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CounterPunch
November
3, 2002
Joscha Fischer
and Rummy's Feathers
Traveling in
a Post-9/11 World
by TARIQ ALI
Since 9/11/01 I've travelled to every continent.
I now know which airports have showers, which airlines have more
leg room in cattle class and on which airlines the food served
is not compatible with life in the medium-term (one or two),
which US airports do random checks, where you can find the best
coffee and which hotels are to be avoided. In fact I could write
an airport and airline guide which would not be popular with
most airports or airlines.
In Boston earlier this year I lost all
my belongings (including my old friend, a Tag Heur swimming watch
I had for many years and which had been dipped in every ocean,
many lakes and swimming pools) because the Radisson checked me
out so that on my return from Simon's Rock College of Bard in
Great Barrington (try and find that on your map of the USA),
I was without a room and my belongings. When I tried to enter
my room the man inside screamed and became abusive. Perhaps he
thought  I was a rapist-terrorist-Muslim
all in one. The hotel was apologetic, gave me another room but
had no explanation for my lost Tag Heur or my shaving brush.
I was on a book tour for 'Clash
of Fundamentalisms' and had to move on, but those sons-of-bitches
never compensated me. The New York offices of Verso (my publishers)
wrote many letters, but no response. And I've never been able
to find a watch like the old one. So now in swimming pools I
have to rely on the clock on the wall and in the sea on the clock
in my head. Its not satisfactory and I dream of evil things happening
to the Radisson in Boston, Massachusetts. The curse of Ali is
on them. And if I can persuade my old friend Alexander Cockburn
and his colleague Jeffrey St.Clair who produce the excellent
magazine 'Counterpunch,' to add their curses to mine, then Radisson
will suffer, at least in Boston. I want my watch back.
* *
*
Now to food. A quarter of a century ago
the food in the Anglo-Saxon world was not very good. In fact
let me be more precise. It was like eating shit. But all that
has changed. When I visited Australia for the Sydney Literature
Festival this year after an absence of 20 years the city had
really changed. Cosmopolitan in appearance and cuisine. An excellent
Arab restaurant overlooked Sydney Harbour. I had to eat there
twice because two different factions of Arab friend insisted
on meeting there. The waiter smiled when I returned for dinner
after having had lunch, but must have seen the pleading look
in my eyes and didn't betray me to the hosts of that evening.
And Britain, too, has changed. When I first arrived in October
1963 to study at Oxford, the intellectual atmosphere was stimulating,
but the food was disgusting. There was only one Indian restaurant,
imaginatively called 'The Taj Mahal'. I ordered a meal. Inedible.
Being young and arrogant I sent for the Manager and asked him
in Urdu: 'Why do you serve this shit?' He was livid. Took me
to his office and said: 'Look The English love it. I'm making
money and I don't want you to come here again.' Then he relented.
'Have you just arrived here?' I nodded. He gave me the name of
a Punjabi woman in North Oxford who cooked for South Asian students
every Sunday and we could select the menu. I rang her. And she
was good, but it was an unsatisfactory arrangement I had to teach
myself to cook. Now the culinary landscape of Britain has been
transformed completely. China and South Asia compete for restaurant
space, but English chefs have learnt to cook as they once did
in the 16th century.
***
Last weekend I was at the Evangelische
Akademie in Bad Segersburg, an hour's drive from Hamburg. The
occasion was a conference on 'The War against Terror' and Israel-Palestine.
In itself it was unremarkable except that the opposition I encountered
came from the official Greens, who have become fervent interventionists.
I have a feeling that the Green Foreign Minister Joscha Fischer,
who is trying to smooth the ruffled feathers of Condoleeza Rice
and Donald Rumsfeld (what an ugly image) will probably agree
to the war on Iraq. In other words the Greens will put right-wing
pressure on Schroeder to retreat from the strong antiwar position
that won him the election. 70percent of Germans remain opposed
to the war and most of them will not be convinced but the green
warmongers will try. Of that I'm sure. In my opening remarks
I had referred to the ideology Zionist -Protestant fundamentalist
alliance that dominated the ruling clique in Washington. I referred
to the early settlers as Protestant fundamentalists fleeing repression
in Europe, but inflicting it on the 'heathens' in North America.
Late an 'evangelischer freund' came up to me: 'Martin Luther,
too, was opposed to Protestant fundamentalism.' Given the old
boy's notorious anti-semitism, I gently challenged this assessment.
'Oh no, you misunderstand. It was Luther who fought against the
Anabaptists who fled to the New World.' Now all is clear.
***
Often at meetings or in radio and TV
interviews when I point out that the only power in the Middle
East that possesses nuclear weapons is Israel, a Zionist apologist
shouts; 'But they're a democracy.' Leaving aside the ethnic character
of Israeli democracy, I reply that the only country to have used
nuclear weapons is also a democracy. This usually ends the argument.
Now we have Colonel Putin in Moscow using chemical weapons to
end a hostage siege. He, too, is a great democrat. Meanwhile
plans to invade Iraq proceed apace.
Tariq Ali
is an editor of New Left Review and a frequent contributor to
CounterPunch. This article is extracted from his new book The
Clash Of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads And Modernity,
published by Verso.
Yesterday's
Features
Alexander Cockburn
Blowback,
Wellstone and Hitchens
Michael Neumann
Memo
to Christians
Re: Activism and the Israel/Palestine Conflict
Fran Shor
Militarized Masculinity and Homegrown Terrorists
Mary Hughes-Thompson
Olive
Orchards and Armed Zealots
Susan Davis
Proverbial Wisdom:
Right Place, Wrong Time
Jason Leopold
False
Profits:
Sec of Army Thomas White and Enron's Cooked Books
Adam Engel
Samson Agonistes:
Confessions of a Terrorist/Martyr
Russell Mokhiber and
Robert Weissman
A Day
at the American Enterprise Institute
John Stanton
Should States Secceed?
Gavin Keeney
Parting Shots
Anthony Gancarski
Concerned Citizen: Episode 6. Talk Show Host
David Krieger
The Children
of Iraq Have Names
M. Junaid Alam
No to War Rap
New
Print Edition of CounterPunch Available Exclusively
to Subscribers:
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in the Tunnels;
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- Ashcroft's Gays: the War on Free Speech;
- Saddam's Amnesty: Could It Happen Here?
- Criminalizing Dissent: a history and preview;
- Iraq 1987: When the Going Was Good;
- Egypt in Turmoil: an Anthropologist's Account;
- Green and Grounded: Profiled at the Gate.
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October 26
/ 27, 2002
Michael Wolff
A Place
of Tears
Ilija Trojanow
Bali Mon Amour
Ben Tripp
Crocodile Tears
Hope Shand and Silvia Ribeiro
The Great Containment:
GM Fallout from Mexico to Zambia
M. Junaid
Alam
The Wolf Who Cried Wolf:
Charging Anti-Semitism & Extending the Iron Wall
Gavin Keeney
The Fusion Thing:
Landscape + Architecture
Adam Engel
A Good Man is Hard to Misfit
Anis Shivani
Is America Becoming Fascist?
Jason Leopold
Is Thomas White Fit to Lead the Army?
Philip Farruggio
Let Them Eat (Crumb) Cake
Josh Frank
The Grassroots of Hope
Anthony Gancarski
Concerned Citizen: episode 5
Night School
M. Shahid
Alam
The Civilizing Mission
October 25, 2002
Wayne Madsen
Pappy
Bush on Wellstone:
"Who Is This Chickenshit?"
Stuart Timmons
Harry
Hay Dead at 90:
He Paved the Way for Modern Gay Activism
Vanessa Jones
Australia
Votes Green:
Historic No Vote to US War Plans
Ben Terrall
Rep.
Tom Lantos' Big Lie
Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Behind
the Drive for War:
The Escalating Bush Military Budget
Will Youmans
Israel's and Divestment
Norman Madarasz
Lula
on the Verge
October 24,
2002
Jo Freeman
How the
Christian Coalition Boosts Israel
Ben Tripp
George
W.: Caught Between Iraq and a Hard Place
Harry Browne
Ireland's Dreary Yes to Nice
Anis Shivani
A Guide
for the Perplexed:
the Major Countries of the World as Defined by the Office of
Strategic Influence
T.W. Croft
America's
New Improved War
William Hughes
A Free
Press, But for Whom?
Alan Farago
Jeb Bush and the Environment
October 23,
2002
Daniel Wolff
Pataki,
Witt and the Indian Point Nuke
Wayne Madsen
A Saudiless
Arabia
Sam Bahour
and Paul de Rooij
Abritrary
Imprisonment
Chris White
Why I Oppose
the US War on Terror:
an ex-Marine Sergeant Speaks Out
Anthony Gancarski
Back to Bali
Adam Engel
Twilight
(of the Idols) Zone
Robert Fisk
How to Shut Up Your Critics
October 22,
2002
Jack McCarthy
A Letter
to C. Hitchens
Carol Norris
This Message
Brought to You by Breast Cancer, Inc.
Joanne Mariner
Just
Say "Not Until We're Married":
Legislating Morality and Understanding HIV/AIDS Prevention
Kathleen Christison
Excuse Me?
How Israel Justifies Killing Palestinians
Linda Heard
Iraq War
Mongering:
A Game of Chess with Lives at Stake
Roger Peacock
Marketing the War on Iraq
Resources:
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and Jeffrey St. Clair
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Whiteout:
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by Alexander
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and Jeffrey St. Clair
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