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Brutality CanadaPolice Brutality O Canada |
On Wednesday (October 24, 2001), we received a message regarding the investigation of Sunera Thobani on hate crime charges after a speech she made criticizing US foreign policty. However by evening, we read that the investigation had been called off. This still constitutes police harassment and a dangerous assault on this woman's right to freedom of speech. She herself has received many angry calls and messages. With the passing of the anti terrorism bill c-36 now being pushed through the Canadian legislature, concerned citizens and activists must be vigilant and speak out against the complete destruction of these precious rights.
On this page: Ms Thobani's speech, her response to the allegations and the article from the Ottawa Citizen.
My recent speech at a women's conference on violence against women has generated much controversy. In the aftermath of the terrible attacks of September 11, I argued that the U.S. response of launching 'America's new war' would increase violence against women. I situated the current crisis within the continuity of North/South relations, rooted in colonialism and imperialism. I criticized American foreign policy, as well as President Bush's racialized construction of the American Nation. Finally, I spoke of the need for solidarity with Afghan women's organizations as well as the urgent necessity for the women's movement in Canada to oppose the war.
Decontextualized and distorted media reports of my address have led to accusations of me being an academic impostor, morally bankrupt and engaging in hate-mongering. It has been fascinating to observe how my comments regarding American foreign policy, a record well documented by numerous sources whose accuracy or credentials cannot be faulted, have been dubbed 'hate-speech.' To speak about the indisputable record of U.S. backed coups, death squads, bombings and killings ironically makes me a 'hate-monger.' I was even made the subject of a 'hate-crime' complaint to the RCMP,alleging that my speech was a 'hate-crime.'
Despite the virulence of these responses, I welcome the public discussion my speech has generated as an opportunity to further the public debate about Canada's support of America's new war. When I made the speech, I believed it was imperative to have this debate before any attacks were launched on any country. Events have overtaken us with the bombing of Afghanistan underway and military rule having been declared in Pakistan. The need for this discussion has now assumed greater urgency as reports of casualties are making their way into the news. My speech at the women's conference was aimed at mobilizing the women's movement against this war. I am now glad for this opportunity to address wider constituencies and in different fora.
First, however, a few words about my location: I place my work within the tradition of radical, politically engaged scholarship. I have always rejected the politics of academic elitism which insist that academics should remain above the fray of political activism and use only disembodied, objectified language and a 'properly' dispassionate professorial demeanor to establish our intellectual credentials. My work is grounded in the politics, practices and languages of the various communities I come from, and the social justice movements to which I am committed.
In the aftermath of the terrible September 11th attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, the Bush administration launched "America's War on Terrorism." Eschewing any role for the United Nations and the need toabide by international law, the US administration initiated an international alliance to justify its unilateral military action against Afghanistan.
One of its early coalition partners was the Canadian government which committed its unequivocal support for whatever forms of assistance the United States might request. In this circumstance, it is entirely reasonable that people in Canada examine carefully the record of American foreign policy.
As I observed in my speech, this record is alarming and does not inspire confidence. In Chile, the CIA-backed coup against the democratically elected Allende government led to the deaths of over 30,000 people. In El Salvador, the U.S. backed regime used death squads to kill about 75,000 people. In Nicaragua, the U.S. sponsored terrorist contra war led to the deaths of over 30,000 people. The initial bombing of Iraq left over 200,000 dead, and the bombings have continued for the last ten years. UNICEF estimates that over one million Iraqis have died, and that 5,000 more die every month as a result of the U.N. imposed sanctions, enforced in their harshest form by U.S. power.
The list does not stop here. 150,000 were killed and 50,000 disappeared in Guatemala after the 1954 CIA-sponsored coup; over 2 million were killed in Vietnam; and 200,000 before that in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear attacks. Numerous authoritarian regimes have been backed by the United States including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the apartheid regime in South Africa, Suharto's dictatorship in Indonesia, Marcos in the Philippines, and Israel's various occupations of Lebanon, the Golan Heights and the Palestinian territories. The U.S. pattern of foreign intervention has been to overthrow leftist governments and to impose right wing regimes which in turn support U.S. interests, even if this means training and using death squads and assassinating leftist politicians and activists. To this end, it has a record of treating civilians as entirely expendable.
It is in this context that I made my comment that the United States is the largest and most dangerous global force, unleashing horrific levels of violence around the world, and that the path of U.S. foreign policy is soaked in blood. The controversy generated by this comment has surprisingly not addressed the veracity of this assessment of the U.S. record. Instead, it has focused on my tone and choice of words (inflammatory, excessive, inelegant, un-academic, angry, etc.).
Now I have to admit that my use of the words 'horrific violence' and 'soaked in blood' is very deliberate and carefully considered. I do not use these words lightly. To successive United States administrations the deaths resulting from its policies have been just so many statistics, just so much 'collateral damage.' Rendering invisible the humanity of the peoples targeted for attack is a strategy well used to hide the impact of colonialist and imperialist interventions. Perhaps there is no more potent a strategy of dehumanization than to proudly proclaim the accuracy and efficiency of 'smart' weapons systems, and of surgical and technological precision, while rendering invisible the suffering bodies of these peoples as disembodied statistics and mere 'collateral damage.'
The use of embodied language, grounded in the recognition of the actual blood running through these bodies, is an attempt to humanize these peoples in profoundly graphic terms. It compels us to recognize the sheer corporeality of the terrain upon which bombs rain and mass terror is waged. This language calls on 'us' to recognize that 'they' bleed just like 'we' do, that 'they' hurt and suffer just like 'us.' We are complicit in this bloodletting when we support American wars. Witness the power of this embodiment in the shocked and horrified responses to my voice and my words, rather than to the actual horror of these events.
I will be the first to admit that it is extremely unnerving to 'see' blood in the place of abstract, general categories and statistics. Yet this is what we need to be able to see if we are to understand the terrible human costs of empire-building. We have all felt the shock and pain of repeatedly witnessing the searing images of violence unleashed upon those who died in New York and Washington. The stories we have heard from their loved ones have made us feel their terrible human loss. Yet where do we witness the pain of the victims of U.S. aggression? How do we begin to grasp the extent of their loss? Whose humanity do we choose to recognize and empathize with, and who becomes just so much 'collateral damage' to us?
Anti-colonial and anti-imperialist movements and theorists have long insisted on placing the bodies and experiences of marginalized others at the centre of our analysis of the social world. To fail to do so at this moment in history would be unconscionable.
In the aftermath of the responses to my speech, I am more convinced than ever of the need to engage in the language and politics of embodied thinking and speaking. After all, it is the lives, and deaths, of millions of human beings we are discussing. This is neither a controversial nor a recent demand. Feminists (such as of Mahasweta Devi, Toni Morrison, Gayatri Spivak and Patricia Williams) have forcefully drawn our attention to what is actually done to women's bodies in the course of mapping out racist colonial relations.
Frantz Fanon, one of the foremost theorists of decolonization, studied and wrote about the role of violence in colonial social organization and about the psychology of oppression; but he described just as readily the bloodied, violated black bodies and the "searing bullets" and "blood-stained knives" which were the order of the day in the colonial world. Eduardo Galeano entitled one of his books The Open Veins of Latin America and the post-colonial theorist Achille Mbembe talks of the "mortification of the flesh," of the "mutilation" and "decapitation" of oppressed bodies. Aime Cesaire's poetry pulses with the physicality of blood, pain, fury and rage in his outcry against the domination of African bodies. Even Karl Marx, recognized as one of the founding fathers of the modern social sciences, wrote trenchant critiques of capital, exploitation, and classical political economy; and did not flinch from naming the economic system he was studying 'vampire capitalism.' In attempting to draw attention to the violent effects of abstract and impersonal policies, I claim a proud intellectual pedigree.
In my speech I argued that in order to legitimize the imperialist aggression which the Bush administration is undertaking, the President is invoking an American nation and people as being vengeful and bloodthirsty. It is de rigueur in the social sciences to acknowledge that the notion of a 'nation' or a 'people' is socially constructed. The American nation is no exception.
If we consider the language used by Bush and his administration to mobilize this nation for the war, we encounter the following: launching a crusade; operation infinite justice; fighting the forces of evil and darkness; fighting the barbarians; hunting down the evil-doers; draining the swamps of the Middle East, etc., etc. This language is very familiar to peoples who have been colonized by Europe. Its use at this moment in time reveals that it is a fundamentalist and racialized western ideology which is being mobilized to rally the troops and to build a national and international consensus in defence of 'civilization.' It suggests that anyone who hesitates to join in is also 'evil' and 'uncivilized.'
In this vein, I have repeatedly been accused of supporting extremist Islamist regimes merely for criticizing US foreign policy and western colonialism. Another tactic to mobilize support for the war has been the manipulation of public opinion. Polls conducted in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks were used to repeatedly inform us that the overwhelming majority of Americans allegedly supported a strong military retaliation. They did not know against whom, but they purportedly supported this strategy anyway.
In both the use of language and these polls, we are witnessing what Noam Chomsky has called the "manufacture of consent." Richard Lowry, editor of the National Review opined, "If we flatten part of Damascus or Tehran or whatever it takes, this is part of the solution." President Bush stated, "We will bear no distinction between those who commit the terrorist attacks and those who harbour them." Even as the bombing began last weekend, he declared that the war is "broader" than against just Afghanistan, that other nations have to decide if they side with his administration or if they are "murderers and outlaws themselves."
We have been asked by most public commentators to accept the calls for military aggression against "evil-doers" as natural, understandable and even reasonable, given the attacks on the United States. I reject this position.
It would be just as understandable a response to re-examine American foreign policy, to address the root causes of the violent attacks on the United States, and to make a commitment to abide by international law. In my speech, I urged women to break through this discourse of 'naturalizing' the military aggression, and recognize it for what it is, vengeful retribution and an opportunity for a crude display of American military might. We are entitled to ask: Who will make the decision regarding which 'nations' are to be labeled as "murderers" and "outlaws"? Which notions of 'justice' are to be upheld? Will the Bush administration set the standard, even as it is overtly institutionalizing racial profiling across the United States?
I make very clear distinctions between people in America and their government's call for war. Many people in America are seeking to contest the 'national' consensus being manufactured by speaking out and by organizing rallies and peace marches in major cities, about which there has been very little coverage in Canada. Irresponsible media reporting of my comments which referred to Bush's invocation of the American nation as a vengeful one deliberately took my words out of this context, repeating them in one television broadcast after another in a grossly distorted fashion.
My choice of language was, again, deliberate. I wanted to bring attention to Bush's right wing, fundamentalist leanings and to the neo-colonialist/imperialist practices of his administration. The words 'bloodthirsty' and 'vengeful' are designations most people are quite comfortable attributing to 'savages' and to the 'uncivilized,' while the United States is represented as the beacon of democracy and civilization. The words 'bloodthirsty' and 'vengeful' make us confront the nature of the ideological justification for this war, as well as its historical roots, unsettling and discomforting as that might be.
I have been taken to task for stating that there will be no emancipation for women anywhere until western domination of the planet is ended. In my speech I pointed to the importance of Afghanistan for its strategic location near Central Asia's vast resources of oil and natural gas. I think there is very little argument that the West continues to dominate and consume a vast share of the world's resources. This is not a controversial statement. Many prominent intellectuals, journalists and activists alike, have pointed out that this domination is rooted in the history of colonialism and rests on the ongoing maintenance of the North/South divide, and that it will continue to provoke violence and resistance across the planet. I argued that in the current climate of escalating militarism, there will be precious little emancipation for women, either in the countries of the North or the South.
In the specific case of Afghanistan, it was the American administration's economic and political interests which led to its initial support for, and arming of, Hekmatyar's Hezb i Islami and its support for Pakistan's collaboration in, and organization of, the Taliban regime in the mid-1990s. According to the Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid, the United States and Unocal conducted negotiations with the Taliban for an oil pipeline through Afghanistan for years in the mid-1990s. We have seen the horrendous consequences this has had for women in Afghanistan. When Afghan women's groups were calling attention to this U.S. support as a major factor in the Taliban regime's coming to power, we did not heed them. We did not recognize that Afghan women's groups were in the front line resisting the Taliban and its Islamist predecessors, including the present militias of the Northern Alliance. Instead, we chose to see them only as 'victims' of 'Islamic culture,' to be pitied and 'saved' by the West.
Time and time again, third world feminists have pointed out to us the pitfalls of rendering invisible the agency and resistance of women of the South, and of reducing women's oppression to various third world 'cultures.' Many continue to ignore these insights. Now, the U.S. administration has thrown its support behind the Northern Alliance, even as Afghan women's groups oppose the U.S. military attacks on Afghanistan, and raise serious concerns about the record of the Northern Alliance in perpetuating human rights abuses and violence against women in the country.
If we listen to the voices of these women, we will very quickly be disabused of the notion that U.S. military intervention is going to lead to the emancipation of women in Afghanistan. Even before the bombings began, hundreds of thousands of Afghan women were compelled to flee their homes and communities, and to become refugees. The bombings of Kabul, Kandahar, Jalalabad and other cities in the country will result in further loss of life, including the lives of women and children. Over three million Afghan refugees are now on the move in the wake of the U.S. attacks. How on earth can we justify these bombings in the name of furthering women's emancipation?
My second point was that imperialism and militarism do not further women's liberation in westerm countries either. Women have to be brought into line to support racist imperialist goals and practices, and they have to live with the men who have been brutalized in the waging of war when these men come back. Men who kill women and children abroad are hardly likely to come back cured of the effects of this brutalization. Again, this is not a very controversial point of view. Women are taught to support military aggressions, which is then presented as being in their 'national' interest.
These are hardly the conditions in which women's freedoms can be furthered. As a very small illustration, just witness the very public vilification I have been subjected to for speaking out in opposition to this war.
I have been asked by my detractors that if I, as a woman, I am so critical of western domination, why do I live here? It could just as readily be asked of them that if they are so contemptuous of the non-western world, why do they so fervently desire the oil, trade, cheap labour and other resources of that world? Challenges to our presence in the West have long been answered by people of colour who say, We are here because you were (are?) there! Migrants find ourselves in multiple locations for a myriad of reasons, personal, historical and political. Wherever we reside, however, we claim the right to speak and participate in public life.
My speech was made to rally the women's movement in Canada to oppose the war. Journalists and editors across the country have called me idiotic, foolish, stupid and just plain nutty. While a few journalists and columnists have attempted balanced coverage of my speech, too many sectors of the media have resorted to vicious personal attacks. Like others, I must express a concern that this passes for intelligent commentary in the mainstream media. The manner in which I have been vilified is difficult to understand, unless one sees it as a visceral response to an 'ungrateful immigrant' or an uppity woman of colour who dares to speak out. Vituperation and ridicule are two of the most common forms of silencing dissent. The subsequent harassment and intimidation which I have experienced, as have some of my colleagues, confirms that the suppression of debate is more important to many supporters of the current frenzied war rhetoric than is the open discussion of policy and its effects. Fortunately, I have also received strong messages of support. Day by day the opposition to this unconscionable war is growing in Canada and all over the world.
I would like to thank all of my family, friends, colleagues and allies who have supported and encouraged me.
Sunera Thobani
GREG JOYCE
Canadian Press
Wednesday, October 24, 2001
VANCOUVER (CP) - A University of B.C. professor will not be charged with hate crimes for a recent speech that criticized U.S. foreign policy, drew widespread angry reaction and prompted a hate complaint to police, her lawyer said Wednesday.
Sunera Thobani, a professor of women's studies, said in a speech in Ottawa to a women's conference that the U.S. government - not international terrorism - is the most dangerous global force, "unleashing prolific levels of violence all over the world." "From Chile to El Salvador, to Nicaragua to Iraq, the path of U.S. foreign policy is soaked in blood," she said in her speech.
Her remarks came less than three weeks after the devastating Sept. 11 attack by terrorists on Washington and New York City.
Toronto lawyer Clayton Ruby said he had been informed by Ottawa police that their investigation was over.
He also again criticized the RCMP member of the B.C. Hate Crimes Unit for telling reporters that a hate crime complaint had been made against Thobani by an unidentified person.
Ottawa police would not confirm or deny the investigation was over, but told reporters to contact Ruby.
"Their (Ottawa police) policy is not to identify any investigation by a person's name because it stigmatizes them," said Ruby.
"That's why, unlike your local Mounties (in Vancouver) hate crimes unit, nobody else in the country announces investigations or clearings."
The public exposure that Thobani received as a result of the complaint prompted police to announce publicly that no charges against her were being considered, said Ruby.
"We're announcing (no charges) because in view of the fact that the Mounties gave up such publicity, we want to make sure everyone understands the complaint was dismissed."
He said Thobani never believed she had committed a hate crime.
"She's taking it fine because she never believed for a minute that she'd come close to committing a hate crime," he said.
On Thobani's instructions, Ruby said he has filed a complaint about the actions of the RCMP hate crimes unit member with the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP.
The original complainant, a B.C. resident whom police will not name, alleged that Thobani violated the Criminal Code during her speech.
Thobani could not be reached for comment.
Glenn Bohn
Vancouver Sun
Thursday, October 18, 2001
University of B.C. professor Sunera Thobani says the angry response to her speech criticizing U.S. foreign policy may be due to her race, sex and newcomer's status in Canada.
"The manner in which I have been vilified is difficult to understand, unless one sees it as a visceral response to an 'ungrateful immigrant' or an uppity woman of colour who dares to speak out," says Tanzanian-born Thobani, who moved to Canada with her young daughter in 1989.
Thobani, who has granted few interviews since her speech, and couldn't be reached for comment Wednesday, made the statement in her most detailed public defence so far of the Oct. 1 speech she made in Ottawa to a Women's Resistance Conference.
The statements were in a five-page essay for the Vancouver Independent Media Centre, which posted it Tuesday on its Web site, www.vancouver.indymedia.org
(Professor Sunera Thobani expressed criticism of US foreign policy in a speech delivered to a women's meeting October 1, 2001.
We, and this "we" is really problematic. If we in the West are all Americans now, what are Third World women and Aboriginal women to do? If Canadians are Americans now, what are women of colour to do in this country? And I'm open to suggestions for changing this title, but I thought I would stick with it as a working title for getting my ideas together for making this presentation this morning.
I'm very glad that the conference opened with Tina (Tina Beads, of the Vancouver Rape Relief Women's Shelter) and I'm very glad for the comments that she made, but I want to say also, just (to) add to Tina's words here, that living (in) a period of escalating global interaction now on every front, on every level. And we have to recognize that this level and this particular phase of globalization is rooted in all forms of globalization in the colonization of Aboriginal peoples and Third World people all over the world. This is the basis. And so globalization continues to remain rooted in that colonization, and I think, recognize that there will be no social justice, no anti-racism, no feminist emancipation, no liberation of any kind for anybody on this continent unless Aboriginal people demand for self-determination.
The second point I want to make is that the global order that we live in, there are profound injustices in this global order. Profound injustices. Third World women...I want to say for decades, but I'm going to say for centuries, have been making the point that there can be no women's emancipation, in fact no liberation of any kind for women, will be successful unless it seeks to transform the fundamental divide between the north and south, between Third World people and those in the West who are now calling themselves Americans. That there will be no emancipation for women anywhere on this planet until the Western domination of this planet is ended.
Love thy neighbour. Love thy neighbour, we need to heed those words. Especially as all of us are being hoarded into the possibility of a massive war at the...of the United States. We need to hear those words even more clearly today. Today in the world the United States is the most dangerous and most powerful global force unleashing prolific levels of violence all over the world.
From Chile to El Salvador, to Nicaragua to Iraq, the path of U.S. foreign policy is soaked in blood. We have seen, and all of us have seen, felt, the dramatic pain of watching those attacks and trying to grasp the fact of the number of people who died. We feel the pain of that every day we have bee watching it on television. But do we feel any pain for the victims of U.S. aggression? 200,000 people killed only in the initial war on Iraq. That bombing of Iraq for 10 years now. Do we feel the pain of all the children in Iraq who are dying from the sanctions imposed by the United States? Do we feel that pain on an every-day level? Share it with our families and 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? U.S. foreign policy is soaked in blood. And other countries in the West, including shamefully, Canada, cannot line up fast enough behind it. All want to sign up now as Americans and I think it is the responsibility of the women's movement to stop that, to fight against it.
These policies are hell-bent on the West maintaining its control over the world's resources. At whatever cost to the people...Pursuing American corporate interest should not be Canada's national interest. This new fight, this new war against terrorism, that is being launched is very old. And it is a very old fight of the West against the rest. Consider the language which is being used...
Calling the perpetrators evil-doers, irrational, calling them the forces of darkness, uncivilized, intent on destroying civilization, intent on destroying democracy...Every person of colour, and I would want to say every Aboriginal person, will recognize this language. The language of us letting civilization representing the forces of darkness, this language is rooted in the colonial legacy. It was used to justify our colonization by Europe...
We were colonized in the name of the West bringing civilization, democracy, bringing freedom to us. All of us recognize who is being talked about when that language is used. The terms crusade, infinite justice, cowboy imagery of dead or alive posters, we all know what they mean. The West, people in the West also recognize who this fight is against. Cries heard all over the Western world, we are all Americans now. People who are saying that recognize who the fight is against. People who are attacking Muslims, any person of colour who looks like they could be from the Middle East, without distinguishing, recognizing who this fight is against. These are not just slips of the tongue that Bush quickly tries to reject. These are not slips of the tongue. They reveal a thinking, a mindset. And it is 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 slips of mind, just slips of the tongue. They're not. They reveal the thinking, and the thinking is based on dominating the rest of the world in the name of bringing freedom and civilization to it.
If we look also at the people who are being targeted for attack. A Sikh man killed? Reports of a Cherokee woman in the United States having been killed? Pakistan is attacked. Hindu temples attacked. Muslim mosques attacked regardless of where the Muslims come from. These people also recognize who this fight is against. And it is due to the strength of anti-racist organizing that Bush has been forced to visit mosques, that our prime minister has been forced also to visit mosques and say, no there shouldn't be this kind of attack. We should recognize that it is the strength of anti-racist organizing is forcing them to make those remarks.
But even...but even as they visit mosques, and even as they make these conciliatory noises, they are talking out of both sides of the mouth because they are officially sanctioning racial profiling at the borders, in the United States, for entrance into training schools, for learning to become pilots, at every step of the way. On an airplane, who is suspicious, who is not? Racial profiling is being officially sanctioned and officially introduced. In Canada we know that guidelines, the Globe and Mail leaked, the guidelines were given to immigration officers at the border, who to step up security watch is on.
So on the one hand, they say no, it's not all Muslims, on the other hand they say yes, we are going to use racial profiling because it is reasonable. So we have to see how they are perpetrating the racism against people of colour, at the same time that they claim to be speaking out against it. And these are the conditions, the conditions of racial profiling. These are the conditions within which children are being bullied and targeted in schools, women are being chased in parking lots and shopping malls, we are being scrutinized as we even come to conferences like that, extra scrutiny, you can feel the coldness when you enter the airport. I was quite amazed. I have been travelling in this country for 10 years, and I have never had the experience that I had flying down here for this conference. All of us feel it. So this racial profiling has to be stopped.
Events of the last two weeks also show that the American people that Bush is trying to invoke, whoever they are these American people, just like we contest notions of who the Canadian people are, we have to recognize that there are other voices in the United States as well, contesting that. But the people, the American nation that Bush is invoking, is a people which is bloodthirsty, vengeful, and calling for blood. They don't care whose blood it is, they want blood. And that has to be confronted. We cannot keep calling this an understandable response. We cannot say yes, we understand that this is how people would respond because of the attacks. We have to stop condoning it and creating a climate of acceptability for this kind of response. We have to call it for what it is: Bloodthirsty vengeance.
And people in the United State, we have seen peace marches all over this weekend, they also are contesting this. But Bush is (the) definition of the American nation and the American people need to be challenged here. How can he keep calling them a democracy? How can we keep saying that his response is understandable after Bush of all people, who stole the election, how can we ever accept that this is democracy?
Canada's approach has been mixed, it has said yes, we will support the United States but with caution. It will be a cautionary support. We want to know what the actions will be before we sign on and we want to know this has been Canada's approach. And I have to say we have to go much further. Canada has to say we reject U.S. policy in the Middle East. We do not support it.
And it's really interesting to hear all this talk about Afghani women. Those of us who have been colonized know what this saving means. For a long time now, Afghani women, and the struggles they were engaged in, were known here in the West. Afghani women became almost the poster child for women's oppression in the Third World. And, rightfully so, many of us were in solidarity. Afghani women of that time were fighting against and struggling against the Taliban. They were condemning their particular interpretation of Islam. Afghani women, Afghanistan women's organizations were on the front line of this. But what (did) they become in the West? In the West they became nothing but poor victims of this bad, bad religion, and of (these) backward, backward men. The same old colonial construction. They were in the frontline, we did not take the lead from them then, where we could see them more as victims, only worthy of our pity and today, even in the United States, people are ready to bomb those women, seeing them as nothing more than collateral damage. You see how quickly the world can change. And I say that we take the lead from Afghani women. They fought back against the Taliban, and when they were fighting back they said that it is the United States putting this regime in power. That's what they were saying. They were saying, look at U.S. foreign policy!
They were trying to draw out attention to who was responsible for this state of affairs, to who was actually supporting regimes as women all over the Middle East had been doing. Sorry, just two more minutes and I'll be done. So I say we take the lead from them and even if there is no American bombing of Afghanistan, which is what all of us should be working right now to do, is to stop any move to bomb Afghanistan, even if there is no bombing of Afghanistan, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people have already been displaced, fleeing the threat of war--you see the power of America here, right? One word in Washington and millions of people are forced to flee their houses, their communities, right? So, even if there is no bombing, we have to bear in mind how many women's lives have already been disrupted, destroyed, and will take generations for them to put back together again.
Inevitably, and very depressing in Canada is of course, turning to the enemy within--immigrants and refugees, right? Scapegoating of refugees, tighter immigration laws, all the right-wing forces in this community, in this country, calling for that kind of approach. This is depressing for women of colour, immigrant and refugee women, anything happens, even if George Bush was to get a cold, we know somehow it'll be the fault of immigrants and refugees in Canada, and our quote-unquote lax border policies. So I'm not going to say much about it, but I just want to expose you to how, this...continues to be resurrected anytime over anything in the world.
In terms of any kind of military action, Angela Davis (an American activist) asked in the '70s, she said, "do you think the men who are going to fight in Vietnam, who are going to kill Vietnamese women and children, who are raping Vietnamese women, do you think they will come home and there will be no effect of all of this? On women in the United States?" she was asking this in the 70s.
That question is relevant today. All these fighters that are going to be sent there, we think there will be no effect? For our women, when they come back here? So I think that that is something that we need to think about, as we talk about the responses, as we talk this kind of jingoistic military-ism. And recognize that, as the most heinous form of patriarchal, racist violence that we're seeing on the globe today. The women's movement, we have to stand up to this. There is no option. There's 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. We have to recognize that the fight is for control of the vast oil and gas resources in central Asia, for which Afghanistan is a key, strategic point!
There's nothing new about this, this is more of the same that we have been now fighting for so many decades. And we want to recognize, we have to recognize that the calls that are coming from progressive groups in the Third World, and in their supporters, in their allies, in the rest of the world, the three key demands they are asking for: End the bombing of Iraq, lift the sanctions on Iraq, who in this room will not support that demand? Resolve the Palestinian question, that's the second one. And remove the American military bases, anywhere in the Middle East. Who will not demand, support these demands?
We have to recognize that these demands are rooted in anti-imperialist struggle and that we have to support these demands. We need to end the racist colonization of Aboriginal peoples in this country, certainly, but we need to make common calls with women across the world who are fighting to do this. Only then can we talk about anti-racist, feminist politics, only then can we talk about international solidarity in women's movements across the world. And in closing, just one word--the lesson we have learned, and the lesson that our politicians should have learned, is that you cannot slaughter 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 able to do so this time either.
Thank you very much.
Prof. Sunera Thobani
Transcript provided by the Cable Public Affairs Channel.
www.straightgoods.com
In an email message, Pam Frache wrote:
"This past week it was announced that Professor Thobani was being investigated by the RCMP for a potential violation of Section 319 of the Canada Criminal Code--inciting hatred against an identifiable group.
As people may know, Professor Thobani expressed criticism of US foreign policy in a speech delivered to a women's meeting October 1. Since then, she has been vilified in the media and is now, apparently, under criminal investigation. Such an application of the law is the antithesis of the intent of that legislation. It is now being used to limit dissent.
It is critical that we support this attack on academic freedom and the right to free speech. Please forward this message, add your name and seek endorsements from your organisation. We will be contacting all signatories in the future for further activities related to this matter.
In solidarity,
Pam Frache
Ontario Campaigns and Government Relations Coordinator
Canadian Federation of Students
Please see http://www.cfsontario.ca/freespeech/.
For background information, please see www.rabble.ca and look for the following article: "Mediating Thobani".
Reprinted under the Fair Use doctrine of international copyright law.
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This page created October 23, 2001
