Thursday, December 3, 2009

Palestinian Reflections on American Political Ideology


By Dr. Haidar Eid - Gaza
Palestine Chronicle

"....‘Workability’ and ‘practicability’ are the basis of the justification of positions taken by the American establishment. However that does not take into account the circumstances under which these positions are ‘workable,’ neither historically nor socially. Whatever ‘we’, white liberal Americans, want is justifiable and thus legitimate since it is 'workable' and 'practical' regardless of the means through which it is achieved. Thus Apartheid, Nazism, Zionism, American occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan can be "easily" justified and sold to CNNized citizens.

Mr. Obama's policy, and that of his Secretary of State, is a remodeling of the ideas of old American pragmatism re-theorized to suit the requirements and outlooks of the liberal middle-class politicians of the late-capitalist American society—albeit in a black mask this time.......

No need, then, to wonder why Mr. Obama, and his Secretary of State, hate us. We are no match for the macho, powerful, White Ashkenazis. During the 1967 war, Edward Said noted that Americans kept asking "how are we doing?" We, Arabs and Palestinians, are not part of that WE. We are the "THEM;" the “Other.” We occupy a part of what Fredric Jameson would call American "political unconscious." Our death is never counted; the death of half a million Iraqi children from sanctions, like the death of 434 Palestinian children during the Gaza massacre, is "collateral damage," whereas the 9/11 victims are individuals with families, names, and "powerful narratives.""

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