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Sitting in one's 'phew'

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  • Sitting in one's 'phew'

    Sitting in one's 'phew'

    Trinidad & Tobago Express, Trinidad and Tobago
    June 1 2004

    Going back to one's school days and scrolling through the circuitry
    of the hippocampus I am sure that some will recall their first risqué
    jokes. There were several "Confucius says" jokes, mostly unprintable,
    but the one that comes to mind with the degrading and abusive Iraqi
    torture scenes is-"Confucius says man who breaks wind in church must
    sit in his own 'phew'".

    Whatever the excuses and apologies, and the ultimate reality, there
    is no doubt that Bush and his cronies have produced a really massive
    silent and deadly. So much for freedom and democracy, human rights,
    American values and un-American behaviour, as if humanity can ever
    forget the various atrocities of past United States governments.
    Slavery? Indian wars? Wounded Knee? Haiti? Tokyo? Hiroshima? My Lai?
    Agent Orange? Hanoi? These are integral and defining aspects of
    American history. But in all fairness to them there have been many
    comparable atrocities elsewhere. The genocide of the Armenians? The
    Holocaust? The Warsaw ghetto? Lidice? Oradour sur Glane? Cologne?
    Dresden? The Gulag? Apartheid? Laos? Sabra? Shatila? Rwanda? And now
    the Vatican condemns the torture in Iraq! Really! Kevin Baldeosingh
    can thank his lucky stars that he lives today not then when the
    Vatican prevailed.

    The thing is that victors and the more powerful in conflicts or wars
    supposedly never commit atrocities, only the conquered. But we should
    not be too hard on the United States Ambassador. He is, after all,
    only doing what his employer requires of him. The only possibility
    of faulting him is that unlike all the other heads of missions who
    are discrete in what they say publicly, he feels that he is free to
    say anything to the public, hence my column "Sensitivity Americana".
    Possibly he thinks that as citizens of an American satellite client
    state, most citizens will conform. Possibly also he considers us no
    more than an energy source for the US economy. He of course has a
    choice. Conform and he holds the job. Dissent and he is recalled. His
    public utterances are what Washington directs. He could continue to
    project "American values". This however might have little influence
    of the views of many thinking citizens who will remember the history
    of the USA, its violence, its gun obsession, its drug culture, its
    support of right wing dictators and interventions in many countries
    in the western hemisphere.

    My guess is that he will simply continue to conform as all our
    Government Senator Ministers opt to do. It continues to perplex many
    however that he did not focus on one of the towering strengths of
    the American way-its vibrant media, a real fourth estate. It was a
    pair of military personnel with consciences and the American media
    that exposed the horror and butchery of My Lai, something that was
    known about at the highest levels, even one holding office today,
    and something that was pardoned by a Republican president. After all
    the victims were merely gooks like the lynched blacks of Alabama or
    slaughtered Indians at Wounded Knee.

    Having written over 100 columns for the Express over the past two
    years or so I have on occasion expressed comments that may have
    been critical of both the Panday and Manning administrations and of
    other parts of the state apparatus. The criticisms have been on the
    nature of the policies of these administrations but I have tried
    to be constructive. Does that make me anti-Trinidadian"? Anti-UNC?
    Anti-PNM? Indeed if anyone reads this column at the High Commission
    in London they may be reminded that a member of the Commission made
    the observation about me to my brother at a function in far off
    Aberdeen-"your brother is a great patriot"!

    Possibly this was only being diplomatic but I do in fact care for the
    citizens of this country and for future generations and in any thing
    that I write I try to be constructive. If anything most columnists and
    leader writers aim at following in the traditions of the independent
    minds who have written over the decades in the quality press of the
    United States of America and the United Kingdom, countries in whose
    shadows we live. Columns may be anti-foreign policy without being
    anti-people. If any thing it is simply being anti-imperialism and
    pro-Trinidad and Tobago and its interests as a democratic sovereign
    nation with constitutional guarantees of freedom of expression and
    the press.

    Much of what is wrong in the USA has come to light from a vibrant media
    in that country. Indeed we would not have known of the photographs
    of the tortured Iraqis except for the CBS, the New Yorker and the
    Washington Post.

    Torture and humiliation is not exactly new to human society as
    there is an extensive written and pictorial record of its use in
    conflicts between cultures, the word culture being used in its broad
    not Trinidadian sense. It has been done in the name of God, revenge,
    self-defence, manifest destiny, conquest, colonialism, lebensraum,
    trade or whatever have you. And now we have torture and humiliation
    of Iraqi prisoners. These by any interpretation are war crimes and
    no amount of platitudes about American values, or the America I know,
    or an isolated incident not reflecting all those brave, motivated and
    highly trained military personnel serving their country "in harm's way"
    of which we are proud.

    Much is now being made of the beheading of an unfortunate
    American entrepreneur or contractor. Should the photographic
    image of an atrocity be worse than an un-photographed un-recorded
    atrocity? Does anyone really know of the numbers of un-photographed
    torture incidents? But more important is the fact that the torture
    has deflected attention from the greater abuse of the terminal
    collateralisation of the uncounted hundreds or thousands of innocent
    Iraqis. Are not the Iraqis in harm's way? Especially the young and
    innocent? More of them seem to have been killed. An eight-year old
    girl disembowelled by a single bullet? And Rumsfeld is proud of his
    occupying forces.

    Again, we are dealing with a clash of cultures, and one that is
    in essence no different from previous clashes over the past ten
    millennia. Technologies may differ but in all there will be torture,
    humiliation and death and destruction. The victors project themselves
    as God fearing champions for freedom and democracy as opposed to
    monsters, brutal terrorists and murderers. There are many dimensions to
    the current ongoing war in Iraq. One of these is the imbalance between
    the technologies available. The side with the weaker technology and
    resources will do every thing to resist. But again while we decry the
    American torture and abuse of their prisoners and while some praise
    Amnesty International for blowing the gaff on them, perhaps we might
    reflect on the torture that we inflict on the prison population in
    Trinidad and Tobago. Torture by neglect can be as dehumanising as
    torture with intent, in the same way that there is no difference
    between being beheaded by a hand applied sword, a hand-triggered
    rocket or artillery shell.

    We like our American masters do not like to see reality. Does anyone
    really believe that our media would ever be allowed freedom to film
    the reality of the conditions in the Royal Jail described by an
    officer of Amnesty International? We too are sitting in our own "phew".
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