Anti-Americanism: A Personal View

March 2007:

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I think there isn’t anyone among the regulars on my blog who’s unaware of my feelings about the Bush imperium and about imperialism in general. I’ve been writing now for years – since September 2001 at least – of the particular danger posed by the United States of America to the world at large, and I’ve repeatedly pointed out the fact that in my own considered opinion the planet, as a living entity, cannot continue to tolerate the existence of the US in its present form.

Does that, however, make me anti-American, as I’m accused, virtually on a daily basis, of being?

No.

What is being anti-American, anyway? Am I against the soil of the United States? Am I against grizzly bears, coyotes, and redwoods? Am I supposed to oppose the existence of the Gila Monster or the Grand Canyon (and never mind – just for a moment - the US Rangers there being forbidden to mention its geological origins)? 

It’s easy to say, like so many of my interlocutors on Orkut and other websites, that “All Americans are evil,” “all Americans should be killed, “the only good American is a dead American,” and so on. Most of the people who say this are immature and semi-educated, but not all; most of them are Muslim, and of a fundamentalist bent of mind, but not all. I’ve known white Australians with college degrees and of impeccably Christian heritage who refused to even writethe word “America” properly.

These people aren’t insincere in their viewpoints. When they say “All Americans are evil” they mean what they say. They’re just not adequately informed. They’re also excellent propaganda copy for the enemy; because don’t imagine the Bush cabal doesn’t know about them, and doesn’t use them as fodder in its “They hate our freedoms” campaign.

Before I go further, let me clearly state my position, so there isn’t any confusion over what I’m saying.

I hate the government of the United States of America, its armed forces, its social and economic system, its foreign policy, and its continuing attempts to impose its ownership over the world. There is nothing I would like better than to see all this destroyed.

I do not hate the people of the United States, its tradition – now imperilled – of free thought and dissent. I do not hate even the most retrogressive, the most hidebound denizen of the Bible Belt, because – unlike the “America to the gallows” crowd – I do know a little of what I am talking about.

Americans have done a hell of a lot of horrible things, and continue to do a lot of horrible things. They – even if nothing else mattered –live so wastefully that if we all did the same, we would need six more Earths just to supply the resources. They do have a government, which they (by common perception) voted to power which is hell bent on turning the rest of the world into slaves. Granted.

But…

Take another look.

The average American is brainwashed systematically from birth to believe that his/her country is the greatest in the world, that the nation’s authority flows from “god”, that the country stands for “good”, that anyone opposing it must be therefore evil, that everyone loves America, and that since America is the centre of the universe nothing else is really worth knowing. The average American is carefully guided into these beliefs by being kept systematically ignorant, especially in these days of “intelligent design” and “teach the controversy”, of science and logical thinking; he or she is force fed TV trash till what is on TV becomes the perceived reality. A nation where museums can exist that posit that humans and dinosaurs co-existed, or where the Grand Canyon’s geological history is suppressed, cannot be considered a nation looking at modernity. A nation where the price of petrol (“gasoline”) becomes the benchmark of foreign policy success cannot be considered a modern society.

So when this American who has never been taught to think for himself, who has been force fed the notion of the infallibility of Genesis, who has been brainwashed into believing that his nation is the greatest on earth and is beloved of all except “evildoers”, is suddenly confronted with the truth, that is, that America is not the most loved nation in the world, but rather the most hated; that the rest of the world does not want to live as American vassals; and that US power is not universally applicable, and that not everyone thinks “god” made the world in six days and rested on the seventh, he is faced with a stupendous intellectual shock.

What then is easier but to delude this wretched individual into the belief that he does not see what he is seeing, but that this is all the result of a conspiracy by “liberals”, “faggots”, “commies” and other traitors? Especially when you control the media, and where these individuals have only the media as their window on the world?

Of course, this American is also likely to be a person of limited economic means, and therefore of limited access to independent information or education, and he is likely to be kept there in that economic bracket. He will be encouraged to buy on credit and not save at all; in his employment, he will be deprived of the right to form effective unions so that he can be kept under further control by not having economic security; and as far as his health is concerned, he will not be able to afford any real care without expensive and often unaffordable insurance. All this will go to keeping him exactly where he is.

He has democracy, sure – he has the right to vote for either the Republicans or the Democrats, between whom one would need an electron microscope to distinguish, and who follow exactly the same policies on virtually every issue one can name, even if they were voted to power to do the exact opposite. 

All this is not quite enough, so you also have warrantless arrests, the deliberate fomenting of fear and a siege mentality, the poisonous military industrial complex, the USA Patriot Act and  similar legislation, all designed to keep the population – including our putative American - in a state of permanent and voluntary subjugation.

Does this American, therefore, look like a monster any more? Doesn’t he begin to look like just another victim?

What amazes me, frankly, is that this American, despite all that is going against him, can’t be kept down. You can do your worst, but the American still can’t be fooled all of the time.

When the US dropped more bombs on the inoffensive neutral nation ofCambodia than were dropped in all of World War II and napalmed Vietnamese villages, who stormed the streets with slogans like “Hey Hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?”

Americans.

When the US was actively planning the invasion of Iraq, which everyone outside the US knew had neither WMDs nor links to Al Qaeda, who – despite it being “unpatriotic” then – came on the streets in their hundreds of thousands to protest the planned invasion even before it happened?

Americans.

Just, as a piece of perspective for Indians – can you imagine any of us marching on the streets to protest an Indian invasion of Sri Lanka, for example, as actually happened in 1987?       

Who risked their careers, when they did not have to, to protest the mass murders of Iraqi and Afghan civilians? Who are the Dixie Chicks, Susan Sarandon, Sean Penn? Who are Cindy Sheehan, Eric Blumrich, or our very own Malcolm Mills? 

Americans.

Can you, my fellow Indians, imagine Amitabh Bacchhan or Lata Mangeshkar protesting the murder of Kashmiri civilians by Indian troops?

Who was it that insisted on the individual’s right to oppose governments, even governments at war, and went to jail rather than pay taxes that would go to support an illegal war? Henry David Thoreau, in my own opinion one of the greatest philosophers since Socrates, and he was an American, too.

And another question – yes, the American government and its corporate cronies are vile beyond comprehension. Yes, they would be glad to batten upon us and suck us dry. Yes, they think they own the world. But can they actually,by themselves, impose their will on all of us?

Who the hell do these murderous parasites work through? Isn’t it our own governments, our own “leaders”, who follow their orders and let them in through the door? When farmers commit mass suicide and Manmohan Singh (who came to power promising an independent foreign policy and left of centre economics) parrots economic policies written down for him by the World Bank, when he betrays our old friend Iran by voting – not once by twice – against it in the IAEA in order to please Washington, when he throws our ports and air space open to American military units, what price anti-Americanism? Why don’t we rise up, pull this Quisling out of his office and hang him by his own intestines from the lamp-posts? Until we destroy the compradors and fifth columnists among us, do we have a right to blame it all on Washington?

Of course it’s easy to do that. Blame the Americans. It’s easy to do for the same reason that it’s easy for the Bushies to claim that anyone who hates theUS does that because he “hates their freedoms”.

Ignorance and chauvinism make the worst of all combinations.   

Irom Sharmila Chanu

This is the country which calls Mohandas Karamchand "Mahatma" Gandhi the "father of the nation" and plasters his face over each currency note. This is the country which pretends to worship non-violence, and in the shape of pop film Gandhi-ism as well. This is also the country with the world's third largest standing army, an army which uses (and has used for almost half a century, without any discernible success) one of the worst, most brutal, and most indefensible piece of legislations ever imposed on a portion of an allegedly democratic polity.
That legislation is the Armed Forces Special Powers Act of 1958, under which Manipur (in which up to 20 armed groups are "fighting for freedom" at any given moment) is called a "disturbed area" and where all the armed forces (including paramilitary organisations) have been given the power - which they have most freely used - to
carry out their operations, once an area is declared disturbed. Even a non-commissioned officer is granted the right to shoot to kill based on mere suspicion that it is necessary to do so in order to "maintain the public order".

The AFSPA gives the armed forces wide powers to shoot, arrest and search, all in the name of "aiding civil power." It was first applied to the North Eastern states of Assam and Manipur and was amended in 1972 to extend to all the seven states in the north- eastern region of India. They are Assam, Manipur, Tripura, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Nagaland, also known as the "seven sisters". The enforcement of the AFSPA has resulted in innumerable incidents of arbitrary detention, torture, rape, and looting by security personnel. This legislation is sought to be justified by the Government of India, on the plea that it is required to stop the North East states from seceding from the Indian Union. (Source: http://www.hrdc.net/sahrdc/resources/armed_forces.htm)

Quite apart from the question of whether there is any possible justification for large scale annihilation of people to force them to be a part of a political unit they wish to leave (and on this I'd just mention that the people who constantly go on about the world being a global village are also those who are always the most raving opponents of letting go of even one square millimetre of territory, no matter how valueless) is the precise point that this legislation has solved nothing. It has, in its half century of existence, seen secessionist  activity in NE India grow from just the Nagas to an extent where not a single state (not even Arunachal Pradesh) is free of some form of insurgency. The Act also

contravenes both Indian and International law standards. This was exemplified when India presented its second periodic report to the United Nations Human Rights Committee in 1991. Members of the UNHRC asked numerous questions about the validity of the AFSPA, questioning how the AFSPA could be deemed constitutional under Indian law and how it could be justified in light of Article 4 of the ICCPR. The Attorney General of India relied on the sole argument that the AFSPA is a necessary measure to prevent the secession of the North Eastern states. He said that a response to this agitation for secession in the North East had to be done on a "war footing." He argued that the Indian Constitution, in Article 355, made it the duty of the Central Government to protect the states from internal disturbance, and that there is no duty under international law to allow secession.

This reasoning exemplifies the vicious cycle which has been instituted in the North East due to the AFSPA. The use of the AFSPA pushes the demand for more autonomy, giving the peoples of the North East more reason to want to secede from a state which enacts such powers and the agitation which ensues continues to justify the use of the AFSPA from the point of view of the Indian Government (ibid)

This is precisely the point. It just arouses more resentment (and I can assure you that the armed forces' arrogance has caused them to be deeply and truly hated even in peaceful parts of the North East, like Meghalaya), more violence, and more repressive measures from a gaggle of politicians in Delhi who would be hard put to locate Manipur on the map, let alone give a damn about who lives or dies there.

The AFSPA is also in definite contravention of the Indian Constitution - instead of pasting more pages of information, I would recommend, again, a careful perusal of a detailed study of its unconstitutionality here.

Not that it matters to the people of "mainland" India who if they think of the North East at all, think of its people as head hunting jungle savages who need an iron hand to drag them to civilisation and light. Nor does the AFSPA affect them, no matter how much it might make the POTA and TADA they either love or hate look like benign legislation. The politicians of the North East are also easily co-opted. All opposition is up to informal groups and to individuals of the likes of Irom Sharmila Chanu.

So, who is Irom Sharmila Chanu?

On Thursday, November 2, 2000 a convoy of Assam Rifles was ambushed by insurgents near Malom in Manipur. In retaliation the paramilitary personnel ran amok and murdered 10 civilians - which was pretty much par for the course for Manipur. It had happened many times before. Unfortunately for the Assam Rifles, though, one woman who witnessed it was pushed beyond the margin of tolerance. That woman was a then 29 year old called Sharmila. She promptly went on a fast unto death until the AFSPA was withdrawn from Manipur, and to this day, over six years later, has not even taken so much as water. She is being kept alive by being  force-fed through a nasogastric tube - in hospital, where she is most of the time, and in jail where she is confined the rest of the time on the charge of "attempted suicide" (another brilliant Indian law that makes suicide illegal - brilliant since success would put the criminal beyond reach of punishment).

During her fast, Sharmila has even deprived herself of the company of her mother, since she is afraid the lady will not have the moral strength to see her daughter in that state. She has repeatedly declined blandishments including offers of a seat in the Manipur State Legislature in order to end her fast.   

Of course the Indian Army does not want the Act lifted. When did any armed force want to give up the right to be able to harrass and murder civilians at will, anyway? The odd thing is, no one challenges it to prove how things have improved after twenty six unending years of imposition of the act in Manipur.

Meanwhile...

In June 2004, a young Manipuri woman called Thangjam Manorama Devi was abducted, raped and murdered  by Assam Rifles personnel on the pretext of being a member of a militant organisation. Massive protests, which faced violent suppression and the public stripping at the gates of Kangla Fort (then the Assam Rifles' headquarters in Manipur) by members of the womens' organisation Apunba Lup, followed. Ultimately  -  and with extreme reluctance - AFSPA was withdrawn from Imphal, and Imphal only, yet it continues to be imposed on the rest of the state. And the situation is no better.

On October 4, 2006, Irom Sharmila reached Delhi and promptly continued her fast at Jantar Mantar. On the night of 7 October, she was arrested and taken to hospital. There she remains under police custody, even though the hospital authorities say she is fit to be discharged. After all, she will certainly immediately resume her fast unto death in public, and in Delhi, especially with the tourist season just beginning, it is not going to be as easy suppressing facts as it is in faraway Manipur.

Meanwhile, again, all the lessons learned from this is that only violence is liable to catch the eye of authority.

And that is the position of "Gandhigiri" (Gandhism) in India today.

(From Nov 2006)