I don't know what inspired this. But for once, I want
to have hope. Especially since hope seems elusive.
there's just something about this war that makes me reflect: as
a person of color, despite being a citizen of the empire, i
probably has more in common with the beleaguered peoples of the
world fighting global capitalism than with the ruling imperial
elite (read "the white upper class of the developed world") i think
there's a certain sense of desperation to our existence. some
believe that the iraqis are fighting so hard because they believe
that they are fighting for their very existence. not just of their
culture (because if you look closely, of the countries of the
middle east, iraq has absorbed a great deal of western civ. some
believe that they did not turn to fundamentalist islam until
after sanctions were instituted, and they were cut off from
the international community) but for their very lives. sure, a lot
of this is because saddam and his henchmen have implanted the idea
that the west will surely show no mercy and will execute them all,
but there is a certain ring of truth to it. not because american
soldiers will necessarily degenerate into savagery and renege on
the geneva convention, but because once the empire has taken hold,
the iraqis will become, by definition, a subjugated people.
there is something haunting about this thinly veiled war of
imperial aggression. while it can be argued that many of the
u.s.-led interventions in the past have had a similar nature, the
leadership has always been good at invoking a some noble cause
(however dubious in retrospect) wwii was a fight between democracy
and fascism. korea and vietnam were embodiments of the war against
communist totalitarianism. even the more recent skirmishes in
somalia and in former yugoslavia and, yes, even the first war
against iraq, had at least the patina of humanitarianism. but what
is happening today is just an out-and-out power, land, and oil
grab. there is this dubious pretense of fighting for "liberation"
of the iraqi people, urging iraqis to overthrow their brutal
repressive dictator, eerily echoing the imperial japanese's
exhortation to filipinos to throw off the shackles of their white
colonial masters (and even more hauntingly, echoing america's call
to filipinos to overthrow their spanish overlords.) well. the
filipino-american war is known to many historians as the first
manifestation of american imperial power. in retrospect, it is
obvious that all the americans wanted was a strategic foothold in
asia, not to mention a hand in the rich national resources. and in
many ways, this second invasion of iraq completely mirrors
this.
sure, history never really repeats itself, but i feel
like the empire is coming full circle. will not iraq, like the
philippines, become culturally and economically dominated by their
imperial overlords? never becoming truly independent, despite all
the promises and reassurances? and in the same way that philippine
and filipino american history have been apparently erased and
papered over (and i think it is instructive that very few people
invoke the filipino-american war as some type of prototype for all
american imperial ventures despite the glaring obviousness. hell,
few can even recall this contentious era in america at all.) will
the iraqi people suffer the same fate? historical
non-existence?
such is the insiduous nature of empire. you do not exist if the
masters say you do not exist. ask any undocumented worker. worse,
if it were possible, ask any of the "detainees" held in guatanamo.
but this collective non-existence seems to be a fate of my
ethnicity, the fate of an imperial subject. will another ethnicity
share this same fate?
but this is what really tore at my heart, with regards to the
tenuous existence of immigrant peoples of color in the imperial
homeland: i remember when my mother and i crossed 2/3 of this
continent, from l.a. to chicago, how wary she was about white
people, to the point of where she made it a point to have a
strategy so that we wouldn't be as vulnerable to some hate crime.
(this is around the time some deranged lunatic from the world
church of the creator was killing non-whites, and similar white
supremacist groups were on the rise.) the thing is, up until very
recently, my mom has been a hard core republican, who had elected
reagan twice, who had elected bush the first, and voted for him
against clinton, and even voted for bob dole. she hated clinton to
his bones. my mom, who had swallowed whole the horatio alger myth,
that america was this great land of opportunity where anyone could
succeed, and that race was an obsolete construct that only
exploiters like johnny cochrane invoked. she had believed that
anyone on welfare should be ashamed, that they should at least
try to find a job, and she resented that she had to pay
taxes to bail out the "lazy." but that was until the american
empire showed its true face. when it became clear that such victims
as rodney king, abner louima, and amado diallo were not really
aberrations. when, after september 11, whites began targeting other
americans simply because they were muslim, or in some cases, just
because they were brown. when the corporation she worked for
refused to increase the pay of her and her fellow co-workers, who
all happened to be filipino american, despite having increased the
pay at another hospital whose demographic turned out to be mostly
white. i never thought i would hear of my mom taking up a cardboard
sign and picketing for fair pay, on the grounds that she and her
fellow brown americans were being racially discriminated against. i
feel like she has been betrayed, not only by her political party,
but by her country.
the thing comes to this: is it just now that our corrupt leaders
are lying to us, or has it always been this way? that this is
really all just propaganda, the likes of which ex-kgb could easily
recognize. are these all just lies then? that this country was
founded on noble principles, as a new beginning, where a hereditary
elite no longer existed, where "life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness" were not privileges but rights?
i want to believe that america the idea is a pure thing. america
the reality is an obvious falsehood, but if america the idea is
real, we can really bring an end to this empire.