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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Response to Intimidation of Peace Activist |
Current rating: 0 |
by Sarah Kanouse
Email: kanouse (nospam) uiuc.edu (unverified!)
Phone: 384-5346
Address: 604 S. Race St, Urbana |
15 Sep 2001
Modified: 16 Sep 2001 |
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I received a harassing phone call at 7 am Saturday in response to my letter published yesterday in the News-Gazette. This is my response. I'm seeking publication in the N-G as a guest columnist. Again, it is intended for a mainstream audience. |
At 7:00 Saturday morning, I was awakened by an anonymous phone caller excoriating me for advocating a non-violent response to last week's events in a letter to the editor published in Friday's News-Gazette. She called my letter "appalling," told me "we must stand behind our president," and equated my stand for peace as disregard and inhumanity towards the victims. When I began responding to her assertions, she hung up.
While I support the right of my early morning caller to her views, I find her method of expressing them inappropriate. I placed my opinions in the public sphere and would welcome a response within that public sphere. Our country needs a vigorous, impassioned, and public debate about how to respond to the attacks. Waking me at 7 on Saturday morning, however, is personal, disruptive, and vaguely threatening. It sends the message, "I know where you live." The call suggests a political vigilantism of citizens bullying and intimidating their neighbors into compliance with mainstream public opinion. Forced unity isn't unity at all, and it has no place in a democracy.
Far from bullying me into either agreement or silence, my early morning caller has redoubled my resolve to oppose the broad-brush 'war on terrorism' with determination, vigor and vision. Rather than stand by as the terms of allowable discourse narrow to no wider than a prison cell in the name of fighting a war to make us 'free,' I raise my voice early in opposition to the rumblings of war. Despite patriotic myths of a nation standing free and united behind our troops, war has always brought out the worst in America:
·During the Mexican-American War of 1846-1848, pro-war mobs threatened citizens into signing enlistment papers and attacked anti-war meetings. Soldiers in the field are known to break into Mexican homes, attack civilians, and rape women.
·In February, 1864, during the Civil War, off-duty black soldiers are attacked in Zainesville, Ohio to calls of "kill the nigger." Many other racist attacks take place in Northern cities.
·During the Spanish-American War of 1898, New York City officials refused parade permits to antiwar groups while granting them to pro-war groups.
·In the bloody aftermath of the Spanish-American War, as our nation tried to quell rebellion among the populations of former Spanish colonies that were handed over the US rule under the settlement treaty, hundreds of thousands of Filipino civilians were killed. According to eye-witness reports, "our men have been relentless, have killed to exterminate men, women, children, prisoners and captives, active insurgents and suspected people from lads of ten up." One US solder wrote, "Our fighting blood was up, and we all wanted to kill 'niggers.'…This shooting human beings beats rabbit hunting all to pieces."
·During World War I, the Espionage Act of 1917 declared anti-war activism a crime and provided prison terms of up to 20 years for violators. Nine hundred people went to prison under the Espionage Act.
·After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Franklin Roosevelt ordered that all men, women, and children of Japanese nationality or descent be arrested without warrant, indictment or hearing and taken to internment camps, where they lived for the duration of the war. 110,000 people were removed from their homes to live for the duration of the war in prison-like camps. Three-quarters of them were US citizens.
·At No Gun Ri, South Korea, in July 1950, American soldiers machined-gunned hundreds of civilians beneath a bridge. The US government dismissed the allegations until last year, when ex-GIs came forward with their stories.
·On March 16, 1968, a company of American soldiers went into the Vietnam village of My Lai, systematically rounded up all the inhabitants, forced them into a ditch, and shot them. The Army investigators who arrived 17 months later found 450-500 people, mostly old men, women and children, had been murdered. My Tai is not an isolated incident; earlier this year former Senator Bob Kerrey revealed that he had been involved in a massacre of about 17 people in the village of Thanh Phong. Colonel Oran Henderson, investigator of the My Lai massacre, admitted, "Every unit of brigade size has its My Lay hidden someplace."
·During the Gulf War, Arab-Americans experienced intense hostility and outright hate crimes. Mosques, Islamic community centers, and Arab Anti-Discrimination Leagues received bomb threats while businesses were vandalized and Arab Americans received threats.
·The United States has continued to bomb Iraq regularly in the ten years since the Gulf War, this year averaging three air strikes per month. Many of these attacks kill people. The US has been the most vociferous and powerful supporter of UN sanctions on Iraq that have been responsible for over 500,000 child deaths from malnutrition and disease brought about by deteriorating infrastructure.
Given this history of atrocity, repression, and racism, I stand against US military retaliation for Tuesday's terrorist attack. Millions stand with me. However, along with the hundreds of peaceful vigils, prayer services, meetings, and outpourings of solidarity, we've seen many acts of intimidation and racism in the aftermath of Tuesday's tragedy. .From threatening phone calls to vandalism to marches on mosques, the expressions of rage have been anything but quiet. As our country prepares for war, will we see attacks on those who respectfully disagree? How can we fight to defend our freedoms if we attack those who are different and censure those who evaluate, criticize, and speak? True patriotism requires working for the betterment of your country, not blind acceptance of whatever your government may do. True unity can only be achieved with global justice, not by presenting a 'united front.' As I told my early morning caller, it is not disrespectful to evaluate and possibly dissent from the policies of our government; indeed, the exercise of democracy demands it
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we support you |
by Joe Futrelle
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
15 Sep 2001
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This is scary, Sarah. All of us who believe in non-violence are behind you 100%. |
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Support for Sarah and those who speak |
by Paul Riismandel
paul (nospam) mediageek.org (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
15 Sep 2001
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It's too sad that personal intimidation takes the place of public reasoned debate, but shows clearly that it's dealing in reason that those intimidators fear most. Violence and the threat of violence is the language of intimidation, which is why intimidators fear peace and non-violence so fiercely.
For those who say they are patriots and defend the "American way of life," do look at your Bill of Rights. Which one of those says "may be turned off as necessary?"
For those who forget, here is the text of the 1st Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Note that there is no clause that says "except when I don't like what someone is saying" or "but only for me."
I applaud Sarah's willingness to publicly state her thoughts, arguments and beliefs, and frown on those who are so cowardly that they can only express themselves clandestinely and anonymously, hiding from any public scrutiny. I hold in even lesser regard those who cowards who can't stick around long enough to hear a response.
And a practical note for Sarah and others: by pressing *69 after a harassing phone call you will be read back the number that just called you. |
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Amen |
by John Wason
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
16 Sep 2001
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Extremely well written, Sarah. I hope the News-Gazette
publishes it. |
