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Today's
Stories
November
27, 2007
Marjorie
Cohn
Remembering Victor Rabinowitz
November
26, 2007
Kathleen
and Bill Christison
Heading for Annapolis
Paul
Craig Roberts
The End of All That
David
Macaray
Enter Mediator
Sameer
Dossani
Pakistan's Wounded Dictator
Roger
Burbach
The Final Battle in Bolivia
Mark
Scaramella
Guns and Greed in the Emerald Empire
Brian
McKinlay
Howard's End
Rick
Kuhn
The Fall of a Racist Union Buster
Binoy
Kampmark
Ruddslide and Dull Alec
Monica
Benderman
What Do You Know of War?
Brenda
Norrell
Return to Alcatraz
Website
of the Day
Ghostworld by DJ Spooky
November
24 / 25, 2007
Alexander
Cockburn
The Ordeal of Catherine Wilkerson,
MD
Robert
Fisk
Darkness Falls on the Middle East
Saul
Landau
Norman Mailer will Not R.I.P.
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Justice Stephen Breyer, Cancer Bonds and the Origins of Neoliberal
Environmentalism
Rannie
Amiri
Beirut's Black Friday
Christopher
Brauchli
Iraq Embassy as Gilded Palace
Daniel
Gross
The Gap and Black Friday
Mike
Whitney
"A Generalized Meltdown of Financial Institutions"
Marjorie
Cohn
Iran and the 2008 Elections
David
Rosen
Senior Sex: the Real Sexual Life of Aging Americans
David
Michael Green
If Conservatism is the Ideology of Freedom ....
Kenneth
Rexroth
When Euripides Played the Hindu Kush: Greeks and Buddhists in
Afghanistan
Muhammad
Iqbal
Trans. Shahid Alam
Ghazal
Website
of the Day
Aerial Footage of Delta Fish Kill
November 23, 2007
Gary
Leupp
Killing the Buddha in Pakistan's Swat
Valley
Laura
Carlsen
Coming to Terms with Diversity in
Bolivia: an Interview with Alvaro Garcia, Bolivia's VP
David
Macaray
Keeping Labor Unions Out
Andy
Worthington
Former Guantánamo Detainee Seeks Asylum in Sweden
Clifton
Ross
Trashing Chavez: Keith Olberman's Toxic Rant
Seth
Sandronsky
Battling Sodexho
Dan
Bacher
Death in the Delta: Thousands of Fish Stranded by Bureau of Reclamation
William
A. Cook
The Myth of Middle East Peace
Website
of the Day
Waiting for the Guards: Stress Techniques as Torture, a Short
Film
November
22, 2007
Alan
Farago
Who Lost America's Everglades?
Greg
Moses
A Thanksgiving Basting
Dave
Lindorff
Impeachment is Back on the Table
Mike
Ely
Native Blood: the Myth pf Thanksgiving
Omar
Azfar
Gore for President of Pakistan?
November
21, 2007
Vijay
Prashad
Our Dictator, Their Democracy
Martha
Rosenberg
Undercover at a Turkey Slaughtering Plant
Manuel
Garcia, Jr.
Epiphany on the Glacier
John
Ross
The Last Days of Mexican Corn
Brian
McKenna
Cancer Terrorists Unmasked
Stephen
Soldz
Isolation Torture Routine at Guatánamo
Monica
Benderman
Needing Peace
Ben
Terrall
Slavery in the Fields: The Real Price of Sugar
Website
of the Day
Mercy for Animals
November
20, 2007
Oren
Ben-Dor
Why Israel Has No "Right to Exist"
as a Jewish State
Wajahat
Ali
An Interview with Norman Finkelstein
Alan
Farago
The Dark Arts and the Bush Dynasty
Marjorie
Cohn
Musharraf Plays Bush for a Fool
Ralph
Nader
Green is Gold?
Andy
Worthington
Guantánamo Whistleblower Launches a New Attack on Rigged
Tribunals
Sara
Olson
When Going AWOL is the Only Escape
Dave
Lindorff
Likelihood of Iran Attack Gains Credence
Paul
Krassner
The First Amendment, a Dialogue
Website
of the Day
Joanne Mariner on Torture
November
19, 2007
Winslow
T. Wheeler
Why Congress Won't Reform
China
Hand
The U.S. Game Plan in Pakistan
Allan
Nairn
Sitting Around Talking, in Indonesia
Uri
Avnery
How to Get Out?
David
Macaray
The Chalice that Poisoned the Labor Movements
Dave
Lindorff
Democrats in Future Shock: They Could Lose It All in 2008!
Bill
Quigley
Twenty Thousand Protest at Ft. Benning; Eleven Face Federal Criminal
Trials
Ron
Jacobs
Sitting on the Group W Bench: War, Thanksgiving and Arlo Guthrie
Sunsara
Taylor
Legalized Rights for Fertilized Eggs?
Binoy
Kampmark
Why Steve Irwin--You're Dead!
Heather
Gray
Another Look at W.E.B. DuBois
Website
of the Day
The Meat Market
November
17 / 18, 2007
P.
Sainath
Neoliberalism's Price Tag: 150,000
Farm Suicides in India
David
Rosen
The Scarlet Hypocrites: Republicans,
Christians and the Politics of Adultery
Mike
Whitney
Pentagon Cover Up: 15,000 or More US Deaths in Iraq War?
George
Wuerthner
Saving the Big Wild
Brenda
Norrell
The Case of Jim Main, Jr: In Montana, Indians are Guilty Until
Proven Innocent
George
Ciccariello-Maher
Of Submarines and Loose Screws
Karim
Makdisi
Lebanon is Hanging by a Thread
Marie
Trigona
Wal-Mart in Argentina
Valerio
Volpi
The Catholic Church, Incorporated
Fred
Gardner
The Straight-Ahead Runner
Robert
Fantina
The White House Press Office
Mike
Ferner
Thank God for the Senate Republicans!
Missy
Comley Beattie
The Radical Majority
Kenneth
Couesbouc
Circles of Power
Patrick
O'Hayer
A Portrait of Mailer and a Young Poet
Poets'
Basement
Davies, Buknatski and Ford
November
16, 2007
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
The Vices of Hillary Clinton: Secrecy,
Intransigence and War
Dave
Zirin
The Indictment of Barry Bonds: Busted by a Broken System
Gary
D. Barnett
A Day in the Life of an Unwilling Federal Agent
Alan
Farago
Sprawl, Mortgage Fraud and Political Corruption
Dave
Lindorff
Two Brothers and Two Scandals
Russell
Mokhiber
Pelosi and Me: "What Should be Done with Those Protesters?"
Robert
Ovetz
Cargo Ships in Paradise: Shipping Lanes Threaten the Yosemite
of the Sea
Brenda
Norrell
"Today We Experienced America:" Arresting Indigenous
People on the Border
David
Swanson
Wolf Blitzer Loses Democratic Debate
Peter
Letheby
Outside the Box on the Great Plains
Website
of the Day
Why Activism Fails
November
15, 2007
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Hillary Clinton in Arkansas
Adolfo
Gilly
The Spirit of Revolt
Peter
Bohmer
10 Days That Shook Olympia
Andy
Worthington
The Trials of Omar Khadr: Gitmo's Child Soldier
Gray
/ Derks
Obama's Pitch to South Carolina's Black Churches Affronts Gay
Groups
Liaquat
Ali Khan
Liberating Pakistan
Dave
Lindorff
Where's the Party?
Christopher
Brauchli
Tipping Point: the Politics of Gossip
Anthony
Papa
Racism as Law: Crack Cocaine Sentences
Martha
Rosenberg
Merck's Big Write Off
Ben
Terrall
Thank You, Ehren Watada
Website
of the Day
On the Colorado: Drought, Climate Change and Water Supplies
November 14, 2007
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
The Making of Hillary Clinton
James
Petras
Venezuela Between Ballots and Bullets
Al
Giordano
Campaign 08: Don't Trust Anyone Over 50
Paul
Craig Roberts
The Lobby
Andy
Worthington
Innocents and Foot Soldiers
Stephen
Lendman
Torturing Palestinian Detainees
Fatima
Bhutto
Aunt Benazir's False Promises: the Dismantling of Pakistani Democracy
Martin
Smith
Norman Mailer and the "Good War"
Jeff
Leys
Slip Sliding Away: House Votes on War Funding
Website
of the Day
Why the Writers are Striking
November
13, 2007
Alexander
Cockburn
Hillary's Big Problem and How Bill
Can Fix It
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Mailer and Us: the Writer as Fighter
Robert
Bryce
The Pakistan Fuel Connection
David
Macaray
The Teamsters and the Hollywood Strike
Mike
Whitney
Bulletins from the Titanic
Ralph
Nader
Pakistani Lawyers vs. American Lawyers
Nikolas
Kozloff
Chavez Blasts the Spanish King
Jordan
Flaherty
Education Versus Incarceration in Tallulah, Louisiana
B.
R. Gowani
Dear Mrs. Bhutto
Website
of the Day
Monty Python: "Fuck You, Very Much FCC"
November
12, 2007
Vicente
Navarro
Why Hillary's Health Care Plan Really
Failed
Ben
Brown
Letter from Ho Chi Minh City: a Tribute to My Vietnam Vet Father
Omar
K.
A Pakistani Lawyer's Testimony: Life Under the Brutal Emergency
Sadia
Abbas
The Roots of Pakistan's Political Crisis: Corrupt Elites and
a Kleptocratic Military
Farzana
Versey
Mailer's Miasma
Richard
W. Behan
The Political Crimes of Complicity
Paul
Krassner
Asshole of the Year: Congratulations Tim Russert!
Cindy
Sheehan
Faith and War
Peter
Stone Brown
The Return of Levon Helm
Dave
Lindorff
Dennis, You are Not Alone
Website
of the Day
Police Attack in Olympia
November
10 / 11, 2007
Alain
Gresh
Uncle Sam's New Backyard: How to Turn
a Region into a Graveyard
Mike
Whitney
For Whom the Closing Bell Tolls: the Last Dead Bull on Wall Street
Ron
Jacobs
A View from the Pakistani Left: an Interview with Farooq Tariq
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The First Dambuster: a Coyote Story
Alan
Farago
Tangled Up in Blue: a Brief History of Florida Environmentalism
Binoy
Kampmark
When Language Drowns: Torture in America
Robert
Fantina
Legitimizing Torture
Fred
Gardner
Psychological Torture in the Name of Family Values
Ayesha
Ijaz Khan
The General in His Labyrinth
Nicola
Nasser
NATO's Southward Drift
Philip
Rizk
The Blame Game in Gaza
Michael
Dickinson
Condom Nation: the Pope vs. Terry Higgins
Joel
S. Hirschhorn
The Grand Delusion: a Conspiracy of Two Parties
Paul
Krassner
Flunking Out of the Electoral College
Wadner
Pierre /
Joe Emersberger
The Ongoing War on Journalists in Haiti
November
9, 2007
Patrick
Cockburn
In the Kandil Mountains with the
PKK
Mohammed
Hanif
Musharraf and the Drunk Uncle
John
Ross
Blackwater Goes to Mexico
Mike
Whitney
Ron Paul, Big Media's Invisible Candidate
Tom
Barry
In Latin America, the Hillary Clinton Policy is the Bush Policy
Corporate
Crime Reporter
Is the AFL Trying to Derail Single Payer Health Care?
Badruddin
Khan
Pakistan and the Israel Lobby
David
Macaray
The WGA STrike: the Empire Strikes Back
Martha
Rosenberg
The Blood Sport of Vice Presidents
Website
of the Day
Stryker Blockade!
November
8, 2007
Kathleen
& Bill Christison
Meeting the Other in Israel and
Palestine
William
Loren Katz
Waterboarding in American History
Mike
Whitney
The Long Fall: a Market Without Parachutes
Sheldon
Richman
Why Woodstock May Have Saved John McCain's Life
Liaquat
Ali Khan
Solidarity with Pakistan's Lawyers
Marc
Gardner
The Victims of "Jessica's Law": Parolees Without Rights
(or Homes)
Jackie
Corr
The Big Fish from Whitefish: Montana, the Last Retreat of the
Investment Banker?
Brenda
Norrell
Between Bombs and Border Walls
Dave
Lindorff
Ridiculing Impeachment at the New York Times
China
Hand
Rewriting the History of the Sudan Calamity
Sen.
Russ Feingold
FISA and America's Basic Freedoms: Let's Not Repeat the Mistakes
of the Patriot Act
Website
of the Day
The Welfare Poets Meet Hugo Chavez
November
7, 2007
Paul
Craig Roberts
Dollar's Fall Collapses the American
Empire
Russell
Mokhiber
Pelosi and Me: Can't the Democrats End the War By Not Bringing
the Funding Bill to the Floor?
Vijay
Prashad
The Apotheosis of Bobby Jindal
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Educating Pakistan: What Mukasey Can Teach Musharraf
Alan
Farago
To Bee or Not to Bee? The Politics of Colony Collapse
David
Macaray
The Writers' Guild Strike: Is There an Ice-Breaker?
Nikolas
Kozloff
The Case of the Slimy Senator: Chuck Schumer Greenlights Mukasey
Charlotte
Laws
What We Learned from Stephen Colbert's Presidential Campaign
Daniel
White
Zahid's Story
William
Cook
The Politics of Servility: Congress and the Israel Lobby
Website
of the Day
Safe Lawns
November
6, 2007
Mike
Whitney
Welcome to Year 27 of the Reagan
Revolution
Ralph
Nader
Who Determines the Price of Oil?
Andy
Worthington
The Torture of Ali al-Marri
Pam
Martens
Wall Street Metes Out Street Justice to Citigroup
Liaquat
Ali Khan
Pakistan's Dark Future
William
Schroder
The Return of Water Torture
Stephen
Lendman
Punishing Gaza
William
Blum
Cuba and Original Sin
Former
US Intelligence Officers
A Memo on Torture, Intelligence and Mukasey
November
5, 2007
Alexander
Cockburn
How I Spent the Eighth Brumaire
Russell
Mokhiber
Pelosi and Me: The Democrats and Single Payer
David
Macaray
How to Turn Workers Against Each Other (and Make Them All Poorer)
Gary
Leupp
General Musharaff's "State of Emergency"
Dave
Lindorff
Those Minot Nukes
Ludwig
Watzal
Israel's Dilemma in Palestine
Patrick
Cockburn
Tensions Ease in Iraqi Kurdistan
Peter
Stone Brown
John Fogerty Makes Peace with His Past
Michael
Simmons
Yo! What Happened to Peace?
Website
of the Day
Petition: In Defense of the Morton West HS Antiwar Students
November
3 / 4, 2007
Tariq
Ali
Pakistan Sinks Deeper into Night
David
Price
Army's Price Salesman of Counterinsurgency
Manual Seeks to Defend Stolen Scholarship
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Splitsville
Alan
Farago
The Housing Crash, Suburban Sprawl and the Crisis of the American
Middle Class
Paul
Krassner
He's Back! Don Imus Meets Michael Richards
Rannie
Amiri
Why the U.S. is Safeguarding Iraq's War Criminals
P.
Sainath
Indexing Humanity, Indian Style
Ayesha
Ijaza Khan
Pakistan in a Daze
Robert
Fantina
Is the Bush Administration Talking Itself Into a War With Iran?
Seth
Sandronsky
The Politics of Health Care in California
Ron
Jacobs
The Bebop of Baraka
Ramzy
Baroud
A Case for Arab Dignity
Heather
Gray
When Capitalists Get a Free Ride
November
2, 2007
Dr.
Mary Pipher
Acting on Conscience: Psychologists
and Abusive Interrogations
Saul
Landau
How Pete Stark Became a Pariah
Andy
Worthington
Guantánamo as House Arrest
Sharon
Smith
A Tale of Two Stadiums
Gary
Leupp
Fascist Beatifications: the History and Politics of Sainthood
Gregory
Harms
The Chorus of Slander on Palestine
Christopher
Brauchli
Racism in High Places
Peter
Morici
The Falling Dollar and the Stubborn Trade Deficit
Dave
Lindorff
The Easy Way to Stop the Looming US Attack on Iran
David
Penner
Zombie Nation
Website
of the Day
Fall in Yosemite
November
1, 2007
Paul
Craig Roberts
The Wages of Hegemony
Patrick
Cockburn
The Most Dangerous Dam in the World
Dave
Lindorff
The Air Force Report on the Minot-Barksdale Nuclear Missile Flight
Jonathan
Feldman
The Strange Political Economy of Death in the South
Mike
Ferner
They Met the Resistance in Iraq
William
S. Lind
A Question for Would-Be Presidents
Diana
Johnstone
"Fascislamism" Versus "Shoah Business"
Jacob
Hornberger
The War on Telephone Privacy
A..K.
Gupta
The Apocalypse will be Televised
Lyuba
Zarsky /
Kevin Gallagher
The Enclave Economy of Mexico's Silicon Valley
Felice
Pace
Does the SPLC Equate Anti-Zionism with Anti-Semitism?
Website
of the Day
This One's for You, Ed Abbey
October
31, 2007
Bill
Quigley
New Orleans' Broken Criminal Justice
System
Rev.
William E. Alberts
A Trail of American Blood: From the White House to CBS News
Ray
McGovern
Attacking Iran for Israel
Eric
Walberg
Poisonous Espionage: Litvinenko and the New Cold War
V.
G. Smith
The Second Death of Guy Môquet
Luis
J. Rodriguez
"Social Cleansing" from Guatemala to LA
Sheldon
Richman
Bush has Time to Run the World
Walter
Brasch
A Real Halloween Scare
Website
of the Day
Boogie Rocks!
October 30, 2007
David
Price
Pilfered Scholarship Devastates Gen.
Petraeus's Counterinsurgency Manual
M.
Shahid Alam
The Pakistan Question
Andy
Worthington
The Epiphany of Matthew Waxman: a Government Insider Turns Against
Gitmo
Patrick
Cockburn
The Bicycle Bomber of Baquba
Anthony
Papa
The Twisted Logic of Drug Laws
Floyd
Rudmin
What "All Options are on the Table" Really Means
Sherwood
Ross
Giuliani and Torture
Website
of the Day
The Worst Lobby? You Decide
October
29, 2007
Lisa
Hajjar
Inside Israel's Military Courts
Joe
DeRaymond
The Politics of Lethal Injections
Patrick
Cockburn
The High Stakes in Iraqi Kurdistan
Isabella
Kenfield /
Roger Burbach
Corporate Murder in Brazil
Fred
Gardner
The Frivolous Investigation of Dr. Sterner
Farzana
Versey
Caricaturing Islam
Stephen
Fleischman
The Greening of the Oligarchy
Marcelle
Cendrars
The Congressional Rip Cord
Eamonn
McCann
Dan Keating, the Last of the Republican Irreconcilables
Martha
Rosenberg
For Halloween, Ann Coulter Dresses as .... Ann Coulter!
Website
of the Day
Campaign 2008
October
27 / 28, 2007
Alexander
Cockburn
So Much for Islamo-Fascism Awareness
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Dam That Isn't There
James
Bovard
Breaking Down an Innocent Man: The FBI's Right to Threaten Torture
Ralph
Nader
Beyond the Rule of Law
M.
Reza Pirbhai
The Wahhabis are Coming, the Wahhabis are Coming!
Robert
Sandels
Pay the Invaders! Cuba, Claims and Confiscations
Jacob
G. Hornberger
Ruling By Decree
Missy
Beattie
The Arsonists in the West Wing
John
Ross
U.S. Eyes on Oaxaca
Robert
Fantina
Condi Rice, the Imperial Cheerleader
Ron
Jacobs
Labor at the Crossroads
Ali
Moayedian
In Search of Logic About Iran
David
Michael Green
What If We Had a President Who Didn't Give a Damn About Terrorism?
Poets
Basement
Block, Davies and Ford
Website
of the Day
Bring 'Em Home: a Music Video
October
26, 2007
Brian
Cloughley
Revenging Bloodshed
Saul
Landau
Portrait of Rudy
Ahmad
Al-Akras
Getting Justice in the HLF Case
Franklin
Lamb
Does "Loving" Lebanon Mean Never Having to Say You're
Sorry?
Mike
Whitney
Murdoch's Cuckoo's Nest
Dave
Lindorff
Home of the Brave? Reducing US Casualties By Killing More Civilians
Alan
Farago
A Castro Behind Every Bush
Yifat
Susskind
Conscripting Feminism into the War on Terror
Website
of the Day
Dead Life in a Political Prison
October 25, 2007
Jeffrey
St. Clair /
Joshua Frank
Iraq's Environmental Crisis
Manuel
Garcia, Jr.
Homes of the Crash Test Dummies
Paul
Craig Roberts
The Fraudulent War on Terror
Col.
Dan Smith
The Politics of Paranoia: Jane Harman's War on the First Amendment
Alan
Farago
The Way to Paradise?
Chris
Kutalik
The Lesson of the Chrysler Rebels
Brian
McKinlay
John Howard and the Curse of Bush
Cindy
Sheehan
Pete, Nancy, George and WW III
Website
of the Day
Support the America's Program!
October
24, 2007
Natalie
Washington-Weik
White Fantasies About Race-Based
Intelligence
Andy
Worthington
The Guantánamo Suicides
Michael
Birmingham
What Happened in Nahr Al Bared?
Corporate
Crime Reporter
The Nuclear Democrats
Tariq
Ali
Bush's Cuba Detour
Farzana
Versey
Imagining Serfdom in a Scarf
Dave
Zirin
White Noise
James
Murren
What "Support Our Troops" Means
Todd
Chretien
Looking Reality in the Face
Martha
Rosenberg
What Came First, the Chicken or
the Cage?
Website
of the Day
Hillary Clinton on Nuclear Power
October
23, 2007
Ralph
Nader
Bush's Catastrophic Rhetoric
Lawrence
R. Velvel
Goldsmith Stands Convicted--By His Own Mouth: How a Harvard Law
Professor Justified Rendition at the Bush Justice Dept.
Vijay
Prashad
The Nuke Deal is Dead
Bonnie
Bricker /
Adil E. Shamoo
The True Cost of War for Oil
Dave
Lindorff
Christopher Dodd's Make or Break Moment
Mike
Whitney
The Big Squeeze
Farzana
Versey
Race with the Devil
Stanley
Heller /
Ben George
Something New from the Antiwar Movement
Marcelle
Cendrars
You Too Can Confront the Holy Executive
Regan
Boychuk
Burma and Haiti: Comparing the Media Response
Website
of the Day
King Corn
October
22, 2007
Ishmael
Reed
Should Blacks Go Green?
Marjorie
Cohn
Mukasey and the Constitution: Another Loyal Bushie
Rannie
Amiri
Is There a Method to Bush's Middle East Madness?
Diane
Farsetta
Time to Pay for Payola: the FCC and Pundit-for-Hire Armstrong
Williams
Todd
Alan Price
Renewing No Child Left Behind: A Hurricane Katrina Aimed at Public
Education
Robert
Jensen
The Quagmire of Masculinity
Stephen
Lendman
The UAW Leadership Sells Out Its Workers
Jemima
Khan
The Kleptocrat in an Hermes Headscarf
Sunsara
Taylor
David Horowitz Can't Handle the Truth
Binoy
Kampmark
No Ideas, Please: the Australian Elections
Website
of the Day
Support the Center for International Policy
October
20 / 21, 2007
Alexander
Cockburn
The Man Who Builds Hillaryworld
Tariq
Ali
A Massacre Foretold
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Greetings from Echo Park
Andy
Worthington
The Shame of Diego Garcia
Mike
Whitney
Housing Flameout
Daniel
Wolff
Play It As It Lays
David
Rosen
Deviants on Parade: Folsom St. Fair and America's 4th Sexual
Revolution
Saul
Landau
David and Goliath in Iraq
Ron
Jacobs
COINTELPRO and the Panthers
Robert
Fantina
The Strange Love of Mitt Romney and Bob Jones
David
Heleniak
Erring on the Side of Hidden Harm
Joe
Allen
Hoffa Brown-Nosing at UPS
Prairie
Miller
Lions for Lambs
Poets'
Basement
Gibbons, Holt and Buknatski
Website
of the Weekend
Crash!
October
19, 2007
John
Ross
Che's Mexican Legacy
Sheldon
Rampton
Shared Values Revisited: a Case Study in the Limits of Propaganda
Rahul
Mahajan
A Tale of Two Atrocities: Blackwater and Haditha
Devra
Davis
Deadly Secrets: Chemical Pollution and Cancer
Christopher
Brauchli
Blasphemous Science
Wadner
Pierre
Haiti After the Deluge
Bill
Quigley
Jailed for Justice
Website
of the Day
Textbook Sticker Shock
October
18, 2007
Saree
Makdisi
Academic Freedom is at Risk
Meg
Dwyer
What I Learned from 9/11: Who Wouldn't Want Us Dead?
Alevtina
Rea
Sketches of Russian Life
Norman
Solomon
The United States of Violence
Kristoffer
Larsson
Something is Rotten in Sweden
Harvey
Wasserman
Nukes are Back and So are We
Website
of the Day
Eve Ensler: "A Filibuster Would Stop This War"
October
17, 2007
Steve
Niva
Counter-Insurgency, American-Style
Andy
Worthington
The Case of Mohamed Jawad
Alan
Farago
The Credit Shock
Russell
Mokhiber
The New Billionaire-Criminal Class
Sharon
Smith
Democrats, AWOL When It Mattered
Mike
Whitney
Time for the Banks to Face the Hangman
Robert
Fantina
Iraq, Iran and the US: Business as Usual
Chris
Irwin
Where Have All the Rednecks Gone?
Website
of the Day
Sex Ed at Oral Roberts University
October
16, 2007
Peter
Linebaugh
Doris Lessing and the Dynamite
Prize
Paul
Findley
Follow the Leader: The Open Secret About the Israel Lobby
Robert
Bryce
Inconvenient Corrections: Al Gore's Wacky Facts
Uri
Avnery
The Mother of All Pretexts
Paul
Craig Roberts
The Iraqi Genocide
Ray
McGovern
What Did Nancy Pelosi Know About NSA Spying and When Did She
Know It?
Norman
Solomon
The Pro-War Undertow of the Blackwater Scandal
Martha
Rosenberg
The Curse of Cymbalta
William
S. Lind
Out of the Frying Pan
Joel
S. Hirschborn
Time to Boycott Voting
Website
of the Day
Pipeline Through Paradise: Big Oil's Arctic Play
|
November
27, 2007
From "Wogs"
to "Islamists"
Martin
Amis Does a Coulter
By RONAN BENNETT
What do you make of the following statement:
"Asians are gaining on us demographically at a huge rate.
A quarter of humanity now and by 2025 they'll be a third. Italy's
down to 1.1 child per woman. We're just going to be outnumbered."
While we're at it, what do you think of this, incidentally from
the same speaker: "The Black community will have to suffer
until it gets its house in order." Or this, the same speaker
again: "I just don't hear from moderate Judaism, do you?"
And (yes, same speaker): "Strip-searching Irish people.
Discriminatory stuff, until it hurts the whole Irish community
and they start getting tough with their children."
The speaker was Martin Amis
and, yes, the quotations have been modified, with Asians, Blacks
and Irish here substituted for Muslims, and Judaism for Islam
- though, it should be stressed, these are the only amendments.
Terry Eagleton, professor of English literature at Manchester
University, where Amis has also started to teach, recently quoted
the remarks in a new edition of his book Ideology: An Introduction.
Amis, Eagleton claimed, was advocating nothing less than the
"hounding and humiliation" of Muslims so "they
would return home and teach their children to be obedient to
the White Man's law".
The heated exchanges that followed
were trivialized in the mainstream media as "a nasty literary
punch-up", "the talk of the literary world", "a
spat" between "two warring professors", and the
silence that followed seemed to confirm it as a passing tiff
between two high-ranking members of the chattering class.
I see it differently. Amis's
views are symptomatic of a much wider and deeper hostility to
Islam and intolerance of otherness. Only last week, the London
Evening Standard felt able to sponsor a debate entitled: Is Islam
good for London? Do another substitution here and imagine the
reaction had Judaism been the subject. As Rabbi Pete Tobias
noted on Comment is Free, the so-called debate was sinisterly
reminiscent of the paper's campaign a century ago to alert its
readers to the "problem of the alien", namely the
eastern European Jews fleeing persecution who had found refuge
in the capital. In this context, Rod Liddle's contribution to
the proceedings - "Islamophobia? Count me in" - sounds
neither brave, brash nor provocatively outrageous, merely racist.
Those who claim that Islamophobia can't be racist, because Islam
is a religion not a race, are fooling themselves: religion is
not only about faith but also about identity, background and
culture, and Muslims are overwhelmingly non-white. Islamophobia
is racist, and so is antisemitism.
And it is different for another
reason. The views quoted by Eagleton first appeared last year,
in an interview Amis gave to Ginny Dougary of the Times. That
they passed with virtually no comment at the time says a great
deal about the depoliticized state of intellectual debate in
Britain. While a great deal of media time and energy is spent
discussing the latest translation of War and Peace or the artwork
in the refurbished St Pancras station, there has been, with a
few notable exceptions, a puzzling lack of effort when it comes
to something as critical as expressing support for an increasingly
demonized minority in our society. Martin Amis should have been
taken to task by his peers for his views. He was not.
This is all the more remarkable
when you look closely at what Amis has been saying about Muslims
and Islam. To the Dougary interview first. Eagleton drew particular
attention to a passage that argued for collective punishment:
"The Muslim community will have to suffer until it gets
its house in order. What sort of suffering? Not let them travel.
Deportation - further down the road. Curtailing of freedoms.
Strip-searching people who look like they're from the Middle
East or from Pakistan ... Discriminatory stuff, until it hurts
the whole community and they start getting tough with their children."
Amis sought to excuse the passage
quoted above by pointing out that it was prefaced by the words
"There's a definite urge - don't you have it? - to say,
'The Muslim community ... (etc)'." And he repeatedly highlighted
the fact that the comments were spoken, not written, as Eagleton
wrongly claimed (which, in some degree, allowed Amis to dodge
the central charge of Islamophobia). In a letter to the Independent
columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, he explained, "It was a
thought experiment, or a mood experiment." He had not "advocated"
anti-Muslim measures, "merely adumbrated" them.
If, for some, the distinction
was not quite clear, Amis expanded his defense in a live interview
with Jon Snow on Channel 4 News. He maintained that the target
of his attack was Islamism, "an extreme ideology within
a religion". He was not, he stressed, attacking Islam itself
or Muslims in general, though he ran into some difficulty when
Snow reminded him of his observation on the alleged "extreme
incuriosity of Islamic culture", and of his reaction on
seeing his six-year-old daughter's toys being searched by airport
security: "Oh yeah, and stick to people who look like they're
from the Middle East" (itself further proof, if such were
needed, of the racist nature of Islamophobia). Taken along with
his assertion that "there are great problems in Islam",
did not these statements, Snow proposed, indicate that he was
taking "scattergun" aim at all Muslims? Amis retorted:
"I do not believe in any persecution of the Muslim community.
I think that would be counterproductive."
At which point, the question
becomes unavoidable: is efficacy now to be the benchmark for
persecutors? He also confessed to "little impulses, urges
and atavisms now and then", which was uncomfortably like
a collusive wink to the audience: we all have our little prejudices,
don't we? Though he was forced to squirm a little, Amis refused
to recant or apologize. His demeanor throughout was the ostentatious
weariness of the unfairly traduced, and he called for an end
to the whole dull business. "Can I ask him [Eagleton], in
a collegial spirit, to shut up about it?" he wrote in a
letter to this newspaper.
Do we let the homophobe off
the hook just because he tells his critics to shut up? Do we
pass over the rantings of the antisemite just because he did
not commit the poison to the page? To judge from the response
of most liberal commentators, the defence seemed to work, and
Amis's wish to have a line drawn under the affair was granted.
While Eagleton was attacked as a clapped-out marxist, Amis was
commended, by a writer in the Observer, for "owning up
- bravely, as it turned out - to what amounted to a revenge fantasy".
His "thought experiment" was the incautious but challenging
musing of one of the most vivid and verbally energetic modern
writers in English. In the Guardian, one writer concluded that
although he was often irritating, Amis had raised important questions,
while among the rhetorical questions asked by Professor John
Sutherland was whether Eagleton's - Eagleton's! - position at
Manchester University was tenable after labelling a colleague
a bigot and a racist.
We can dispense with Amis's
polite fiction that he is talking about "Islamism";
there are just too many generalisations ("The impulse towards
rational inquiry," Amis wrote elsewhere, "is by now
very weak in the rank and file of the Muslim male"), too
many references to "them" and "us". When
he says, for example, "they" are gaining on "us"
demographically, he is demonstrably not talking about "Islamists".
The danger of being overrun, outnumbered, outbred is a repugnant
trope beloved of supremacists everywhere (it was used by the
Evening Standard about "aliens" 100 years ago). It
is, for example, horribly familiar to Arab Israelis, and to
Irish Catholics (from whom Eagleton is descended). When Amis
voices his fears of being overrun, he is, and he knows he is,
perpetuating and enhancing the spectre of the other, and loading
it with the potent imagery of swarming poverty, violence and
ignorance.
At the Cheltenham literary
festival, Amis treated his audience to a discussion on the relative
value of Muslim and western states, the former being, in his
estimation, less evolved than the latter. "I am just saying
that some societies are more evolved than others," he said.
(Evolved is an interesting choice of word. In the Belgian Congo,
the colonisers used to employ a system of rewarding colonized
people who alienated themselves from indigenous society: they
were raised to an officially designated category of évolués.)
"There is no inoffensive way to put this," Amis continued
provocatively. "By evolved, I mean more civilized. We have
more respect for civil society."
This is not the time or place
to debate the proposition or the definitions Amis employs, though
I would say, in a general response to the generalized argument,
that I have seen, at times, rather more respect for civil society,
from how they treat their families and the elderly to strangers
in the street, in Damascus, Ramallah and east Jerusalem than
I have seen, at times, in London, New York and Paris. Equally,
when he says, "Here in the west we have the most evolved
society in the world and we are not blowing people up",
it is hard not to think of the ghosts of tens of thousands, if
not hundreds of thousands, of Muslim dead from Iraq to Afghanistan
who might take issue with him. No, here the salient point is
that Amis, contrary to his assertions, is talking about Islam,
not Islamism, Muslims, not Islamists.
It is one thing - and the right
thing - to challenge at every turn antisemitism, misogyny, homophobia,
incitement to violence and hatred where it exists among Muslims,
just as we should where it exists in the police, the church,
the political parties, newspapers or anywhere else. But British
Muslims I have spoken to now talk about feeling "deluged"
by hostile comment. Hardly a day goes past when they are not
lectured and scolded by writers claiming to be the champions
of true liberalism. Muslims who argue for Muslim schools are
criticized by journalists who send their children to Christian
or Jewish faith schools. Muslim women who choose to wear the
niqab are upbraided by powerful politicians who claim to feel
"intimidated". Those who point to the illegality of
Israeli occupation are antisemites. Those who protest against
the war in Iraq are al-Qaida sympathisers and moral relativists.
Muslims are under siege. Worried that if they speak out they
will be accused of being quasi-Islamist, many have given up trying
to engage in the debate over what Amis calls "the problems
of Islam" (our old friend the "problem of the alien"
again).
This is a community under attack,
and not just by novelists. By every official index, violence
and discrimination against Muslims have increased since 2001.
The victims of physical violence will always be a minority -
although Asian people are twice as likely to be stabbed to death
than they were ten years ago - but what the majority experience
in their daily lives is much more insidious, the kind of coded
rejection that in this more enlightened age takes the place
of outright expressions of racism. And, of course, hanging over
them are threats of control orders, curfews, arrest and extended
periods of detention without trial. Just as the 1974 Prevention
of Terrorism Act left the Irish community in Britain feeling
like a suspect nation, so the infinitely more repressive anti-
terrorist legislation - including 28 days' detention without
charge rather than the old seven when the IRA were active -
of today intimidates, alienates and inflames Muslims.
Muslims bridle at the broad
strokes by which they are depicted. Every time a writer or politician
or policeman begins a sentence by saying "Muslims must
...", there is little recognition of the sheer variety of
belief within Islam, or of the cultural diversity among Muslims,
or of the everyday pragmatic reality of what it means in a secular
age to believe in God and to try to live by that belief. In
this respect Muslims are like anyone else. Some are devout, some
are not at all, some are not very much, and some are devout sometimes.
Some are sinners; they fall down and try to get up again. Some
are hypocrites who fall down and pretend to be still on their
feet. Many fail to live up to their religion's, and their own,
high expectations of themselves. Many have sex outside marriage,
as many Catholics do. Some Muslims drink alcohol, as some Jews
eat pork. A few, in common with a few Christians, think gay people
should be murdered. Observant Muslims contest, dispute, accept
and reject points of doctrine exactly as those from other faiths
do. The Qur'an, as one Muslim put it to me, is not a program
to be loaded and Muslims are not computers.
But almost worse than the ignoramus
is the self-styled expert. After the attacks on the Pentagon
and the twin towers, Tony Blair liked to be seen carrying his
copy of the Qur'an, as though this were evidence of a deep understanding.
(Not that his Qur'an was much help when he was writing to Pakistan's
General Musharraf, at least according to Peter Stothard, observing
him at work in Downing Street: "'Dear Pervez ...' says the
prime minister, as his pen glides along the top of a letter.
'I'm never quite sure what name to use with Muslims,' he says,
looking up at his staff and down dubiously at his handiwork
so far." His staff suggested "General".) I can
remember a presenter on the Today programme begin her challenge
to a Muslim activist with the words, "But the Qur'an says
..." To which her interviewee retorted impatiently, "I'm
sick of you people telling me what's Islamic or not. This is
my religion and you don't know anything about it."
Reading Amis's letter to Alibhai-Brown
hardly gives the impression that the author is an authority.
Recalling that they once spent a convivial evening together,
he said, "That night you revealed ... that you were Shia
and, as far as I understand it, the Shia minority speaks for
the more dreamy and poetic face of Islam." Is he perhaps
confusing Shias with Sufis? The letter itself was a staggering
exercise in condescension, its recipient praised as one of the
good Muslims in the same way the Belgians kindly patted their
évolués on the head. In a separate interview about
his fictional reimagining of Mohammed Atta, who piloted the hijacked
plane into the first of the twin towers, Amis acknowledged that
he took "an enormous liberty in that I made him an apostate,
rather than a religious maniac". He said, "It would
have bored me blind to look into the mind of someone who was
fanatically religious. I make him a cynic who is there just for
the killing, and I wanted to emphasize that, that's it's a secret
no longer well-kept, that killing people is tremendously empowering
and exciting."
As a novelist, Amis is free
to do whatever he wants with his characters, but the hijackers'
steps on the road to 9/11 repay investigation. Reducing the motivation
of the enemy to bloodlust leads nowhere, as the experience of
the British in Ireland proved. The result will be wrong and it
will be cliche. It may be, given Amis's powers, flamboyant,
but that will only make it flamboyant cliche. Horrorism. Death
cult. Thanatoid. Striking words but poor substitutes for understanding,
reason and real knowledge. Go back to the start of this article.
Look at the substitutions and then ask yourself what you are
reading. An important question from a leading literary figure?
A brave revenge fantasy? No. A major cultural and literary figure
endorsing prejudice against Muslims.
Why did writers not start writing?
There is Eagleton and there is the Indian novelist and essayist
Pankaj Mishra, who took apart Amis's strange and chaotic essay
on the sixth anniversary of 9/11. But where are the others?
Four days after the Pentagon and the twin towers were attacked,
the novelist Ian McEwan wrote in The Guardian: "Imagining
what it is like to be someone other than yourself is at the core
of our humanity. It is the essence of compassion, and it is
the beginning of morality." As an expression of outraged,
anguished humanism, McEwan's formulation was truthful, moving
and humbling, and can hardly be bettered. But it seems to me
the compassion is flowing in one direction, the anger in another.
I can't help feeling that Amis's remarks, his defense of them,
and the reaction to them were a test. They were a test of our
commitment to a society in which imaginative sympathy applies
not just to those like us but to those whose lives and beliefs
run along different lines.
And I can't help feeling we
failed that test. Amis got away with it. He got away with as
odious an outburst of racist sentiment as any public figure has
made in this country for a very long time. Shame on him for
saying it, and shame on us for tolerating it.
Ronan Bennett wrote the screenplay of The Hamburg
Cell, a film about the 9/11 hijackers. His latest novel is Zugzwang.
This piece ran in The Guardian
on November 19.
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