'8 PARTISAN REVIEW
prize in this crowded field should go to Eric Foner who confessed, "I am
not sure which is more frightening: the horror that engulfed New York
City or the apocalyptic rhetoric emanating daily from the White
House." Russell Means, the Native American activist, compared the
American responses to "What 1 used to see when 1 was behind the so–
called [sic] Iron Curtain touring Eastern Europe... [these responses]
increased the fear I've always had of the ongoing deprivation of individ-
ual liberties...by the federal government. My concern is that the gov-
ernment has...become an outlaw." Michael Mandel, a law professor,
declared that "The bombing of Afghanistan is the legal and moral
equivalent of what was done to Americans on September
11."
Another major theme, as expressed by Vivian Gornick, was that
"Force will get us nowhere.
It
is reparations that are owing, not retri–
bution." Richard Gere, the actor, advised people to look upon the ter–
rorists "as a relative who's dangerously sick and we have to give them
medicine, and the medicine is love and compassion ." The General Sec–
retary of the American Friends Service Committee proclaimed that
"Our grief is not a cry for retaliation . Terrorism must be stopped at its
root cause. .. "
It
soon became apparent that the "root causes" were American for–
eign policy, domestic social injustice, global insensitivity, arrogance, and
greed. A correspondent for the British newspaper the
Guardian
wrote:
"During my lifetime, America has been constantly waging war against
much of humanity: impoverished people mostly.. .It is this record of
unabashed national egotism and arrogance that drives anti-Americanism
.. ." Edward Said made clear on the pages of an Egyptian newspaper
that the United States is a genocidal power with a "history of reducing
whole peoples, countries, and even continents to ruin by nothing short
of holoca ust."
It
is no mystery why the embittered domestic critics of the United
States have been so preoccupied with the question of "why they hate
us." The better and more abundant reasons they find the more they rest
assured tbat their own hostility and alienation are well founded .
-October
25, 2001
