You May Be An American: Thirty Ways You Are Qualified
07 February 2011By Jane Stillwater
I just read an article by Chris Hedges, wherein he
stated that the revolt in Egypt is a Muslim thing. I
usually agree with Prof. Hedges on most things, but in
this instance he is wrong. Sorry Chris, but the revolt
in Egypt isn't a Muslim issue. It's a Gandhi thing.
Yay!
Here's what I'm thinking: In the last several decades
the Arab world has witnessed how ineffectual its
violent pre-1967 attacks on Israel were, how Arafat's
Fatah violence failed to stop the spread of Israel's
brutal occupation, how violent insurgency against the
American occupation of Iraq turned out to be futile,
how the insurgency in Afghanistan is such a bloody
mess, and how Pakistan is getting chewed up and spit
out by violence. Under these sorry circumstances, the
Arab world's violent protest against their Western
occupation seems to have lost some of its charm.
And then along came a hopeful example -- set by the
obscure little farming villages of Budrus and Bil'lin,
on Palestine's West Bank. In these two small and
inconsequential villages, poor and simple farmers were
being tear-gassed, shot at, imprisoned, tortured and
surrounded by a very ugly apartheid Wall. Their olive
orchards were being stolen, their children were being
injured and killed. "What can we do? What can we do?"
the village elders asked themselves.
How could these simple villagers possibly fight back
against the sixth-largest standing army in the world?
They couldn't. So instead of using stones and
pitchforks against the intruders, they simply
organized some non-violent protests against the
injustice of having their lands and homes stolen by a
gang of outlaws and rustlers driving REALLY big tanks.
And the next thing you know, the villagers' plans
began working! Whether Israel got tired of being
shamed by the sudden negative publicity that it began
to receive all over Europe or just finally got tired
of tired of shooting at peacefully-protesting women
and children, Israel's occupying armies and tanks and
fighter jets and what-have-you actually began backing
off!
And the Arab world began taking note of this -- and
started to read up on its Yasu, Gandhi and Martin
Luther King.
Always remember that there are many more people under
occupation in the Middle East than there are people
doing the occupying. And if you are gonna be nasty
about how you occupy countries, then you're gonna
build up resentment. "Oh, that's okay. Let them resent
us all they want. No problem. We have guns and tanks
and knives and torture kits and prisons. We'll keep
them in line." However, that attitude only goes so far
when you are stealing a whole BUNCH of people's land,
water and/or oil.
"Okay, Jane, you've made your point. I can see how
non-violence might actually work in the Middle East.
But how does Katrina fit into all this?" Well. I was
just noticing that there is a similarity between what
is happening in Cairo today and what happened in New
Orleans back in 2005 -- with regard to the tone and
style of American evening news reports concerning both
incidents.
When New Orleans first got hit by its disastrous
hurricane and flood, American newspapers went out of
their way to report NOLA residents as being
uncivilized barbarians. Major news media jumped all
over themselves talking about all the violent looting
and all kinds of horrors going on there. But after the
dust had settled a bit, it became clear that most of
the victims of Katrina had been peaceful and helpful
-- and even that many of the shootings and atrocities
there had been actually perpetrated by the police.
According to the New York Times, "The narrative of
those early, chaotic days — built largely on rumors
and half-baked anecdotes — quickly hardened into a
kind of ugly consensus: poor blacks and looters were
murdering innocents and terrorizing whoever crossed
their path in the dark, unprotected city. 'As you look
back on it, at the time it was being reported, it
looked like the city was under siege,' said Russel L.
Honoré, the retired Army lieutenant general who led
military relief efforts after the storm. Today, a
clearer picture is emerging, and it is an equally ugly
one, including white vigilante violence, police
killings, official cover-ups and a suffering
population far more brutalized than many were willing
to believe. Several police officers and a white
civilian accused of racially motivated violence have
recently been indicted in various cases, and more
incidents are coming to light as the Justice
Department has started several investigations into
civil rights violations after the storm." http://www.nytimes.com/2010/../us/27racial.html?_r=1
So my point here is that this kind of reporting based
on ugly rumors and "half-baked anecdotes" is
apparently happening with regard to Cairo as well as
NOLA. Also according to the New York Times, "Looters
from Cairo's vast shantytowns attacked gleaming
suburban shopping malls, wild rumors swirled of
gunfights at the bridges and gates to the most
expensive neighborhoods and some of their residents
turned wistful about Mr. Mubarak and his authoritarian
rule."
However, eye-witness reports surfacing on the internet
reveal a completely different story. "Most of the thug
types who are doing most of the attacks are prisoners
who have been released by that bastard Mubarak in
return for their services to beat up civilians.... You
know about the secret service police guys who were
citizen arrested at the museum and handed over to the
army? You know so many of the protesters held hands,
man, and formed like this long cordon around the
museum so that these police pretending to be looters
could not go in and destroy our history…and then they
found out that these secret police guys were already
inside and even damaged some Mummies. I mean people
were so furious and they just handed them to the
army." http://mondoweiss.net/2011/01/muslims-christians-we-are-all-egyptians-scenes-from-a-revolution-as-told-by-one-eyewitness.html
And as the true story comes out, I think we will find
that most Cairenes have been non-violent and peaceful
-- and that they are simply peacefully protesting
their lot, after having endured over 30 years of
indignity and bondage at the hands of a brutal
dictatorship financed by the United States.
The spirit of Gandhi truly has arrived in Cairo. And
if you believe otherwise, just remember back to how
the media happily spurred us on to think the worst of
New Orleans residents as well.
Now all we have to do is to try to figure out who is
going to benefit from us Americans thinking poorly of
Egypt -- as well as who benefited when we were all
instructed to think poorly of New Orleans.
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