Hi Lawry,
I agree with you wholeheartedly. Dialogical thinking and reading enables a person to see things from many points of view. Nel Noddings, a philosopher at Stanford, in an essay "Ethics and the Imagination" argues that we must encourage students to see and feel (empathize) what others are going through; especially the 'enemy'. This ability to understand the 'other' does not mean you have to condone their behaviour.
I will attempt to do this with the kidnapping and death of Daniel Pearl. I could also do the same for the death of any Afghan father killed as a result of 'collateral damage' .
We were told that Pearl was kidnapped because the enemy believed he was a spy. I have no trouble whatsoever imagining this to be true. Remember a war against 'evil' has been declared against this enemy by the US. Try to imagine that you are this 'evil' and you have the most powerful country in the world out to get you. Are you able to imagine that? Should it surprise us to have the Wall Street Journal and the US officials deny that Pearl was a spy? Of course not. Especially after we have been told by the Pentagon that they will be using the media to spread disinformation. And what is even more telling and few people have bothered to mention it is how the world was informed of Pearl's death. CNN reported that 2 Pakistan nationalists gave a video tape of the murder to WHAT THEY BELIEVED WAS A WESTERN JOURNALIST. HE TURNED OUT TO BE AN UNDERCOVER FBI AGENT! So they do have spies pretending to be journalists. If I was a thoughtful journalist I might be a tad 'pissed off' about this. Try to imagine your country being invade by a powerful enemy and having their TV, radio , newspaper journalists wandering around reporting on the progress of their country's bombing the hell out of your roads, airports, buildings, people... And also imagine that some of these journalists are really spies. What would you do? Grant them interviews?
I have heard touching eulogies for Daniel Pearl: that he was a loving husband, soon to be father, brother, friend, colleague. I am truly saddened by his death even if he was a spy. And I try to be touched by the millions of completely anonymous pawns of all wars where all sides believed a deity was on their side:
With God on Our Side
Bob Dylan
Oh my name it is nothin'
My age it means less
The country I come from
Is called the Midwest
I's taught and brought up there
The laws to abide
And that land that I live in
Has God on its side.
Oh the history books tell it
They tell it so well
The cavalries charged
The Indians fell
The cavalries charged
The Indians died
Oh the country was young
With God on its side.
Oh the Spanish-American
War had its day
And the Civil War too
Was soon laid away
And the names of the heroes
I's made to memorize
With guns in their hands
And God on their side.
Oh the First World War, boys
It closed out its fate
The reason for fighting
I never got straight
But I learned to accept it
Accept it with pride
For you don't count the dead
When God's on your side.
When the Second World War
Came to an end
We forgave the Germans
And we were friends
Though they murdered six million
In the ovens they fried
The Germans now too
Have God on their side.
I've learned to hate Russians
All through my whole life
If another war starts
It's them we must fight
To hate them and fear them
To run and to hide
And accept it all bravely
With God on my side.
But now we got weapons
Of the chemical dust
If fire them we're forced to
Then fire them we must
One push of the button
And a shot the world wide
And you never ask questions
When God's on your side.
In a many dark hour
I've been thinkin' about this
That Jesus Christ
Was betrayed by a kiss
But I can't think for you
You'll have to decide
Whether Judas Iscariot
Had God on his side.
So now as I'm leavin'
I'm weary as Hell
The confusion I'm feelin'
Ain't no tongue can tell
The words fill my head
And fall to the floor
If God's on our side
He'll stop the next war.
Copyright � 1963; renewed 1991 Special Rider Music
Take care,
Brian McAndrews
At 07:06 PM 2/22/2002 -0500, Lawry wrote:
Greetings, Keith...
Pearl's death is so sad. He was a fellow alumnus. But, I am sorry to day,
it is no sadder than the killing of an Afghan innocent. They are all being
used as pawns. 'Collateral damage' -- that favorite of the US Defense
Department -- is blind and cuts all ways.
We must recognize, as I and more importantly, others have been warning, that
the US administration's actions in response to Sept 11 have and will produce
further anger at the US and an increase in anti-US terrorist activity. Pearl
is one such victim. It would be disengenuous of us to close out eyes to the
fact that more than anything else, it is US activity that killed Pearl. Had
it not been for that activity, Pearl would be alive today.
I like your idea of a diplomatic and humanitarian outreach to begin to
defure the flames that we have to this point been fanning. But the State
department and Powell have been reduced to ciphers at this time, and the
dogs of war on the loose. people have died, and more will die before the
dogs are leashed again. It is tragic, and all of it unnecessary.
Lawry
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Keith Hudson
> Sent: Friday, February 22, 2002 3:13 AM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: The death of Daniel Pearl
>
>
> The death of the Wall Street Journalist, Daniel Pearl, in its own
> premeditated way and with the video tape of the murder itself, is, to me,
> just as brutal and shocking as 11 September.
>
> This will reinforce American anger and we can expect all sorts of further
> repercussions, particularly when we reflect on the fact that Osama bin
> Laden and the leading members of Al Queda have escaped from
> Afghanistan and
> are probably plotting further outrages from wherever they are.
>
> But there's a much more difficult problem than finding these extremists.
> All round the world there are now millions of desperate young men,
> particularly in the Islamic countries, who have nothing to do and
> no chance
> of entering interesting and gainful employment. Among these there
> are bound
> to be significant numbers of disturbed individuals able to be persuaded
> into acts of extreme violence. This situation will exist for many years,
> probably decades, yet.
>
> They want what we want, and usually are able to get. But they are
> held back
> by cultures which prevent the opportunity for even a half-way all-round
> education and opportunities for enterprise and employment. A huge
> effort is
> needed to implant the seeds of change in those countries.
>
> I think the chances of sizeable wars between America and Islamic countries
> is pretty high now. Quite besides increasing provocations from extremists,
> several countries -- for example, Saudi Arabia, Israel-Palestine,
> Pakistan,
> Afghanistan, Indonesia -- are highly unstable. Even now, is it too much to
> hope that the US State Department could start to think about peaceful
> incursions into those countries by making offers, such as funding for
> schools and medical centres, that even the most reactionary politicians
> could not refuse?
>
> Keith Hudson
>
>
>
> __________________________________________________________
> �Writers used to write because they had something to say; now
> they write in
> order to discover if they have something to say.� John D. Barrow
> _________________________________________________
> Keith Hudson, Bath, England; e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> _________________________________________________
