Al-Ahram Weekly Online15 - 21 November 2001
Issue No.560
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http://www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/2001/560/op2.htm

Suicidal ignorance
Edward Said
-----------------------
By now, at least, it should be clear: the US just doesn't get it.
Time for a change of policy, writes Edward Said

The extraordinary turbulence of the present moment during the
US military campaign against Afghanistan, now in the middle of
its second month, has crystallised a number of themes and
counter themes that deserve some clarification here. I shall list
them without too much discussion and qualification, as a way of
broaching the current stage of development in the long, and
terribly unsatisfactory history of relationships between the US
and Palestine.

We should start perhaps by re-stating the obvious, that every American I
know
(including myself, I must admit) firmly believes that the terrible events of
11
September inaugurate a rather new stage in world history. Even though
numerous
Americans know rationally that other atrocities and disasters have occurred
in
history, there is still something unique and unprecedented in the World
Trade
Center and Pentagon bombings. A new reality, therefore, seems to proceed
from
that day, most of it focused on the United States itself, its sorrow, its
anger, its
psychic stresses, its ideas about itself. I would go so far as saying that
today almost
the least likely argument to be listened to in the United States in the
public domain
is one that suggests that there are historical reasons why America, as a
major world
actor, has drawn such animosity to itself by virtue of what it has done;
this is
considered simply to be an attempt to justify the existence and actions of
Bin
Laden, who has become a vast, over-determined symbol of everything America
hates and fears: in any case, such talk is and will not be tolerated in
mainstream
discourse for the time being, especially not on the mainstream media or in
what the
government says. The assumption seems to be that American virtue or honour
in
some profoundly inviolate way has been wounded by an absolutely evil
terrorism,
and that any minimising or explanation of that is an intolerable idea even
to
contemplate, much less to investigate rationally. That such a state of
affairs is
exactly what the pathologically crazed world-vision of Bin Laden himself
seems to
have desired all along -- a division of the universe into his forces and
those of the
Christians and Jews -- seems not to matter.

As a result of that, therefore, the political image that the government and
the media
-- which has mostly acted without independence from the government, although
certain questions are being asked and criticism articulated about the
conduct of the
war itself, not its wisdom or efficacy -- wish to project is American
"unity." There
really is a feeling being manufactured by the media and the government that
a
collective "we" exists and that "we" all act and feel together, as witnessed
by such
perhaps unimportant surface phenomena as flag- flying and the use of the
collective
"we" by journalists in describing events all over the world in which the US
is
involved. We bombed, we said, we decided, we acted, we feel, we believe,
etc.,
etc. Of course this has only marginally to do with the reality, which is far
more
complicated and far less reassuring. There is plenty of unrecorded or
unregistered
scepticism, even outspoken dissent, but it seems hidden by overt patriotism.
So,
American unity is being projected with such force as to allow very little
questioning
of US policy, which in many ways is heading towards a series of unexpected
events in Afghanistan and elsewhere, the meaning of which many people will
not
realise until too late. In the meantime, American unity needs to state to
the world
that what America does and has done cannot brook serious disagreement or
discussion. Just like Bin Laden, Bush tells the world, you are either with
us, or you
are with terrorism, and hence against us. So, on the one hand America is not
at war
with Islam but only with terrorism, and on the other hand (in complete
contradiction
with that, since only America decides who or what Islam and terrorism are),
"we"
are against Muslim terrorism and Islamic rage as "we" define them. That
there has
been so far an effective Lebanese and Palestinian demurral at the American
condemnation of Hizbullah and Hamas as terrorist organisations is no
assurance
that the campaign to brand Israel's enemies as "our" enemies will stop.

In the meantime, both George Bush and Tony Blair have realised that indeed
something needs to be done about Palestine, even though I believe there is
no
serious intention of changing US foreign policy to accommodate what is going
to be
done. In order for that to happen, the US must look at its own history, just
as its
media flacks like the egregious Thomas Friedman and Fouad Ajami keep
preaching at Arab and Muslim societies that that is what they must do, but
of
course never consider that that is something that everyone, including
Americans,
also needs to do. No, we are told over and over, American history is about
freedom and democracy, and only those: no mistakes can be admitted, or
radical
reconsiderations announced. Everyone else must change their ways; America
remains as it is. Then Bush declares that the US favours a Palestinian state
with
recognised boundaries next to Israel and adds that this has to be done
according to
UN resolutions, without specifying which ones, and while refusing to meet
Yasser
Arafat personally.

This may seem like a contradictory step also, but in fact it isn't. For the
past six
weeks there has been an astonishingly unrelenting and minutely organised
media
campaign in the US more or less pressing the Israeli vision of the world on
the
American reading and watching public, with practically nothing to counter
it. Its
main themes are that Islam and the Arabs are the true causes of terrorism,
Israel
has been facing such terrorism all its life, Arafat and Bin Laden are
basically the
same thing, most of the US's Arab allies (especially Egypt and Saudi Arabia)
have
played a clear negative role in sponsoring anti-Americanism, supporting
terrorism,
and maintaining corrupt, undemocratic societies. Underlying the campaign has
been
the (at best) dubious thesis that anti-Semitism is on the rise. All of this
adds up to a
near-promise that anything to do with Palestinian (or Lebanese) resistance
to Israeli
practices -- never more brutal, never more dehumanising and illegal than
today --
has to be destroyed after (or perhaps while) the Taliban and Bin Laden have
been
destroyed. That this also happens to mean, as the Pentagon hawks and their
right-wing media machine keep reminding Americans relentlessly, that Iraq
must be
attacked next, and indeed that all the enemies of Israel in the region along
with Iraq
must totally be brought low, is lost on no one. So brazenly has the Zionist
propaganda apparatus performed in the weeks since 11 September that very
little
opposition to these views is encountered. Lost in this extraordinary farrago
of lies,
bloodthirsty hatred, and arrogant triumphalism is the simple reality that
America is
not Israel, and Bin Laden not the Arabs or Islam.

This concentrated pro-Israeli campaign, over which Bush and his people have
little
real political control, has kept the US administration from anything like a
real re-
assessment of US policies towards Israel and the Palestinians. Even during
the
opening rounds of the American counter-propaganda campaign directed to the
Muslim and Arab world, there has been a remarkable unwillingness to treat
the
Arabs as seriously as all other peoples have been treated. Take as an
example an
Al- Jazeera discussion programme a week ago, in which Bin Laden's latest
video
was played in its entirety. A hodge-podge of accusations and declarations,
it
accused the US of using Israel to bludgeon the Palestinians without respite;
Bin
Laden of course crazily ascribed this to a Christian and Jewish Crusade
against
Islam, but most people in the Arab world are convinced -- because it is
patently
true -- that America has simply allowed Israel to kill Palestinians at will
with US
weapons and unconditional political support in the UN and elsewhere. The
Doha-based moderator of the programme then called on a US official,
Christopher
Ross, who was in Washington to respond, and then Ross, a decent but by no
means remarkable or even fluent Arabic speaker, read a long statement whose
message was that the US, far from being against Islam and the Arabs, was
really
their champion (e.g. in Bosnia and Kosovo), plus the US supplied more food
to
Afghanistan than anyone else, upheld freedom and democracy, etc.

All in all, it was standard US-government issue. Then the moderator asked
Ross to
explain why, given everything that he said about US support for justice and
democracy, the US backed Israeli brutality in its military occupation of
Palestine.
Instead of taking an honest position that respected his listeners and
affirmed that
Israel is a US ally and "we" choose to support it for internal political
reasons, Ross
chose instead to insult their basic intelligence and defended the US as the
only
power that has brought the two sides to the negotiating table. When the
moderator
persisted in his questioning about US hostility to Arab aspirations, Ross
persisted in
his line too, more or less claiming that only the US had the Arabs'
interests at heart.
As an exercise in propaganda, Ross's performance was poor of course; but as
an
indication of the possibility of any serious change in US policy, Ross
(inadvertently)
at least did Arabs the service of indicating that they would have to be
fools to
believe in any such change.

Whatever else it says, Bush's America remains a unilateralist power, in the
world,
in Afghanistan, in the Middle East, everywhere. It shows no sign of having
understood what Palestinian resistance is all about, or why Arabs resent its
horrendously unjust policies in turning a blind eye to Israel's maleficent
sadism
against the Palestinian people as a whole. It still refuses to sign the
Kyoto
convention, or the War Crimes court agreement, or the anti-land-mine
conventions,
or to pay its UN dues. Bush can still stand up and lecture the world as if
he were a
schoolmaster telling a bunch of unruly little vagrants why they must behave
according to American ideas.

In short, there is absolutely no reason at all why Yasser Arafat and his
ever-present
coterie should grovel at American feet. Our only hope as a people is for
Palestinians to show the world that we have our principles, we occupy the
moral
high ground, and we must continue an intelligent and well-organised
resistance to a
criminal Israeli occupation, which no one seems to mention any more. My
suggestion is that Arafat should stop his world tours and come back to his
people
(who keep reminding him that they no longer really support him: only 17 per
cent
say they back what he is doing) and respond to their needs as a real leader
must.
Israel has been destroying the Palestinian infrastructure, destroying towns
and
schools, killing innocents, invading at will, without Arafat paying enough
serious
attention. He must lead the non-violent protest marches on a daily, if not
hourly
basis, and not let a group of foreign volunteers do our work for us.

It is the absence of a self-sacrificing spirit of human and moral solidarity
with his
people that Arafat's leadership so fatally lacks. I am afraid that this
terrible absence
has now marginalised him and his ill-fated and ineffective PA almost
completely.
Certainly Sharon's brutality has played a major role in destroying it too,
but we
must remember that before the Intifada began, most Palestinians had already
lost
their faith, and for good reason. What Arafat never seems to have understood
is
that we are and have always been a movement standing for, symbolising, and
getting support as the embodiment of principles of justice and liberation.
This alone
will enable us to free ourselves from Israeli occupation -- not the covert
manoeuvring in the halls of Western power, where until today Arafat and his
people are treated with contempt. Whenever, as in Jordan, Lebanon and during
the
Oslo process, he has behaved as if he and his movement were just like
another
Arab state, he has always been defeated; only when he finally understands
that the
Palestinian people demand liberation and justice, not a police force and a
corrupt
bureaucracy, will he begin to lead his people. Otherwise he will flounder
disgracefully and will bring disaster and misfortune on us.

On the other hand, and I shall conclude with this now, leaving the subject
for my
next article to develop in detail, we must not as Palestinians or Arabs fall
into an
easy rhetorical anti-Americanism. It is not acceptable to sit in Beirut or
Cairo
meeting halls and denounce American imperialism (or Zionist colonialism for
that
matter) without a whit of understanding that these are complex societies not
always
truly represented by their governments' stupid or cruel policies. We have
never
addressed the currents in Israel and America which it is possible, and
indeed vital,
for us to address, and in the end to come to an agreement with. In this
respect, we
need to make our resistance respected and understood, not hated and feared
as it
is now by virtue of suicidal ignorance and indiscriminate belligerence.

One more thing. It is also far too easy for a small group of unexceptional
expatriate
Arab academics in America to keep appearing on the media here in order to
denounce Islam and the Arabs, without having the courage or the decency to
say
these things in Arabic to the Arab societies and peoples they so easily rail
against in
Washington and New York. Nor is it acceptable for Arab and Muslim
governments to pretend to be defending their people's interests at the UN
and in
the West generally, while doing very little for their people at home. Most
Arab
countries now wallow in corruption, the terror of undemocratic rule, and a
fatally
flawed educational system that still has not faced up to the realities of a
secular
world.

But I shall leave that all until my next article.

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