Afghanistan: A heroic resistance that puts us to shame
Gabriele Zamparini | 02.10.2007 21:20 | Anti-militarism | Anti-racism | History | World
Forget the Neo-Con, the Neo-Dem, the Neo-Lib and the Neo-Nuts. The role the demonization and dehumanization of the (many, many, many...) Empire’s enemies has played in supporting imperialism and colonialism can be more easily seen in those Western liberal and progressive writers, journalists, intellectuals and anti-war movement’s planners who always resort to human rights, women rights, gay rights’ violations of the Empire’s enemy of the month as the reason why we, the enlightened people, can’t surely sympathies, let alone support the "other" peoples who try to defend themselves and resist against wars of aggression and occupations, which is to say, colonialism and imperialism.
Then the face of Big Brother faded away again and instead the three slogans of the Party stood out in bold capitals:
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORACE IS STRENGHT
[George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four]
The Afghanistan’s puppet Karzai offered the Taliban "high position in a government ministry as a way to end the rising insurgency" in the country.
The infamous peace talks propaganda, so effective for the Western minds, is something the Afghans seem to be immune.
Reuters informed us:
Karzai said U.S. President George W. Bush and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had both supported the idea of peace talks when he met them in the U.S. this month.
Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousuf told Reuters from an undisclosed location that talks with Kabul were out of the question.
"Karzai government is a dummy government. It has no authority so why should we waste our time and effort," Yousuf said.
"Until American and NATO troops are out of Afghanistan, talks with Karzai government are not possible." (…)
"On the one hand, America has put our leader's name on a wanted persons list and is calling us terrorists; and on the other hand, Karzai is talking about peace talks. It's a joke," Yousuf said.
Forget the Neo-Con, the Neo-Dem, the Neo-Lib and the Neo-Nuts. The role the demonization and dehumanization of the (many, many, many...) Empire’s enemies has played in supporting imperialism and colonialism can be more easily seen in those Western liberal and progressive writers, journalists, intellectuals and anti-war movement’s planners who always resort to human rights, women rights, gay rights’ violations of the Empire’s enemy of the month as the reason why we, the enlightened people, can’t surely sympathies, let alone support the "other" peoples who try to defend themselves and resist against wars of aggression and occupations, which is to say, colonialism and imperialism.
The word "resistance" is never used, as sympathy for those resistance fighters has never voiced by the same people who always express so generously sympathy and solidarity with "our troops".
The dehumanization and demonization of the "other" is at the root of the mamma mia anti-war movement, whose influential policy makers lecture us why the peace movement doesn’t and can’t embrace the Iraqi resistance.
For the resistance in Afghanistan – a country that had nothing to do with the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington – the problem doesn’t even arise. The Just War is just that, Just, and Cindy Sheehan [for whom I have deep respect] can then writes about "our troops" in the following terms:
Most of our troops are courageous and only trying to survive under unconscionable conditions and I want to publicly honor our young people who have had their lives stolen by the war machine in Afghanistan and send my heartfelt condolences to their families. Not even the evil empire of BushCo can corrupt or diminish our children’s forced sacrifices. Our troops stationed in Afghanistan need to know that the US peace movement supports them by working to get them home, too.
One of the few voices that have always had the intellectual honesty and the courage to call the Afghan resistance with its real name - "resistance fighters" - is Marc W. Herold, a professor at University of New Hampshire who’s been documenting the effects of American and NATO’s benevolence upon the people of Afghanistan.
Last year, I ended my piece, September 11, Afghanistan and "the survival of civilization" with a rhetorical question: Why don't we shout "Today we are all Afghans, Iraqis, Lebanese and Palestinians?"
One year later, the carnage of Iraqis, Afghans and Palestinians are carried out more efficiently than ever and it would seem we have become instead more American, more British, more European... and much less human.
In all these decades that signed the rise of one of the most brutal Empires in history, certainly the most dangerous for the very survival of Life on this planet, the Western anti-war movements have never ended any war of aggressions and have never brought "our troops" home from the many places they were shipped upon the many lies Washington and its vassals used to save Freedom, Democracy, Human Rights... The Afghan resistance surely knows it.
Gabriele Zamparini
Homepage:
http://www.thecatsdream.com/blog/2007/10/afghanistan-heroic-resistance-that-puts.htm
Comments
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you know
02.10.2007 22:14
Well, if we don't care about them, who will? Certainly not the "heroic resistance"
another human
the enemy of our enemy is not necesarily our friend.
03.10.2007 06:43
look at the numerous examples of how the u.s. (and u.k. and france etc etc) supported diferent anti communist regimes with this doctrine of the enemy of our enemy is our friend. inevitably i think it backfires, and also means we are perhapstacitly consenting to all practices of that group (for instance stoning if we support the taliban)
However.
we may also like to look at home for 'human rights' abuses, sexism and homophoebia. the u.k. still doesn't allow single sex marriages, and it was only in 1967 that the sexual offences act partially de-criminalised homosexual activity between men (1980 in scotland, 82 in n' ireland).
According to my new friend, wikipedia, it was only
"In June 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Lawrence v. Texas that state laws criminalizing private, non-commercial sexual activity (including homosexual activity) between consenting adults on the grounds of morality are unconstitutional since there is insufficient justification for state interest in such conduct."
anyway, as well as this there is the deeply institutionalised sexism in our societies and the U.S. still not recognising the international rights of the child (I think the u.s. and somalia are the only two states not to do this)
what i'm saying is, it's not black and white, and whilst i'd happily argue against the u.s. invasion of iraq, i'd also argue against stonings.
mmmm. maybe i should have called this article 'wanting my cake and eating it'.
cake eater.
the taliban are kicking arse!
03.10.2007 08:01
This is correct. ultimately, however much we may dislike the taliban, they have done what we cannot do, and they are actually fighting the US/UK and defeating them. This is good for the whole world, and it shows that the us/uk can be beaten. you may not like their ideology, but the main enemy is surely imperialism, and frankly, the US/UK 'human rights' is a load of bullshit.
ali
Want heroic resistance in Afghanistan - how about these women?
03.10.2007 12:08
"RAWA is the oldest political/social organization of Afghan women struggling for peace, freedom, democracy and women's rights in fundamentalism-blighted Afghanistan since 1977."
emigre
Homepage:
http://www.rawa.org
who do you like better....
03.10.2007 22:15
Timothy McVeigh or Theodore Kaczinski?
Richard Branson or Rupert Murdoch?
Pay by Visa or Mastercard?
Death by poison or death by strangulation?
"Heroic Resistance" my arse. Some choices are not worth spending time with, never mind deciding to actively support one gang of power-mad murderers against another, bigger gang.
Darth Vader