Even speaking of US money supporting the Israeli occupation can be tricky, unless it is made very clear that it is the US power elite using US tax dollars against the interests of the US working class to finance the Israeli occupation. Quite often, today's anti-Semitism creeps into political discourse in this context: "The Jewish lobby wastes American money onto Israel, against our national interests." Anti-Americanism as the anti-imperialism of fools also thrives by ideologically trading on the illusory identity of interests between the US ruling and working classes.
It is difficult enough (even for committed leftists, much less for others) to portray a relatively accurate picture of the relation between social classes in the United States; it is even more difficult to do so with regard to the relation between classes in other nations. For instance, at the heyday of American anxiety about the US-Japanese economic relation, terms such as "Japan, Inc." was often used (across the political spectrum), in effect ideologically effacing the class contradiction within Japan, making it difficult to consider solidarity between US and Japanese workers in the age of increased international economic competition.
With regard to countries like Saudi Arabia, about which most Americans -- including we leftists -- know even less than about Japan, it is extremely dangerous to popularize images of the Saudis in a way that Michael Moore does in <em>Fahrenheit 9/11</em>.
Anti-Semitism typically has the following structure:
Money, banks, corporations, economy, etc. get divided into "ours" and "theirs," not on the basis of classes, but on the basis of races/nations: e.g., "Director X: So I read where like the Jews have a trillion dollars in our banks of their money. What would happen if like one day they just pulled that trillion dollars out?" It builds an illusory identity of interests between classes -- "our banks" -- as if the working class in the United States owned US banks.
Then, an image of the powerful alien few who, using "their money," actually or potentially control "our" banks, "our" corporations, "our" economy gets conjured up -- again, not on the basis of class but on the basis of race/nation.
It used to be "the Jews" who got projected into the position of "the powerful alien few who control us" -- hence anti-Semitism. As anti-Jewish hatred declined in the United States after World War 2, other nations began to be cast in the position of "the powerful alien few who control us" in political discourse that has the same ideological structure as anti-Semitism but does not target "the Jews." In the 1970s, it was "the Arabs," due to the OPEC oil embargo. In the 1980s, it was "the Japanese." Now, it is "the Saudis." In the near future, it may be "the Chinese," if the robust growth of Chinese economy continues uninterrupted for some time.
Remember, also, both in the cases of anti-Semitism and its variants featuring other races/nations, those who subscribe to such ideologies today, in contrast to classical anti-Semites, offer ideological rationalizations: "There <em>are</em> rich Jews, and we are talking only about <em>them</em>, when we say Jewish money"; "The Jews are disproportionately rich, though, aren't they?"; and "Don't the Jews themselves talk about Jewish money, Jewish power, Jewish interests, and so on?" The same goes for how other buffer groups (like the Japanese, the Saudis, the Arabs, the Koreans, etc.) -- whose prominence in racial/national fantasies are meant to buffer the ruling class from the working class on the national or international stage -- are represented.
John Lacny wrote:
>The regime is not popular, and many people living in Arabia would
>probably not refer to themselves as "Saudi," particularly when
>they're not in the presence of the police. "Saudi" refers to the
>ruling house in Arabia
The question that I am raising here is not how the Saudis in Saudi Arabia call themselves. We are talking about how the Saudis -- as well as other Arabs, since it is not possible at present for most Americans to clearly distinguish the Saudis from other Arabs and sometimes even from other groups who wear turbans and other headdresses like the Sikhs -- are represented by the media (including <em>Fahrenheit 9/11</em> but not limited to it) in the United States.
I'm emphasizing that, just as sexist and homophobic representations of the ruling class in populist propaganda are not acceptable, racist and xenophobic representations of foreign ruling classes are not acceptable. The Saudis are not an exception to this principle, even though I personally believe that Saudi Arabia -- like Israel, the other Gulf states, etc. -- is a product of imperialism that should never have been created to begin with.
Liza says:
>Inasmuch as talk about "Saudi" money is similarly not always about
>the government, it risks a similar racism, but when we make clear
>we are talking about the Saudi elites, who effectively do run the
>country, I think it is acceptable.
The problem about the portrayals of the Saudis in <em>Fahrenheit 9/11</em> is that it does <em>not</em> make clear that it is only talking about the money invested by the Saudi ruling class, precisely because -- due to the <em>complete absence of any sort of Saudi other than the Saudi power elite, executioners, and prisoners</em> -- any suggestion of the contradiction between the Saudi ruling class and the Saudi and non-Saudi working class (about 35-50% of the latter are said to be non-nationals) in Saudi Arabia is missing from it.
Though <em>Fahrenheit 9/11</em> fruitlessly obsess about possible involvement of other bin Ladens in the financing and master-minding of the 9/11 terrorist attacks with no smoking gun, if we want to get to the roots of the popularity of extreme Islamism among a segment of young Saudis, we need to look at a high rate of unemployment amongst the Saudi working class:
<blockquote>According to the CIA, Saudi Arabia's estimated population in July, 2003 was 24,293,844 including 5,576,076 non-nationals. The nation's high population growth rate of 3.27% per year and young median age of 20.9 for males and 16.8 years for females generates an insatiable demand for new jobs. The Saudi labor force numbers 7 million with 35% of the jobs held by non-nationals. According to the Saudi Bureau of Labor, 501,000 Saudis work in the private sector. Unemployment in 2002 was 25%. (Grant F. Smith, "Saudization: Development and Expectations Management," <em>Saudi-American Forum</em>, <a href="http://www.saudi-american-forum.org/Newsletters/SAF_Essay_23.htm">October 31, 2003</a>)</blockquote>
<blockquote>The labor market in Saudi Arabia has witnessed dramatic transformations during the last three decades. The large increases in oil revenues in the 1970s and early 1980s provided the kingdom with the financial resources to invest in modern infrastructure. Lacking a skilled national labor force, the Saudis had little choice but to adopt an open-door policy to foreign labor. As a result, there was a massive inflow of foreign workers during the oil boom years. According to Saudi American Bank (SAMBA) figures, by 2003 there were around 5.6 million non-Saudi nationals making up more than half of the total workforce.
The reliance on foreign workers came about amidst rising unemployment among male Saudis. SAMBA estimates that more than 12.5 percent of Saudi males cannot find work, with female unemployment being much higher. Given Saudi Arabia's young population -- 70 percent are under 30 -- unemployment has had its greatest impact on the Saudi youth (Bassam Fattouh, "Riyadh Must Deal with Imbalances in Labor Market," <em>The Daily Star</em> <a href="http://www.menafn.com/qn_news_story_s.asp?StoryId=56666">July 9, 2004</a>)
To repeat, however, even a hint of the existence of such educated but frustrated Saudi workers is missing from <em>Fahrenheit 9/11</em>, as if terrorist cells could be built simply by some rich Saudi guys throwing money around. In my view, though, money doesn't buy you love, nor does it buy would-be suicide bombers.
Dennis wrote:
>Money and connections got a bunch of potential material witnesses to
>an egregious crime against humanity a get-out-of-jail card.
I don't approve of the way the material witness law has been employed in the so-called "war on terrorism." Do you? -- Yoshie
* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>