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Bush was
Being Honest
"You’re Either For the American
Project or Against It”
By Kil Ja Kim
19 September 2004
Despite his being deceptive and a liar, I
want to point out that George W. Bush was honest, at least once,
in his career.
It was on September 20, 2001 at a joint
session of Congress that Bush made his infamous declaration
towards other nations, who were being recruited into his “war
on terror”: “Either you are with us or you are with the
terrorists.”
Notwithstanding Bush’s purposefully
amnesiac definition of terrorism—in reality Bush could never
posit “us” and “terrorists” as opposites if he wanted to
be honest about the US as a terrorist project—I think Bush’s
comment needs to be appreciated for what honesty it does have.
This is probably one of the most honest comments Bush has
made. In his
dichotomy, Bush clearly laid it out for the global public: there
is no middle ground when it comes to relating to the American
project. You are
either for it or against it.
While Bush was suggesting that
“terrorists” are a dark-skinned bunch of Muslims bent on
rage against the US, the term “terrorist” is often directed
at those who are considered threats to any project that seeks
coherence, stability, dominance and expansion.
So the term “terrorist” is nothing new and the
strategic use of it by US politicians to suppress political
dissent and critique was widely documented and discussed by
intellectuals and activists long before September 11.
Although Bush’s statement wasn’t
surprising—he is, after all, the appointed (public) leader of
the American project—I want to reflect on the “left’s”
response to Bush’s statement and how this response appears to
be embedded in a great deal of political activity, including
protests, filmmaking and public discussions at forums, on the
web and in print.
Many on the left appear to have a deep
anxiety towards Bush’s dichotomy, finding it too restrictive
or narrow of an option. But
what Bush was really doing was forcing people to make a
decision, something my generation of activists seems to have
great difficulty doing. And
for Bush, this meant taking a stand either for or against the
American project, which of course is one of imperialism,
capitalism, white supremacy, white patriarchy and heterosexism,
and anti-black and anti-Native racism and sexism.
It’s not surprising that the right and many
centrists heeded Bush’s challenge.
Most never left his side, evident in recent polls that
show Bush’s overall popularity has not been deterred by “the
war.” But while
the right and centrists made it clear where they stand, many on
the left tried to have it both ways—or at least, a middle
ground between the two camps that Bush laid out: those who
identify with the American project and those who don’t.
This difficulty, or unwillingness in some
cases, to, dare I say it, appreciate Bush’s candidness, was
apparent immediately after his September 20 speech.
Many activists could be heard lamenting how unfair
Bush’s dichotomy was, and a flurry of editorials and
counter-commentaries were circulated saying as much.
Today we still see this anxiety played out in debates
over what it means to be patriotic.
Some walk around with flags wrapped around their bodies
to prove their loyalty while protesting specific decisions about
Bush. Others hold
signs that say “peace is patriotic” or ardently defend that
being a dissident is the most patriotic move one can make in a
(seemingly) democratic society.
Often activists express the desire to be
supportive of the nation but not of Bush.
Thus, Bush’s “us” that he referred to was not
understood as a bigger entity, one that was in place before Bush
took office and that will remain after he vacates.
Instead, people took the comment to mean literally,
you’re either with Bush,
or you’re not. But
in reality, the “us” Bush referred to isn’t split along
superficial political lines, but rather can be taken as those
who believe, for whatever reason, in the inherent goodness of
the American project, regardless of how much blood it has on its
hands or how many spirits haunt the land and the seas
surrounding it.
Some will surely point out that these claims
to patriotism are more strategic than anything.
I don’t doubt that this is the case in many situations. As intellectual and agitator W.E.B. Du Bois pointed out, many
are forced to make strategic, and therefore what some will label
as “reformist” decisions, while simultaneously dreaming and
battling for a more humane future.
But in the course of these debates about whether one can
find a middle ground between Bush and what he labels
“terrorism,” the “left” may want to consider whether the
flag waving and fierce debates over patriotism is indicative of
perhaps a deep-seated loyalty or faith to the “us” that Bush
referenced. And if
so, what does this (in)decision mean for the future of humanity?
Copyright © 2004 Kil Ja Kim
kiljakim2003@yahoo.com
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Salvage the Bones
A Novel by Jesmyn Ward
On one level, Salvage the Bones is a simple story about a poor black family that’s about to be trashed by one of the most deadly hurricanes in U.S. history. What makes the novel so powerful, though, is the way Ward winds private passions with that menace gathering force out in the Gulf of Mexico. Without a hint of pretension, in the simple lives of these poor people living among chickens and abandoned cars, she evokes the tenacious love and desperation of classical tragedy. The force that pushes back against Katrina’s inexorable winds is the voice of Ward’s narrator, a 14-year-old girl named Esch, the only daughter among four siblings. Precocious, passionate and sensitive, she speaks almost entirely in phrases soaked in her family’s raw land. Everything here is gritty, loamy and alive, as though the very soil were animated. Her brother’s “blood smells like wet hot earth after summer rain. . . . His scalp looks like fresh turned dirt.” Her father’s hands “are like gravel,” while her own hand “slides through his grip like a wet fish,” and a handsome boy’s “muscles jabbered like chickens.” Admittedly, Ward can push so hard on this simile-obsessed style that her paragraphs risk sounding like a compost heap, but this isn’t usually just metaphor for metaphor’s sake. She conveys something fundamental about Esch’s fluid state of mind: her figurative sense of the world in which all things correspond and connect. She and her brothers live in a ramshackle house steeped in grief since their mother died giving birth to her last child. . . . What remains, what’s salvaged, is something indomitable in these tough siblings, the strength of their love, the permanence of their devotion.—WashingtonPost |
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Incognegro: A Memoir of
Exile and Apartheid
By Frank B. Wilderson, III
Wilderson, a professor,
writer and filmmaker from
the Midwest,
presents a gripping account
of his role in the downfall
of South African apartheid
as one of only two black
Americans in the African
National Congress (ANC).
After marrying a South
African law student, Wilderson reluctantly
returns with her to South
Africa in the early 1990s,
where he teaches
Johannesburg and Soweto
students, and soon joins the
military wing of the ANC.
Wilderson's stinging
portrait of Nelson Mandela
as a petulant elder eager to
accommodate his white
countrymen will jolt readers
who've accepted the
reverential treatment
usually accorded him. After
the assassination of
Mandela's rival, South
African Communist Party
leader Chris Hani, Mandela's
regime deems Wilderson's
public questions a threat to
national security; soon,
having lost his stomach for
the cause, he returns to
America.
Wilderson has a
distinct, powerful voice and
a strong story that shuffles
between the indignities of
Johannesburg life and his
early years in Minneapolis,
the precocious child of
academics who barely
tolerate his emerging
political consciousness.
Wilderson's observations
about love within and across
the color line and cultural
divides are as provocative
as his politics; despite
some distracting
digressions, this is a
riveting memoir of
apartheid's last days.—Publishers
Weekly
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
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The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
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Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
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George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
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Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
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January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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