Tag: self-determination

Silence the drums

Posted on by kathiemm
The guided bomb unit-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb prototype is shown in a weapons test moments before impact. The detonation created a mushroom cloud that could be seen 20 miles away. March 11, 2003. In the public domain. Author: U.S. Air Force

by Kathie MM

Uh, oh,  the war drums are echoing around this country, as bombs drop in Syria and Iraq, in Yemen, and horrifyingly with the mother of all bombs in Afghanistan.

My response to the beating of those war drums is to urge you to read and share this excerpt from an essay by Anthony J. Marsella on total war.  Scroll down for the excerpt.  You can find the complete essay here.

” CODA. “

“It is WRONG — morally, ethically, legally — for any nation or people to pursue political, economic, and/or cultural interests, security, and safety by openly or insidiously imposing on any other nation or people, a form of political, economic, culture (e.g., values, religion, language), and/or military invasion, occupation, and control, serving to colonize, oppress, and dominate this nation or people by any and all means which limit their rights, liberties, and freedom of self-determination.

“These are my words; but THEY are not words solely of my making. These words, and the thoughts they embody and represent, appear in timeless historical documents inspired by many noble sources, including: (1) Founding documents of nations (e.g., Declaration of Independence); (2) Global organization statements (Universal Declarations of Human Rights – UDHR); (3) Statements of human aspirations for justice, dignity, freedom (e.g., The Montpelier Manifesto; Magna Carta, Gettysburg Address); (4) Liberation leaders and writers (e.g., Martin Luther Ling, Jr., Frederick Douglas, Paulo Freire, Ignacio Martin-Baro, Malcom X, Susan B. Anthony, Franz Fanon); and (5) Scores of anti-war and anti-violence advocates, who have sacrificed their lives in service to humanity and life.

“The coda speaks to the timeless human impulse for self-determination, and to resist oppression.  At the heart of the coda is an abiding determination to resist domination by foreign powers seeking to subdue, subjugate, and eliminate resistance, by any and all means. This domination strategy is known as “total war.”   

“Total War”

“Total War” is not restricted to the USA. It is a timeless strategy designed to defeat a targeted population through the use of any and all means. While “Total War” may initially give priority to military warfare over destruction of civilian and civil society survival needs, it can, however, easily morph into ethnic cleansing, mass extermination, and genocide. Recall how early American settlers and the USA engaged in the extermination Native American Indians via small pox infestations, starvation, famine, assassinations of leaders, uprooting of homelands, and punitive forced marches.  Consider also the tragic consequences of USA “total war” on Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Middle-East nations.”

by Anthony J. Marsella

When you read these powerful words, what do you want to do?  The US has shown humanitarian impulses in the past, thereby strengthening rather than weakening national security–as in helping the AXIS nations rebuild after World War II. Recently, a bipartisan group of Congressmen have petitioned Trump to put on the brakes regarding his planned expansion of war in Yemen and there are hunger strikers at UN headquarters.

DON’T JUST SILENCE THE DRUMS.  REPLACE THEM WITH RATIONALITY, GOOD SENSE, EMPATHY, A DESIRE TO PRESERVE LIFE ON EARTH.

HERE IS A GOOD PLACE TO START:

PLEASE COMMENT WITH OTHER GOOD LINKS TO HELP US ALL HELP PEACE.

Globalization for good (Globalization, Part 2)

Posted on by kathiemm
Arab Spring collage
Arab Spring collage, from Wikimedia Commons. Used under CC Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Liberal economists—the ones ballyhooing about the benefits of unfettered capitalism–have gleefully co-opted the term “globalization.” [See Forbes article]. It is this form of globalization–the one of which the multinational corporations and financial institutions are so proud–that has kept multitudes of people in near or literal slavery.

Globalization, however, involves much more than economic profits and losses, ruthless greed and numbing poverty.

Consider, for example, the United Nations. Lots of folks argue that it is an unwieldy bureaucracy failing to fulfill its mission, yet it has globalized the idea of human rights. This  achievement—anathema to the international corporate power structure–helped to change the face of the globe, and helped to free the colonies that survived not just the First but also the Second World War.

Moreover, that process has continued. Global transmission of values such as human rights, democracy, and self-determination has been fostered by globalization of systems of communication, including the social media.

The globalization of forms of quick communication is a double-edged sword, however. It can be used to promote violence as in the Rwandan genocide. It can be used by governments to spy on everyone, as in the case of the National Security Agency (NSA).  But it can also be used to promote nonviolent resistance to vicious dictators, as in much of the Arab Spring movement, and to alert people around the world to horrors being perpetrated far from their homes.

Globalization is like knowledge—it can be used for good or ill. Our goal should be globalization for good.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Nothing but a euphemism (Imperialism still stinks, Part 3)

Posted on by kathiemm

Third in a series by guest author Dr. Dahlia Wasfi

League of Nations logo.
Image in public domain.

At the end of World War I in 1918, the Arab peoples (including Iraqis, Syrians, and Palestinians) triumphantly declared their liberation from colonial rule according to their pre-war agreements with the Allied powers. However, as a result of the Sykes-Picot pact, the Balfour Declaration, and the newly formed League of Nations, these lands remained under foreign control (albeit a different foreign power).

The League of Nations was created in 1919 for the purpose of preventing another world war. Even though one of its founding principles was the concept of national self-determination, the League rejected Arab declarations of sovereignty. Subsequently, at the 1920 Conference of San Remo[1], France obtained mandates over Syria and Lebanon, while the British gained Palestine, Trans-Jordan, and Iraq[2].

The “mandates” in the Arab World were commissions from the League of Nations that authorized France and Great Britain to govern over each region. From the British perspective, the mandates were distinct from the exploitative colonialism of the previous era because of the League’s requirement for a local constitutional government. The Crown considered the mandate concept as a transitional stage towards Arab autonomy, reflecting “the spirit of the age” of national independence[3].

For the indigenous peoples, however, the term “mandate” was nothing more than a euphemism for imperialism—and their continued subjugation.

The peoples’ anger spawned massive independence movements against their new rulers.  They had bled and died fighting the Ottomans for their liberation. Through the mid- and later 20th century, they would fight the British, French, and other colonial powers who had betrayed them.

[1] Munier, Gilles. “Iraq: An Illustrated History and Guide.” Interlink Books,  Northampton. 2004. p.32

[2] Owen, Roger. “State, Power and Politics in the Making of the Modern Middle East, 3rd Edition.” Routledge, New York. 2004. p.6

[3] Ibid

Heeding the Declaration of Independence

Posted on by kathiemm
Declaration of Independence
Declaration of Independence. Image in public domain.

Many Americans are familiar with the following words, which ring out near the beginning of the Declaration of Independence:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

That document, and the Revolutionary War that followed it, gave rise on this continent to a new nation, but it is not a nation that has acknowledged the equality of all men nor has it afforded life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to all. More than 200 years have passed since that famous signing, yet these independent and united states  still do not ensure equal rights and self-determination for all.

If successive governments since those revolutionary times had consistently heeded the values expressed in that document, and had used those values to guide their own behavior at home and abroad, how different the world might be today.

For example, to justify revolting against British rule, the signers of the Declaration accused the King of the following “abuses and usurpations”:

  • “depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury”
  • ”transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences”
  • “transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny.”

Consider how the U.S. government could be accused of similar “abuses and usurpations,” and ask yourself, is this who we want to be?

Tortured Abu Ghraib prisoner
Tortured Abu Ghraib prisoner. Image in public domain.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology