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Al-Ahram Weekly 22 - 28 April 1999 Issue No. 426 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 22 - 28 April 1999 Issue No. 426
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Special Travel Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters A deadly exercise in propaganda
By Mumia Abu-JamalAs a deadly rain of high-tech bombs falls across the former Yugoslavia, an equally deadening rain of propaganda falls on the citizens of America -- media-manipulated lies, designed to prime the populace into supporting ever harsher military measures against a sovereign nation, and all in the name of protecting human rights.
Yet NATO, as so often, is once again but a fig leaf for American "interests," and the bombing of Yugoslavia is simply a global demonstration of the ruthlessness of the American empire. A demonstration, did I say? Too right. The monstrous atomic onslaught on Japan at the end of World War II, when that country was to all intents and purposes already down and out, was never a military necessity, but a political one. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were designed to show the Russians that the US was, and ever would be, boss. It was a massive, deadly exercise in propaganda.
So, too, with the bombing of Yugoslavia. The United States is using the Serbs in exactly the same way as it used the Japanese -- as human props with which to demonstrate the power of the empire.
Of course, there are those who would persuade us that in the present conflict, on the contrary, the US is principally concerned with protecting "human rights", or the "rights of ethnic minorities." The corporate press projects this image hourly. Yet, if that is really the United States' overriding interest in determining policy, then how are we to account for the concurrent fate of America's largest national minority -- its African Americans? Pierre Sané, secretary general of the world-respected Amnesty International group, announced just days before the air raids against Serbia began that "human-rights violations in the US are persistent, widespread and appear to disproportionately affect people of racial or ethnic minority backgrounds." Sané was particularly critical of America's record on police violence and capital executions.
Returning to the international scene, consider how the US has traditionally responded to "liberation movements" of the oppressed. When fighters for Puerto Rican independence began to raise their voices, the US didn't rush to support this "ethnic minority;" instead, they sought -- and continue to seek -- to crush, incarcerate and silence them.
Consider also the cases of the Palestinians, the Kurds, the East Timorese, the Colombian rebels. Indeed, one is forced to ask, who is it that the US has consistently supported -- the oppressed, or their American-armed oppressors?
This war isn't about "human rights." It isn't about "ethnic minorities." And it isn't about "genocide," either. It's about establishing who's the "boss" of the 21st century. It's about keeping Russia in its place. And it's about keeping the European Union under the thumb of Wall Street.
The bombing of Serbia echoes the bombing of three other countries in the past six months -- Iraq, Sudan and Afghanistan. And in each of these cases, the bombs fell for precisely the same reason -- to show that it can be done, no matter what conditions or restraints the rule of so-called "international law" would impose. The whole point of the exercise is to instil terror throughout the world, so that US capital can go on to institute what former president George Bush sought, but failed to establish: a New World Order.
Days before the air raids began, NATO signed up Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic as its newest members, thereby virtually isolating Russia. Only Serbia, among the former Eastern European nations, has refused to apply for NATO membership. Their bombing is their punishment.
Our brilliant and much-revered nationalist leader, Malcolm X, taught us to examine history when we want to understand the present. From a historical perspective, the rationale behind the bombing of Yugoslavia is quite clear. Empires are maintained, not by reason, but by ruthless terror. It was so in the days of Rome. It is so today in the US.
Back in 1973, that astute revolutionary Huey Newton, founder of the Black Panther Party, accounted for the movement's origins in just those terms. "The United States was no longer a nation," he explained. "We called it an empire. An empire is a nation-state that has transformed itself into a power controlling all the world's lands and people."
Huey was right then. Our response at that time was to oppose the empire. We must do so again now.
The writer is an activist, journalist and former Black Panther. Since he was convicted and sentenced to death in 1981 for the murder of a Philadelphia police officer, he has been at the centre of an international amnesty campaign. A rally to free Mumia Abu-Jamal will be held tomorrow in Philadelphia, PA.
