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Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, July 2007, pages 40-42 Southern California Chronicle Scholar Ali Mazrui Calls on U.S. Democracy to Control American Military EmpireBy Pat and Samir Twair
DR. ALI MAZRUI is recognized as one of the foremost, it not the most distinguished, scholar of African affairs and history. On April 1, he was the third keynote speaker in the Abrahamic Faiths Peacemaking Initiative series at the Islamic Center of Southern California. “War and Its Impact on U.S.-Muslim Relations” was the topic of the Kenya-born, Oxford-educated Mazrui, who is the Albert Schweitzer professor in humanities and director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies at the State University of New York at Binghamton. “Muslims believe their umma [community] is under siege,” stated the creator of the BBC and PBS series “The Africans: A Triple Heritage.” Elaborating, he noted that “Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine are under military occupation, the Chechens and Kashmiris are constantly attacked.” “Muslims believe in compensation rather than revenge,” Mazrui explained. “When the Prophet Muhammad entered triumphantly into Mecca, he didn’t distribute a deck of cards with the photos of his 52 most-wanted foes—he granted total amnesty to his former enemies.” Islam celebrates human diversity and respects the differences of others, noted the trustee of the Oxford Center for Islamic Studies. Likewise, he noted, the U.S. is a nation of massive diversity “with a thousand tribes and dozens of nations. But,” he emphasized, “its behavior abroad is of a different nature. At home, diversity is a grand experiment, but it doesn’t hold true when confronting other cultures overseas.” Turning to the Sept. 11, 2001 assaults on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, Dr. Mazrui said the targets were economic and military—no religious symbol was attacked. The U.S. today is an empire with no counter power as once offered by the U.S.S.R. He enumerated four ways this empire can be minimized: reduce dependency on the U.S., as the Europeans are doing; make Americans pay the price when they misuse their power, as in oil embargos or the insurgency in Iraq; rely on the effect of countervailing powers, such as China and India; and—Mazrui’s preferred solution—have American democracy control the empire. “Latinos, African Americans, women must learn to be successful minorities,” he insisted. “They can learn from the American Jews who have ascended in all ranks of society since the mid 20th century.” Domestically, the Jewish impact has led to a liberalization of American society, Mazrui pointed out, but externally, Jews have abetted imperial U.S. foreign policy in their effort to support Israel. Noting that African Americans outnumber the world’s entire population of Jews, Dr. Mazrui stressed that Barack Obama is the sole Black in the U.S. Senate, which has 10 Jewish members. Responding to the lecture were Rabbi Leonard Beerman, rabbi emeritus of Leo Beck Temple; Rev. Dr. George Regas, rector emeritus of All Saints Church; Islamic Center spokesman Dr. Maher Hathout; and Constance Rice, director of the Los Angeles Advancement Project, which addresses police misconduct and race problems. Coincidentally, the program was held on the eve of Passover, and Rabbi Beerman reflected that the bifurcation of American democracy and imperialism is a real problem that threatens our moral core. “The anomaly of American Jews is that we haven’t become more conservative as we’ve prospered,” he said. “The Iraq war was opposed by 88 percent of Jews, but we’re not liberal on the question of Israel and it’s eating at our moral core.” Dr. Hathout applauded Dr. Mazrui for delivering a talk that wasn’t afraid to strike raw nerves—particularly on the differences between U.S. democracy at home and hegemony abroad, and the Jewish American passion to stifle any criticism of Israel. Rev. Dr. Regas focused on modern war as total war in which no line is drawn between civilians and combatants as targets. “In this sense,” he concluded, “the religious community should not endorse any form of warfare.” Rice confessed she is personally terrified by religion and holds a deep suspicion of organized religion. Nonetheless, she stated: ”The U.S. doesn’t yet practice democracy, but it’s clear that the only way to secure safety is to synthesize the beliefs I’ve heard here tonight.” Occupation Creates Red Tape
Israeli human rights attorney Yael Berda discussed the “Bureaucracy of the Occupation in the West Bank” at an April 9 meeting in the West Los Angeles home of Wally and Suzanne Marks. Many documentaries have been made on Israel’s military checkpoints that hamper Palestinian life, but Berda says little attention has been paid to the bureaucracy that grants, but mostly refuses, permits allowing Palestinians to move freely. In the past, noted Berda, 85 percent of West Bank Palestinians earned their income by working inside Israel. Closure policies were instituted in 1991, but the movement of Palestinians became limited after the Oslo accords in September 1993, when Palestinian territory was carved up into Area A, under Palestinian control, Area B with joint Palestinian and Israeli security control, and Area C, in which Israel controlled security. With the onset of suicide bombings of Israeli buses in 1996, closures became more and more frequent. The decision was made not to allow Palestinian laborers into Israel, but, Berda said, Palestinians could enter Israel for hospital care and crossings were still possible at the Allenby Bridge. The civil administration became an apparatus of the Israeli army in September 2000, when the second intifada began. In 2002, the immigration police were instituted and from 2002 to 2004, the border police doubled in size. In order to obtain a permit, the applicant had to have a magnetic card released by the police and secret service. If a Palestinian received a traffic ticket, for example, he would have to hire an Israeli attorney to enter Israel to pay it. Any Palestinian under the age of 30 is regarded as a security threat, Berda stressed, and therefore cannot enter Israel. But, she said, the secret service will offer a permit if a Palestinian will inform on his associates, adding, “I have more than 80 clients this has happened to.” Arab League Envoy Speaks at Migration Conference
An ambitious, first-of-its kind academic conference on the impact of international migration was staged April 13 and 14 at California State University Pomona. More than 120 scholars participated in the event addressing the phenomenon of migrations in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East. Dr. Hussein Hassouna, Arab League ambassador to the U.S., was plenary speaker for the two-day conference, titled “How Our World Is Changing: Dimensions of International Immigration.” The Egyptian-born, Cambridge-educated scholar of international law opened his address by remarking: “Migration is not my field, but as a diplomat, I am a constant migrant. I assimilate and then I move on to a new country.” Today, he said, global solutions are needed for poverty, disease, terrorism and global warming, because no single power can deal with these alone. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, he noted, the Arab world was the recipient of foreign colonizers and Zionists. By the mid-20th century, Arabs were leaving their homelands to work in oil producing states. Even though Egypt was alienated from the rest of the Arab world after Anwar Sadat’s pact with Israel, Egyptian workers in the Gulf kept open ties with their home country. Arabs immigrated to Canada, the U.S. and Australia, while North Africans arrived in Europe, he added, where a lack of assimilation has created problems in France and The Netherlands. Turning to the problem of Iraq, Ambassador Hassouna said the destablization and terrible suffering of the Iraqi people cannot be solved militarily but only through talks by all the factions: Kurds, Sunnis, Shi’i and Turkomans. Clashes between Shi’i and Sunnis were nonexistent in the past, the diplomat said, and have been driven by political forces exploiting ethnic division. “We cannot afford to let Iraq splinter,” he insisted. “We must reconcile the people and then help them to reconstruct their nation and rebuild their economy.” He concluded by stating that the East and West have been connecting, not clashing, as Samuel Huntington theorizes, and noted that the 22 Arab League nations are assembling the very best examples of their art, poetry, fashions, cuisine, sculpture and literature to be presented in a cultural exhibition at the Kennedy Center in 2008. The conference was chaired by Dr. Faiza Shereen, director of the International Center of Cal Poly Pomona. Chalmers Johnson on NemesisChalmers Johnson won bestseller recognition when, after Sept. 11, 2001, his book Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire resonated with readers worldwide. He wrote two more volumes, which he calls the Blowback Trilogy—reminiscent of Jeremiah’s warnings to the Israelites. In the first book, published in 2000—prior to the 9/11 attacks—the former CIA consultant pinpointed the reasons why the U.S. is hated around the world and the inevitable retaliation for its secret operations, coups and rigged elections in foreign countries. The second book of the trilogy, The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy and the End of the Republic, focuses on the 737 U.S. military bases in 120 countries and how the U.S. government endorses torture and saddles its future with economic debt based on war expenditures. At an April 21 book signing in the First Quaker Church of Whittier, Johnson discussed the trilogy’s third tome, Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic. Nemesis is the Greek goddess who sought retribution for human acts of hubris and arrogance. Johnson said U.S. hubris developed after the fall of the Soviet Union when, instead of demobilizing its massive armed forces, Washington accelerated its reliance on military solutions and launched pre-emptive wars to retain its hegemony over strategic resources and regions. He is no Cassandra, the retired University of California professor said, but he fears the U.S. is on the brink of losing its democracy in the face of economic collapse. Asked if presidential candidates are aware of the threat the national debt presents to our democracy, Chalmers replied: “No presidential candidate can stand up to the corporations and military industrial complex. The people must be informed that if they lose their democracy, they won’t get it back.” Rev. Naim Ateek Speaks at Diocese
“Peace in Jerusalem: Is There Still Room for Hope?” was the title of an April 28 talk by Rev. Dr. Naim Ateek in the Cathedral Center of St. Paul, Los Angeles. The president and director of Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center in Jerusalem enumerated seven signs of hope that the West will wake up to Israel’s rejection of Palestinian statehood. The first positive development, he said, is the John Mearsheimer and John Walt report, The Israeli Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. The second is The Iraq Study Group Report by James Baker and Lee Hamilton. Even though Iraq is the focus, this study advised that the U.S. won’t accomplish its goals in the Middle East unless it is willing to commit to a comprehensive peace in accordance to U.N. Resolutions 242 and 338. Even more helpful, Reverend Ateek said, is President Jimmy Carter’s book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. The fourth sign of change he cited was the article by Philip Weiss, “AIPAC Alternative?” which appeared in The Nation. Another initiative is the peace proposal drawn up by the League of Arab states which Jordan and Egypt have been requested to raise with the Israelis. However, Reverend Ateek said, he believes Israel is trying to sabotage this with a surge of assassinating Palestinian leaders. The more Americans travel to the Middle East and return to tell what they’ve observed the Israelis do to Palestinians, the more the curtain will be raised on this national abuse of non-Jews, Reverend Ateek said. He cited the play, “My Name Is Rachel Corrie” and the testimonies of Hedy Epstein as positive examples. Lastly, Reverend Ateek asked religious leaders to assemble weekly with their parishioners in front of the Los Angeles Israeli Consulate and call for an end of Israel’s occupation of Palestine. Pat and Samir Twair are free-lance journalists based in Los Angeles. |
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