If you’ve read my “About” page, you’ll know that I don’t think “they hate us for our freedoms.” Rather, I think they hate our foreign policy decisions over the years. So, if that’s the case, why India? And why did the attackers seek out Jews and British and American citizens?
Early reports identify the attackers as Pakistanis and Bangladeshis. Beginning in the 14th century C.E., India was the central point of the Islamic Mogol (Mughal) Empire. Pakistan and Bangladesh were part of India at one time. They are predominantly Muslim, which is why they separated from India. Over the years, the region of Kashmir, which covers an area in northern India and northeastern Pakistan, adjacent to China, has been a point of contention between India and Pakistan. Periodically, tensions boil over into armed conflict. This may well have been one of the reasons for the Mumbai attack.
Interestingly, while we were away for Thanksgiving, I began reading Chalmers Johnson’s Blowback. Most Americans are blissfully unaware of the fact that we are an Empire, that we have had imperial aspirations going back more than a century, but that those aspirations have blossomed in the years after World War II. Johnson takes his title from a term that had its origins in CIA machinations. It refers to those unintended consequences of actions and decisions taken in support of our imperial ambitions. Put simply, actions have consequences. Others have refered to the same concept as, “America’s chickens are coming home to roost.”
Back when most Americans were crying for revenge in the guise of justice after the attacks of September 11, I worried that we wouldn’t even bother asking the difficult question of whether we (our government and its policies) might have provoked the attack. I knew that the continuing Palestinian-Israeli conflict was a cause of great concern throughout the Middle East and that the United States was seen as part of the problem. Many Arab politicians have said that tensions throughout the region would diminish significantly with the resolution of that conflict.
Our presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, our military bases throughout the world, and the inevitable conflicts between US troops and the citizens of the countries where those bases are located all contribute to a build-up of resentment. And, especially for people for whom personal honor is such a highly-prized value, this wellspring of resentment is bound to find its expression in violence.
But why Brits? Not only was Britain the colonial master of India (and the lands now known as Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Kashmir), she has been a participant in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan as an American ally. Furthermore, Britain also controlled both Iraq and Palestine, as well as Jordan, India, Pakistan, Kashmir, and Bangladesh during the period between the two world wars.
As I continue with the Middle East tutorial, the areas of conflict and the reasons behind them will become more clear. One aspect of the Middle Eastern/Islamic ethos that continues to plague both them and ourselves is a profound and well-deserved sense of pride at the civilization they created and a sense that their greatness is part of their past rather than part of their future. Their own empire decayed, as all empires do, as the power of the United States grew.
I have been thinking about how prophetic our conversations have been here, since you have started your Middle East Tutorial. I myself questioned Great Britain’s impact on the middle east. I have always felt that part of Tony Blair’s choice to rush into Baghdad beside his buddy George stemmed from some sort of guilt ( for lack of a better term) on the part of the British ( or maybe it was just me wishing that they show some remorse for past deeds).
You are so spot on in your analysis of our problems in the Middle East.
Last night I went out to dinner with my husband’s older brother who had turned to Orthodox Judaism over 10 years ago. Him and I have always conflicted in terms of this 180 degree turn around in his religious beliefs but we have somehow come to accept what each of us believes and have left it at that.
However, and I say a big HOWEVER, I sort of lost it over dinner last night when the topic of Barack Obama came up briefly during coffee and dessert. He made a blanket statement that it was a fact that McCain would have been better for US / Israeli relations than Obama would be, but he did concede that now that Obama was going to be President he would pray that he would do the right thing for Israel. Of course my next question was, “What he considered the right thing?, knowing that my brother in law was coming from the mentality that the Israelis would benefit more from a hawkish administration than one that was looking for peace through concessions.
The problem here is that from my point of view I am an American first then a Jew, but from my brother in law’s point of view he is a Jew first and foremost who does not believe that Israel should concede any of the lands that are rightfully hers. So here I was sitting and feeling like I was on a merry go round to no where. The feeling it brought home for me was that unless we all accept the fact that life is just full of concessions, and that sometimes they are the only way to find balance and peace, then this world will never see peace in the Middle East and we might as well just hunker down in our bunkers and hope for the best. I briefly thought about addressing these concerns with him and started to try to do so, but then realized that I was facing a force so much stronger than anything that I could say. Ultimately, it all comes down to what you said:
“One aspect of the Middle Eastern/Islamic ethos that continues to plague both them and ourselves is a profound and well-deserved sense of pride at the civilization they created and a sense that their greatness is part of their past rather than part of their future. Their own empire decayed, as all empires do, as the power of the United States grew.”
Religion will always be what rules in the Middle East, and that Israel should be included in this as well.
As we geared up to exact revenge on Afghanistan for harboring Al Quaeda, I, too, worried that we were looking for someone outside ourselves to blame the whole sad disaster of 9/11 on. There seemed to be no desire on the part of our politicians or our media to take a good look at EVERYTHING that brought us to that tragic moment. In a response worthy of the empire that we have truly become, we launched off into a war that has lasted for seven years now. It has spilled over into Pakistan, Iraq and now perhaps India.
I am glad to see that others share my view that we are indeed an empire with furthter imperial ambitions in the world. We as Americans like to pretend that we are not conquerors who take others territory and keep it, but there are other ways to exert empire over weaker neighbors in the world.
Thanks for the report along with the historical background that leads to greater understanding than news footage of a dramatic,chaotic massacre raging in the streets of a faraway city. We will only find our way out of the tangled intrigue of world politics if we truly understand the road that led us in to begin with.
Great, respectful thanks to you.
@ willpen
Israel is clearly part of the problem and part of the solution — or, rather, those elements within the Israeli body politic who insist upon Eretz Israel and who refuse concessions of any kind. Likewise, those supporters of the Palestinians who continue to deny Israel’s right to exist. As I responded to ATW, there is truth on both sides, and there is also blame, or rather responsibility. And until both sides are willing to begin with what is, rather than what each side thinks ought to be, there is little hope.
For any sort of lasting peace, there will need to be painful decisions and concessions by both parties. There is so little trust that will be a most difficult process. Negotiators have a difficult balancing act trying to gain the trust both of their own people and of those sitting across from them during the process.
That religious claims are central to the issues at hand make those concessions ever the more difficult.
@ Jack,
There are many forms of conquest — military, economic, cultural among them. And we seem to have employed all of them.
While I hope that we Americans can come to understand the road we have traveled, I question whether it will happen. Too many of us seem unwilling even to question the American mythology, let alone to see how it constrains our thinking. It’s so very easy to brand anyone who questions it as somehow unpatriotic. A related challenge is the tendency among some to brand anyone who questions political Zionism as anti-Semitic. Both acts serve only to squelch rational discussion that might somehow lead to better understanding.
I am reminded of a comment by a South African Jewish woman who had emigrated to the US prior to the end of apartheid. She remarked that she had been unaware of the extent to which she, too, had been oppressed by the apartheid system despite her life of ease as a white. It was only after she emigrated that she learned such simple tasks as making a bed, a task that she found liberating rather than menial. I wonder how much we, too, are oppressed by our oppression of others.
[...] Thoughts on the Mumbai attacks [...]