Anti-Imperialism 101 Re: Hitchens quits Nation

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Sun Sep 29 13:04:31 PDT 2002



>>>what do you think would have been the right position to take about
>>>Rwanda, apart from calling on the Tutsis to resist?
>>
>>No position we (US leftists) could have taken in 1994 would have
>>made any difference in Rwanda. If we had acted earlier, say in
>>1990, vigorously opposing US support for Paul Kagame and the Rwanda
>>Patriotic Army (see below), or better yet, if we had built our
>>strength enough to effectively counter the Washington consensus on
>>economy (see below), we might have been able to make a difference.
>>(Likewise, we [US leftists] couldn't have done anything to prevent
>>the 9.11 attacks in 2001, but we could have acted earlier, when the
>>USSR still existed, to vigorously oppose US support of mujahideen
>>in Afghanistan, which might have made a difference.)
>
>If we restrict our thinking about what positions to take to the
>cases where it would make a difference, we'll have a large degree of
>agnosticism about almost everything. In fact we edon't know ina
>dvance where it wouls make a diff. Who would have imagined, Yoshie,
>that that demo that you and I, among others, organized at OSU
>against Albright would have kept the Clinton administratioon from
>invading Iraq? So I ask again, what should we have advocated wrt to
>Rwanda?
>
>jks

I don't see anything wrong with not doing position-taking on every issue. If I had taken a position on, say, the current goings-on in Cote d'Ivoire today, I would be speaking out of total ignorance, which would help neither the people of Cote d'Ivoire, my fellow activists in the USA, nor anyone else including myself.

About Rwanda, what would have made position-talking empty wasn't total lack of knowledge on my and other US leftists' part. I did study its problems, analyzed US intervention in it and Central Africa in general, considered what was said by a variety of leftists here and elsewhere, etc., to the limited extent that time, accessible publications, etc. allowed me; so did many US leftists. We all had half-knowledge at least (which is dangerous in itself, btw). The problem was that there was no visibly rising movement for or against anything concerning Rwanda, unlike oppositions to the invasion of Iraq and other issues about which we did get organized. Let's suppose we had called for a demonstration against US support for the RPA in 1990; hardly anyone would have come, as very few would have known about it. Let's suppose we had called for a demonstration against US opposition to UN peace-keepers. Some would have come, if we had really worked hard and gained support in black communities. Then again, undoubtedly not enough to stop mass killings in time. In a truly unlikely event that the US government had dropped its opposition to UN peace-keepers influenced by a hypothetical success of demonstrations against it, it would have found a way to turn them to their advantage, just as it had turned a "No War, Let Sanctions Do Their Work" position advocated by some before the Gulf War to their advantage. -- Yoshie

* Calendar of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html> * Anti-War Activist Resources: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/>



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