-Caveat Lector-
Page
URL: http://www.nationalpost.com/scripts/printer/printer.asp?f=/stori
es/20011003/717775.html
October 3, 2001
Colonized in the name of the West
National Post
This is a condensed version of Sunera Thobani's speech to the Women's
Resistance Conference in Ottawa on Monday.
- - -
There will be no emancipation for women anywhere on this planet until
the Western domination of this planet is ended. And more than ever,
more than ever, we need to heed those words. Especially as all of us
are being herded into the possibility of a massive war at the behest
of the United States. We need to hear those words even more clearly
today.
We have seen and all of us have felt the traumatic pain of watching
those attacks and trying to grasp the facts of the numbers of peoples
who died. We feel the pain of that every day we have been watching it
on television. But do we feel any pain for the victims of U.S.
aggression? Two-hundred thousand people killed only in the initial
war on Iraq. That bombing of Iraq has continued for 10 years now. Do
we feel the pain of all the children in Iraq who are dying from the
sanctions that were imposed by the United States? Do we feel that
pain on an everyday level? Share it with our families and our
communities and talk about it on every platform that is available to
us? Do we feel the pain of Palestinians who now for 50 years have
been living in refugee camps?
This new war against terrorism that's being launched, it's very old. And it's a very
old fight of the West against the rest. Consider the language which is being used to
mobilize people: calling the perpetrators evil doer
s, irrational, calling them the forces of darkness, uncivilized, intent on destroying
civilization, intent on destroying democracy. They hate freedoms, we are told.
Every person of colour, and I would want to say also, every aboriginal person, will
recognize that language. It was used to justify our colonialization by Europe. We were
colonized in the name of the West bringing civiliz
ation, democracy, freedom to us.
All of us recognize who is being talked about when that language is being used. The
terms crusade, infinite justice, cowboy imagery of Dead or Alive posters. We all know
what they mean.
People in the West also recognize who this fight is against. Cries heard all over the
Western world: We're all Americans now. People who are saying that recognize who this
fight is against.
People who are attacking Muslims or any person of colour who looks like they could be
from the Middle East, without distinguishing, recognizes who this fight is against.
These are not just slips of the tongue that Bush qu
ickly tries to reject. They reveal a thinking, a mindset.
And it's horrific to think that the fate of the world hangs on the plans of people
like that. This will be a big mistake for us, if we just accept that these are just
slips of the tongue. They are not. They reveal the thi
nking, and the thinking is based on dominating the rest of the world in the name of
bringing freedom and civilization to it.
Reject this kind of jingoistic militarism and recognize that as the most heinous form
of patriarchal racist violence that we're seeing on the globe today.
The women's movement has to stand up to this. There is no option for us. We have to
fight back against this militarization. We have to break the support that is being
built in our countries for this kind of attack.
The lesson we have learned and the lesson that our politicians should
have learned is that you cannot slaughter the people into submission.
For 500 years they have tried that strategy.
The West for 500 years has believed that it can slaughter people into
submission and it has not been able to do so. And it will not be able
to do so this time, either.
Copyright © 2001 National Post Online
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Forwarded as information only; no endorsement to be presumed
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In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material
is distributed without charge or profit to those who have
expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information
for non-profit research and educational purposes only.
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The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking
new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust
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"Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe
simply because it has been handed down for many generations. Do not
believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do
not believe in anything simply because it is written in Holy Scriptures. Do not
believe in anything merely on the authority of Teachers, elders or wise men.
Believe only after careful observation and analysis, when you find that it
agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all.
Then accept it and live up to it."
The Buddha on Belief, from the Kalama Sutta
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A merely fallen enemy may rise again, but the reconciled
one is truly vanquished. -Johann Christoph Schiller,
German Writer (1759-1805)
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It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that
prevents us from living freely and nobly. -Bertrand Russell
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"Everyone has the right...to seek, receive and impart
information and ideas through any media and regardless
of frontiers."
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
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"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will
teach you to keep your mouth shut."
--- Ernest Hemingway
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