ZGram - 9.17/2002 - "A New Theology of Power" /

[irimland@zundelsite.org]

ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny

September 17, 2002

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

A New Theology of Power

by M. Shahid Alam

[START]

"This book sounds an alarm: Israel, through the deep and pervasive 
power of its lobby, threatens deeply-cherished American 
values-especially free speech, academic freedom and our commitment to 
human rights."

Paul Findlay, They Dare To Speak Out (1985)

In 1982, Paul Findley, went down in his re-election bid after serving 
in the Congress for twenty-two years, and the principal pro-Israeli 
lobby in Washington took credit for his defeat. What was the 
Congressman's crime? He had crossed a line drawn by the Israeli lobby 
in United States; he had violated the ban on meeting Arafat.

This past week I too had a small taste of the same medicine. No, I am 
not a public figure, nor had I met with Arafat or any other 
Palestinian degraded to "terrorist" ranks by Israel's lexical 
offensive. I am only a professor, an obscure peddler of dissent, who, 
once tenure was secured, had been left reasonably well-alone by 
school administrators, colleagues, and assorted self-appointed 
censors. How then did I get into trouble?

Over the past year, however, I began to cross that thin line which I 
should have known one crosses only at some peril. I began to talk and 
write about Israel. None of this would have been newsworthy if I had 
been reading from the script; but I was not. Instead, I began calling 
a spade a spade. In other words, I was stepping over the line.

Although invisible, this line is like a charged electrical cable. I 
first stepped on this cable when I spoke at a seminar on September 11 
at Northeastern University in October 2001. I had planned on 
providing a historical backdrop to the attacks on the Twin Towers, 
drawing attention to the record of French, British and American 
interventions in the region. My principal concern was that such an 
attempt, so soon after September 11, might be greeted with hostility. 
To my pleasant surprise, I was proved wrong. At the end of the 
seminar, not a few stepped forward to thank me for speaking out.

But the matter did not end there. I was informed by the Chair of my 
department soon after the talk that a colleague had emailed to 
complain that I had departed from the announced theme of the seminar. 
Later, the same day, as I was walking across the campus, I was 
stopped by a professor who informed me that he was at my talk, and he 
proceeded to accuse me of "hate speech." Apparently, he had been 
troubled by a passing reference to the peculiar history of Israel.

The impact of September 11 on the lives of Americans was best summed 
up by the feeling that it had changed every thing. I shared in 
America's grief at the wanton loss of human lives, the first in their 
recent history; though I had known this grief before, many times 
before. September 11 was changing me too. I was witnessing the 
curtailment of civil liberties in United States, growing attacks on 
Islam, and the triumph of lobbies who wanted United States to wage 
endless wars against the rest of the world. I decided to step out of 
my academic shell. It was time to speak to some real issues.

Among other things, when a campaign for the academic boycott of 
Israel was initiated in early April, I decided to join the campaign. 
When I invited a few colleagues to join the boycott, one described 
the boycott as destructive, prompting me to explain why I thought 
this campaign was morally justified. I did so in an essay, "An 
Academic Boycott of Israel," which was first published in 
Counterpunch.Org on July 31, and it has since appeared on several 
websites, newspapers and discussion groups. Of course, this prompted 
both angry and supportive emails; only one threatened violence. On 
the whole I was pleased at the response.

There was worse to come. On September 3, the Jerusalem Post carried a 
report on my essay, without any mention [of] its title or substance, 
under the heading, "US Prof Justifies Palestinian Terror Attacks." 
This provoked more angry emails to me, the Chair of Economics, and 
some others at Northeastern University. Over the next two days, I was 
also contacted by The Jewish Advocate, Boston Herald, Bloomberg News, 
and The O'Reilly Factor. Although flattered by the attention, I 
declined the invitation to meet the honorable Mr. Bill O'Reilly.

On September 5, taking the cue from the Post, the Herald published 
another malicious and sensational report on my essay. It was 
headlined, "Prof Shocks Northeastern with Defense of Suicide 
Bombers." It claimed that my article "sent shock-waves through the 
=46enway campus yesterday," but quoted only one of my colleagues. This 
report too made no mention of the title or substance of my essay, 
justifiably raising suspicions about the reporter's motive. And 
although I had responded in a timely manner to their email, the 
reporter claimed that he could not contact me by phone or email.

It is curious how these reports had inverted the objective of my 
essay. My essay made a case for an academic boycott, a 
quintessentially non-violent act, as an alternative to the recent 
Palestinian acts of desperation. By showing greater solicitude for 
the Palestinians' desperate plight, I argued, international civil 
society could give hope to this beleaguered people, and persuade them 
to act with greater patience in the face of Israel's brutal military 
Occupation. The Post and Herald had twisted a moral case for 
non-violent action into justification for terror.

It would appear that I had crossed the line in advocating an academic 
boycott of Israel, and I had to be punished. To quote from Taha 
Abdul-Basser (Herald, September 9), what the Post and Herald 
"actually find distasteful is the thought that intelligent, 
well-spoken people of conscience should call for a moral stand 
against the oppressive and unjust behavior of Israel." At least in 
United States, it is the Israeli narrative that has dominated public 
discourse on policies towards the Middle East. This narrative speaks 
only of Jewish claims to Palestine, and presents Israel as a victim 
of Arab hatred of all things Western, a beleaguered outpost of 
Western civilization in an ocean of Arab barbarians. My essay was 
unacceptable because it questions this narrative.

The attacks against me perhaps are not over yet. As I was finishing 
this essay on the night of September 8, I learned that I had been 
'spoofed'-a new word in my lexicon. Someone had stolen my identity 
and sent out a malicious e-mail to administrators and colleagues at 
Northeastern. The spoof was quite crude, making it hard for anyone to 
believe it could have originated from me. Or perhaps, I am being 
na=EFve.

In the days following the September 11 attacks, President Bush had 
ad-vanced a vision of the world framed in Manichean terms. You are 
either with us, or you are against us. We are innately good, but all 
those who oppose us are evil-doers; their violence against us is 
metaphysical, it springs from their devilish nature, and has no 
political or sociological causes. Instantly, this new-fangled 
political doctrine was also transformed into a theology. It applied 
not only to countries but also to individuals, aliens and citizens 
alike. Any dissent with the Bush doctrine could be regarded as 
blasphemous, as support for terrorism. This is the new theology of 
power, whose foundations and ramifications are being worked out 
feverishly every day by hawks of every stripe.

In the same manner that Israel, Russia, China, India, and many 
smaller powers besides, have appropriated this new theology to 
suppress the legitimate resistance of various oppressed peoples as 
terrorist activities, a variety of hawkish lobbies have been using 
the media to stifle discourse by painting their opponents with the 
brush of terrorism. In attacking me, the Post and Herald reports have 
employed the same strategy.

I am afraid that if these efforts are allowed to succeed, we may soon 
witness the narrowing or, worse, the closing, of all discourse on 
history, foreign policy, rights, justice, resistance, violence, 
power, oppression, sanctions, imperialism, and--lest I be accused of 
offering a partial list [of] terrorism. We will be free only to mouth 
slogans.  Down with terrorism! Down with our enemies! Down with Islam!

[END]

M. Shahid Alam is Professor of Economics at Northeastern University, 
Boston. He can be reached at: m.alam@neu.edu

Copyright: M. Shahid Alam