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By Mari Marcel Thekaekara Public figures in America are using September 11 to throw basic human rights out the window
"We are allowed to do with this prisoner whatever we want -- deprive him of sleep, painkillers, food, break his fingers," freeze him, almost torture him, almost starve him, dehydrate and disorient him etc "because he is a piece of human garbage with no rights whatsoever". The speech reported by Slavoj Zizek, a Germany-based philosopher and psychoanalyst, was from a Fox News commentator on March 6, 2003. The previous day, Senator Pat Buchanan, in MSNBC's Buchanan & Press show produced a picture of the recently-captured 'third man of al-Qaeda', Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. The POW looked dazed. There were bruises, half-discernible, peeping out of his prison garb, suggesting that he had already been tortured. Pat Buchanan asked, "Should this man who knows all the names, all the detailed plans for the future terrorist attacks on the United States, be tortured, so that we get all this out of him?" And the crowd predictably, hysterically, screamed back the answer everyone wanted to hear. Crucify him! This is not a scene out of a Hollywood movie. It was being enacted, not in a banana republic, not in a dark dictatorship, not in a medieval Islamic republic, but in the fair and freedom-loving US of A, in the 21st century, a month ago. This kind of public verbal lynching would not have been possible a year-and-a-half ago, especially not presided over by a major political figure in Washington where political correctness is often carried to an extreme. But September 11 changed a lot of things in America. And as far as freedoms go, the regression is visible. My 18-year-old son, on reading Exodus, went into a depression. "What's the point of studying , of going to college?" he demanded. "The Germans had the most advanced technology, education, but they used it so vilely. The world regressed." I had no words of wisdom to dispel his gloom, no comfort to offer him. He'd taken off his shoes too often at American airports on a gap year stint, suffered the indignity of being singled out as a possible young terrorist. The Iraqi disaster was already looming on the horizon. The entire world was angry, bitter and disillusioned. I couldn't bring myself to placate him with platitudes. Most prisoners, if given the choice, would choose an American jail any day over an Iraqi one. (With the exceptions perhaps of a few… Fidel Castro, Osama bin Laden, Patrice Lumumba come to mind) Your rights in an American jail would certainly be preferable to those in most other places. This situation came about through a historical process. European settlers fleeing religious persecution back home fought fiercely for freedom and independence in the country of their adoption. (Of course freedom was for white people, Native Indians and slaves barely counted as human beings.) The French Revolution contributed a great deal to the American Constitution, in writing a new script, fresh and idealistic, throwing off the shackles of feudalism and repression. Much of this contributed to the Declaration of Human Rights and the ongoing battle for a decent, humane society. Fair-minded individuals will acknowledge the intensity with which the average American values her/his personal freedom and independence. In spite of aberrations like the Rodney King outrage, it is definitely preferable to be an African American in America than a Dalit in India, or a minority in Pakistan. Dalits in India drew on the Black Panther movement for inspiration and courage. And though even today, there is widespread racism in the US, atrocities of the nature of those that occur in the lives of Dalits every day with impunity in India, do not go unpunished. Even a white supremacist knows that there are limits to what can be said and done to the black person he hates. If public figures in the US use September 11 to throw basic human rights out of the window (I see the bombing of Iraq as an obscene violation of Iraqi human rights, but that's another story), we will be walking into an Orwellian nightmare. Pat Buchanan may well argue that if the Iraqis or Al-Qaeda caught a US POW they would have no qualms about torturing the unfortunate soldier. However that's like arguing that because Pakistan mistreats minorities Indians should all take their cue from Narendra Modi. Simply put, we are not them. So the entire issue of Guantanamo Bay, treating Muslim prisoners like garbage, presages a frightening scenario. A giant leap backwards. Although US foreign policy since the Second World War has been hypocritical in the extreme, this is the first time all norms of decency are being thrown to the winds openly, unashamedly, abandoning all pretence. Because the rhetoric, the language was important, if only to move the debate incrementally forward. And though implementation of human rights has been painfully slow, and non-existent in far too many places, there had been progress. World opinion has mattered, has made a difference. The blatant disregard by Bush and Blair of the marching millions, the human shields, even the Pope, though they declare they have a Christian God on their side, is an ominous portent for the future. The only hope is from those marching millions, the Not-In-Our-Name-Americans, the teeming multitude from Tokyo to Toronto who cried "Halt". Their anger is palpable. And it has to evolve into a concrete movement, if only to prove that they count for something. At the World Social Forum in Porto Allegro, Americans announced "Another America is Possible" as part of the "Another World is Possible" theme. During these dark days, that single thought is the only ray of hope. That people like Rachel Corrie are defying their governments to join the fight against injustice. And that there are millions like her. In the aftermath of the war, even as the Bush-Blair axis dance their victory jigs, the people for peace have not given up. In April a huge Peace Rally congregated in London. Predictably, they were fewer in number than the historic February March. To fight for peace when everyone else is rushing for the spoils of war will be even more difficult. Logic flies out the window, the embedded media will sing a different song concentrating on the toppling of Saddam, crowing that the cause for regime change has been proved right. Victory vindicates everything. That the weapons of mass destruction never surfaced, proving the original stated aim to be nonsensical, is no longer an important issue. No longer an issue at all, in fact. In this bleak scenario as the Oil Rush takes precedence over justice or decency of any sort, the task ahead of those who fought against war and on the side of peace, will be an even more uphill one. But now, more than ever before, it's a truly important mission. InfoChange News & Features, April 2003
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