Edward Said: Suicidal ignorance

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http://www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/2001/560/op2.htm

Al-Ahram Weekly Online

15 - 21 November 2001, Issue No. 560, 

Suicidal ignorance

By now, at least, it should be clear: the US just doesn't get it.  Time for
a change of policy, writes Edward Said

The extraordinary turbulence of the present moment during the US  military
campaign against Afghanistan, now in the middle of its  second month, has
crystallised a number of themes and counter themes  that deserve some
clarification here. I shall list them without too  much discussion and
qualification, as a way of broaching the current  stage of development in
the long, and terribly unsatisfactory history  of relationships between the
US and Palestine.

We should start perhaps by re-stating the obvious, that every  American I
know (including myself, I must admit) firmly believes that  the terrible
events of 11 September inaugurate a rather new stage in  world history.
Even though numerous Americans know rationally that  other atrocities and
disasters have occurred in history, there is  still something unique and
unprecedented in the World Trade Center  and Pentagon bombings. A new
reality, therefore, seems to proceed  from that day, most of it focused on
the United States itself, its  sorrow, its anger, its psychic stresses, its
ideas about itself. I  would go so far as saying that today almost the
least likely argument  to be listened to in the United States in the public
domain is one  that suggests that there are historical reasons why America,
as a  major world actor, has drawn such animosity to itself by virtue of
 what it has done; this is considered simply to be an attempt to  justify
the existence and actions of Bin Laden, who has become a  vast,
over-determined symbol of everything America hates and fears:  in any case,
such talk is and will not be tolerated in mainstream  discourse for the
time being, especially not on the mainstream media  or in what the
government says. The assumption seems to be that  American virtue or honour
in some profoundly inviolate way has been  wounded by an absolutely evil
terrorism, and that any minimising or  explanation of that is an
intolerable idea even to contemplate, much  less to investigate rationally.
That such a state of affairs is  exactly what the pathologically crazed
world-vision of Bin Laden  himself seems to have desired all along -- a
division of the universe  into his forces and those of the Christians and
Jews -- seems not to  matter.

As a result of that, therefore, the political image that the  government
and the media -- which has mostly acted without  independence from the
government, although certain questions are  being asked and criticism
articulated about the conduct of the war  itself, not its wisdom or
efficacy -- wish to project is American  "unity." There really is a feeling
being manufactured by the media  and the government that a collective "we"
exists and that "we" all  act and feel together, as witnessed by such
perhaps unimportant  surface phenomena as flag- flying and the use of the
collective "we"  by journalists in describing events all over the world in
which the  US is involved. We bombed, we said, we decided, we acted, we
feel, we  believe, etc., etc. Of course this has only marginally to do with
the  reality, which is far more complicated and far less reassuring. There
 is plenty of unrecorded or unregistered scepticism, even outspoken
 dissent, but it seems hidden by overt patriotism. So, American unity  is
being projected with such force as to allow very little  questioning of US
policy, which in many ways is heading towards a  series of unexpected
events in Afghanistan and elsewhere, the meaning  of which many people will
not realise until too late. In the  meantime, American unity needs to state
to the world that what  America does and has done cannot brook serious
disagreement or  discussion. Just like Bin Laden, Bush tells the world, you
are either  with us, or you are with terrorism, and hence against us. So,
on the  one hand America is not at war with Islam but only with terrorism,
and on the other hand (in complete contradiction with that, since  only
America decides who or what Islam and terrorism are), "we" are  against
Muslim terrorism and Islamic rage as "we" define them. That  there has been
so far an effective Lebanese and Palestinian demurral  at the American
condemnation of Hizbullah and Hamas as terrorist  organisations is no
assurance that the campaign to brand Israel's  enemies as "our" enemies
will stop.

In the meantime, both George Bush and Tony Blair have realised that  indeed
something needs to be done about Palestine, even though I  believe there is
no serious intention of changing US foreign policy  to accommodate what is
going to be done. In order for that to happen,  the US must look at its own
history, just as its media flacks like  the egregious Thomas Friedman and
Fouad Ajami keep preaching at Arab  and Muslim societies that that is what
they must do, but of course  never consider that that is something that
everyone, including  Americans, also needs to do. No, we are told over and
over, American  history is about freedom and democracy, and only those: no
mistakes  can be admitted, or radical reconsiderations announced. Everyone
else  must change their ways; America remains as it is. Then Bush declares
 that the US favours a Palestinian state with recognised boundaries  next
to Israel and adds that this has to be done according to UN  resolutions,
without specifying which ones, and while refusing to  meet Yasser Arafat
personally.

This may seem like a contradictory step also, but in fact it isn't.  For
the past six weeks there has been an astonishingly unrelenting  and
minutely organised media campaign in the US more or less pressing  the
Israeli vision of the world on the American reading and watching  public,
with practically nothing to counter it. Its main themes are  that Islam and
the Arabs are the true causes of terrorism, Israel has  been facing such
terrorism all its life, Arafat and Bin Laden are  basically the same thing,
most of the US's Arab allies (especially  Egypt and Saudi Arabia) have
played a clear negative role in  sponsoring anti-Americanism, supporting
terrorism, and maintaining  corrupt, undemocratic societies. Underlying the
campaign has been the  (at best) dubious thesis that anti-Semitism is on
the rise. All of  this adds up to a near-promise that anything to do with
Palestinian  (or Lebanese) resistance to Israeli practices -- never more
brutal,  never more dehumanising and illegal than today -- has to be
destroyed  after (or perhaps while) the Taliban and Bin Laden have been
 destroyed. That this also happens to mean, as the Pentagon hawks and
 their right-wing media machine keep reminding Americans relentlessly,
 that Iraq must be attacked next, and indeed that all the enemies of
 Israel in the region along with Iraq must totally be brought low, is  lost
on no one. So brazenly has the Zionist propaganda apparatus  performed in
the weeks since 11 September that very little opposition  to these views is
encountered. Lost in this extraordinary farrago of  lies, bloodthirsty
hatred, and arrogant triumphalism is the simple  reality that America is
not Israel, and Bin Laden not the Arabs or  Islam.

This concentrated pro-Israeli campaign, over which Bush and his  people
have little real political control, has kept the US  administration from
anything like a real re- assessment of US  policies towards Israel and the
Palestinians. Even during the opening  rounds of the American
counter-propaganda campaign directed to the  Muslim and Arab world, there
has been a remarkable unwillingness to  treat the Arabs as seriously as all
other peoples have been treated.  Take as an example an Al- Jazeera
discussion programme a week ago, in  which Bin Laden's latest video was
played in its entirety. A  hodge-podge of accusations and declarations, it
accused the US of  using Israel to bludgeon the Palestinians without
respite; Bin Laden  of course crazily ascribed this to a Christian and
Jewish Crusade  against Islam, but most people in the Arab world are
convinced --  because it is patently true -- that America has simply
allowed Israel  to kill Palestinians at will with US weapons and
unconditional  political support in the UN and elsewhere. The Doha-based
moderator  of the programme then called on a US official, Christopher Ross,
who  was in Washington to respond, and then Ross, a decent but by no means
 remarkable or even fluent Arabic speaker, read a long statement whose
 message was that the US, far from being against Islam and the Arabs,  was
really their champion (e.g. in Bosnia and Kosovo), plus the US  supplied
more food to Afghanistan than anyone else, upheld freedom  and democracy,
etc.

All in all, it was standard US-government issue. Then the moderator  asked
Ross to explain why, given everything that he said about US  support for
justice and democracy, the US backed Israeli brutality in  its military
occupation of Palestine. Instead of taking an honest  position that
respected his listeners and affirmed that Israel is a  US ally and "we"
choose to support it for internal political reasons,  Ross chose instead to
insult their basic intelligence and defended  the US as the only power that
has brought the two sides to the  negotiating table. When the moderator
persisted in his questioning  about US hostility to Arab aspirations, Ross
persisted in his line  too, more or less claiming that only the US had the
Arabs' interests  at heart. As an exercise in propaganda, Ross's
performance was poor  of course; but as an indication of the possibility of
any serious  change in US policy, Ross (inadvertently) at least did Arabs
the  service of indicating that they would have to be fools to believe in
 any such change.

Whatever else it says, Bush's America remains a unilateralist power,  in
the world, in Afghanistan, in the Middle East, everywhere. It  shows no
sign of having understood what Palestinian resistance is all  about, or why
Arabs resent its horrendously unjust policies in  turning a blind eye to
Israel's maleficent sadism against the  Palestinian people as a whole. It
still refuses to sign the Kyoto  convention, or the War Crimes court
agreement, or the anti-land-mine  conventions, or to pay its UN dues. Bush
can still stand up and  lecture the world as if he were a schoolmaster
telling a bunch of  unruly little vagrants why they must behave according
to American  ideas.

In short, there is absolutely no reason at all why Yasser Arafat and  his
ever-present coterie should grovel at American feet. Our only  hope as a
people is for Palestinians to show the world that we have  our principles,
we occupy the moral high ground, and we must continue  an intelligent and
well-organised resistance to a criminal Israeli  occupation, which no one
seems to mention any more. My suggestion is  that Arafat should stop his
world tours and come back to his people  (who keep reminding him that they
no longer really support him: only  17 per cent say they back what he is
doing) and respond to their  needs as a real leader must. Israel has been
destroying the  Palestinian infrastructure, destroying towns and schools,
killing  innocents, invading at will, without Arafat paying enough serious
 attention. He must lead the non-violent protest marches on a daily,  if
not hourly basis, and not let a group of foreign volunteers do our  work
for us.

It is the absence of a self-sacrificing spirit of human and moral
 solidarity with his people that Arafat's leadership so fatally lacks.  I
am afraid that this terrible absence has now marginalised him and  his
ill-fated and ineffective PA almost completely. Certainly  Sharon's
brutality has played a major role in destroying it too, but  we must
remember that before the Intifada began, most Palestinians  had already
lost their faith, and for good reason. What Arafat never  seems to have
understood is that we are and have always been a  movement standing for,
symbolising, and getting support as the  embodiment of principles of
justice and liberation. This alone will  enable us to free ourselves from
Israeli occupation -- not the covert  maneuvering in the halls of Western
power, where until today Arafat  and his people are treated with contempt. 
Whenever, as in Jordan,  Lebanon and during the Oslo process, he has
behaved as if he and his  movement were just like another Arab state, he
has always been  defeated; only when he finally understands that the
Palestinian  people demand liberation and justice, not a police force and a
 corrupt bureaucracy, will he begin to lead his people. Otherwise he  will
flounder disgracefully and will bring disaster and misfortune on  us.

On the other hand, and I shall conclude with this now, leaving the  subject
for my next article to develop in detail, we must not as  Palestinians or
Arabs fall into an easy rhetorical anti-Americanism.  It is not acceptable
to sit in Beirut or Cairo meeting halls and  denounce American imperialism
(or Zionist colonialism for that  matter) without a whit of understanding
that these are complex  societies not always truly represented by their
governments' stupid  or cruel policies. We have never addressed the
currents in Israel and  America which it is possible, and indeed vital, for
us to address,  and in the end to come to an agreement with. In this
respect, we need  to make our resistance respected and understood, not
hated and feared  as it is now by virtue of suicidal ignorance and
indiscriminate  belligerence.

One more thing. It is also far too easy for a small group of  unexceptional
expatriate Arab academics in America to keep appearing  on the media here
in order to denounce Islam and the Arabs, without  having the courage or
the decency to say these things in Arabic to  the Arab societies and
peoples they so easily rail against in  Washington and New York. Nor is it
acceptable for Arab and Muslim  governments to pretend to be defending
their people's interests at  the UN and in the West generally, while doing
very little for their  people at home. Most Arab countries now wallow in
corruption, the  terror of undemocratic rule, and a fatally flawed
educational system  that still has not faced up to the realities of a
secular world.

But I shall leave that all until my next article.

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