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Title: Anarchy, War and Globalization Author: Jaggi Singh Date: November 3, 2001 Language: en Topics: war, globalisation, racism, anti-war, anti-racism, Anarchist People of Color, social justice Source: Retrieved on 12th October 2020 from http://www.coloursofresistance.org/647/anarchy-war-and-globalization/ Notes: Jaggi Singh was scheduled to speak at the New England Anarchist Book Fair in Amherst, Massachusetts, on Saturday, November 3. When he was refused entry into the U.S., Singh wrote this piece, which was read to an audience of about 450 people. Singh was also scheduled to participate on a panel entitled “Current Crises on the Left: What the fuck do we do now!” His written speech plays off the original profanity.
Hello friends. As you probably know by now, I was refused entry into the
belly of the beast last night. A friend and I had to turn back our car
into the great white north, but not before we were held, questioned and
searched for about ninety minutes at the Vermont border by your
ever-vigilant United States Immigration and Customs officials. During
those ninety minutes, as about twenty-five or so cars went by, it was
only my friend and I, and two other African men after us, who were
questioned and held. But far be it for me to suggest that Vermont border
guards practice racial profiling.
Getting stopped at the border is not such a big deal, although staring
at large, framed colour photos of George Bush Junior and Dick Cheney for
over an hour has to qualify as some kind of psychological torture,
especially for two anarchists.
After September 11, I’ve become especially aware that the profile of the
archetypical modern terrorist/hijacker is a clean-shaven, brown-skinned
male, between the ages of twenty-five to thirty-five, with some higher
education and a good command of English.
That’s why I grew a beard.
Still, I couldn’t fool those border guys. I guess you should all feel
collectively safer knowing that I’m stuck back in Montreal.
Whether in Montreal or Amherst, I want to thank the organizers of the
Third New England Anarchist Book Fair — the third one I’ve now missed —
for the invitation to speak, and for allowing me to present some
thoughts in this imperfect way.
This panel is on the so-called current crisis, or crises, and takes as
part of its title, “What the fuck do we do now?” I feel like responding,
“How the fuck should I know!”
Still, I guess I’ll offer up some food for thought. I usually talk from
notes, but because it’s about three in the morning as I write this, I’m
basing this talk on a speech I gave at a teach-in in Montreal called
“America’s New War: Perspectives on Racism and Imperialism.” The talk
was given before October 7, when the bombing started in Afghanistan, and
was presented to a general audience.
So, this speech might be somewhat basic for a lot of you anarchist
radicals out there, for which I apologize. But I hope my remarks will
complement Noel [Ignatiev], Cindy [Milstein] and Michael [Albert]’s
interventions, or at least set up a framework from which we approach the
question: “What do we do now?” I will also include some small parts of
the presentation that I was to offer later in the day on “Anarchy, War
and Globalization.”
Now, whether we like it or not, those of us who identify as part of the
radical social justice movement — especially us anarchists — all of us
have to adjust. I use that word very deliberately, we have to adjust
rather than retreat, as a result of the events of September 11 in the
United States. It’s the nature of living in an empire — and I use that
word very deliberately too — it is in the nature of living in an empire
that the emperor decides his priorities, and we have to reckon with
those priorities.
Whatever the shallow and simplistic justifications presented in the
recent days and weeks — “good versus evil,” “civilization versus
terrorism,” “infinite justice,” “enduring freedom” — we are facing and
confronting realities that have long existed, but are now more amplified
than ever.
Those realities include the drumbeats of war, a war against enemies that
are not yet too clear, but war all the same. The enemies are vaguely
Arab, brown-skinned and Muslim, but beyond that we’re not too sure. The
war on drugs of yesterday is today’s war on terrorism, both equally ill
defined and self-serving.
Those realities include racism — not just racist backlash, but racism, —
which is an integral part of our so-called Western civilization. This
racism has come out to express itself in a more obvious and vulgar
fashion in the last three weeks or so.
According to some commentators, we should somehow commend our nations’
collective tolerance since there hasn’t been a wholesale internment of
Arabs like the internment of Japanese during the Second World War in the
U.S.A. and Canada. We haven’t opened up any concentration camps yet, but
I think INS prisons qualify, not to mention the fact that, according to
media reports, up to 1,000 people have been detained since September 11,
and only eleven of them have any alleged link whatsoever to the
terrorist attacks.
But there has been a clear expression of vulgar racism in the past six
weeks. In just Canada and the United States, there have been:
no doubt going unreported);
fire-bombed or defaced.
Even Christian Arab churches have been attacked. In Hamilton, Ontario, a
Hindu temple was burned, and Sikh men, who wore turbans, have been
specifically targeted for verbal and other abuse. I think it goes
without saying that bigots and racists do not practice cultural
sensitivity.
We’re clearly in an environment of increased and amplified jingoism,
chauvinism and nationalism, and this kind of climate lends itself to
what I call “cheap shots” and “sloppy thinking.”
In a very basic sense, in answering the question “What do we do now?” we
need to offer, as a counterweight, some clear thinking about our current
situation. But let’s consider some of the cheap shots and sloppy
thinking …
There’s one kind of cheap shot that is very predictable, for example the
comments of America’s very own Taliban – rightwing preachers like Pat
Robertson and Jerry Falwell. They laid the ultimate blame for the
September 11 attacks, and America’s so-called weakness, on queers,
feminists, atheists and other scapegoats.
Another predictable response is that of other rightwing commentators. We
have the religious fundamentalists, but we also have the economic
fundamentalists who are making links — perverse links really — between
street protests against economic globalization — against the
[International Monetary Fund] IMF, the World Bank, the World Trade
Organization — and terrorism. These commentators have been expressing
the idea that there’s some kind of slippery slope connection between
anti-globalization protesters, anarchists and terrorists.
There’s a new kind of McCarthyism that’s being expressed in the last
couple of weeks, whereby opposition to capitalism is not only seen as
un-American, or un-Canadian — which most of us don’t mind — but it’s
even pro-terrorist. That’s the new kind of McCarthyism we’re facing.
The current climate isn’t just McCarthyite, it’s positively Orwellian.
When we talk about the “Office of Homeland Security,” it sounds a lot
like Orwell’s Ministry of Truth. So does the “Patriot Act,” which is
being proposed to deal with national security issues in the U.S.A. The
offensive attacks on Afghanistan, including Afghani villages and
civilians, makes of mockery of the name of the Department of Defense,
which is more properly a Department of War and Aggression.
There are other troubling responses that are perhaps just as
predictable, but still disturbing; namely, the clear retreat by certain
sections of more mainstream social justice movement. A retreat that has
shamelessly been presented as some sort of “period of reflection.”
The most obvious example of this retreat was the cancellation of
anti-IMF and World Bank protests by Washington’s Mobilization for Global
Justice. The decision was not only wrong, it was inexcusable, especially
given the clear links between war and globalization that could easily be
made to the general public. No less a source than Thomas Friedman — the
New York Times columnist and a prominent apologist for capitalist
globalization — has written, “The invisible hand of the market needs the
invisible fist.”
September 29 in Washington was a singular and unique opportunity to
announce to the world, as well as the “homeland,” that there was
concerted and public opposition to “America’s New War” in the belly of
the beast; not to mention making the seamless link between
militarization and globalization (or at least start to make the argument
publicly).
Instead, there was a withdrawal from any sort of street presence,
although D.C.’s Anti-Capitalist Convergence should be commended for
adjusting and publicly expressing opposition to war. Unfortunately, the
Mobilization for Global Justice’s retreat did have a tangible effect on
the scope and scale of protest.
I don’t want to underestimate the climate that we’re in, but it’s
exactly in times like these that we need to be clear, open and assertive
about our dissent to the prevailing climate of war hysteria. We can’t
simply surrender the public terrain — in the streets, in the media,
public terrain broadly defined — to apologists for war, exploitation and
national security.
Beyond packaging the retreat as a “reflection,” it’s sometimes even
presented as a way of displaying sympathy with the victims of September
11. That is not just wrong, it’s plain offensive. The “Don’t protest to
sympathize with the victims” position has been expressed publicly by
union leaders up here in Canada. In the U.S.A., it’s been expressed by
the AFL-CIO, which has gone back to its old AFL-CIA ways. Not
surprisingly, they have a selective definition of who qualifies as
victim.
I also don’t want to understate the tragedy in New York City, Washington
and Pennsylvania. There was a tragedy, a terrible tragedy. But it would
trivialize those deaths in New York, and it would trivialize other
unnecessary and tragic deaths — such as the children dying in Iraq
because of Western-imposed sanctions, or the deaths of Palestinian
civilians — it would trivialize all those needless civilian deaths if we
didn’t look at the broader context and root-causes of “terrorism” and
exploitation and act accordingly. To not do so would be to surrender the
terrain, once again, to the flag-wavers and apologists for American
hegemony.
Then again, should we really be all that surprised about flag-waving
from big labour or mainstream environmental NGOs? After all, they were
flag-waving back in Seattle. The Sierra Club’s Seattle slogan at the
time was “No globalization without representation,” and mainstream union
opposition was anti-Mexico and anti-China.
These critiques of elements of the anti-globalization movement is not
intended to be sectarian, but rather to assert the important of a clear,
radical opposition to war and its root causes. As well, it exposes some
of the weaknesses of the broadly defined “anti-globalization” or “global
justice” movement. A movement that, for a lot of people, is about a
politics that can be basically defined as “being for good things, and
opposed to bad things” — that kind of shallow politics does not easily
translate into a principled opposition to war.
Despite the challenges within the “anti-globalization movement,” much of
it has clearly moved from an anti-capitalist politics, to an anti-war
politics (which obviously, does not forestall an anti-capitalist
analysis). But I want to clarify what is meant by “anti-war” or “peace.”
Of course, we’re not just talking about peace in isolation, but a real
peace, or peace with justice. But there have been a lot of simplistic
citations recently of Gandhi and Lennon — I’m talking about Lennon the
Beatle, not Lenin the Bolshevik. Lots of chants like, “All we are saying
is give peace a chance.”
I’m asserting that by talking about being against the war, all we are
saying is not simply “give peace a chance.”
Let me draw this out. On the Canadian national news, two days after the
attacks on New York City and Washington, there was a report about
protestors on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, singing, “All we are saying is
give peace a chance,” speaking out for peace, which I suppose we all
instinctively feel is a positive thing. And then, on the same report,
you have John Manley, Canada’s Foreign Minister, coming out and saying,
essentially, that we live in a tough world, and sometimes you have to
fight for what you believe.
Interestingly enough, John Manley is right, and those “peace protesters”
are wrong. John Manley isn’t right about what he is doing — he is
complicit in the West’s crimes against humanity. The “peace protesters”
are right about that.
However, I think we need to acknowledge that there is a struggle, a
fight, against oppression. That struggle has been ongoing, prior to
September 11. It’s been ongoing for over 500 years, if not longer. It’s
a fight that has been led by movements in the South — movements of the
poor, of women, of indigenous people. Their struggle is inextricably
linked to ultimate peace.
The status quo of September 10 was not peace, and in any case, there’s
no going back there.
The anti-war sentiment is often portrayed as a contrast between hawks
who are for war, and doves who are anti-war. That kind of contrast,
which arises from simple calls for “giving peace a chance,” is a
strategic dead end.
Let me be clear, when it comes to fighting poverty, I’m a hawk. When it
comes to confronting oppression and exploitation, I’m a hawk. When it
comes to expressing real solidarity with worldwide struggles for
self-determination and autonomy, I’m a hawk.
I talked earlier about facing realities that are now more amplified than
ever. Those realities include the attack on civil liberties, which is
really about the criminalization of dissent, as well as a chill effect
that goes beyond what is actually written in laws.
Those realities also include the crisis of asylum seekers, which
predates the new war and comprises literally millions of people
worldwide. Their plight is worsened by the attacks on the rights of
immigrants and refugees. A directly related reality to the attacks on
immigrants and refugees worldwide is racism. And I assert that racism is
much much more than some people with pointy hats and hoods, or about
people urging everyone to “tolerate” other cultures.
Unfortunately, I don’t have the time on this panel, and especially
writing this up at five in the morning now, to go into these areas as
much as I want to right now. Instead, I want to address one more topic.
Related inextricably to racism is that much-avoided word called
imperialism. We’ve celebrated the move by elements of the
anti-globalization movement to a clear anti-capitalist position. Well, a
similar move to anti-imperialism is demanded by the current crisis.
Let me start with a very simple quote from a colonial writer, Joseph
Conrad, who wrote the following in his novel, Heart of Darkness, using
the voice of Marlowe, to talk about imperialism. He wrote:
“The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from
those who have a different complexion, or slightly flatter noses than
ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much.”
But of course we need to look into it, we need to look into it a lot. We
need to talk about imperialism, not out of some misplaced notion of
ideological purity, or because it sounds good, but because its important
and strategic toward confronting this war. As countless writers —
anarchist and non-anarchist — have observed, the nature of opposition
determines in large degrees the nature of oppression.
To quote Nicaraguan activist Antonio Bendana on the importance of clear
thinking about imperialism:
“We can’t collude with oppression by adopting their conceptualizations,
and abandoning those deeply held by people throughout history. The
naming of the oppressor, and the phenomenon of oppression has been
critical for mobilizing the forces of change. If we cannot properly name
the problem, we will be hardly in a position to deal with it. The first
step to stopping the violence is recognizing the existence of an
insidious structure that deepens and reproduces social, economic and
gender inequalities, along with environmental degradation.”
I’m not going to pretend in the few minutes I have left to give a
comprehensive lesson on American imperialism, which would be very
presumptuous of me. But there are a few things I want to say on the
topic.
Now I’m an anarchist, and I’m not too fond of states, whether it’s
Canada or Quebec, India or Pakistan. But I’m also someone with family
origins in South Asia, and you don’t have to be a nationalist to be
profoundly offended by the fact that more than fifty years after Indians
and Pakistanis kicked out the British from their lands, now American
troops are using that soil in order to bomb and attack Afghanistan.
What is even more offensive and infuriating is that the progressive
forces in those countries that are secular and pro-feminist (that also
happen to talk a lot about self-determination and a nation’s ability to
control its own resources) are exactly the same people who are opposed,
if not outright massacred, as a result of the prerogatives of American
foreign policy.
By talking about American crimes and American-sponsored terror, in Chile
or Nicaragua or Iran or Indonesia, I’m not excusing the attacks on
September 11, 2001. Rather, I’m trying to expose the astounding
hypocrisy for the United States to speak of a “war on terrorism” when
their own state terror, direct and indirect, is so overwhelming.
Colin Powell, after the bombs began dropping on Kandahar and Kabul,
spoke out against so-called rogue states and warned: “You cannot
separate your activities from the activities of the perpetrators.” By
that logic — considering U.S. sponsorship of death squads, massacres and
torture in Latin America — we’d we bombing Fort Benning, Georgia or the
Southern Command in Miami.
George Bush, in his speech to a joint session of Congress — where we’re
supposed to believe he transformed himself from a moron to a statesman
(sort of like Osama bin Laden’s transformation from 1980s freedom
fighter to twenty-first century terrorist mastermind) — stated, “Any
nation that continues to harbour or support terrorism will be regarded
by the United States as a hostile regime.” I guess Bush is having
feelings of extreme self-loathing and paranoia.
Again, I don’t say all this because it’s ideologically pure or
provocative, but because it’s a message that can and does have
resonance, and goes to the heart of the system of domination that
imperialism is. It is a strategic response to war, and a message that
surprisingly, is not too difficult to present to so-called “average
folks,” the evidence is just so overwhelming.
I’ve talked about hawks and doves; well let me conclude by talking about
chickens. I’ve been urging clear thinking as a response to the current
crisis. Well, one example of sloppy thinking by some sectors of the left
is the assertion that the attacks of September 11 are about “the
chickens coming home to roost.” I don’t think that’s true.
More accurately, what happened on September 11 was what even the Central
Intelligence Agency terms as blowback. When I think of the chickens
coming home to roost, I’m reminded of Malcolm X; not an anarchist, but
someone with whom we have many affinities. When Malcolm X spoke of the
chickens coming home to roost, I presume to think that he meant a rising
up of poor people, blacks, the indigenous, women, all oppressed against
their oppressors, motivated by radically progressive values of
solidarity, genuine democracy, equality and mutual aid.
An indiscriminate attack on a civilian building, in the name of
religious fundamentalism no less (if we accept bin Laden’s gang did it),
is not about the chickens coming home to roost at all. But the point I’m
trying to make is that the chickens should come to roost.
The question was, “What the fuck should we do?”
I responded earlier, “How the fuck should I know,” but I was being
disingenuous. There’s no mystery here. And I’m not being terribly
original when I say that we need to identify and act in solidarity with
the struggles of the oppressed and not be afraid of that identification.
Anarchist politics is motivated, I think, by the idea that there is no
trade-off between a radical politics and effectiveness, between
militancy and creativity. The stakes are higher now, and that kind of
politics is needed more than ever.
What the fuck should we do? The answer was the same before September 11
as it is after September 11: Let’s bring those fucking chickens home to
roost.
Thanks for listening.