Following is a talk given in a panel titled
“Fighting to win: How to defeat immigrant bashing, anti-LGBT bigotry,
Islamophobia and the ultra right” at the Nov. 13-14, 2010, National Conference
on Socialism sponsored by the Party for Socialism and Liberation.
Comrades, Sisters and Brothers,
First, let me open with one of Marx’s teachings:
“The ideas of the ruling class are in every age the ruling ideas.” Capitalist
rule is carried out not just by its military and police, but through a
propagation of its ideas through the mass media, the so-called free press, and
the education system, literature and other sources. So, when a reactionary,
racist idea is spread and reinforced through various business media, we know
that the ruling class is ultimately behind it.
Today, we see that the capitalist media spread
and reinforce negative stereotypes of Muslims as terrorists, backwards, fundamentalists
and so on. This anti-Muslim bigotry, which is commonly known as Islamophobia,
was especially on display in the case of Park 51, the Islamic community center
in New York City, and the sympathetic media coverage given to the bigots. The
way the corporate media framed the issue gives away their true intentions. They
commonly referred to the Park 51 complex as the “Ground Zero Mosque” even
though it is two-and-a-half blocks from the site of the World Trade Center.
The liberal approach to Islamophobia, preaching
diversity or appealing to people to be “tolerant” of Muslims, misses the point.
Islamophobia is not simply a cultural phenomenon. Islamophobia does not exist
in a political vacuum. It is incorrect to attribute Islamophobia simply to
ignorance and blame it only on bigoted individuals.
Marxists analyze social issues in the context of
class struggle. It is not accidental that Islamophobia has peaked in recent
years. The capitalist ruling class whips up different types of bigotry
depending on its interests at any given time. The least conscious elements of
society buy into the bigotry as a false explanation of their problems.
Islamophobia serves a purpose. The imperialist
ruling class spreads this form of bigotry to justify its crimes in the Middle
East and to create a false enemy for the U.S. working class: Muslims here and
abroad.
The United States is an imperialist power; an
Empire built on the foundation of genocide, racism and bigotry; an empire built
on the blood and tears of African slaves, on the land of Natives, using the
stolen resources of Latin America, Asia and the Middle East. The U.S.
government as an imperialist institution, has a long history of criminal intervention
in the Middle East and the Muslim world.
After the events of Sept. 11, 2001, media
coverage of the story intentionally lacked any historical context. They did not
want to talk about the history of U.S. crimes in the Middle East, so Bush told
us that they were jealous of “our freedoms” and that is why they attacked. Of
course, we do not condone the attacks that took thousands of civilian lives,
mostly workers. But if we want to know what caused Sept. 11, we would only have
to look at the bloody history of U.S. intervention in the Middle East.
We are now in the tenth year of the occupation of
Afghanistan by the United States military and its allies. During these 10
years, the United States has imposed its rule through bombs, tanks, fighter
jets and drones. It has bombed schools and mosques, massacred people attending
weddings, destroyed villages, and killed countless civilians. Afghans are not
people who are jealous of our freedoms. They are people struggling for
independence against the occupation of their land.
It has been nearly eight years since the United
States occupied Iraq, destroyed the central Ba’ath government and set the stage
for the theft of Iraqi resources. Sept. 11 happened after more than a decade of
genocidal sanctions on Iraq, which killed 1.5 million people, from the eldest
to the youngest, from lack of medicine, food and clean water. Under the
occupation, Washington has utilized a divide-and-conquer strategy, using the
propaganda that the Ba’ath Party was the dictatorship of Iraqi Sunnis over the
oppressed Iraqi Shiites. In reality, Iraq’s former ruling party was a secular
party, with Shiites, Sunnis and even Christians in the leadership.
Today, U.S. threats against the Islamic Republic
of Iran are increasing. Again, anti-Muslim bigotry is used to justify continued
U.S. aggression against Iran. Even though the United States has 10,000 nuclear
warheads, the propaganda is that these “crazy Muslims” cannot be trusted to
even have nuclear energy.
The United States has built military bases in
Saudi Arabia, seen by many Muslims as an occupation of the holiest land (Ka’ba).
U.S. military bases attract prostitution, alcoholism, corruption and ecological
damage.
And the United States continues to support all of
Israel’s crimes, justifying it by depicting Israel as the victim and the
Palestinian victims as fanatical Muslim terrorists. Well, in reality, Israel
commits all of these crimes on behalf of U.S. imperialism.
The good-Muslim, bad-Muslim characterization of
the media is completely bogus. All Muslims know about these crimes because
there is not a person in the Islamic world whose life has not been directly
affected by the bloody U.S. interventions.
For Marxist, the right of self determination for
oppressed people is an important principle. The Party for Socialism and
Liberation stands with Muslims against all forms of bigotry. We express our
solidarity to all of our Muslim brothers and sisters. We seek unity with
Muslims and Arabs, those who live here in the United States and those in the
Middle East.
We have a common enemy – our imperialist ruling
class. We have a common cause – liberation and freedom from the capitalist
class that steals all the resources of the planet and drives us all deeper and
deeper into poverty. We demand an immediate end to the occupations of Iraq,
Afghanistan and Palestine and an end to U.S. intervention in the Middle East
and the rest of the world.
U.S. out of the Middle East!
