A War Like No Other? You Bet!

By David Graham Du Bois <dubois@afroam.umass.edu>, Black Electorate, 27 November 2001

This “war against terrorism” is in fact an open declaration of war against the peoples of the developing world; initially the peoples of the Middle East and Africa, and ultimately the peoples of South and Central America and the Caribbean, all Asia, the South Pacific and the islands of the Seas—some four-fifths of humanity.

It is a desperate attempt to meet and overcome this developing world's growing challenge to the continuation of four centuries of European and American hegemonic domination, exploitation, suppression, insult and injury by its executors in America and Europe.

In pursuit of this objective the events of September 11 are being used to justify the imposition of a wide range of military and socio-political measures gravely endangering democracy as we know it; measures that have as their objective the emergence of an authoritarian, military/corporate state in the U.S.A. This gives rise to serious question as to who really planned and executed the September 11 events.

The fact that the overwhelming majority of the peoples of the developing world are peoples of color, or are perceived of as peoples of color, explains the ease with which support among the majority populations of Europe and North America is being generated behind the myth of a “war against terrorism”. Four centuries of the European African slave trade and the cruel exploitation of the human and natural resources of the African continent have been and are today justified by the myth of an inherent white superiority facing an inherent black inferiority.

The church, the State, the academy and the corporate boardroom led the effort, meeting with little resistance.

Today hated Pakistanis and Indians in the U.K are called “blacks” and hated Chechens in Russia are called “blacks”.

The immediate danger facing the world today is the conviction among white Americans, including leaders in government, business and the military, that peoples of color globally are inherently inferior to whites and are therefore capable of committing, indeed eager to commit, the most heinous of crimes against “the hated and envied European/American” This widely held conviction, that has dominated US foreign policy from the country's' earliest days, undermines reason and sanity in the execution of this “war against terrorism”. And, it also inhibits resistance.

There is widespread wariness and considerable resistance to this “war against terrorism” throughout the world of peoples of color, although the media and government spokespersons minimize or ignore it. And, although it is in great measure muted, confused and uninformed, there is also widespread wariness and resistance to this “war against terrorism” among peoples of color in the U.S. and throughout Europe.

In this context consider the deafening silence of the TV pundits and the media generally regarding the largest, most easily identifiable, homegrown body of Moslems in the country, the black Nation of Islam and its leader Minister Louis Farrakhan. The most strident and the most consistent voice in America in support of the rights of the Palestinian people has been the voice of Minister Farrakhan.

That black people in the U.S. listen to his voice was dramatically demonstrated by the turn out for the Million-Man March held on the Mall in Washington, D.C. on Oct. 16, 1995. Anyone conversant with the-man/woman-on-the street in the black urban community today knows the extent and the character of the guarded respect in which “The Nation” is held in those communities across the country. At the same time the pro-Israeli, Zionist establishment in the U.S. count Minister Farrakhan as domestic enemy number one. And, no black leader that refuses to condemn and castigate Minister Farrakhan can curry favor from that establishment.

The drive to justify religious profiling in order to seek out terrorists, a result of the September 11 events, opens up the Nation of Islam to a major assault on two fronts: racial and religious profiling. That assault has already begun and black communities across the country know it.

Peoples of color around the world, but particularly African peoples, were stung by the behavior of the U.S. at the United Nations Conference Against Racism held in Durban, South Africa recently.

In one grand, arrogant gesture, withdrawal, the U.S. refused even to consider the charge that Israeli practice in the Occupied Territories constitutes racism, and that reparations and compensation for four centuries of African slavery, natural and human exploitation and humiliation is justified. And yet, in answer to the question: “Why do they hate us so?” comes the repeated matra over and over and over: “It's not what we do. It's what we are.”

How does that jibe with the U.S. action in Durban and the current feeble effort to convince the Palestinian and Arab masses that the U.S. is now suddenly serious in its desire for the creation of a Palestinian state?

The U.S. may be losing the propaganda battle on the Arab speaking front to “the CNN of the Arab world”, the Qatar-based Al Jazeera satellite TV station, but domestically it's winning hands down the propaganda battle for the minds of the American people.

Efforts to convince us that life should “get back to normal”, to go out and “buy, buy, buy” as a patriotic duty, to return to the airways without fear, love everybody, return to family stands in sharp contrast with the content of popular media news and information programs.

These bombard us with in depth reports on the anthrax scare, small pox and other bioterrorism speculations, repeated reports of nuclear capabilities in the hands of foreign terrorists, of deadly pollution attacks on vulnerable air systems in office buildings and homes, terrorists crop spraying planes, truck tankers of toxic materials ramming buildings and on and on.

We are faced with airports swarming with armed, uniformed soldiers and daily security lapses, all driving us into a frenzy to “kill, kill, kill the terrorists and end this madness!”

Strange to some, the most vociferous practitioner in this propaganda effort is National Public Radio (NPR).

It would appear the decision was made at the top of the corporate media hierarchy to target that “sophisticated” American audience least accepting of network TV news and analyses and the mainstream media; the searchers for “alternative” sources that they believe NPR represents.

As a practicing journalist for more than forty years, thirty of which were spent working out of North and West Africa and the Middle East, I know something about the news and analyses the American people are provided from those parts of the developing world.

We are not told the truth. And, of the little we are told most is a distortion of the truth to make the U.S. look like “the good guys”.

What we’re getting today from Afghanistan and environs is no different. How can anyone expect the American people to know “why they hate us so”?

The fact is they do not hate the American people. They hate the policies of succeeding U.S. administrations.

Yes, they are politically sophisticated enough to make that important distinction. The war being waged against Afghanistan today is a monstrous act of State terrorism.

If allowed by the peoples of the world it will be extended to Iraq, and later to the other “rogue states” of U.S. determination, opening the floodgates to a devastating race war divided along the global color line.

In 1915 W. E. B. Du Bois wrote: “Most men in this world are colored. A belief in humanity means a belief in colored men. The future world will, in all reasonable probability be what colored men make it.”

It is this “reasonable probability” the “war against terrorism” is intended to prevent. But, it will only delay the inevitable.