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October
15, 2001
Marwan
Bishara
Clash
of Civilizations? Hardly
Patrick
Cockburn
Modern
War in
A Medieval Village
October
13, 2001
Carl
Estabrook
Letters
to Editors
Molly
Secours
War:
The Procter and Gamble Perspective
Alexander
Cockburn
War
Can't Save the Economy
October
12, 2001
Imran
Khan
Try
Them in Court
Vijay
Prashad
War
in a Passive Voice
Patrick
Cockburn
Bombing
the Taliban
October
11, 2001
David
Vest
Bob
Dylan and 9/11
Amb.
Edward Peck
Bush
War Plan "Dumb"
Hani
Shukrallah
West
Is As West Does
Patrick
Cockburn
Looming
Humanitarian Crisis
October
10, 2001
Tom
Turnipseed
Earth
is Our "Homeland"
Steve
Perry
What
Is To Be Done?
Simon
Jenkins
The
Dumbest Weapon
Tariq
Ali
The
Pakistan Maelstrom
Cockburn/St.
Clair
The
Empire Strikes Back
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Ridge Long Groomed
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Cheney's Job
Those CIA Killing
Bids
Never Stopped
The Not-So-Great
Mayor Giuliani
Crop Duster
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Will Save Lives
Madeleine Albright's
Deadly Legacy
How the Bin
Laden Women
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October 24,
2001
A Non-Western Voice
By Irina Malenko
"Non-Westerners of the world, unite!"
Since the 11th of September events in America the media are
full of condemnation and condolences. What I had hoped them
to be full of, was the simple question: "Why?" Because
without asking this question the world is going nowhere.
What I feel after the 11th of September
here in Ireland, is exclusion and discrimination. No, I am not
a Muslim and I do not look much different from the Irish people.
And yet, there is an invisible division line, sadly, created
by the majority of the Irish people, perhaps, even not realizing
it. It is their division between "us" and "them",
"non-Westerners", on behalf of the "civilized"
West.
They demand - yes, demand!- us to grief
for the Western innocent victims while themselves, they didn't
have a single second of silence for non-Western innocent victims
of the Western governments who were and still are being murdered
"in the name of democracy and freedom". If you don't
bow to this demand of compulsory extra-grief - and I refuse
to grief more for one sort of the victims than for another!-
you are labeled as "uncivilized" or even "terrorist".
Can you imagine Iraqis or Yugoslavs demanding
from Westerners to grief for their loved ones? Even though they
have undoubtedly more moral rights to do so.
I can't. That must be a prerogative of
"civilized" nations! Where were you with your "civilization"
when your own governments in cold blood murdered Iraqi and Yugoslav
children? Where were others of you when your governments were
applauding to these killings? I feel sick to my stomach watching
oh so many times how Bill Clinton who can never wash off his
hands all the innocent blood that he has shed around the world
in his 8 years in the office, was cheered and greeted in Ireland
as "The Peacemaker".
Let's face it: our, non-Western victims,
do not count for the majority of you. You don't even like us
to say how we feel about it. We are supposed to mourn only your
deaths. If they do count - and I mean not just for the small
groups of courageous Westerners who are raising their voice
against the current barbarity of the "civilized" world,
but for all those Irish people who had their 3 minutes of silence
on Friday, 14.09- , if they do, where are you now, when even
more innocent human beings are being slaughtered? Simply because
they were "unlucky" to be born outside of your "civilization".
With all its beautiful talks against
racism (even though Durban has pretty much shown to the world
who is who on this issue!), the West divides nations into categories
even after death. It invented 2 sorts of victims. Did anybody
notice that, apparently, there is the 1st class victims: those
from the rich countries who deserve minutes of silence, mourning
days, candle light vigils, tears and millions in solidarity
donations - and then there is 2nd class, "the rest of us",
- "the collateral damage", as they nicely and civilized
put it here.
What I am about to say, is not going
to make me very popular here. But my pain and my dismay at the
double standards of the Western general public, are too strong
and it hurts too much to continue to keep quiet. Ashes of the
"collateral damage" of your civilization are knocking
into my heart.
It is apparently "OK" to kill
the innocent "in the name of democracy and freedom".
It is "OK" to kill the children of one nation "in
the name of human rights" for another. Is that what your
"civilization" is about? People of Afghanistan now
are yet another "collateral damage" to the most of
you. Just like in 1999 during NATO aggression against Yugoslavia
*(if you still remember it!), now we are being told the same
fairy tales - that this is "not the war against the Afghani
(Yugoslav) people, but against terrorism (president Milosevic)".
Whom do they hope to fool? It is the
people, not the leaders, who are dying daily. Just as the terrorist
acts in America weren't "the war on the American people",
but on their leaders' policy - yet, those leaders are still
alive and kicking, while nearly 6000 civilians have vanished.
Where is the difference? The difference is in the Western public
opinion on different values of different nations' human lives.
I can only imagine how furious not just
the media, but the ordinary citizens here would be if anybody
would have called the American 11th of September victims "collateral
damage" in the global fight against Western domination
and Western state terrorism.
American terrorist Timothy McVeigh has
used the term "collateral damage" for his own American
victims and was immediately condemned by the outraged Americans:
how dared he, a private terrorist, to compare his American victims
with some "uncivilized" non-Western victims of his
state counterpart?
To suggest that not all human lives are
of the same value,
Is naked racism.
Yet, the Western governments and media
are not just suggesting it: this is their preconception of the
world. It is clear as daylight from the actions - no matter
what they say. This is an axiom for them, something that doesn't
even need a proof. That is why their own leaders whose true
place is the cells of Scheveningen jail in Holland, in the
defendants' box of the Hague tribunal, are still being cheered
and greeted as "peacemakers".
After the 11th of September , when we
are forced "to make a choice" : either to be with
Mr. Bush and his understanding of freedom (that is, freedom
to bomb any other nation, without any need for any international
law, and to threaten anybody who disagrees) or else., I feel
increasingly that I am not with the West on this one.
How can I be? I was just shown once again
that myself and people like me, are not equal. That for far
too many Irish people it is only "an enormous tragedy"
if there are people of Irish origin among the victims (what
about enormousness of the tragedy in Rwanda?!) I am a non-Westerner
here. It was not my choice to feel this way. Just like any human
person, I felt a shock when I saw other human beings jumping
off the skyscraper on the 11th of September. I felt pain for
their families because I know what it's like to lose somebody
you love. Now, finally, Americans as a nation feel that too.
But what is their reaction?
The reason that I feel a stranger here
now, was the choice of those who have no respect or compassion
for the dead ones of other nations. For the victims of their
own governments in other countries.
It was the choice of those who can throw
McDonald's food that is left over, into the bin, cheerfully
shouting: " This is for Ethiopia!" We, non-Westerners,
have less and less choice in this world, since the continuing
destruction of any decent alternative that we had, to "The
Western Way of life" that is being forcefully imposed on
us in our home countries.
What are our choices? Either to flee
our homes and to come here, where we live so often in hostility
while creating wealth for the West, or to die slowly from poverty,
crime, sicknesses, diseases and oppression at home, under our
own comprador governments, because of the debts they made to
the same West, in order to pay for their own luxury lives. Aha,
there is also a new alternative now: to be bombed to pulp by
a deadly mixture of ultra-expensive missiles and "humanitarian
help" "in the name of civilization". "Civilized"
nations need to restore their economy from depression, you see,
- and a war is the best way to do it..
Let me tell you something. This is not
"retaliation".
If it was right and just to "retaliate"
this way for crimes against humanity, the whole West should
have been leveled to the ground by now. What we are witnessing,
is last century's imperialism on its way back - under that brand-new
smiling mask of "Civilization". Sadly, it seems that
countries that weren't imperialist in the past and that are
even now still partially colonized, are also joining this "crusade".
Retaliation? What retaliation? Remember,
looking back at the part of your own history, which you refuse
to recognize: we didn't start the fire!
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