| |
|
Anti-War Speech
PSD To HTML conversion is important to webmasters because they cannot use the PSD file as it is for their web pages. if you need PSD To HTML conversion service save yourself some time, effort and money and send it in to the professionals. For the past week the Canadian media and
political elites have been loudly condemning UBC Professor and former
President of the National Action Committee for the Status of Women Sunera
Thobani for making an anti-war speech at a feminist conference last
weekend. The right wing National Post newspaper lit the flames with a
front page article attacking Thobani and falsely claiming that she had
called the American people blood-thirsty. The Globe and Mail, the
opposition Canadian Alliance party and the social democratic New
Democratic Party among others have all condemned Thobani for her speech.
Additionally she has been receiving death threats and the university has
faced pressure to fire her. What is it, exactly, that Thobani said? Is the
campaign against her fuelled in part by the fact that she is a South Asian
woman of Muslim background? Is the campaign evidence of the narrowing
scope of permitted "free speech" in our society? Judge for
yourselves:
University of British Columbia Professor Sunera Thobani's presentation to
the Ottawa Women's Resistance Conference, October 1, 2001. Transcript as
provided by the Cable Public Affairs Channel.
Professor Sunera Thobani:
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 the forms of globalization in the colonization of Aboriginal peoples
and Third World peoples all over the world. That is the basis. And so
globalization continues to remain rooted in that colonization, and I
think, recognizing that we are on Aboriginal land is a very, very
important starting point for any one of our movements. But that cannot be
the end point. That cannot be the end point. And we have to 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 the 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 in the most
dangerous and the 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 been 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 that were imposed by the United States?
Do we feel that pain on an everyday 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 of 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 in this country 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,
it's 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 That hate freedom we are told. Every person of colour,
and I would want to say also every Aboriginal person, will recognize that
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 being 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 this 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. 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 pro-filing 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 States, 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 saving Afghani
women. Those of us who have been colonized know what this saving means.
For a long time now, Afghani women, and the struggles that 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 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 you. And I say that we take the lead from the Afghani women. They
fought back against the Taliban, and when they were fighting back they
said that it is the United States that is 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 have 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 to you 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 as
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 about 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, this is more of
the same that we have been now fighting for, 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 struggles 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 be able
to do so this time either.
Thank you very much.
|
|
|
