>Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
>>Do you actually have evidence that many leftists have refused to
>>condemn 9.11 terrors?
>
>All the time. On this list, in print, and in many conversations. A
>few people even said we deserved it - heard by my own ears, and not
>hearsay.
>
>Doug
I don't travel in the same circle as yours as far as conversations go, but on this list and in print, whom do you have in mind? Yoshie
Tahir: On this theme of memory and print, I thought I would return to some archives and recall what was being said late last year. This is more on my earlier post regarding RAWA and Taliban rather than Yoshie's question, but it does have some bearing on the latter. Here are some archival classics with my interpretations following (I wish I had more time to spend in archives - it's quite fascinating):
This is from one Lou Paulsen on R-G:
>>> wwchi at enteract.com 10/05/01 02:51PM >>>
(a) I guess that first and foremost, it is completely wrong to smear those
who are using Islam as a vehicle for anti-imperialist agitation and action
as being "reactionary". Such agitations and actions are progressive -as
against Imperialism-, just as the nationalism of the oppressed is
progressive -as against imperialism-.
Tahir: This was a direct reference to the Taliban. The implication is clear: anyone who is judged to be anti-imperialist cannot be reactionary. This is from M. Stainsby on the same list (20.10.01):
I am in North America, and only see the defeat of imperialism in a battle with a renegade slave- even a brutal one like the Taliban- as inherently progressive. Imperialism remains the primary enemy. To call on anyone here to denounce the Taliban front and centre means, in effect that it has, that you agree with turfing the Afghani government - and that we have a critique as to how to do that.
Tahir: Exactly the same line here. Next one is from Yoshie herself. Also R-G 23.11.01:
The question is, however, whether RAWA's position stems from merely tactical and rhetorical considerations (e.g., necessity for survival, desire to appeal to liberal feminists in the West, etc.) or problems typical of liberal feminists whose foremost concerns are women of the bourgeois, land-owning, and/or petit-bourgeois classes, at the expense of peasant & proletarian women. Along with Mac, I suspect the latter is the case, as RAWA, according to their own admission, began their existence with their opposition to the socialists in Afghanistan who, with Soviet assistance, took power & implemented land reforms, education of women (beyond women of upper classes), etc. I say this while appreciating RAWA's criticism of the Northern Alliance. -- Yoshie
Tahir: The implication is clear: Northern Alliance pro-imperialist, therefore reactionary, Taliban anti-imperialist, therefore progressive. Now here comes the crunch. M.Stainsby on M-Fem on 24.01.02:
RAWA sucks and has nothing to do with revolutions other than their name. During the senseless murder and bombing of their people- the same bombing that installed the rapists in the Northern Alliance and oil magnates from America- they called for the monarchy and went on CNNto help in the hysterical one sided propaganda war against the Taliban which was used to justify the wholesale slaughter of tens of thousands and to this day is justification for the continuing military assaults on "hardliners" and their abuse and torture at the hands of Donald Rumsfeld.
RAWA needs to answer for their crimes of supporting imperialism- objectively and very efficiently, to boot.
Tahir: RAWA criminal, Taliban anti-imperialist.