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October 24, 2001
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
October 21, 2001
Donald
Rumsfeld
The
al-Jazeera Interview
Mark
Scaramella
Nuclear
Anxiety
October 19, 2001
Mohammed
Sid-Ahmed
Bush's
Palestinian State
Michael
Colby
A
Mailroom Manifesto
October 18, 2001
Mahajan
and Jensen
Avoiding
a New Cold War
Patrick
Cockburn
US
Planes Pound Taliban
Jamey Hecht
Gerald Ford
and the CIA
Mokhiber
and Weisman
3
Arguments
Against This War
October 17, 2001
Ballinger
and Marsh
Music
and War Resistance
Steve
Perry
The
Anthrax Chronicles
Chris
Kromm
Operation
Infinite Disaster
Susan
Block
Sex
Not Bombs
David Vest
Osama Speaks
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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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Madeleine Albright's
Deadly Legacy
How the Bin
Laden Women
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Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James
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October 24, 2001
The Meridia
Manifesto
The undersigned, university professors
from different Latin American countries and participants in the
First Latin American Colloquium on Interpretive Systemology carried
out in Mérida Venezuela (October 1-4, 2001), consider
of primal importance to let know systems thinkers in particular
and the public in general, the following reflections on the current
world crisis.
In the last four days, participants in
the Colloquium have presented their research projects on and
debated about a number of Latin American organizational and institutional
problems related to: education, justice, social welfare, community
organizations, poverty, technology and society, cultural diversity
in peasant communities, managerial technologies and organizational
phenomena.
Beyond the obvious underlying and connecting
theme the systems approach as applied to institutional problems-another
theme emerged that gathered our thought and reflections in this
Colloquium. It has become clear at the end of our meetings that
a crucial problem unfolded by our research is the growing devastation
brought about by several anti-cultural forms that high modernity
(or postmodernity) has made possible.
These anti-cultural forms -which are
present in such areas as the ontological ground of technology,
the media, the lack of an authentic education, organizational
phenomena, neo-liberalism, and in the strong sway that the market
and the instrumental rationality of our time holds over our lives-
pose a serious threat to the basic cultural practices (proper
of a culture in "good condition") of nursing, raising
and caring.
The violent devastation of cultural soils
that we are experiencing in the present, as the result of the
widespread of these anti-cultural forms, is leading to a meaningless
world; a world under the serious threat of various forms of nihilism
and violence; a world subjected to a deep and growing process
of desolation.
A clear manifestation of this process
is the response given by the governments of so called "developed
world", led by the United States, to the tragic events that
took place in New York and Washington last September 11.
In this context, and bearing in mind
the anti-cultural phenomena previously mentioned, the undersigned
systems thinkers want to make public the following manifesto:
The Merida
Manifesto
1. We add our name to the large list
of peoples that condemn the terrorist attack which regrettably
took the lives of thousands of human beings last September 11.
It is a defining feature of our humanity to be able to empathize
with other fellow humans (i.e. to have the ability to put oneself
in the position of other human being) and thus experience something
close to the grief and sorrow they may be undergoing in the United
States. Nonetheless, we must also add our name to two other
lists. These, unlike the first are, perhaps, much shorter.
2. We join the short list of those who
clearly and strongly condemn the international behaviour of the
United States government and other imperialist states in the
last century and the beginnings of the twenty first. As a matter
of fact, such unjustified behaviour has been, directly or indirectly,
the cause of the death of millions of children and innocent people
in general. We do not have to go too far in this history of State
violence to see its real proportions. Just recall the criminal
behaviour of the United States government at the end of the Second
World War when the murder of hundreds of thousands of people
in Nagasaki and Hiroshima was perpetrated. Examples of similar
behaviour in Latin America abound. We recall for instance the
death of more than seven thousand people in Panamá as
a result of the illegal military invasion carried out by the
USA army to capture General Noriega, a man that had previously
worked very closely with the CIA. Let us recall also the bloody
dictatorships set up by the USA government in Chile and Argentina
during the seventies and eighties. Another example of the criminal
foreign policy of USA is the long embargo this government has
led against Iraq and which has resulted in the death of more
than five hundred thousand Iraqi children. These examples
are but a few of the many outrages and great injustices perpetrated
by the USA government around the world, the proof of which are
nowadays even provided by the CIA itself! It is clear then,
that such a State violence -which is conducted with the active
involvement of other governments such as Britain- is breeding
violence all over the world. This is not to say that we justify
in any way the violent events that took place in New York and
Washington last September 11. However, we equally disapprove
the violent and murderous response of the USA government against
the people of Afghanistan (regretfully with the support of the
majority of world governments). Therefore, we must add our name
to a third list.
3. This list is formed by those
people who reject and condemn the brutal retaliation carried
out by the USA government -joined in this irrational and inhuman
task by its allies- as a response to the aforementioned events
of September 11. It is brutal because it rallies a coalition
of the most powerful armies of the world to bombard Afghanistan,
one of the poorest, most ravaged war-torn nations of the earth.
Millions of Afghans are fleeing their country at this very moment,
seeking refuge and starving in the process. The response is brutal
also because as one can see from declarations of the White House
and other government officials, they reveal a flagrant contradiction
of the most cherished principles and ideals which constitute
the legitimating foundation of the power of a modern democratic
State, as the governments of the USA and their allies are supposed
to represent. These ideals are none other than those of justice,
democracy and freedom!
According to those principles, these
governments led by the USA should seek and bring to justice,
to a fair trial in an international court of justice, those
who committed the murderous attacks of September 11. However,
in order to accomplish this task, they ought not launch a war
to massacre innocent people, as they are doing it right now,
and risk the lives of millions more (including those of their
own people) who inevitably will be dragged into this war.
We must also denounce the unfair and
quite disproportionate significance given to the terrorist attack
of September 11 by comparison with many other terrorist acts
carried out around the world -many of them performed by the US
government. Let us imagine this attack had been launched against
Bolivia, Nicaragua or Iraq rather than to the USA. It is not
hard to see that the response of the developed nations and their
friends would have been completely different. Another example
of such unfairness is the fact that on September 11, the very
same day of the terrorist attack -and something similar can be
said of any other day- according to statistics offered by international
organizations, thousands of children died of starvation in so
called underdeveloped countries, in some cases as the direct
result of economic policies enforced by the USA government through
the IMF and the World Bank. Should not we regret with equal sorrow
the unjustified dead of these human beings? Yet there were neither
special 24 hour editions of CNN for several days lamenting this
tragedy nor marches in several cities showing their solidarity
with the families of the victims, much less a minute of silence
in Wall Street for them. How come? Why the billions of dollars
being spent in the bloody revenge of the USA government against
Afghanistan and other countries are not destined to feed and
take care of millions of starving children in this world? Is
it not here, in such a great unbalances, the key to find a peaceful
solution to world terrorism?
We hope these reflections will make
clear why we add our names to three lists which most people would
consider incompatible. Their common thread is their underlying
notion of justice and the perhaps more and more uncommon ability
nowadays to empathize with the grief and suffering of other human
beings, regardless of whether they are US citizens, Colombians
or Chinese, or whether they are Christians, Muslims, Buddhists
or simply atheists.
Jorge Dávila (Venezuela),
José Daniel Cabrera (Colombia),
Ramsés Fuenmayor (Venezuela),
Lilia Gélvez (Colombia),
Eduardo Ibarra (México),
Jorge Ishizawa (Perú),
Bruno Jerardino (Chile),
Edmundo Leiva (Chile),
Hernán López Garay (Venezuela),
Hugo Marroquín (Perú),
Alejandro Ochoa (Venezuela),
María Teresa Santander (Chile),
Ricardo Sotaquirá (Colombia),
Roldan T. Suárez (Venezuela),
Miriam Villarreal (Venezuela).
Professors from different Latin American
universities and speakers in the First Latin American Colloquium
on Interpretive Systemology, Mérida, October, 2001
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