From Assassination Euphoria to All Out Racism

I dropped three connections on Facebook today. Truth be told, it wasn't much of a loss. Some of them had been silent riders for a long time and people I had little reason to believe I was a friend of.

One of them had continously unnerved me for a couple of weeks with increasingly furious and scornful verbal attacks on Islam and Muslims, in spite of - or because of - the fact he is, himself, a Kurd in exile in prosperous Canada.

Another was a Western man, a relatively affluent American, and a third was an Indian in Britain, echoing the Jingoism and Islamophobia common in both countries.

I state these details not to single out anybody, but to show how diverse the interest in demonizing Muslims are, and how widespread it has become. The propaganda stretches far beyond condemnation of terrorism, and far beyond opposition to so-called "Islamism" - it is in the nature of every belief, religious or political, to try to impose its values on others and institutitionalize them by legislative means.

It has effectively become a vehicle for discrimination and, so far, light persecution inside the West, but what is worse: It forms the platform of current and future invasions, and of oppression of Muslims in their own home countries, whether by proxy, by economic sanctions, by clandestine operations or by open invasion.

And it is being served in the new narrative of the collapse of the Western Civilization due to the invasion of "barbarians", an openly racist, openly imperialist and undoubtedly fascist world view, altogether too common to even cause the slightest shiver down the spines of the majority of Westerners - perhaps, because, this form of terrorism ultimately serves their interests in a dog eat dog scenario.

They hold the power - they need not speak out.

From One Drop of Blood to Blood Thirst

It really grew from the point, where Barack Obama announced the death of Osama bin Laden. Waves of cheers went through the crowds in the USA, and the effect was noticeable on my Facebook, where I keep a lot of American friends from both sides of the political spectrum, even if I suspect the majority is left leaning.

I participated myself in the virtual riot, posting among other things a mock photo of the Statue of Liberty holding the decapitated face of Osama bin Laden, the photo later to be revealed was photoshopped itself. I also posted a couple of jokes, all of which I thought to be relatively innocent, considering that we hold Osama bin Laden responsible for the mass murder of 3000 Westerners, by all standards a heinous crime.

Then things began to turn eerie: People began, en masse, to express extremist views. In the beginning they were inside the spectrum of what you may think is, at worst, just misguided: Unwavering support for US interventionism in the Middle East and beyond, proud nationalism and scepticism about the Arab Revolution, because it does not follow a Western formula.

From this point masks began to fall, even masks of liberalism and anti-imperialism and "tolerance" carefully crafted over many years among Westerners, who are not shy about calling themselves leftists, as long as it has to do with their own civil rights and their own pensions and health care privileges.

Among a lot of those, it would seem, the love does not extent beyond their own ranks. The face of the world is changing, and it seems everybody's becoming racist and nationalist, and by the hour.

Anti-Islamism holds enormous attraction as a subject, while for instance the reports of 1000 women murdered in Uganda every day does not make anybody question their liberal agenda or the wisdom of knocking over the paleo-conservative foundation of Arab community.

Neither does the fact that Uganda's proposed legislation to outlaw homosexuality - at first under penalty of death - is rooted in Western Christian beliefs exported from America make many question the fundamental wisdom of attributing the most evil and reactionary attitudes to the Islamic world.

The Absent-Minded New Western Extremist

Interestingly, the responses from Muslims to the death of Osama bin Laden were mostly moderate, often even indifferent. Except from a dubious statement from Al Qaeda vowing revenge and a statement from Hamas expressing regret about the death of Osama bin Laden, the fabled Islamic extremism amounted to little more than a collective shrugh.

The blood thirst was most apparent among the former colonialists and current imperialists, and the people they have succesfully recruited from developing countries to speak their cause.

Some of those new immigrants are personally acquainted with the problems and obvious shortcomings of Islamic societies and, therefore, all the more zealous and prone to hyperbole.

Some may have the psychological interest of "hyper-assimilating" by aligning themselves with the most extremist secular views, proving they are "okay" by distancing themselves vehemently from all aspects of religiousity and even healthy social conservatism.

They are the new avant-guarde of the American war machine, along with the liberalists who have declared war on all religion, but conveniently forget to factor in how Islamic extremism has, historically, grown rampant due to a very non-theist, very pragmatic and profoundly amoral Washington policy of intervention in the Middle East.

The new Western extremist does not know or care for the fact that USA fought an illicit war against OPEC, toppling both Qasim in Iraq and Mossadeq in Iran.

In the first case they put the genocidal Baath Party in power, enabling Saddam Hussein with mustard gas to be used in Washington's proxy war against Iran.

In the second case Washington overthrew the first democratically elected Prime Minister of the first democracy in the Middle East, replacing Mossadeq with the corrupt Shah, who in turn paved the way for the Iranian revolution of 1979 and the US Embassy Hostage Crisis - a series of events forming the basis of the current animosity between Washington and Tehran.

It Is All About Pretext

Similarly, USA funded fascist militia in Latin America and conducted hundreds of illicit CIA operations - involving assassination and even induction of famine by launching insect attacks from planes - and, most notably, the overthrowal and subsequent murder of Salvador Allende, the first democratically elected President of the first democracy in South America.

It is not that the new Western Extremist cannot see, or do not know. They refuse to see it, conveniently, because under Democratic leadership the American military forces have now become an instrument of a liberal vision in which eradication of traditionalist cultures worldwide - including Confucian China - has become the ideological fuel of the military-industrial complex.

People who have been immersed in the rhetoric between the American Christian Right and the New Atheism promoting a radical rejection of all religiousity for nearly a decade, are easy prey: Being anti-Islamic is the new virtue of those who reject any morality of virtue. It is the perfect disguise for galvanizing people for war, no less effective than using Biblical scripture to explain how Islam is the Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse.

It's a new form of terrorism, the arm chair terrorism of millions of pundits, who direct the missiles and Predator drones from the convenience of their homes - detached, and sheltered from the consequences of their initatives, and ultimately aligned with a Washington agenda that has no other master plan but to enforce its own supremacy on the world.

It's something that smells like freedom, and sounds like peaceful humaniams, but is an altogether different beast. It is ham-fisted imperialism served with a smiley.

Arrested Development: A Police Crime

Many are just responding instinctively, untuitively, which is no more than to say they respond according to what the people who devise these rhetorical instruments plan. Some are unaware of the symbolic imprints and media mega-events used to produce conflict and galvanize for war.

Others are fully aware, but continue to participate, deliberately displaying "humanist concern", but always conveniently in a manner that facilitates armed intervention rather than fair trade agreements, incremental development, empowerment and equity.

This is how you know them from your genunine activist: You don't see them advocating women's rights, except when it is used to beat Islamic nations over the head, or campaigning for homosexuals, except when Western tolerance is supposed to be an example of superior moral standards, and you don't hear them protesting or informing about the generally appalling state of the poor of this world, or lamenting the general deterioration of the human rights movement, as it is led by the West.

You don't hear them expressinging any other form of humanitarian interest, except this: To interfere with regimes who exercise virtually no geopolitical power, have no ability to counter the overwhelming firepower of US forces, and would - left in peace - with almost certainty develop into exactly what the warmongers claim they want to produce: Predictable, stable nation-states with predominantly secular rule and industrial concerns that outweigh the most irrational doctrines of religious institutions - just like it happened in the West.

The denial of universal human attributes, the ability to evolve, goes hand in hand with the racist, Orientalist views that are more than condescending, more than ignorance: It is a willful oppression imposed on people who are, in turn, criticized and vilified and demonized for their inability to produce exactly the development that is stolen from them through colonialist and imperialist policy.

USA may be the world's policeman, but it is a corrupt policeman who violate all laws in the enforcement of Pax Americana, one that instigates more trouble than the combined forces of the world's governments are able to solve.

Neocons and Liberals Are Now Indistinguishable

Until May 2 I thought a lot of people, in spite of whatever political differences we might have, were friends. I thought they understood that at some point your loyalties must shift from being loyalty to a flag, or to a nation, or to a political ideology, and become simply loyalty to the truth, to people whose lives have an intrinsic value, and to peace.

Before I really realized what was going on seemingly reasonable people began to act viciously and speak in profane manners about the Arab world, first of all Pakistan over the dispute between Washington and Islamabad about the alleged location of Osama bin Laden. 

Whereas the Washington rhetoric was fairly stern, but also moderate in the way diplomatic langauge is, it was soon interpreted as a signal to vilify and mock Pakistan, some even openly calling for the country to be "turned to glass."

Of course, such extremists are found everywhere on the Internet, and in almost every camp, but what is troubling with this trend is that it is so widespread, and that there is virtually no opposition to it. In many cases extremist views against Muslims is silently condoned - people will not oppose it, because deep in their heart they have identified their enemy.

Or, they veil their hate speech with subtleties. All in spite of the fact that the Arab Revolt testifies to how the region has moved past infatuation with terrorism and extremism, and towards a democratic form of rule and a democratic form of protesting injustices.

The hubris that characterized the neoconservative government under Bush was, all of a sudden, transferred even to the ranks of Democrats, Libertarians and Independents. It started out as ambivalence, of fear of a new Pan-Arabic nationalism or of Islamist movements hijacking the freedom fight.

At this point it has turned into a simmering "free-for-all bash-fest", with what may be some sort of disappointment in the ultimately anti-climactic death of Osama bin Laden turning into a general vindictiveness against Arabs. It was like one man's death was not death enough. A blood-rush began to set in.

With the announcements from the Democratic administration that the "war on terror" is to continue, and from NATO that they will remain in Afghanistan indefinitely - in spite of the fact that there is, according to CIA, no more than 50-100 Al Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan - and with the widespread acceptance of Predator drone strikes killing scores of innocent civilians, it would appear that USA has finally succumbed to unmoderated fascism.

I don't see how a Western peace movement can form around a type of warfare conducted with the use of publicly approved assassinations, bombings with a zero loss of American or European lives, and with clandestine CIA operations.

As the economy is strained, and everybody's struggling to stay afloat, and while the US Congress faces a possible government shut-down over budget cut talks, and even airs the possibility of defaulting on their public debt, many two-faced people in Europe and America are revealing their true face: Belligerent, nationalist, racist.

There Will Be Blood

We still don't know if Osama bin Laden ever ordered the attack on New York on September 11, 2001. He has denied it himself, and the video where he brags about it, appears to be a hoax. There are strong indications 9-11 was an inside job, even if the case is hard to make, and we must assume the conspiracy theory will never catch on in the mainstream media or the public.

We can reasonably assume Osama bin Laden is dead, but we cannot really know for sure if he was killed on May 2, 2011. He could have been dead a long time ago, as other sources than Washington claim. There are no photos or video from the operation. His body is gone. And the video of Osama bin Laden watching TV in his lair also appears to be phony.

The point of this is not so much to contest the official explanation as to point to the fact that there is no official explanation anymore, only spin and mirage and endlessly morphing narratives. Nobody's to be trusted, least of all Washington officials.

But we cannot even trust the people anymore. They do not hold a vision or an alternative, more humane version of reality. They possess no barriers to relentless mind control excercised on them by the mass media in which any statement from a government authority is still considered legitimate truth.

There is only a veil of feigned civilized behavior between the Islamic extremists the world is taught to fear and the warmongering zealots inside the fortresses of USA and Europe, where new and desperate forms of nationalism are growing in the putrid air of cultural conflict and economic recession.

Ganging up in tribal communities, lashing out and seeking scapegoats, and crossing moral boundaries in pursuit of ultimate victory - torture, assassination, militarism - has become commonplace, and reports barely raise a shrug. All and all, it spells genocide.

Homogeneity is what people now seek, not heterogeneity. The vision of mankind united, or at least cooperating to solve the economic, political and ecological problems we are collectively facing, is being discarded in the general confusion.

Even in USA the multi-cultural vision is dying, and without much regret, as it would appear most people think they will somehow find themselves in the comfortable end of the cattle stick.

The Occident no longer needs to feel threatened from the outside, or from hordes of "primitive people" invading their shores and "stealing their jobs" or "undermining stability."

They are, themselves, in the process of snuffing out the light.

It is May 2011. This is what I have lived to see.