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October 26, 2001
Rahul
Mahajan
Poisoning
the Well
Sen. Russ Feingold
Why I Opposed
the
Anti-Terrorism Bill
John Troyer
Put
the War to a Vote
Norman Madarasz
What It
Means to be
Against the War
Patrick
Cockburn
Northern
Alliance Attacks
US Bombing Strategy
Richard Lloyd Parry
Terrible Images
of a "Just" War
October 25, 2001
Ghassan
Andoni
Raid
on Bethlehem
N.D. Jayaprakash
From
Hiroshima to NYC
Evan Schultz
Memo
to Ashcroft:
Read Marbury
The Sunshine
Project
Assault
on the BioWeapons
Convention
Sarah
Turner
Cashing
In on Patriotism
Latin American Colloquium
on Systemology
The Meridia Manifesto
Noam Chomsky
The
New War on Terror
October 24, 2001
Michael
Colby
Radioactive
Mail?
Lori Allen
Life
in an Occupied Land
During Wartime
Peter
Swire
New
Anti-Terrorism Bill
Poses Old Risks
Irina
Malenko
A
Non-Western Voice
David
Vest
Welcome
to Web Hell
Patrick Cockburn
Battle
of Mazar Gets Nasty
October 23, 2001
Steve
Perry
Anthrax,
Cipro and the Bailout of Bayer
Carl Estabrook
Just War
or
The Rule of Lawlessness?
Patrick
Cockburn
Errant
Bombs at Bagram
George
Monbiot
War
and Oil
Robert
Jensen
Crushing
Academic Dissent
October 22, 2001
Hamit
Dardagan
The
New Newspeak
Tom Turnipseed
War
on the Poor
Patrick Cockburn
Killing
Mullah Omar's Child
David
Vest
The
War on Women
Shepherd
Bliss
Advice
from a Vietnam Vet
Hani Shukrallah
Capital
Strikes Back
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October 26,
2001
Genocide Scholar "Silenced"
on Academic List For Comments
About Bombing of Afghanistan
By CounterPunch Wire
Genocide scholar Adam Jones claims he has been
"silenced" on H-Genocide, an academic mailing list
for the genocide-studies community, after attempting to post
materials and commentary on the U.S.-led military campaign against
Afghanistan.
Jones, 38, is a Canadian professor of
international studies at the Center for Research and Teaching
in Economics (CIDE) in Mexico City. He is executive director
of Gendercide Watch,
a Web-based educational initiative that confronts gender-selective
atrocities against men and women worldwide.
In three consecutive rejected posts to
the H-Genocide list, to which he subscribes, Jones cited testimony
from humanitarian organizations and United Nations staffers to
the effect that the bombing campaign against Afghanistan was
the major impediment to the delivery of desperately-needed food
aid to the Afghan civilian population. In the first post (12
October 2001), Jones asked: "If coalition leaders are aware
of the present situation, as most of the major humanitarian agencies
and international media appear to be, and choose to continue
the bombing in coming weeks ... could any resulting largescale
mortality legitimately be termed genocidal?" (For the full
text of the rejected posts, and correspondence with the H-Genocide
list editor, see http://adamjones.freeservers.com/h-genocide.html.)
Jones has also been outspokenly critical
of the Taliban regime's attempts to impede the delivery of humanitarian
aid. In his second rejected post to H-Genocide (22 October 2001),
he expressed "strong criticism of the Taliban's recent behaviour
towards foreign aid-workers, local staff, and food stocks in
the country. If the Allies are indeed angling for genocide, the
Taliban, with their harassment, assaults, and seizures, seem
more than prepared to play the same 'game'."
List editor Alan Jacobs' reply to Jones's
second attempted post stated that the H-Genocide editorial board's
"overwhelming opinion was that we were not going to publish
a message that escalated the human tragedy that is developing
to the status of genocide. This was seen ... [as] a rather large
error." In response, Jones wrote (in the third rejected
post, 23 October 2001): "There seems to me a fundamental
question to be asked here. Is it up to the list editors to decide
what can legitimately be considered a genocide and which interpretations
are 'erroneous,' and to accept or reject posts on this basis?
Is not the appropriate place to discuss and debate this issue
the list itself?"
"TERRORIST
APOLOGISM"
The visceral response of the H-Genocide
editors to posts perceived as "anti-American" was amply
on display in the invective they directed against Jones. In excerpted
comments from their decisions, forwarded to Jones at his request
on 24 October 2001, editorial board members referred to him as
"a loose cannon" whose writings were "libelous
and disgraceful" and evoked "anger and revulsion";
and who taught at "a hot-bed of anti-American and anti-Western
thought." (Jones's institution, CIDE, is in fact a small,
exceedingly mainstream research institute in the Mexican capital.)
One editorial-board member accused Jones of "terrorist apologism
[of the type] that is unfortunately becoming popular among the
enemies of this great country [i.e., the United States],"
while another claimed he is "simply sophomoric or ... intentionally
manipulative." Eight out of nine list editors are based
in the United States.
The rejection of the posts, and the editorial
board's comments about Jones, have generated significant controversy
in the genocide-studies community. In a message to list editor
Jacobs (25 October 2001), Norwegian scholar Hans Egil Offerdal
wrote: "The responses that the editorial board has given
is [sic] based on prejudice and a political philosophy that at
best can be described as reactionary." British genocide
scholar Mark Levene also wrote to Jacobs on 25 October 2001:
"If there is any scholarly arena where ... the right to
free opinion should be upheld it is surely in the field of [genocide]
studies. In this context your committee's muzzling of Dr Jones'
views is nothing short of outrageous."
The "muzzling" is part of a
broader pattern, according to Thomas Taaffe of the University
of Massachusetts. "Censorship of any comments which even
seem to criticize U.S. foreign policy has been rampant on this
supposedly international listserve [H-Genocide], while others
have had free reign to advocate military action against the Taliban,
even before the events of September 11th. It is quite ironic
for a listserve supposedly dedicated to preserving life."
(Message to Jones, 25 October 2001.)
In response to the apparent censorship
on H-Genocide, Jones and others have created a new mailing list,
Genocide_Studies, on Topica.com. Among its stated purposes is
to "serve as an alternative outlet for posts rejected by
the H-Genocide editorial board."
"It's clear to me that what has
taken place on H-Genocide in the past couple of weeks is nothing
less than the politically-inspired censorship of alternative
views," Jones stated from his office in Mexico City. "As
such, it seems amply in keeping with the 'chill' that has descended
over political discussion and debate in the United States, and
elsewhere, since the atrocities of September 11. But it is particularly
disturbing to see a censorious mindset reigning among editors
of a mailing list that claims to 'make every effort to encourage
a free exchange of ideas'.
"This is doubly indefensible when,
if the bleakest assessments are accurate, we could be facing
mass civilian death on a scale seen only rarely, if ever, since
the Second World War. To the extent that I and other genocide
scholars and activists are able to call attention to the actions
of the H-Genocide editors, this needs to serve the immeasurably
larger purpose of generating urgent concern for the people of
Afghanistan. The humanitarian crisis has been grossly underreported
in the U.S. press so far.
"It is a legitimate question whether
mass death from starvation, crucially spurred by Allied bombing,
could be called 'genocide'," Jones said. "I personally
think it could. Other genocide specialists could reasonably disagree
-- if they were allowed to hear the proposition put to them in
the first place. It's a real shame that the discussion can't
take place on H-Genocide.
"But whatever terminology we use
won't make a shred of difference to Afghans who have starved
to death. It may already be too late to save hundreds of thousands
of them. If it isn't, and even if it is, the coming days and
weeks are critical. I very much hope that moral policies will
prevail, and aid will reach those who need it. But I've seen
no sign of this so far, and time is terrifyingly short."
Relevant web links:
H-Genocide mailing list: composition of editorial board:
http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~genocide/editorial-board.html
H-Genocide statement of editorial policy:
http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~genocide/editorial-policy.html
H-Genocide general information page: http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~genocide/
Genocide_Studies mailing list: http://www.topica.com/lists/genocide_studies
Adam Jones can be reached by e-mail at
adam.jones@cide.edu
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