some thoughts on day 1

[joshua levithan]

Dear Arne,

As far as I can tell, you are elucidating ugly human
attributes, not ugly American attributes.  We are
economically powerful, and so act the part of the
brute in world politics.  European countries have
behaved in similar and worse ways throughout their
history.  Even the relatively peaceful and honorable
history of your country (as a Jew I am mindful of the
nobility of the Danes and of King Christian X) is not
without the hatred, violence, and colonial oppression
that has characterized every human society which has
found itself able to push outsiders around.  America
is unique because it is the sole superpower now, not
because it is more evil or more inconsiderate than
other countries.  Surely our new conservative
government has unwisely moved to isolale itself, but
arrogance is not evil, and neither are uniquely
American.  We are a symbol.   
I am abhor capital punishment deeply, and in most
respects find myself occupying the lunatic left fringe
of my country's political spectrum, but here I am
defending my country, so let me note that the people
of virtually every European country support the death
penalty.  For better or for worse your democracies are
less disgustingly plutocratic and less populist, and
the elitist leaders have, happily, done away with the
death penalty.  And aren't we comparing American
soceity to the middle eastern societies that have
produced terrorists?  Is it all comparable or will we
take a high road and claim that cultural norms should
allow practices such as our capital punishment or
perhaps the somewhat common Arab practice of "honor"
killing sexually disgraced women and the widespread
Palestinian technique of encouraging children to seek
martyrdom.  Yes, we are rich and comfortable, and they
are poor and oppressed (and if you seek to blame the
plight of the Palestinians solely on Israel you are
completely wrong--research the behavior of the Arab
nations towards their "brethren" in the wake of the
Arab-Israeli wars) but does that make terrorism
acceptable, even understandable?
Finally, please do not judge us by our worst elements.
 For you to use racist, disgusting, sloganeering
American message posters as a standard for our country
is the same as if I pointed to suicide bombers as
indicative of Arab attitudes and culture.  I am
ashamed of violent, stupid, racist Americans, just as
most Arabs are ashamed of the violent, hateful,
innocent-killing members of their society.  Right?

Josh


--- Arne Herløv Petersen <herlahp at inet.uni2.dk> wrote:
> If
> > this attack is in any way traced to Palestinian
> groups, they can forget
> > about EVER having a homeland.  The term
> Palestinian will be history if that
> > happens,
> > and that is very sad.
> > 
> >
> 
> Part of the problem is that many Americans seem to
> think that the 3
> percent of the world population that lives in the US
> has a Godgiven
> right to decide over the fate of the remaining 97
> percent.
> In 20 years US economic and military hegemony will
> be history, when
> China replaces USA as the economic giant of the
> world.
> At the same time you have a lust for revenge, seen
> in your capital
> punishment and an eye-for-an-eye ideology which is
> quite strange in a
> country that proclaims itself Christian.
> Just under the civilized surface is very often a
> primitive kind of
> racism. The Usenet groups soc.culture.afghanistan
> and soc.culture.arabic
> have been practically taken over by Americans loudly
> proclaiming "all
> Arabs are vermin and must be eradicated - down to
> the last children and
> women" and "nuke the sand-niggers". See for
> yourself.
> I should recommend reading Sven Lindqvist's
> excellent books "Exterminate
> all the Brutes" and "A History of Bombing" about
> racism in Western
> thought and politics.
> All this is no defense for mindless acts of
> barbarism. But it might be
> useful to consider that there were also innocent
> victims, also orphaned
> children and widows in Indochina, where Americans
> killed millions. The
> attacks on Iraq to punish Saddam Hussein (formerly
> paid and supported by
> the CIA), has resulted in half a million dead
> children. Even small
> operations like the bombing of Panama City to get at
> one man - Noriega,
> another former CIA employee gone bad - probably
> killed more innocent
> civilians than the Tuesday terrorism.
> 
> Arne


=====
Josh Levithan
querulous History grad student

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