I have to say I had no idea who Ward Churchill was although I may have heard his name long ago. I also ignored this thread as just another left in-fighting of some sort. But belatedly, I went through Mike Pugliese's long winded forward on the internal crapolla between the Bellecourts and Churchill, which only reminded me of all the things I never knew about the internal conflicts within the Native American communities..
In any event, what got me off the couch to read this Churchill essay was the mere mention of David Horowitz. I've found that just about anything Horowitz attacks is probably something I support. And sure enough, so too with Churchill. What a surprise. His rhetoric and his parallels are pretty much in the same general arena as things I've written on this list.
What's interesting is that in examining Churchill (probably at his worst) is something that needs to be opened up in a positive debate. One of the great difficulties for US native, ethnic, and progressive groups is their own histories share themes with many of the world's oppressed peoples, and these include of course the Arab and Muslim worlds. The difficulty arises not in their shared animousity to the US Empire, but their inability to share much else.
Yet the potential for an US based progressive solitarity with foriegn liberation movements which involve terrorism has been almost entirely co-opted by that terrorism. There is simply no way around that. It can't be nuanced. Struggles in Latin America, Indonesia, SAE, India, Africa, and the Middle East all suffer the same fate. The local movements under repression move to open armed resistance and finally terrorism. They recapitulate over and over the same patterns of frustrated political oppression with no relief, no hope, and no future. In the name of order their respective authoritarian regimes also followed a similar pattern that usually involved US police and military support, making the US the more than eager accomplice---and its beneficiary.
After at least half a century of this global oppression, many of these movements that may have once been progressive failed. In the wake of those failures other groups stepped in with a bewildering array of cultural, political, nationalist, and religious centers.
Much like the internal and unknown battles that go on behind the scenes in US native, ethnic and progressive groups, those abroad have splintered into fragments under their own absolutist national government oppressions. The older leftwing sympathies and kneejerk support for just about any group who names itself against the Empire and its suppliants has to be re-examined.
My problem is I like both my enemies and friends to be painted in clear colors, hopefully primaries with no mixing needed because it makes it easier to distinguish them. It is easier on me. I can live with a clear conscience. The truth is and was there never are unadorned primaries. For example, it certainly wasn't easy to swallow Black Power diatribes on liberal white guilt and complicity back in the day, but I eventually managed. Ironically, under that assault, I became more secure about being just another white kid who hated the same oppressions, but for different reasons. On the other hand I was certainly relieved when the more degrading race rhetoric slowly went the way of bell bottoms. It had been pay back, and I took it. Deferments on race were not an option at the time. And why? Well determents for the Black Power crew were not an option either were they? So why should I get off the hook? That I could pretend I should be let off was part of the privilage and was part of the problem.
Back to current affairs. Friends and enemies are not clear cut as usual, and yet choices are being forced again.
Once again, I feel like I am supposed to be threatened by being accused of complicity in something I loath--the US empire. Well, I am not threatened, I am complicit--I live here, I work here and I haven't done much to rid the world of it, so yeah. Then, should I expect a deferment? Hardly. When the US empire is attacked for being the US empire, what should I do? Rally support for it? Hell no. Befriend its enemies? Maybe. At least read what they say and think on it, consider what they do. Equally loathsome? Maybe. I read as much of the Qu'ran and the Sunnah Hadith as I could stand. I didn't like them. But I never `liked' the North Vietnamese either. However, working with an former ARVN officer for the last eight years has given me a lot more to reconsider about the NVA's reasons for killing so many of them. (If you've never known someone born and raised as a twisted up lapdog under colonialism, none that will make sense.)
Well, I never liked the White Race the first time I came across it either. It was at a drinking fountain. A southern white kid was standing in front of me waiting for a drink on an LA school ground (metro). Some black kid was drinking. After he left the southern kid wiped off the head of the fountain with his hand and drank. I thought jeeze I don't want to drink off something your grubby hand just wiped. I let the water run a little and then I drank anyway. He said to me, ``There sure are a lot of n-words around here.'' I didn't know who he was talking about so I said, ``What do you mean?'' He pointed to the black kid walking away. ``Oh.. so?'' I didn't understand. He didn't have an answer and walked off. Just another weirdo, I thought. I completely forgot this minor encounter since school grounds were filled with weirdo kids---until many years later--until CORE and the Black Power movements made me go back and think on it.
So, here we are again at the same old question. Victim or Executioner? Slave or Master?
CG