Commenti sui recenti fatti americani

["Alberto L'Abate" <labate at unifi.it>]

Cari amici vi mando alcuni commenti sulla tragedia americana che mi hanno
fatto riflettere e che vanno contro l'esaltazione militaristica e
revanscista occidentale. Questi fatti mi hanno fatto venire in mente una
frase di Gandhi che diceva che il miglior modo di difendersi è quello di
non avere nemici. Purtroppo l'occidente, con la propria politica di
potenza, e con il mantenimento di quella violenza strutturale di cui parla
il gruppo di Torino, di nemici se ne crea ogni giorno sempre di più. E la
reazione che la Nato sta programmando, se la politica dell'occidente non
cambia, e non prende in considerazione quando scritto dal "Guardian" che
"la migliore difesa è la giustizia", rischia di peggiorare sempre più la
situazione. E' forse venuto il momento di una forte risposta di tutti i
gruppi e le organizzazioni che credono nella nonviolenza , e che pensano
che la via della pace è nella giustizia. Ma manca da parte nostra una
strategia valida e vincente. Perché non cerchiamo di lavorarci? Cordiali
saluti Alberto

1)
The best defence is justice

Special report: Terrorism in the US

Martin Woollacott
Wednesday September 12, 2001
The Guardian

We live in one world. There are moments when we know this is so for
the best of reasons and moments when we know it for the worst of
reasons. This disorder and the anger which goes with it have reached
America from whatever source. Equally, The attacks on the World Trade
towers and on the Pentagon and other American targets are a terrible
proof that disorder in the world cannot be fenced off.

New York's police commissioner called it "a war zone" and many others
followed him in that description. The truth in that sad banality is
not simply that the casualties are as grave as on many a battlefield,
or that the organisation of these attacks was, alas, like that of a
highly efficient military operation. It is also that in a number of
places in the world, including the United States itself, as Oklahoma
City showed, there are groups who consider themselves at war with
America.

It is true that their number is small. The list of possible culprits
is short. The world is not full of people who want to kill Americans.
But there is a potentially deadly combination of literally suicidal
audacity, recruitment from among alienated youth, modern means of
destruction, and the inattention of governments who are either
incompetent at controlling terrorist groups or who look the other way
for political reasons. We can add to that the cover which diasporas
in both North America and Europe can provide for terrorists, largely
by allowing them to remain anonymous and untraceable. This is the
combination that has almost certainly brought this tragedy upon us.

We have seen it before on a lesser scale. But a terrorist success of
this size is something new. It could be emulated in other continents.
It could be emulated with chemical or biological weapons - the Tokyo
subway attack was a warning of that possibility - or with nuclear
weapons. The irony is that America's sense that it is vulnerable to
rogue attack, which its allies sometimes decry, has been shown to be
correct. But, at the same time the instruments which American
governments, and especially this one, have been preparing to remedy
that vulnerability are shown to be either inadequate or irrelevant.

Extraordinary long-range aerial military capacity, the ability to
strike at will and perhaps even from space at any point on the globe,
does not provide sufficient means to destroy terrorist groups. These
left Osama bin Laden and his men, the most likely perpetrators of
yesterday's atrocities, untouched after the bombing of the East
African embassies. Missile defence, of course, would be irrelevant to
such attacks, which remain the most likely way, as so many critics
have said, of conveying nuclear weapons on to American soil.

America's best defence against terrorism originating from abroad
remains the existence of governments and societies more or less
satisfied with American even-handedness on issues which are important
to them. Plainly, this is furthest from the case in the Muslim world.
That is largely because of American policy on the conflict between
the Israelis and the Palestinians, but also because there are some
Arabs and other Muslims who also regard American and Western
ascendancy as affronts in themselves.

Contrary to stereotype, however, most Arab and Muslim, and especially
Palestinian, radical groups set limits for both practical and moral
reasons on the violence they consider permissible. They may not be
limits which we, or Israelis, like, but they are limits all the same,
and they are well short of planning anything like yesterday's
attacks. Osama bin Laden's limits are another matter, which is why he
is the prime suspect here.

The head of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, in
denying that his organisation had anything to do with the attacks,
nevertheless went on to say yesterday that the discontent and anger
which American policy was creating meant that its approach to the
Middle East should be reviewed. His point is obvious. Anger is an
asset which entrepreneurs of violence like Bin Laden can use. Would a
settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the establishment
of an adequate Palestinian state end all Muslim terrorist violence?
Perhaps not, but it would go a long way toward doing so. This not to
argue that Washington's Middle Eastern policy should suddenly change
because of these attacks. That would indeed be to argue in favour of
blackmail.

But that policy is part of a broader problem. As analysts like Paul
Rogers of Bradford University have argued, there is a clear danger
that the rich world as a whole, and not only the US, will pursue a
policy of "keeping the lid on" much of the rest of the world's
discontents. Fundamental problems of injustice and inequality get
palliatives and an increasingly sophisticated military is supposedly
in reserve, but actually not that competent, to deal with the
resulting troubles. These are usually outbreaks of violence within or
between poorer states, and they can also lead to breakdowns of state
authority, or its assumption by groups completely unprepared to
exercise power - and to havens for extremists.

That, after all, is the story of Afghanistan. The US and Russia
together helped turn Afghanistan into the backward and dangerous
state that it has become. The US and Pakistan, with some British and
other help, notoriously encouraged, because it was useful to them at
the time, the rise of fundamentalist groups and the pan-Muslim
recruitment of fighters. Out of this came the Taliban and Osama bin
Laden.

Americans understandably want pursuit and punishment. What nation
would not in these circumstances? This was above all a stupendous
crime. But it does not minimise that crime or take way from the need
to identify and punish to say that this pursuit should be
international, and that if the crime was planned in Muslim lands, the
anticipation of Muslim governments is essential. Nor does it minimise
the crime to say that western policy may have played a part in
creating the anger which led to it.

Finally it is proper to say that, while there is a global problem of
inattention to injustice which is piling up trouble for the future,
we are not yet facing an anarchic array of dangerous states and
extreme movements. Terrorism is in fact more confined and has fewer
havens than in the past. This outrage should not be a signal for the
west to pull up the drawbridge but rather for a renewed international
effort to deal with the fundamental problems that will blow up in all
our faces if we let solutions drift away.

martin.woollacott at guardian.co.uk
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001

2)Dal comunicato stampa dei PeaceWorkers di San Francisco,
speditoci con una lettera di David Hartsough che ha lavorato con noi nel
Kossovo
.........
Now is the time for us to clamber off the wheel of
violence.  It is the only worthy legacy we can offer
to those who died today.

To this end, I feel personally moved in more profound
way that ever to recommit myself to the spiritual
journey of creative nonviolence so that true justice
can flourish and genuine peace can be every being's
lot.

This means mourning the dead, condemning this horrific
violence, but also once and for all acknowledging our
own violence and justice and seeking a new path.  In
this most shocking moment, we have paradoxically been
given a moment to desire -- and work for -- the
well-being of all.  Let us let the unimaginably
horrific violence experienced today in the Eastern
United States help us understand, in a way we perhaps
have never understood before, what such "death from
the skies" means, and help us to humbly acknowledge
the violence we have perpetrated in this way in the
past and continue to contemplate, under certain
politically-defined circumstances, in the future.

Most of all, let us be transformed in light of this
horror to recognize, again, that we are all one.  In
this moment of unspeakable fire, may we once and for
all commit ourselves, in a deeply powerful way, to the
path of active nonviolence for justice, love, and well
being for the earth and for all its inhabitants.  Let
us take action so that, hope against hope, we can
choose -- as Martin Luther King, Jr. implored --
nonviolence, not nonexistence.

3)
Dear Brothers and Sisters,

We at Peaceworkers are heartbroken by the tragedies that continue to unfold
in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.  The depth of the violence is
incomprehensible.  It is a time for us to draw our loved ones close.  And,
it a time for us to draw close to our hearts those not immediately in our
circles and to keep those who have died close in our hearts and
prayers.  We also hold up the families and friends who either know their
loved one has died or who wait in anguished limbo.  We wish strength and
endurance to those police, firefighters, rescue workers, medical personnel
and public officials working to save lives.

And, we ask each of us to draw close to those who will be scapegoated for
these horrific acts.  These acts were not carried out by an ethnic group,
race of people or religion.  Each of us individually and collectively, must
be forthright in resisting any scapegoating or attempts to retaliate with
violence.

We also call upon the United States government not to respond with
violence, thus escalating the spiral of violence.

This is a time for deep reflection and grief.  The horrible carnage reminds
us that no amount of armaments can protect us from such violent
attacks.  It is a time to understand the unity of all people and to build
our security based on that understanding.  .  Instead of hundreds of
billions for weapons of destruction which we manufacture for ourselves and
sell around the world, we should allocate hundreds of billions of dollars
for feeding the world's hungry, housing the homeless, healing the sick and
helping heal the wounds of war and hatred around the world. The only real
security is for the United States to become a real friend of all the
world's people.


From: Ken Butigan,
Adjunct Professor at the Franciscan School of
Theology, Berkeley; 510-533-8181
kenbutigan at paceebene.org

4
Contro la violenza senza riprodurla

Noi che cerchiamo di vivere la nonviolenza esprimiamo il dolore e la più
grande pietà umana per le vittime delle stragi in USA e la solidarietà a
tutti quanti nel mondo soffrono queste violenze  e cercano pace e giustizia.

Condannando questa enorme violenza diretta non dimentichiamo che nel mondo
c'è una più profonda violenza strutturale che si esercita nell'oppressione
politica, nello sfruttamento e nell'ingiustizia economica. Tutte queste
violenze trovano origine e giustificazione in varie culture violente,
arroganti e sprezzanti verso le altre.

La critica del dominio non è mai un crimine, mentre il crimine non è mai
una critica giusta ed efficace, ed è invece riproduzione e conferma
dell'ingiustizia che apparentemente combatte.

Ci dissociamo profondamente da coloro che hanno dimostrato esultanza perché
i sentimenti di odio, che abbrutiscono l'uomo, devono essere vinti e
superati in noi tutti combattendo, sì, l'ingiustizia ma con il rispetto
assoluto per ogni vita .

Condanniamo ugualmente ogni proposito di vendetta o pretesa di fare
giustizia con le armi da parte del governo degli Stati Uniti e dei suoi
alleati.

L'indagine ed il giudizio sui responsabili di un tale crimine
internazionale che offende tutta l'umanità compete all'ONU nelle sue
legittime istituzioni.


Movimento Nonviolento, Movimento internazionale per la riconciliazione
Segreteria regionale del Piemonte e della Valle d'Aosta
Torino, 12 settembre 2001