Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, September 2004,
pages 77-83
Waging Peace
Transition of Power in Iraq
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(L-r) Phyllis Bennis,
Anas Shallal and William Hartung listen to discussion (staff
photo S. Powell).
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THE THINK TANK Foreign Policy in Focus (FPIF) held a
June 22 panel discussion in Washington, DC to consider the prospects
for Iraq following the June “transition” of power from the U.S.
to Iraq. The panel was moderated by Salih Booker of Africa Action.
Commenting on administration claims regarding progress in Iraq,
Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) pointed
out that what Americans were not hearing was the real cost of the
war. Based on a study by IPS and FPIF, Bennis presented findings
regarding varying costs to the U.S., to Iraq, and to the world.
First, she said, the war will cost every American household $3,415
over the next three years. Moreover, the $150 billion spent on
the war so far could have provided food to the hungry of the world,
AIDS medication globally, immunizations for every child in the
developing world, and clean water and a functioning sewage system
for the entire world, each for over two years. Or it could have
provided almost 23 million housing vouchers, salaries for almost
three million elementary school teachers, 678,200 new fire engines,
over 20 million spaces in Head Start, or health care coverage for
82 million children in the U.S.
The cost for the Bush administration’s war on Iraq in terms of
human rights, the economy, the military, and the environment has
been high, Bennis continued, and it is these costs, she contended—that
Americans, Iraqis, and people all around the world pay—that are
never mentioned.
The full report is available online at <http://www.ips-dc.org/iraq/costsofwar/>.
William Hartung of the World Policy Institute reflected that,
during much of the country’s recent discussion of heroes, he had
thought about President Dwight Eisenhower and his warning about
the military-industrial complex. Citing such contractor over-charges
in Iraq as embroidered towels, $7,500-per-month SUV leases, and
the abandonment of vehicles in the desert because they had flat
tires, Hartung said the problems were approaching war-profiteering.
Moreover, he said, because contractors chose not to enter danger
zones, soldiers there were not getting badly needed food and fresh
water supplies. Hartung also said that contractors doing “security” work
had contributed to the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison. Noting the
lack of parity between military personnel and private contractors’ pay
scales, he cautioned that Tim Spicer, whom he described as “the
closest thing [in the U.S.] to a mercenary,” was in charge of all
security contracts. Hartung recommended that bidding for contracts
be open not just to Europeans, but to Iraqis as well. He concluded
by stating that practices begun in the Balkans and Colombia under
former President Bill Clinton now had come to full fruition, and
would take years to fix.
Iraqi American Anas Shallal said that the Mesopotamia Cultural
Society, which he co-founded in 1991, was designed to preserve
and disseminate the memory of Iraq’s long history and culture,
so that it would not be remembered just for Saddam Hussain and
the Gulf war.
Continuing on the theme of history, Shallal took the audience
to June, when Sunnis and Shi’a were fighting against the heavy
handed repression of a common enemy. That was not June of 2004,
however, but of 1920, when the Iraqis rebelled against British
occupation following World War I. Shallal said he often is asked
if Iraqis aren’t happy being free, and responds that they are happy
Hussain is gone, but that celebrations were for that alone, not
a welcome for occupying troops.
Moreover, he pointed out, Iraqis, young and old, know that the
U.S. had supported Hussain. Now, he said, the U.S. is not building
roads, but roadblocks, imposing collective punishment instead of
dealing with a few rogue elements, and “knocking down doors like
barbarians...[and] stealing money and jewelry.”
Warning that July and August are the hottest months in Iraq,
Shallal said that, historically, there is much unrest during these
months. With electricity functioning about one-third of the day
at best, he predicted the summer would be dangerous. Though many
people own generators, he said, fuel is very scarce in the country
with the world’s second largest oil reserves.
Although unemployment in Iraq is awful, probably more than the
reported 35 percent, Shallal identified security as the biggest
problem. Most people cannot venture outside after 5 or 6 p.m.,
he said, parents wait for their children outside schools, weddings
are only planned in the daylight now, and anyone close to the Coalition
Provisional Authority (CPA) is considered radioactive. Even academics
and those serving on local counsels are being targeted as collaborators,
said Shallal.
Most Iraqis want to see the occupiers leave, he said, and feel
they can handle the situation themselves. Shallal concluded by
saying that the process of reconciliation among Iraqis must be
played out in a full trial of Hussain to give people closure and
allow healing to take place.
According to Chris Toensing, executive director of the Middle
East Research and Information Project (MERIP), the project of “winning
Iraqi hearts and minds” was dubious, noting that even a June 21
story in The Washington Post said the “U.S.’ own
assessment of the CPA was pretty bleak.”
Citing a poll by the Independent Institute for Administration
and Civil Society Studies (IIACSS), Toensing said its findings
showed that there is very little confidence in either U.S. representatives
or those Iraqis who work with them. With the caveat that the poll
was the first taken since the Abu Ghraib disclosures, which could
have colored results, Toensing said the May survey showed that
81 percent of respondents had no confidence in U.S. forces, and
78 percent had no confidence in the CPA. Discussing his own March
2004 visit, Toensing said U.S. troops were well aware that as an
occupying army they were not popular.
Statistics from various other polls reflected such disturbing
findings as that 50 percent of Iraqis thought physical security
was the top problem, but only 1 percent saw U.S. forces as a help,
and 55 percent would feel safer if the U.S. left. According to
Toensing, it is a contradiction of U.S. popular fiction that Iraqis
want U.S. soldiers there, when in fact 41 percent of poll respondents
said U.S. troops should leave immediately, no matter what, and
92 percent of those polled viewed U.S. forces as occupiers.
Further, in a poll ranking Iraqis’ trust of political and religious
figures, nobody came out on top, although Ayatollah Ali Sistani
and Muqtada al Sadr ranked fairly high. Ousted president Hussain
ranked above the then-interim president, Ghazi al Yawer, by six
points. Although the occupation was set to end, Toensing concluded,
the occupiers were not leaving, and the interim government would
have no veto power over any U.S. military action—seeming to imply
that in reality the occupation was not ending.
The final speaker, Prof. Stephen Zunes of the University of San
Francisco, introduced Israel and Palestine into the discussion.
He quoted an Israeli journalist who said that as bad as (Israeli)
war crimes had been in Jenin, they paled next to those committed
in Falujah, and as bad as Israelis treated Palestinians, the U.S.
treated Iraqis much worse.
Zunes also mentioned President Bush’s April 14 endorsement of
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plans to reject right of
return and annex large West Bank settlements in contradiction of
U.N. resolutions. He went on to discuss the precedent set by neocons
and their adherents vis-à-vis the Syria Accountability Act which,
among other things, applies U.N. Resolution 540 to Syria, although
it was written with regard to Israel. These were not just Bush
policies, Zunes contended, but Democratic presidential candidate
John Kerry’s stated views as well. Arguing that the U.S. was moving
into a time of empire, Zunes quoted the classic 1960s movie “Billy
Jack”: “When the law breaks the law, there is no law.”
Referring to Hartung’s remarks about Eisenhower, Zunes said the
U.S. had never been so beloved as when it stood up to Britain,
France, and Israel over the Suez crisis. The human rights and international
law perspectives were really the same as the “realistic” perspective
of those who put national security first, Zunes concluded, seeming
to imply that only the neocons saw Iraq in a different light.
—Sara
Powell
Pakistani American Congress Tackles Big Issues
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Deputy Assistant Secretary
of State for South Asian Affairs Torkel L. Patterson (photo
S. Bilaal Ahmed).
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In the wake of President George W. Bush’s naming of Pakistan
as a major non-NATO ally earlier this year, and a $400 million
U.S. aid package with a proposed $3 billion in the works, relations
between Pakistan and the U.S. government have improved in recent
months.
With this in mind, more than 60 people attended the 12th annual
Pakistani American Congress (PAC) Friendship Summit, held June
24 at the Holiday Inn on Capitol Hill. The summit was a formal
way to build relations between the Pakistani-American community
and U.S. government officials, and provided a platform to discuss
Pakistan’s economy, government and social transformations.
The audience was comprised mainly of Pakistani males, with three
females in attendance. The summit opened with a talk by Torkel
L. Patterson, deputy assistant secretary of state for South Asian
Affairs, on Pakistan’s economic outlook. “When I think of Pakistan’s
future,” Patterson said, “the key competitive advantage is the
geostrategic region and mineral and energy richness.” Its “legal
trade of over $630 million” with neighboring regions like Afghanistan,
he added, also has helped build up its economy. “In 2004, the trade
will be over one billion,” he told the audience. “A trade of this
volume never happened before.”
Patterson also pledged continuous U.S. support, and described
the aid package as a “symbol of efforts to work with Pakistan in
the long term and see what Pakistan needs.”
“A prosperous Pakistan, Afghanistan, and India is attainable,” the
American official concluded, “and we will try to support it.”
Though promising support, Patterson did not provide concrete
details, leaving some in the audience dissatisfied.
Next was a session on the “Role of Pakistani Americans in Mainstream
Media,” where Dr. Amanullah Khan, chairman of the PAC Advisory
Council, imparted words of advice. “Focus on civic responsibility
and political representation,” he urged. “Let’s not forget, all
politics is local. The impact made at home can be felt over here
[in Washington, DC].”
Later in the day, talk shifted to a subject on everyone’s mind:
transition to democracy in Pakistan. In a session on “Democracy
and the Rule of Law in Pakistan,” scholars and policy experts analyzed
Pakistan’s need for governmental change.
Former U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan and Bangladesh William Milam
distinguished between the plausibility of democracy in the Muslim
versus the Arab world. “I’m not here to attack the Arab world,” he
explained, “but because of its past colonialist history, democracy
is a hard process.”
Criticizing the U.S. for its myopic interests, Milam said Washington
used Pakistan in the Cold War and is doing so in the current War
on Terror, disregarding what is best for Pakistan. “Our policies
should have been and should be now to promote a viable, sustainable
democracy,” he argued.
Paula Newburg, special adviser to the United Nations Foundation,
discussed Pakistan’s treatment of the rule of law. She has given
a similar speech for 23 years now, Newburg said, which suggests
that serious and dedicated change must be invoked to make a difference.
Citing the military’s stronghold on power as the primary impediment
to democracy, Newburg stated that “as long as the citizens don’t
govern themselves, there is no way you can have a democracy. It
effectively inhibits democracy.”
Pointing out that if Pakistan’s judicial system and court of
law did not change, progress would be difficult, Newburg cited
as ongoing problems such actions as imprisonment for voicing opposition
to the government, and judicial abuse of contempt of court. “It
is the content, not the fact of the law that makes a difference,” she
argued. “Right now it is the content that makes it extremely difficult.”
Brookings Institution senior fellow Stephen Cohen, whose book The
Idea of Pakistan comes out in the fall, also said Pakistan’s
major problem lies in its control by the military. “An army is
not trained to manage a country with 150 million people,” Cohen
pointed out. “The army can’t govern Pakistan but won’t let others
do it, either.” He called for a “gradual retreat of the army
from politics.”
For now, Cohen and others are optimistic about Pakistan’s future
but, as Newburg expressed it, “The responsibility and blame lies
in Pakistan, not outside Pakistan.”
—Mahin Ibrahim
San Franciscans Protest Ongoing Occupation of Iraq
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| An ANSWER coalition’s demonstration
in San Francisco protests the ongoing occupation in Iraq (staff
photo E. Pasquini). |
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Calling the June 28 “handover” of power in Iraq ”fake
sovereignty” and condemning the continued presence of more than
138,000 American troops still there, the ANSWER (Act Now to Stop
War & End Racism) Coalition held a protest in San Francisco
June 30. More than 200 people gathered in the city’s recently renovated
Union Square to protest the ongoing U.S. occupation of Iraq. Many
in the crowd carried signs demanding “Bring the Troops Home Now.
End the Occupation.” Two members of the Jewish organization Not
In Our Name, held a banner stating, “Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam.”
—Elaine
Pasquini
ANSWER Marches on Rumsfeld
The June 5 march through the streets of Northwest Washington,
DC, from the White House to Donald Rumsfeld’s house, was smaller
than some of the demonstrations that preceded the U.S. invasion
of Iraq. Among the approximately 5,000 participants, however, there
was no less passion that the invasion was wrong. The sentiment
to “Bring the troops home now,” was as strong as the desire had
been not to send troops in the first place. A number of speakers
expressed their outrage that the administration that had ignored
their popular message that Iraq was not a threat, now ignored their
message that the U.S. had caused more than enough damage and should
cut its losses.
The long list of speakers included ANSWER (Act Now To Stop War
and End Racism) activist regulars Brian Becker (ANSWER), Chuck
Kaufman (Nicaragua Network), Larry Holmes (International Action
Center), Macrina Cardeñas (Mexico Solidarity Network), and Caneisha
Mills (ANSWER), as well as Isma’il Kamal (Muslim Student Association),
Hussein Agrama (Free Palestine Alliance), Cheri Honkala (Kensington
Welfare Rights Union), Rev. Graylan Hagler of the Plymouth Congregational
Church, and Mahdi Bray (Muslim America Society).
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Several thousand brave
the rain to protest the war on Iraq once again (staff photo
S. Powell).
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Other important speakers were on hand to share the pain the war
on Iraq had inflicted on them, including Al Zappala, whose son,
Sherwood Baker, was killed in April—the first Pennsylvania National
Guardsman to be killed in combat since World War II. Raised in
a pacifist family, his father said Zappala had joined the National
Guard seven years ago to supplement his income as a social worker.
Gloria Jackson, whose daughter and son-in-law have finally come
home safely, also spoke. Former U.S. Air Force Captain Dorothy
Mackey, now executive director of STAAAMP (Survivors Take Action
Against Abuse by Military Personnel), explained how her rape by
fellow soldiers was endemic to the culture of violence and inhumanity
inculcated in the modern military. And Michael Berg, father of
Nicholas Berg, spoke angrily about his son’s arrest in Iraq by
the U.S., his subsequent release, kidnapping, and beheading. An
anti-war activist since 1965, Berg blamed both the United States—which
admitted holding his son in Fallujah, then, rather than sending
him home as requested, sent him alone into the besieged and rebellious
city—and Nicholas’ hooded captors for using terror tactics against
a civilian contractor. Berg told the Washington Report that
he wanted to take power away from those who now had it in the U.S.—then
amended his statement, saying he didn’t want the power, he just
didn’t want them to have it.
Like the previous protest, the march wound through ethnically
diverse neighborhoods, drawing cheers from those on the streets,
then closed in on Kalorama St., where Rumsfeld lives. Police cut
the march short after about 200 demonstrators filed into the narrow
street, then gave way as other marchers flooded past. Rumsfeld
wasn’t home, but someone said, “I hope his neighbors get disgusted
and force him out.” The sentiment found great favor with those
who heard it.
—Sara Powell
Bethlehem Besieged
The Rev. Mitri Raheb, pastor of Bethlehem’s Christmas
Lutheran Church, visited Washington, DC from June 7 to 10 to promote
his new book, Bethlehem Besieged. The book recounts Israel’s
2002 invasion of Bethlehem and the injustices the town has suffered
since, mainly from construction of the Separation Wall.
During each of his talks, Raheb stressed the need to humanize
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Heads of state, he said, manage—but
don’t solve—the conflict. Many people view the conflict in mathematical
or theoretical terms, forgetting that humans are involved. “People
today are used to hearing ‘breaking news’ or seeing ‘live events,’ and
think they better understand what is happening,” Raheb remarked. “But
often their hearts are not touched. This conflict is about human
beings…both sides are paying the price.”
Raheb described his book as “narrative theology,” written for
the average man or woman in the pew, and as a source for inter-faith,
peace and justice, and educational groups. Half of the stories
in the book, he said, are “glimpses of hope.” Only bad news makes
the news, he noted, explaining that the public hears “news from
one suicide bombing to the next. They don’t hear anything that
happens in between.”
It does no one any good, he said, to think of the conflict as
hopeless. Raheb said he wanted to “infuse hope. Hope invites us
to action to transform the world and make a difference.”
Recognizing that the Palestinian story often is not allowed to
be told, Raheb also wrote Bethlehem Besieged “as an act
of nonviolent resistance.” Raheb described the book as at heart “an
open invitation to care for the ‘little town of Bethlehem.’ At
Christmas, a billion people gather in churches and sing ‘O Little
Town of Bethlehem’ or ‘O Come All Ye Faithful,’ but are interested
only in 2,000-years-ago Bethlehem. They are not interested in what
politics and power are doing to the town today. By reading the
book,” Raheb concluded, “I hope people will have insight into what
life is really like today.”
—Hugh S. Galford
Survivors, Friends Honor USS Liberty Victims
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| Mary Ann and John Hrankowski drove from
Rochester, NY to attend both the USS Liberty reunion and the
Arlington Cemetery ceremony (staff photo D. Hanley). |
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Nearly 37 years after Israel attacked the USS Liberty during
the Six-Day War, survivors and friends held a reunion from May
20 to 23 at the Lied Lodge and Conference Center in Nebraska City,
NE, an hour’s drive south of Omaha. Nearly 50 people gathered to
honor the 34 American sailors killed and 172 wounded in the attack.
Israeli warplanes and torpedo boats strafed and torpedoed the lightly
armed intelligence-gathering vessel as it was cruising in international
waters off the Egyptian coast.
While the U.S. and Israeli officials have declared the attack
accidental, the crew has spent years building an air-tight case
that it was deliberate, and that there has been a monumental cover-up.
Steve Forslund, 60, and Ron Gotcher, 57, were enlisted in the
U.S. Air Force and worked as intelligence analysts for the Joint
Chiefs of Staff when the attack occurred.
Gotcher, who was stationed in Vietnam, and Forslund, based at
Offutt Air Force Base outside Omaha, both saw transcripts of Israeli
air-to-air and air-to-ground communication during or after the
attack. They agree that Israel knew the ship was American and tried
to sink it. Forslund released a sworn statement in May to that
effect. Gotcher said he spoke out soon after the attack because
he thought any orders to keep quiet about the Liberty incident
were illegal.
On June 8, survivors met at Arlington Cemetery in Virginia to
hold their annual remembrance ceremony. They read the roll call
of remembrance, while a triangle was struck after every name. A
wreath was laid at the granite headstone marking the mass grave
of six Liberty crewmembers in Section 34.
Wayne Hildebrand said he’d been coming to this memorial service
ever since he discovered shipmate Jim Ennes’ book, Assault on
the Liberty. Jane Reymeyer, whose brother, Ed, was killed aboard
the Liberty, said she was disappointed that presidential
candidate John Kerry had turned down her invitation to attend the
ceremony.
“These ceremonies don’t get any easier,” John Hrankowski said
as he rejoined his wife, Mary Ann, following the wreath-laying
ceremony. “We’re the lucky ones who can get together and compare
scars.”
As they drove into Arlington Cemetery, the Hrankowskis said,
they passed (and picked up) a familiar figure trudging up the long
road carrying a suitcase. It was Bill Casper, who was determined
to pay his respects and meet up with his fellow Liberty survivors,
even if it meant walking miles in the heat from the bus stop to
Section 34, where the bodies of his slain friends rest.
—Delinda
C. Hanley
The New Republic on Saudi Arabia
On June 8, The New Republic magazine hosted a
panel discussion entitled “Inside the Kingdom: The Views and Perspectives
on Journalists in Saudi Arabia” at the Ronald Reagan Building in
downtown Washington, DC.
Moderator Lawrence Kaplan, a senior editor of the conservative
magazine, began by asking, “What, if anything, do the two states
that are most important to the United States, Israel and Saudi
Arabia, have in common?” Kaplan described Israel as a “thriving
liberal Western democracy,” while characterizing Saudi Arabia as
a “closed repressive [regime], struggling to come to grips with
modernity.” However, he added, press coverage of both states “generate
angry letters to the editor” and claims of media bias.
Lawrence Wright, a staff writer for The New Yorker, said
it took him a year and four months to receive a visa to Saudi Arabia.
In order to stay longer than the usual time allotted to foreign
reporters, he then took a job mentoring young reporters at the Saudi
Gazette. Most reporters who go to Saudi Arabia, Wright said,
have little to no background on the country, and, since they typically
have “a week or so” on their visas, little time to talk to people
or gain true knowledge of it.
David Kaplan, who covers the terrorism beat for U.S. News
and World Report, said he spent a total of one week in Saudi
Arabia. The kingdom has “repeatedly come up” in his reporting
on terrorist attacks, he said, including the 1996 attack on a
U.S. military complex at Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, and the
role of Saudi nationals in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. According
to Kaplan, after the May 2003 bombings in Riyadh, Saudi officials “let
in more Western press.”
Unlike his co-panelists, who had visited the kingdom recently, New
Republic editor-in-chief Martin Peretz said he went to Saudi
Arabia a decade ago “under the most favorable circumstances.” The
trip took place during a “progressive moment,” when “various
Arab countries were opening up Jewish portfolios…and wanted to
see Zionists in the flesh,” he said, apparently referring to
himself.
David Montgomery, currently in Saudi Arabia reporting for Knight
Ridder news service, called in to offer his own insights. Asked
whether he has faced obstacles as a reporter there, in terms of
travel or access to officials, Montgomery said he has had no travel
restrictions, but also complained of the “immense” bureaucracy.
Montgomery also cited Saudis’ reluctance to speak with journalists.
Having reported from Russia before he went to Saudi Arabia, he
said people in the former Communist country were more willing to
talk to journalists than the Saudi citizens. Some Saudis may be “afraid
of authority,” he speculated, while others are merely “unaccustomed
to dealing with journalists,” attributing their behavior to a “cultural
thing.”
The New Yorker’s Wright agreed, describing Saudis as “very
cautions people by nature” who are “shy and reluctant to assert
themselves.” So-called “man on the street” interviews, he noted,
are a “Western ideal,” explaining that Saudis “don’t know how much
to trust you.” It is much easier to conduct interviews in Saudi
coffee houses or private homes, he added.
On the question of reform in the kingdom, Wright said it is a “constant
subject of discussion,” and seems to be “accompanied by external
traumas” such as the Gulf war or the “War on Terror.” The main
areas in need of reform, he offered, are education and incorporating
women into the workplace. “Ninety-five percent of [Saudi] women
are unemployed,” Wright noted. “No modern nation can expect to
prosper when half of its population is cut off from the workplace.”
According to Kaplan, there is a sentiment among Washington officials
that Saudi Arabia has been a major partner in the war on terrorism.
In addition to a “tactical struggle” against Al-Qaeda, however,
Kaplan suggested, Saudi officials should also engage in an “ideological
war” to confront “spreading Wahhabism.”
Wright, meanwhile, argued that “boredom is driving terrorists” in
Saudi Arabia, pointing to the lack of “nightclubs” and “girls” to
engage young Saudi men. When asked if frustration with U.S. foreign
policy toward the Middle East, which militants frequently cite
as their reasons for targeting the United States, is a factor,
Wright responded, “Terrorists come out of the culture that produces
them, not from external causes.”
Peretz agreed, maintaining that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
is “just a scapegoat in this issue.” He lamented the fact that
there is not “even a hostile strategic thinker that speaks about
Israel” in Saudi Arabia. “The truth is Israel is a permanent fixture
of the Middle East,” Peretz stated. “The refusal of top Saudis
to conjure [sic] that fact is another self-delusion.”
The security of Saudi Arabia depends on Israel, Peretz concluded,
since Israel “tames wilder forces in the region.”
—Laila Al-Arian
Washingtonians Enjoy Tunisian Jazz
Highly acclaimed Tunisian musician Faouzi Chekili joined
up with Tunisian-American Habib Haddad, from Chicago, for a unique
performance of Tunisian jazz at the Jack Morton Auditorium at George
Washington University, in Washington, DC on June 4. Chekili’s oud and
Haddad’s guitar and drums enchanted the audience. Chekili has written
modern Tunisian folk songs flavored with American jazz rhythms
that make your feet tap. Watching and listening to Chekili and
Haddad perform together in the nation’s capital is a treat that
could only be improved upon by seeing them at the Tabarka Jazz
festival in Tunisia’s ancient amphitheater.
—Delinda C. Hanley
Things Heat Up For Bush at Home
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Tricia Khleif, Bob Novak
(on drums), Wendy Lanxner, Franz Kellner, and Len Seligman
play a song for Iraqi mothers (staff photo D. Hanley).
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As elections approach and the summer days grow hot and
sticky in Washington, DC, a grassroots “Anyone But Bush” movement
has begun to gather some serious steam. The president’s war on
terrorism, and especially the war on Iraq, may be the deciding
factor in the upcoming elections. Michael Moore’s anti-Bush film “Fahrenheit
9/11” drew large crowds and much discussion. Just as damning is
the far subtler film, “Control Room,” (see page 50), about
U.S. censorship of the war on Iraq.
These recently released films, as well as tell-all books that
annihilate the Bush administration; anti-war protests; the damaging
results of the 9/11 Commission; sinking opinion polls; and a media
that has just begun to criticize the commander-in-chief add up
to a media sea-change. It should not have been such a surprise,
therefore, to hear about a Takoma Park, MD band singing anti-war
songs of protest.
After hearing the song title, “Our Voices Cry to the Mothers
of Iraq” written by local songwriter Wendy Lanxner, I had to hear
her band, xoxo, perform. The song’s words are simple and the melody
haunting. I can’t help but think the mothers of Iraq should know
that some mothers in the U.S. (including Lanxner, whose son was
hanging on her leg as she sang) are concerned about them:
Know, know, our voices cry, when will you...
When will you hear our voices cry?
I cry for your children, but you will never know, never know.
Another of Lanxner’s songs, “Wake Up America” reminds
listeners that:
There’s a war on, Far-off bullets you can’t feel. Well that
don’t mean that they’re not real. Wake up, wake up, America...You
don’t seem to really see, Beyond the world in your TV. You don’t
really realize half of what you hear is lies...
I watch you thrive on high-tech toys built to kill off girls
and boys. Apathy’s your middle name. War to you is just some
abstract entertaining game...
Say hello to militarization; Say goodbye to your civil liberties.
Say your prayers and duck and cover, sisters and brothers, or
stand up for a world that’s peaceful and free.
If bands like xoxo are performing anti-war songs in backyards
and coffee shops, and movie-goers, readers, and others around the
country also are getting fired up, George W. Bush may find himself
a one-term president. If American mothers, like Lanxner, are writing
and listening to songs about mothers in Iraq, they’re most likely
going to show up at the polls and vote for anyone who’ll bring
peace. At the very least, Americans will take a break from TV reality
shows (and I don’t mean the news!) to consider the new realities
that have come to pass in the last four years, now made excruciatingly
clear in books, music and films.
—Delinda Hanley
SIDEBAR
Neturei Karta Braves Pro-Israel Rally
On May 6, Christians for Israel USA held a poorly attended
rally in front of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington,
DC. The Christian Zionist group displayed a bus that had
been destroyed in a Jan. 29 suicide bombing in Jerusalem.
Members of Neturei Karta (Jews United Against Zionism)
drove from New York to demonstrate against the event. After
being harassed by several hostile attendees, they were
asked by police officers to stand at a distance from the
rally for their own safety.
—Laila Al-Arian |
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