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[Nettime-bold] Re : Reflections on American injustice by Edward Said |
JSalloum@aol.com 2 Nettime >This never got posted the first time I sent it - - 1 of myriad of companies adjusting to demands of citizenz worldwide. eczam!n !t - no dz!ng on dze akzual tazte ov betra!l ! = !nz!zt emfat!kl! vol!z!onl !ron!e = ganz zpektaklr ncezt paz +? >so am trying again, j. je prศfหre. ou!. = perz!zt + !nz!ztz zvp ma!z must not now disappointed be for great sorrow is yet 2 kome. 4 you __.. and i . earlier disappointments have ceased for the moment. and vows never to be caught off guard are made. situate self on the vaguest `art.is.\tik` plane imaginable. the totally exterior. regretfully put off for far too long. netochka.nezvanova. mar!onneten.macht.kr!eg ordnung -/ d!zpl!n d!zpl!n \+ ordnung 17.hzV.tRL.478 - camille claudel aussi http://www.m9ndfukc.org/memocide.neu+improved.genocide-swastika http://www.m9ndfukc.org//mcgill-lizt_ounr/ http://www.m9ndfukc.org/konkurs/00.html http://www.m9ndfukc.org/pre.doktoral.massively.parallel.metamodeling.meme.kompetition/ http://www.m9ndfukc.org/nato.0+00 http://www.gmeb.fr/SoftwareCompetition/Softs99/nebulam81.htm http://www.m9ndfukc.com/propaganda http://www.m9ndfukc.org/korporat/nato.0+55+3d.html http://www.m9ndfukc.com/forum/prev_released_data http://194.19.130.194/spCa/zveite http://www.m9ndfukc.org/korporat/=cw4t7abs.3nkod0r..0+2.html http://www.m9ndfukc.org/korporat/starledger_inter.bzzp.html http://www.m9ndfukc.com/botz http://www.m9ndfukc.com/bit_revolution/ http://www.m9ndfukc.com/botz/kinematek_kurrent.html http://www.m9ndfukc.com/kinematek konzp!rass!_ov-ekualz ________________________________________________________ 18 . า า า า า pro satisfacer le metro า า า า า า า \+\ - SSEkretar!at.0+55 ^Pf^P^P^P3.MASCHIN3NKUNST @www.m9ndfukc.org 17.hzV.tRL.478 e | | +---------- | | < \\----------------+ | n2t^P | > e leave - indelible traces on said troubled image\inations. k^Pntent !d :baz!n.ov.atrakz!on >--- > >Al-Ahram Weekly, 24 Feb. - 1 March 2000 > >Issue No. 470, Cairo, AL-AHRAM established in 1875 > > > >Reflections on American injustice > >By Edward Said > > > A few days ago the third United Nations official in charge of the oil for >food program in Iraq, Jutta Purghardt, resigned the job in protest, preceded >in the same sense of outrage and futility by the two men who had filled the >post before her, Dennis Halliday and Hans von Sponeck, both of whom had also >resigned. So terrible are the results of the US-maintained sanctions against >that country's civilian population and infrastructure that not even a >seasoned international humanitarian official can tolerate the agony of what >those sanctions have wrought. The toll in human life alone on a daily basis >is too dreadful even to contemplate; but trying also to imagine what the >sanctions are doing to distort the country for years and years to come simply >exceed one's means of expression. Certainly the Iraqi regime seems largely >untouched by the sanctions and, as for the Iraqi opposition being cultivated >by the US to the tune of $100 million, that seems pretty laughable. A profile >of Ahmad Chalabi, that opposition's leader, that appears in a recent Sunday >supplement of the New York Times is intended I think to balance the actual >disaster of US Iraq policy with a portrait of the person supposedly battling >for the future of his country. What emerges instead is a picture of a shifty, >shady man (wanted for embezzlement in Jordan) who in the course of the >profile says not a single word about the sufferings of his people, not a >single syllable, as if the whole issue was just a matter of his grandiose >(somewhat silly) plan to try to take Basra and Mosul with 1,000 men. > > > Purghardt's resignation may bring the matter of sanctions back to awareness >for a little while, as may a stiff letter of objection sent by 40 members of >the House of Representatives to Madeleine Albright about the cruelty and >uselessness of the policy she has defended so vehemently. But given the >presidential campaign now underway, and the realities of American social and >political injustice over the years, the sanctions against Iraq are likely to >continue indefinitely. The Republican contender George W Bush has just won >the South Carolina primaries by basically appealing to the most hard-headed, >stiff-necked, reactionary and self-righteous segment of the American >population, the so-called Christian Right (Christian, in this instance, being >an adjective rather woefully inappropriate to the sentiments this group and >its chosen candidate habitually express). And what is the basis of Bush's >appeal? The fact that he sticks up for and symbolises such values as applying >the death penalty to more people than any other governor in history, or >presiding over the largest prison population in any state in the US. > > > It is the organised, legalised cruelty and injustice of the American system >that many of the country's citizens actually cherish and, in this electoral >season, want their candidates to defend and support, not just the cynical >machismo of its random acts of violence like the gratuitous bombing of Sudan >or last spring's sadistic offensive against Serbia. Consider the following: a >recently released report reveals that, with five per cent of the world's >population, the US at the same time contains 25 per cent of the world's >population of prisoners. Two million Americans are held in jails, of whom >well over 45 per cent are African American, a number that is >disproportionately higher than the black population itself. (The US also >consumes 30 per cent of the world's energy and ravages a rough equivalent of >the earth's environment). Under Bush's tenure as governor of Texas, the >number of prisoners rose from 41,000 to 150,000: he actually boasts about >these numbers. So in light of this contemporary savagery against its own >citizens, one should not be surprised that the poor Iraqis who undergo >long-distance starvation, absence of schools and hospitals, the devastation >of agriculture and the civil infrastructure are put through so much. > > > To understand the continued punishment of Iraq -- and also to understand >why Mrs Albright was so "understanding" of Israel's totally unwarranted and >gangster-like bombing of civilian targets in Lebanon -- one must pay close >attention to an aspect of America's history mostly ignored by or unknown to >educated Arabs and their ruling elites, who continue to speak of (and >probably believe in) America's even-handedness. The aspect I have in mind is >the contemporary treatment of the African American people, who constitute >roughly 20 per cent of the population, a not insignificant number. There is >the great prior fact of slavery, first of all. Just to get an idea of how >deliberately buried this fact was beneath the surface of the country's >official memory and culture, note that until the 1970s no program of >literature and history paid the slightest attention to black culture or >slavery or the achievements of the black people. I received my entire >university education between 1953 and 1963 in English and American >literature, and yet all we studied was work written and done by white men, >exclusively. No Dubois, no slave narratives, no Zora Neal Hurston, no >Langston Hughes, no Ralph Ellison, no Richard Wright. I recall asking a >distinguished professor at Harvard, who lectured for 30 more or less >consecutive weeks during the academic year on 250 years of American >literature, from the Puritan 17th-century preacher Jonathan Edwards to Ernest >Hemingway, why he didn't also lecture on black literature. His answer was: >"There is no black literature." There were no black students when I was >educated at Princeton and Harvard, no black professors, no sign at all that >the entire economy of half the country was sustained for almost 200 years by >slavery, nor that 50 or 60 million people were brought to the Americas in >slavery. The fact wasn't worth mentioning until the civil rights movement >took hold and pressed for changes in the law -- until 1964 the law of the >land discriminated openly against people of colour -- as a result of a mass >movement led by charismatic men and women. But it bears repeating that when >such leaders became too visible and powerful -- Malcolm X, Paul Robeson, >Martin Luther King preeminently -- as well as politically radical, the system >had to destroy them. Be that as it may, there is a Holocaust Museum in >Washington, but no museum of slavery which, considering that the Holocaust >took place in Europe and slavery here, suggests the kind of priorities that >still govern the official culture of the US. Certainly there should always be >reminders of human cruelty and violence, but they should not be so selective >as to exclude the obvious ones. Similarly, no museum in Washington >commemorates the extermination of the native people. > > > As a living monument to American injustice, therefore, we have the stark >numbers of American social suffering. In relative but sometimes absolute >terms, African-Americans supply the largest number of unemployed, the largest >number of school drop-outs, the largest number of homeless, the largest >number of illiterates, the largest number of drug addicts, the largest number >of medically uninsured people, the largest number of the poor. In short, by >any of the socio-economic indices that matter, the black population of the >United States, by far the richest country in recorded history, is the >poorest, the most disadvantaged, the longest enduring historically in terms >of oppression, discrimination and continued suppression. This is by no means >about only poor African-Americans. A recent television documentary about >black opera singers in which I participated displayed an ugly picture of >naked discrimination at the very highest levels. Just because a singer is >black, he or she is expected to perform in Gershwin's appallingly >condescending opera Porgy and Bess (every one of the singers interviewed on >the programme expressed cordial loathing of the opera, which is always >performed by travelling American opera troupes, even in Cairo, where I recall >it was given in the late '50s) and, when they are given roles in works like >Aida, seen as essentially OK for "coloured" people, although it was written >by an Italian composer who hated Egypt (see my analysis in Culture and >Imperialism), they are treated as less equal than white singers. As Simon >Estes, the distinguished black baritone, said on the programme: if there are >two absolutely equal singers, one black, one white, the white will always get >the role. If the black is much better, he will get the role, but will be paid >less! > > > Against the background of so vicious a system of persecution, then, it is >no wonder that as non-Europeans the Arabs, Muslims, Africans, and a handful >of unfortunate others receive so poor a treatment in terms of US foreign >policy. And it is not at all illogical that the New York Times abets Mrs >Albright in being "understanding" of Israel's violence against Arabs. One of >its editorials around the time of the Beirut bombing urged "restraint" on >both sides, as if the Lebanese army was occupying Israel, instead of the >other way round. The wonder of it, as I said earlier, is that we still wait >for the US to deliver us from our difficulties, like some benign Godot about >to appear in shining armour. Left to my devices as an educator, I would >stipulate across the Arab world that every university require its students to >take at least two courses not in American history, but in American non-white >history. Only then will we understand the workings of US society and its >foreign policy in terms of its profound, as opposed to its rhetorical, >realities. And only then will we address the US and its people selectively >and critically, instead of as supplicants and humble petitioners. Most >importantly, we should then be able to draw sustenance from the struggle of >the African-American people to achieve equality and justice. We share a >common cause with them against injustice, but for some reason our leaders >don't seem to know it. When was the last time an Arab foreign minister on a >visit to the US pointedly refused to address the Council of Foreign Relations >in New York and Washington and requested instead to visit a major African >American church, university or meeting? That will be the day. > > > > > > > > weeklyweb@ahram.org.eg _______________________________________________ Nettime-bold mailing list Nettime-bold@nettime.org http://www.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-bold