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Dear
Americans,
I’ve
written to you a published open letter a year after
the criminal attacks of September 11th reiterating
my heartfelt condemnation of those attacks, while
reminding you, despite your pain, to search deeper
for the context, for the root causes that made them
possible. I still had not run out of sympathy for
your victims then. After Iraq, you can still count
on my moral rejection of any similarly criminal attack
against you in the future, but you can forget about
my sympathy. I hope you realize what the difference
means. ‘Who cares?’, you may ask. Well,
although I obviously do not speak for the peoples
of the south, the Arabs, or even my own people, the
Palestinians, I suspect much of what I convey to you
here is widely shared in all three domains.
Despite the horrifying exposure of your military’s
war crimes and systematic dehumanization of and terror
against Arabs and Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan and
Guantanamo, your elected representatives are feverishly
seeking a technical, bureaucratic explanation of what
happened, and are trying -- to no avail, evidently
-- to portray every incident of terror or abuse as
a rare occasion committed by an isolated group of
individuals against standing orders and in contravention
of American ethical values and norms. Whom are they
fooling? Is there anyone left in Europe, not to mention
the Arab world, who still believes your government’s
policy gives a damn about moral principles or international
law? Hasn’t it become abundantly clear that your
country is increasingly being viewed by the rest of
the world, especially the southern part of it, as
a lawless, immoral, bullying and murderous empire?
If
all what has been revealed about the illegal, racist
behaviour of your armed forces around the world has
failed to convince you to democratically impeach,
or at least withdraw your support for, the ruling
neo-conservative regime in Washington, then you’re
proving that far from being an isolated aberration,
this arrogant, fundamentalist, imperialist junta does
in fact represent America today. Still, from my perspective,
this can never justify a terrorist attack against
civilians in your country or anywhere else, but it
can surely blunt any potential sympathy one would
normally have -- and did indeed express after September
11th -- in such circumstances.
The
next time the US is afflicted by terrorism many of
us who did in fact shed tears in 2001 will not do
so again. For one, I shall maintain my moral consistency
and still condemn any comparable attack as criminal
and immoral, mainly out of principle; but, honestly,
I doubt I shall re-experience the sincere dejection
and searing agony that I felt the first time.
Whatever
you ask, please do not ask why we “hate”
you. Putting aside the simplistic and dichotomic nature
of such a question -- “you’re either with
us or against us,” your great leader says --
let me give you my straight answer: I don’t.
But,
I hate what your government is doing in your name,
with your tax money, and with solid support from most
of you. I despise the fact that your country is sponsoring
Israeli colonial oppression against my people, shielding
Israel from the world’s wrath and from the overdue
prospect of sanctions for violating every applicable
precept of international law in maintaining its military
occupation and illegal colonies in the West Bank and
Gaza, its racial discrimination against its own Palestinian
citizens and its obdurate rejection of the internationally
protected right of our refugees to return to the lands
from which Israel had expelled them, and on the ruins
of which it had established itself.
I
hate the way your mainstream media refers to our innocent
victims, whether in Iraq or Palestine, as faceless
numbers, as relative humans, as dispensable objects
in your empire’s crusade for world domination.
I
hate the repugnant hubris of your “elected”
lawmakers, who owe their seats and privileges to a
few very powerful lobbies controlling your lives and
minds, and forming the pillar of American flouting
of international law in every field imaginable. It
is ironic that lawmakers anywhere can become such
an infested breeding ground for lawlessness in international
affairs.
I
hate the fact that your military, oil and other sinister
industries have flourished at the expense of killing,
injuring or ruining the livelihood of millions in
Asia, Africa and Latin America. And I strongly resent
the fact that in order to keep prices low at your
gas pumps, Arabs have had to suffer under despotic
rulers, hand-picked and buttressed by your consecutive
governments for decades.
I
hate the silence, the apathy -- and therefore the
implicit approval -- that your majority espouses when
faced with incriminating evidence of your government’s
wrongdoing in our countries. After Falluja, you were
silent. After Rafah, you were apathetic. After Guantanamo’s
horrors were revealed, you turned your eyes and ears
the other way.
Why
do most of you hate us, we, people of the south, should
ask? Why can’t you accept us as beings who are
equally human, who possess a similar sense of pride,
who have similar dreams and aspirations, and who value
peace and dignified living more than anything else?
Why can’t you see that all we need is justice
and a chance to develop on our own, without your government’s
oppressive exploitation, patronizing intervention,
or masterly dictates.
Your
country is way too powerful now for anyone to have
the guts to drag it to the international criminal
court, where most of your leaders ought to stand trial;
but if Rome is any example, I would not take solace
in that transient strength. You have a clear moral,
legal and political obligation to change your country’s
course. For the foreseeable future, it can afford
to stay on its current path, crushing every head raised
in resistance, and battering every soul that refuses
to be enslaved, but this path has always led to one
destination: utter defeat under the feat of the oppressed
majority which will undoubtedly prevail, as it always
has.
The author is an independent Palestinian political
analyst.
Omar
Barghouti’s Brief Biography
Omar
Barghouti is a Palestinian political analyst whose
articles have appeared in the Hartford Courant,
Open Democracy, Z Magazine, Counterpunch, Al-Adab
(Beirut), Al-Ahram (Cairo), among others. His article
“9.11 Putting the Moment on Human Terms”
was chosen among the “Best of 2002” by
the Guardian. He is also a dance choreographer with
El-Funoun dance ensemble in Palestine. He holds
a Masters degree in electrical engineering from
Columbia University, NY, and is currently a doctoral
student of philosophy (ethics) at Tel Aviv University.
He contributed to the recently published book, "The
New Intifada: Resisting Israel's Apartheid"
(Verso Books, 2001). He has spoken in several conferences
on his ethical vision for a unitary, secular democratic
state in historic Palestine.
Some
of Omar Barghouti’s recent articles are listed
below:
Relative
Humanity: The Fundamental Obstacle to a Secular
Democratic State in Historic Palestine
Art in Conflict: The Crucial Fire
On Dance, Identity & War
9.11: Putting the Moment On Human Terms
The Quartet: When the Drum is Louder than the Orchestra
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