up
the glass and confuse the opposition. Perhaps even carry the UN with
him. Bush's tactless imprudence and his brazen belief that he can run
the world with his riot squad, has done the opposite. He has achieved
what writers, activists and scholars have striven to achieve for
decades. He has exposed the ducts. He has placed on full public view the
working parts, the nuts and bolts of the apocalyptic apparatus of the
American empire.
Now that the blueprint (The Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire) has been
put into mass circulation, it could be disabled quicker than the pundits
predicted.
Bring on the spanners.
|