[Peace-discuss] Fwd: Re: War, the Dollar and harriet Tubman principle

[Al Kagan]

Here is much food for thought.

>Delivered-To: akagan at alexia.lis.uiuc.edu
>Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2001 16:20:26 -0400
>From: Horace Campbell <hgcampbe at mailbox.syr.edu>
>Reply-To: hgcampbe at syr.edu
>X-Accept-Language: en
>To: Al Kagan <akagan at uiuc.edu>
>Subject: Re: War, the Dollar and harriet Tubman principle
>Status:  
>
>
>
>
>
>
>Exclusive Interview With Syracuse Professor Horace Campbell
>
>
>
>Over the weekend we conducted an interview with one of the leading 
>thinkers and opinion
>leasders in the Pan-Africanist community - Horace Campbell - a 
>professor of African
>American Studies and Political Science at Syracuse University, 
>regarding the geopolitical
>implications of the September 11th attacks, the context in which 
>they occurred, as well as
>an analysis of the reaction and role of the Black electorate - in 
>the U.S. and abroad in
>the new environment.
>
>Here it is:
>
>Q. What factors/dynamics have you been focusing on in the aftermath 
>of the Sept. 11th
>Pentagon and World Trade Center Attacks?
>
>A. I have been focusing on three questions. (a) grieving with all of 
>the families that lost
>loved ones and urging the society to embark on democratic grieving 
>to ensure that the lives
>of all (cleaners, business executives, secretaries, firemen, 
>restaurant workers, and
>delivery persons) are validated; (b) opposing the militarist 
>response and calling on the
>people to learn from the Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu principle 
>of forgiveness, truth
>and reconciliation and opposition to militarization and the cycle of 
>warfare that will
>emanate from revenge; (c) struggling for a change in the politics of 
>this country so that
>the black and brown peoples can demonstrate their political clout 
>and work for new
>priorities in this country. This is especially necessary to ensure 
>that the crisis is not
>used to increase repression as manifest in the directions of the 
>anti terrorist bills and
>the establishment of the Office for Homeland Security. War sharpens 
>the understanding of
>the laws of unforeseen circumstances and the dynamics of war cannot 
>be controlled so it is
>better to seek non military means than to escalate the arc of 
>warfare across the globe.
>
>Q. What was your opinion of the response of African leaders 
>immediately after the attacks?
>
>A. Most African leaders were cautious and diplomatic in the 
>response. It is known in Africa
>that many of those innocent civilians who perished in the Twin 
>towers were ethnic and
>racial minorities as well as African immigrants. This sober reality 
>is added to the reality
>that the leaders and people know pain and suffering and empathize 
>with those in pain. This
>is a basic principle of African love, charity and sense of social collectivism
>There were many voices among the grassroots leaders that wanted the 
>US to reflect on its
>callous response to the fastest genocide in history, in Rwanda, and 
>its support for Mobutu
>and Jonas Savimbi.
>
>Q. What do you make of the interaction between the U.S. and Sudan in 
>the wake of the
>attack?
>
>A. This new public relationship between the US government and the 
>present government of
>Sudan cannot hold. It is a temporary slow dance and embrace that 
>cannot conceal the deep
>seated differences between the governments. There is a strong lobby 
>in the USA among the
>African American community and in the Christian community that want 
>the US government to be
>more forceful in challenging the repressive Sharia law of the 
>Sudanese central government.
>Secondly, there are sections of the US leadership that want to be 
>involved in the recovery
>of Petroleum from the oil wells in the Sudan. At the same time, on 
>one level, masculinist
>and militarist leaders now lead both societies. There has been 
>strong lobby from the
>petroleum sector of the economy to intensify the war between the 
>North and the South and to
>scuttle the IGADD initiative by the East African countries and the 
>initiatives of the
>governments of Egypt, Libya and the Sudan to bring peace.
>
>The present posture and diplomacy of the government of the USA is 
>too dominated by oil
>interests to be clear in the relations with the Sudan. Like the 
>society of Egypt, the
>present arc of war from Palestine through Iraq across Central Asia 
>and the Caspian Sea to
>Afghanistan will engulf the society of the Sudan.
>
>Q. Do you believe the accusations that Somalia provides a safe have 
>for terrorists?
>
>A. I do not have any information that would lend credibility to the 
>belief that Somalia
>provides a safe haven for terrorists. If there are agencies with 
>this information, it
>should be published. The reality is that the whole society of 
>Somalia has been destabilized
>by the legacies of the US support for the dictator Siad Barre. The 
>legacies of “warlordism”
>are such that militant forces that have a vested interest in warfare 
>find a base in
>Somalia. Moreover, because the youths of Somalia demonstrated that 
>they could neutralize
>the military technology of the USA in 1993, there has not been the 
>kind of sober reflection
>that Michael Maren called for in his book, The Road to Hell. There 
>has been more
>preoccupation with learning the lessons of Black Hawk Down.
>
>Q.Do you believe that U.S. foreign policy in any way contributed to 
>what happened on
>September 11th?
>
>A. The US foreign policy has been based on the philosophy of 
>realism. This is the
>Machiavellian and Hobbesian view of international relations that 
>might is right, and that
>only states can be actors in the international arena. These kinds of 
>thinking correspond to
>the wrong headedness of the ideas of Isaac Newton, Francis Bacon and 
>the ideas of
>Patriarchy. These ideas were forcefully promulgated in the 
>University and in the government
>by Henry Kissinger in the past forty years. The world paid a 
>tremendous price for these
>ideas and the blowback is being felt from Colombia to the Democratic 
>Republic of the Congo
>and Angola and from Pakistan to Taiwan.
>
>Feminist scholars have been teaching a new concept of foreign policy 
>that retreats from the
>concept of might and one that validates all citizens, men and women, 
>Africans, Asians,
>Indians, and all peoples. This new theory informs a foreign policy 
>that is based on
>demilitarization of the planet, reversing environmental degradation 
>and ending the crimes
>against humanity since the genocide against the First Nation peoples 
>and the peoples of
>Africa and African descent.
>
>Simultaneously in the natural sciences, chaos theory and the 
>understanding of Fractals
>opened up our understanding of the vast potentialities for the 
>reorganization of human
>life. It is in this context of thinking, as if we are living in the 
>age of candles when we
>are in the age of hydrogen fuel cell technology, that one can say 
>that the US foreign
>policy is misguided and needs a new direction.
>
>The September 11th that is referred to in your question is that of 
>the terrorist bombing of
>the World Trade Center. But we must not be selective in the 
>September 11th that we
>remember. This was the date of the assassination of Salvador Allende 
>in Chile in 1973.
>Human rights activists all over the globe are seeking to bring 
>General Pinochet to trial.
>Henry Kissinger and the cold warriors take a different view of the 
>killing of Allende and
>the massacres of innocent civilians in Chile and Latin America. 
>Henry Kissinger and realist
>thinkers and practitioners believed that all acts of support for 
>dictators and terrorists
>such as Bin Laden were justified in the context of the cold war.
>
>It was during the cold war that the United States embraced and 
>trained Bin Laden. All
>decent human beings must retreat from the ideas of masculinity and 
>violence and learn from
>the disasters of not only the foreign policy but that of domestic 
>violence such as that of
>the Ku Klux Klan, the Oklahoma bombing and the shootings at 
>Columbine High School. One
>cannot separate foreign policy from domestic policies. We must learn 
>the new theories of
>international relations and simultaneously move from the era of candles.
>
>Q.Is it legitimate to raise the grievances of Arab and Muslim 
>countries toward the West at
>this time?
>
>A. It is legitimate to raise not only the grievances of the peoples 
>of the societies that
>have a majority of its population that follow the Islamic faith, but 
>also to ensure that
>the US foreign policy does not support dictatorships (in the name of 
>strategic interests).
>The embrace of regimes all over the Arab world that violates the 
>basic rights of all
>citizens must end. Whether in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Kuwait or 
>Egypt, the US government
>has supported repressive and corrupt governments. There is so much 
>need in this society to
>rise above the ignorance of the issues of the self-determination 
>project of the Palestinian
>peoples. For peoples all over the third world the issue of Palestine 
>is today what the
>issue of apartheid was in the last three decades. The issue of 
>solidarity with Palestine is
>the lightning rod for anti imperialist and nationalist Third world sentiments.
>
>Q. What do you make of Israeli Prime Minister Sharon's comments that 
>President Bush deemed
>"unacceptable"?
>
>A. The comments of the Israeli Prime Minister Sharon, that the 
>foreign policy of the USA
>was like that of the appeasement policy of Neville Chamberlain at 
>the outbreak of World War
>II, exposed the militaristic and hawkish position of the present 
>Israeli political
>leadership that wants all out international support for its 
>occupation of Arab lands and
>its illegal occupation of Jerusalem. The government of the United 
>States has belatedly
>agreed that it is willing to recognize the state of Palestine. This 
>is a welcome step and
>those citizens of Israel who want peace and an end to the cycle of 
>warfare since 1948 want
>to work for peace. This requires the isolation of the extremists and 
>militaristic forces in
>both Israel and in Palestine.
>
>The history of the Prime Minister of Israel since the period of the 
>Israeli invasion of
>Lebanon and the killings at Sabra and Shatilla expose the side of 
>Israeli politics to which
>he belongs. A clear reckoning of peace, justice and reconciliation 
>between Israel and
>Palestine must be the short term, medium term and long term goal of 
>the US government. All
>citizens of the USA must welcome the new position of the Bush 
>administration that the
>government is willing to recognize an independent Palestinian state. 
>Unfortunately, the
>media lags behind these developments and continue to portray the 
>majority of Palestinians
>as terrorists. This media position reinforces the general 
>intellectual poverty of US
>citizens and strengthens the isolation of the US government in 
>international politics
>One can see this in the reaction of the media to Congresswoman 
>Cynthia McKinney's letter to
>the ambassador from Saudi Arabia.
>
>
>Q. What has been your impression of the striking Atlanticist-nature 
>of the "war on
>terrorism"?
>
>A. The conception of terrorism is defined too broadly. This ensures 
>that even those
>fighting against Russian domination and chauvinism in Chechnya can 
>be described as
>terrorists. Africans remember that there was a time when these same 
>European and US leaders
>deemed that the African National Congress (ANC) was a terrorist 
>organization. The USA
>government under Ronald Reagan the Pentagon had determined that 
>Nelson Mandela was a
>terrorist. In the same period when the USA was embracing Bin Laden 
>and Jonas Savimbi as
>freedom Fighters, they declared that leaders such as Nelson Mandela 
>were terrorists.
>
>It is this history that ensures that the rest of the world is not 
>sympathetic to the
>Atlanticist alliance. More significantly, the white supremacist and 
>chauvinist ideas
>expressed by the Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, that 
>“Western Civilization is
>superior to Islamic civilization” is geared to alienate most of the 
>one billion citizens of
>the planet that are followers of the Islamic faith.
>
>Q. What do you make of the vocal role of Tony Blair since September 11th?
>
>A. Tony Blair is acting like the cheerleader for a dying cause. This 
>is the cause of the
>special relationship of Britain and the USA in the service of the 
>idea of imperial
>domination. A key element of this economic model of imperialism was 
>based on the successor
>principle to the British Currency Boards, the International Monetary 
>Fund.. This system was
>established in 1944 and embedded in the relationship between the 
>dollar and the pound in
>international commerce. This relationship will end in the context of 
>this war because the
>biggest victor out of this war will be the EURO. One of the possible 
>outcomes of this
>conflagration will be political change in the world such that the 
>states of the Middle East
>take their reserves out of the dollar. The US enjoys the use of more 
>than US $500 billion
>dollars of the reserve of these countries. If, for example, the 
>Saudi Arabian government
>were to take their reserves out of the dollar and the pound and use 
>the Euro as their
>reserve currency, there would be a severe shock for the US economy. 
>The British will be
>forced cap in hand to join the Euro.
>
>Most citizens have a short memory of the recent economic history of 
>global finance. When
>World War II started in 1939 the British had an empire and the pound 
>was dominant in
>international commerce. By 1950, the empire was crumbling and the 
>pound had to be propped
>up through the International Monetary Fund and intensive 
>exploitation of Africa.
>
>One of the unintended consequences of this war will be the massive 
>decline in the value of
>the dollar and a shift from the compromises of Bretton Woods.
>Many have spoken of the negative impact of what happened on the 
>world economy since the
>United States departed from the agreements on the convertibility of 
>the dollar as agreed in
>1944. This occurred in the Nixon administration when the US could 
>not finance the war in
>Vietnam. The rest of the world paid a very high price for the 
>floating exchange rates and
>the instability in global markets. It was after this instability in 
>the financial markets
>that the Europeans decided to move first to building an economic 
>union (the European
>Union), and then, to develop a common currency. Despite the veiled 
>competition between the
>dollar the Deutsche martk and the yen; there was relative prosperity 
>in the USA, Western
>Europe and Japan. The rest of the world bled and called for a new 
>international economic
>order. The world stumbled from crisis to crisis (from the LTCM to 
>the ASIA melt down) to
>the point where even speculators such as George Soros wrote on The 
>Crisis of Global
>Capitalism. This idea that the world economy can be managed through 
>extending consumer
>spending in the USA has run its terrible course since the dramatic 
>financial crisis in Asia
>in 1997.. The entire world needs a clear alternative to the policies 
>of the International
>Monetary Fund and the ways in which the US treasury dominates the 
>financial architecture.
>
>Joseph Stiglitz who recently won the noble peace prize for economics 
>has written on how the
>World Bank condemned the peoples of the third world to death. These 
>policies of the World
>Bank were reinforced by the policies of the World Trade Organization 
>(WTO) that supported
>the pharmaceuticals. These organizations placed profits before Human 
>lives. There was a
>scathing criticism by John Le Carre in the book, The Constant 
>Gardener. Here Le Carre was
>calling on western societies to retreat from the eugenics thinking 
>of Adolph Hitler.
>
>The AIDS pandemic more than anything else signaled the dire 
>condition of the majority of
>the citizens of the planet, especially those of Africa.
>
>There has been a global movement that was started by persons such as 
>the late Julius
>Nyerere and those leaders such as Fidel Castro that called for the 
>cancellation of the
>third world Debt. Lately, religious leaders who joined the Jubilee 
>campaign, His Holiness
>the Pope, John Paul and even conservative Republicans in the USA 
>called for a the
>cancellation of the debt and new management of international 
>finances. There is also a new
>movement against global capitalism that is alive all across Africa, 
>Europe, Latin America
>and Asia. This movement grew in Seattle, in Genoa and is about to 
>grow in the USA. The
>struggles for health care for all in response to the scares from bio 
>terrorism will break
>the mythology of the market that has ensured that the rest of the 
>world bled while a small
>minority lived in luxury.
>In this age of the biotech century it is possible to reorganize the 
>international financial
>architecture and the international trading system to ensure a better 
>standard of living for
>all. This new era will come out of the war and the bitter debates on 
>reparations that will
>in the long run help to heal the US society.
>
>Q. What do you see as the most important elements in any economic 
>review in light of the
>new terrain?
>
>A. The most important element of the economic situation is the 
>massive naiveté that governs
>the present discussion on the stimulus package. It was John Kenneth 
>Galbraith who said that
>there are two kind of economists, “Those who do not know, and those 
>who do not know that
>they do not know.” The present appropriations for the defense 
>department emanates from the
>old conception that military spending can boost economic growth. 
>This old view is not
>actually borne out by a critical examination of the facts of the 
>recovery from the
>Depression of 1929-1939. What economists never answered was whether 
>humanity had to go
>through the nightmare of Hitler, Mussolini, the Second World War and 
>the Holocaust for
>economic recovery.
>The potentialities for a new economic direction are immense, but 
>this economy (as well as
>the global economy) cannot recover as long as the majority of 
>African American youths are
>condemned by the educational system and are placed on the fast track 
>to the prison
>industrial complex, Economic recovery will be painful because the 
>mechanical thinking of
>markets (that emanate from the European ideation system) will have 
>to be transcended and
>this will take a long time.
>
>The ideas of Adam Smith were developed before the era of 
>astrophysics when humans began to
>be humble in response to their understanding of the universe. The 
>economic laws governing
>society are as outdated as the ideas of white supremacy but these 
>ideas have to take their
>own time to fade.
>In this war and economic depression over the next five years African 
>Americans will have to
>draw on all of their spiritual energies to reverse the unequal 
>division of wealth and the
>ideas of genetic profiling with all of the implications for barbarism.
>
>Q. Has anything struck you in particular, in this area?
>
>A. The most striking feature of this period is the near absence of a 
>real debate on the
>economic choices before the society. There are numerous examples to 
>expose how the
>fundamentalism of the “Washington Consensus” eroded the creativity 
>of the University and
>the thinking on Economics. This has meant that the “talking heads” 
>in the media reproduces
>the same fundamentalism when critical choices are required to 
>reverse the massive
>expenditures on the military industrial complex. I will predict that 
>the choices away from
>liberalization and privatization will be dramatic and that the 
>government will be forced by
>the democratic struggles to have a new strategy for economic 
>transformation. This will have
>to be based on an investment and stimulus package that starts with 
>the well being of all.
>The recovery of the city of New York will be the first major test. 
>Will the city be built
>within the thinking of the candle and gasoline age or the thinking 
>of hydrogen fuel cell
>technology and solar energy?
>
>More significantly, can the society respond to major health 
>pandemics and bioterrorism with
>health care and drugs for the rich and powerful or health care for 
>all. There is a lot that
>the US political leadership will have to learn from both Canada and 
>Cuba in the delivery of
>health care for all. This will be part of the transformation of the 
>economy, but before
>that time is reached there are many who will learn the pain that has 
>been felt in Africa,
>among the majority of those around the globe who live on less than a 
>dollar per day.
>
>Q. Do you believe that President Bush is being torn between the 
>advice of General Powell on
>one side and Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul 
>Wolfowitz on the other
>hand, as some believe?
>
>A. I do believe that President Bush is being torn between the advice 
>of General Colin
>Powell on one side and on the other side the advice of the Secretary 
>of Defence Rumsfeld
>and Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. This is because of the training 
>of these officials
>Colin Powell was trained in the military. In this training it was 
>the view that the
>political objectives have to be crystal clear in order to have clear 
>military objectives.
>The political objectives define the military objectives. Secondly, 
>it was necessary to be
>clear to win the hearts and minds of the US citizens to support the 
>military campaign and
>for citizens to be motivated to be patriotic to support the 
>government with their lives. In
>this present war, the military objectives are confused and defined 
>over too wide a front
>and at the same time the political objectives are confused by the 
>broad definition of
>terrorism.
>
>General Powell with the experience of the Gulf war understood that 
>the clear political
>objective was to get the Iraq army out of Kuwait. This could not be 
>confused with the
>political objectives of those who wanted to remove Saddam Hussein. 
>Because the political
>objectives were clear the coalition could seek financial support for 
>the US military
>campaign from the Arab states, from the European Union and from the 
>Japanese government.
>Powell must understand that the USA cannot afford a long war. This 
>is the financial
>reality. There is also the political reality because such a 
>protracted war that goes over
>three months will create a major conflagration engulfing Palestine, 
>Kashmir and unleashing
>the unthinkable. The skirmishes between India and Pakistan are 
>dangerous and hold
>tremendous potential for extreme and fundamentalist leaders to come 
>to the forefront.
>
>General Powell must be making these calculations. The larger 
>question is whether there are
>sober heads outside the petroleum sector who are considering the 
>implications of this war
>beyond the control of petroleum in the area of the Caspian Sea. More 
>fundamental, is
>whether there are thinkers that are not using the simplicity and 
>predictability of Newton
>to plan the scenarios that will emanate from this war. The 
>governments of Pakistan, Saudi
>Arabia and Egypt are the most vulnerable in this period and these 
>changes of leadership
>under the pressure of public anger over the bombing of innocent 
>civilians in Afghanistan
>must be on the minds of policy makers.
>
>All of the evidence from the statements of the Pentagon demonstrates 
>the arrogance and
>chauvinism of those who did not learn the lessons of the Soviet 
>Union in Afghanistan or the
>lessons of Somalia.
>
>White racism is so steeped in the society that even those who are 
>racists cannot see racism
>for what it is and blind otherwise sober intellectuals. The kind of 
>crude fundamentalism
>that emanated from the lips of President Bush on the fight between 
>good and evil sound too
>much like language of the medieval crusades. It would be unthinkable 
>that Colin Powell is
>thinking like a European from the crusades.
>
>In the final analysis, the quality of the advice that President Bush 
>receives is based on
>his worldview and conception of the world.
>
>Q. What do you think of what I have called “the Bush doctrine”- the 
>new standard,
>articulated by the President, whereby countries that host or harbor 
>terrorists are as
>guilty as the terrorists, or at least deserve their fate, in terms 
>of military retaliation?
>
>A. The Bush doctrines whereby countries that host and harbor 
>terrorist are as guilty as the
>terrorist sounds too much like the thinking of the Wild West. 
>Defeating terrorism does not
>require military might alone. Defeating terrorism requires 
>political, legal and financial
>instruments that isolate terrorists. This will mean that there must 
>be more international
>debate on who or what constitutes terrorism. Under the present 
>definition, any supporter of
>freedom can be labeled a terrorist.
>
>The words of President Bush are dominated by the sentiments of 
>vengeance, retribution and
>short sightedness. If Bin Laden was trained by US agencies, there 
>should be time for
>reflection and a real debate on what or who is a terrorist in this 
>period. In my view Bin
>Laden is a terrorist but the Prime Minister of Israel is calling 
>Yasser Arafat a terrorist.
>The government of India calls all of those who are fighting in 
>Kashmir, terrorists.
>
>There should be the development of international institutions such 
>as the International
>Criminal Court to isolate real “terrorists” so that the legal 
>instruments of international
>politics are put to work to isolate terrorists.
>It is imperative that US citizens seek to understand the underlying 
>causes that gave rise
>to this terrible atrocity of September 11th. And understanding is 
>not the same as condoning
>such acts and their outcome. We must separate an explanation for 
>their actions from a moral
>judgment on their acts. The ideas of the Italian Prime Minister echo 
>the lunacy of Samuel P
>Huntington that there is a clash of civilization. What is at stake 
>is how to create a New
>World based on peace, justice and human dignity.
>
>
>Q.Is there an appropriate Pan-African response to the U.S. war on 
>terrorism and the actions
>of those in the Arab and Muslim world who believe that it is 
>justified to strike by any
>means that they deem necessary against those in the West that they 
>believe are responsible
>for their suffering?
>
>A. I concur with the views of the General Secretary of the Global 
>Pan African Movement, Dr.
>Tajudeen Abdul Raheem, that the response is inappropriate in so far 
>the ideas of President
>Bush can serve to promote Islamophobia. In his Thursday Postcard of 
>September 20th that was
>published all across Africa he argued that “The Islamophobia in 
>presenting these matters
>only serve to make Muslims unnecessarily defensive and disempowers 
>them against the
>terrorists. Majority of Muslims across the world are outraged about 
>the attacks on the
>World Trade center but also angry that it is being blamed on them. 
>There were Muslims among
>the dead, the wounded and the traumatised. And there is nothing in 
>terrorism that is
>specifically Islamic. Every religion has its own extremists and 
>fundamentalists.” He
>continued, “If the Bin Laden’s of this world are to be isolated then 
>the US government must
>understand the root causes of what turns people into terrorists. 
>What turns people into
>Terrorists is not the religion per se but its play on power. The 
>uncomfortable truth is
>that so called Islamic fundamentalism of today has its roots in the 
>cold war.” This is a
>very strong Pan African view and one can see the demonstrations 
>against the bombing of
>Afghanistan all across Africa. Organizations such as the South 
>African Council of Churches
>have condemned the bombing and there have been joint Muslim 
>/Christian demonstrations in
>Cape Town against the humanitarian disaster that comes from the 
>bombing of innocent
>civilians.
>
>It is important that the repressive and militaristic direction stops 
>so that the decent
>people all over the world can fight terrorism
>Pan Africanists are very concerned about the statements on combating 
>terrorism in Libya,
>Egypt, Algeria, Sudan and all across Africa. The former President of 
>South Africa, Nelson
>Mandela worked hard to isolate extremists in Africa and the present 
>policies will do much
>harm to the painstaking work that was done, in particular, in 
>relation to ending the
>diplomatic isolation of Libya.
>
>Q. Is this a time to increase calls for Arab-African unity like some 
>scholars in Africa and
>the Arab community have articulated?
>
>A. The Constitutive Act of the African Union provides the scope for 
>a new direction in
>Africa away from militarism, undemocratic governments and 
>unconstitutional changes of
>government. One of the positive outcomes of the pro active diplomacy 
>of Col Gadaffi in the
>transition was to strengthen the relations between Africans across 
>the Sahara. The
>principles inscribed in the Act of the Union is being embraced from 
>Cape to Cairo. The
>ideas of a new mode of politics has a lot of meaning for African and 
>Arab women. Egyptian
>Intellectuals such as Nawal El Saadawi have been very critical of conservative
>fundamentalists in both Africa and the Arab world. The struggles for 
>the rights of women in
>relation to their sexuality and legal status challenges both Islamic 
>and Christian
>Fundamentalists in both the Arab and African countries. The 
>struggles for the rights of
>women and for the rights of the ordinary persons are struggles for a 
>new form of economy.
>This will require the change in the USA where military dictators are 
>supported and the
>wealth of these societies are recycled for weapons.
>
>Q. What has been your opinion of how the Black community in America 
>has responded/reacted
>since September 11th?
>
>A. The African American Community has responded with horror. They 
>are grieving and using
>opportunities in public fora to express their grief. I have heard of 
>many prayer sessions
>in communities all across this country.
>On the question of the military response and the bombing of 
>Afghanistan, the traditional
>leadership in politics and in religion has been most disappointing. 
>The most consistent
>leadership has been coming from the Black Radical Congress, from the 
>youths and from
>hip-hop artists who have the pulse of the energy of the youth. 
>.These youths have the
>experience of police brutality and racial profiling.
>
>There is grave concern among African Americans and in the Arab 
>American community over the
>rush to change the federal government and centralize the emergency 
>powers. The creation of
>the Office of Homeland Security is worrying, especially for those 
>who understand the
>relationship of the law enforcement agencies to the youths.
>
>More significantly has been the fact that Governor Tom Ridge from 
>Pennsylvania has been
>elevated to the Cabinet level position of the head of Homeland 
>Security. Is it racism that
>the National Security Adviser of the President, an African American 
>woman was passed over
>for this job? Governor Ridge achieved notoriety because he hailed 
>from the state where
>there has been the celebrated case of the demand for a new trial for 
>Mumia Abu Jamal.
>African Americans must study the implications of the Hart Rudman 
>commission for extreme
>repression.
>One of my colleagues described the new powers as the “Routinization 
>of Emergency Powers.” I
>reminded him that the ideas, organization and principles governing 
>the new hysteria are the
>same as that of the Weimar Republic.
>Even more worrying is the reality that the technological 
>capabilities for repression are
>more extensive and intrusive in the era of advanced electronic 
>surveillance and control.
>The current leadership of the African American community in the 
>Congress has been too timid
>and should recover from the hysteria and support Congresswoman 
>Barbara Lee of California.
>Her refusal to support the massive appropriations for repression 
>must be applauded. It is
>from among African American women where we are seeing the Harriet 
>Tubman principle of clear
>opposition to all forms of oppression.
>
>The Harriet Tubman principle of self organization and self 
>mobilization of the African
>American community in order to provide moral and political 
>leadership in this society must
>be studied and brought up to the twenty first century realities.
>
>
>
>
>
>Thursday, October 25, 2001
>
>
>
>
>
>
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-- 


Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801, USA

tel. 217-333-6519
fax. 217-333-2214
e-mail. akagan at uiuc.edu