[This piece first appeared on December 22nd as a note on Esther Wang's Facebook page.]

In October, news broke that 19-year-old Danny Chen – a US Army private who was born and raised in Chinatown – had died while posted in Kandahar Province in Afghanistan. It soon surfaced that he had been killed by a gunshot wound, which he suffered not during battle, but while on base. Military officials claimed he had committed suicide, and it came to light that before his death he had endured months of harassment and physical abuse from his fellow soldiers. He had written letters home that talked of how he was subjected to anti-Asian slurs and hazing – and then he was found dead. It’s still unknown whether he committed suicide or whether he was shot by another soldier.

Almost immediately, his death galvanized the Asian American community in New York City and throughout the United States. Not since the death of Vincent Chin in 1982 has an event produced such an outpouring of sorrow, anger, and cries for justice. Organizations like OCA, an Asian American civil rights group, demanded accountability from the military and for those responsible to be punished. Vigils and marches commemorating his life and calling for justice drew hundreds of people, and elected officials and community groups from New York traveled to Washington DC last week to meet with the Pentagon to discuss his death and call on the military to fully investigate his death and institute measures to prevent such harassment from ever happening again.

And today, it was announced that eight soldiers were charged with manslaughter, negligent homicide, assault, and a host of other crimes in connection to his death.

For many people, this is justice – hollow, to be sure, as a young man is still dead, the victim of what seems like endless abuse and harassment from his supposed brothers and comrades – but justice in the only form that seems available to us.

My heart hurts at the death of such a young man (really, a boy), hurts at seeing his parents cry over the loss of their only child. No one should have to suffer through these kinds of trauma.

And yet I can’t help but think that the response to his death points to a lack on the part of many Asian Americans to delve into some of the deeper issues that his death has brought to the surface – why he felt compelled to join the military, why Asians are compelled to participate in war and militarism, the seemingly endless wars we have fought in Afghanistan and Iraq in the aftermath of 9/11 (with the Iraq war only recently “ended”), the long history of US aggression in Asia, and what true and compassionate justice would look like for him, his family, for veterans, and for all of those around the world who suffer and have suffered at the hands of US empire.

There are currently about 300,000 Asian Americans serving in the military. Asians in general make up about five percent of the US population, but our participation in the military is much less than five percent, a disparity that the military, and the Army in particular, has noticed. During recruitment, officials tout their education benefits, the healthcare, the potential of expedited citizenship, and try to convince potential recruits that most people who enlist will not see military combat.

What they don’t share or spend much time talking about are the following facts:

• The US has the largest defense and military budget in the world – and it constitutes half of our federal budget. Almost a trillion dollars is spent every year on the bloated military budget – this, at a time when funding  for education, social services, and other necessary programs is being slashed to the bone.
• Our military is deployed in more than 150 countries around the world. We have more than 1,000 bases abroad, with hundreds in Asia alone that host more than 70,000 military personnel. And we are not wanted – protests occur regularly in Japan and Korea, demanding that bases be closed and that soldiers leave.
• Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since the wars began more than 10 years ago – children, elderly, parents, young people. The military has not discriminated when it comes to whom it will kill.

It is clear that the US military is one of the greatest purveyors of violence in the world – the past decade and century have been littered with enough examples to prove this without question. And these wars have often been waged on Asian soil – the Philippines in the late 1800s, Japan and the use of the atomic bomb during WWII, Korea in the 1950s, and Vietnam in the 1960s and 70s.

Too many of our families have an intimate knowledge of the devastation of war, including my own. My grandfather was born in China in the 1920s, when the country was still reeling from civil war and European imperial aggression. When he was a young man in the 1940s, he joined the army to fight in the war against Japan, and saw firsthand how destructive war could be. When I was a child, I only knew him as a gentle man with a quiet sense of humor who was a librarian at a branch of the Dallas public library system and loved watching wrestling. Only later in life would he tell me of watching his friends die, and of his own many brushes with death. It was this experience, he explained to me, that led to his opposition to the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to his voting against George Bush in 2004.

I think too of my friends who have enlisted, often because they couldn’t find another job and felt this was their best chance at a decent living. They come back struggling with PTSD, haunted by memories of what they saw, and gaps in their memory that their minds have simply erased because to remember would be too traumatic.

I think back on the last decade, and of the horror stories that have emerged from Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and elsewhere. I think of the recent past – of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, of napalm, of the millions who died during the war in Korea. Danny Chen’s name is one more to add to the list of millions whose lives have been claimed unnecessarily by war.

In the face of the death and destruction that our military has waged around the globe, including in many of our home countries, Asians in this country must go beyond pressing for accountability in the death of one young solider.

We should, and must, call for our military budget to be cut so that our pressing needs at home can be met, and so that young people can have options other than the military. In a spirit of solidarity, we must call for the closure of bases that are currently scattered around the world that serve no other purpose than to allow us to cling to a corrupt vision of global military and economic might. We can, and should call for the end of the seemingly endless war in Afghanistan, a misbegotten war that began on false premises and that has only led to the death not just of Danny Chen, but of tens of thousands, and to the destabilization of an entire region of the world. We need to make these connections between the violence that claimed the life of Danny Chen and the violence of militarization, and understand that to prevent this from happening in the future, this is the critical work we need to be engaged in.

We must remember that as Asians in this country, we have a long history of discrimination but also resistance, and realize that we have a crucial role to play in reclaiming our collective humanity and clearing the fog of war.

Rest in peace, Danny. May your life and death be a moment for all of us to think about our complicity in the wars our country have waged, a moment to remember history, and an opportunity for us to unite around a renewed commitment to fighting the logic of US empire and militarism and to push for justice not only for you, but for all peoples around the world.

Esther Wang is a staff organizer at the New York City-based Committee Against Anti-Asian Violence (CAAAV) and the director of  their Chinatown Justice Project.

Fake New York Times released by the Yes Men on November, 12th, 2008, announcing "the end of the Iraq war."

As the US military withdrawal from Iraq approaches its deadline of December 31st, 2011, the Popular Movement to Save Iraq‘s Uday al-Zaidi, released a statement calling for celebration, vigilance, and a new front “to resist the second face of the occupation.”

The statement, addressed to the “Iraqi and Arab media”, and signed by 15 other Iraq-based grassroots organizations,  begins: “The day of the US military occupation’s defeat by the great Iraqi people and its resistance draws near, and Iraqis have been preparing themselves for a Friday which will be the final chance for those that are anti-occupation to record their name in the history of Iraq’s resistance. December 30th, 2011 will be called: ‘The Friday of Occupation’s Defeat’”  It goes on: “[That day] the youth will remain in the streets calling for the departure of every last American soldier, under whatever terms or form that the occupation government might adopt.” They have also chosen this day  “to prepare to open up a new front to resist the second face of the occupation represented by its sectarian government, its divisive constitution, and to resist Iranian influence, that may be considered worse than the US occupation by every measure.”

It concludes by calling journalists in the “free media”, to “stand with the [Iraqi] people [ . . . ] at the doorstep of an important and delicate moment in Iraqi history” and refers to an earlier statement which lists the names and phone numbers of dozens of organizers all over Iraq who are mobilizing with “coordinating committees” for the 30th.

Take it away, “free media.”

1 . Baghdad: Thurgham al-Zaidi 009677704260290, Sana al-Dalaymi 009647812801749, Uday al-Zaidi 009647902502891

2. Mosul: Ghanim al-Abad 009647701615687, Khalid Juma 009647709185836

3. Basra: Mr. Awath al-Abdan 009647703261868, Kamil Ahmad al-Ghathban 009647703392839

4. Salah al-Deen: Khalaf Jasim 009647706668819, Hashim al-Hamdani 009647701344847

5. Najaf: Mr. Abu Ameer al-Arathi 009647801131677, Abu Jasim al-Bayati 009647702301830

6. al-Anbar: Mr. Rahim al-Mahmadi 009647905668408, Layth al-Dalaymi 009647704358280

7. al-Amara: Mr. Faruq al-Mahmadawi 0096478122214106, Abu al-Hasan al-Akili 00964780108651

8. al-Nasariya: Saud al-Khafaji 009647817848776, Abu Tayba al-Saidi 009647811660025

9. Dialy Province: Mr. Abu Azawi 0096477110135000

10. Kirkuk: Mr. Harby al-Amash 009647712143298

 [The following statement originated from activists in the San Fransisco Bay Area. For further information, contact: bay2egypt@gmail.com ]

As 2011 gives way to 2012, people’s movements for justice are met with unprecedented global militarization. From Oakland to Egypt, people are demanding democracy and an equitable distribution of wealth while attacked with tear gas and pepper spray, rubber bullets and live ammunition. We have become all too familiar with the recent images of the words “Made in the USA” on tear gas canisters used against Egyptians, thousands of whom have been injured and scores killed. Others have experienced firsthand the brutality of these weapons used against the decolonize/occupy movements in the US. Tear gas, however, is but one manifestation of this assault.

Militarization is not new. Police brutality is not a recent phenomenon. Communities of color and poor communities have long faced the violence of systems of power. Police brutality, racial profiling, surveillance of communities, control of media and communication, and attacks on immigrants in the US are all connected to the global militarization we are seeing in Egypt and other places where people are fighting for their freedom. What we are witnessing today is an illumination of these acts of violence as thousands stand together in defiance of such assaults.

We echo this resolve. We will not allow corporations to profit off the brutality against our people in the US or abroad! Egyptian revolutionaries have asked for the movements in the US to shutdown the manufacturing and shipment of weapons and we heed their call in solidarity. We are calling for a targeted campaign against the corporations that profit off the use of these chemical weapons. These corporations have paved the way for a systemic attack against movements for justice.

We must also hold our government accountable for their hand in repression abroad and demand they stop military aid to Egypt. We will not allow our tax dollars to be used in supporting corporations and dictators that profit from and facilitate state violence against our people in the US and abroad!

Endorsed By:

• Ad-Hoc Coalition to Defend the Egyptian Revolution
• Al-Awda, SF – Palestine Right of Return Coalition
• ANSWER – Act Now to Stop the War and End Racism
• AROC – Arab Resource and Organizing Center
• IJAN – International Jewish Antizionist Network
• ISO – International Socialist Organization
• Labor for Palestine – New York City Labor Against War
• SJP – Students for Justice in Palestine at UC Davis
• Syrian American Council, Bay Area
• USPCN – US Palestine Community Network
• War Resisters League, New York

[This article was originally published on 'New Clear Vision' on November 28th, 2011.]

Just as police were attacking Occupy spaces in Oakland, Portland, New York City, and elsewhere, and various mainstream (and even some left-leaning) pundits were declaring the demise of the Occupy movement, new initiatives and new life was being breathed fresh into grassroots spaces. In less than one week following the dismantling of several prominent 24-hour occupations, and the arresting of some key activists, substantial achievements were being made. New York’s “flagship site” convened a day-long series of mass, nonviolent direct actions, from a morning civil disobedience at the Stock Exchange, to afternoon “speak-outs” on the trains crossing several different subway lines and many miles throughout the City’s boroughs. The evening concluded with a coming together of well over 30,000 — including union delegations, peace activists, and occupiers. In Oakland, arrested meditator Pancho Ramos Stierle was released after several days of fasting and after a fast-paced campaign gathered thousands of signatures working to prevent the potential deportation of this Mexican internationalist. That campaign has also quickly been linked to other immigrant rights efforts.

And in Oakland, New York, and Los Angeles, a newly-formed Council of Elders — some of the most respected icons of the civil rights era — gathered at Occupy sites on Sunday, November 20, 2011, for interfaith services and inter-generational dialogues. “We applaud the miraculous extent to which the Occupy initiative has been non-violent and democratic,” these Elders asserted, “especially in light of the weight of violence under which the great majority of people are forced to live, including joblessness, foreclosures, unemployment, poverty, inadequate health care, etc.” “We are convinced,” they said, “that Occupy Wall Street is a continuation, a deepening and expansion of the determination of the diverse peoples of our nation to transform our country into a more democratic, just and compassionate society — a more perfect union. We believe that the rapidly expanding and racialized impoverishment of our population, the rise of mass incarceration, the celebration of the culture of war and violence all create the bitter divisions among the peoples of our nation and throughout the world.”

Sadly, these divisions have occasionally been exacerbated by progressives, trying to sidestep or gloss over some of the fundamental lessons of previous movements. Emails boxes are stuffed with verbose discussions of which direction the Occupy movement should go in. Some commentary correctly critiques “old left” dogma, such as Gary Hicks notes in “A Plea for John Brown,” which equally castigates “juvenile nihilists” (not the often-caricatured, so-called violent anarchists) as well as finger-waving “establishment” pacifists who want all actions to be well-choreographed and negotiated with the police (rather than have the militant creative tensions present in the campaigns towards a beloved community waged by Dr. King and his colleagues). Other commentary, such as the Peace and Justice Studies Association’s Randall Amster’s “Welcome Home,” calls for a movement willing to be truly inclusive, warts and all.

Beyond North American borders, messages of support have poured in to #Occupy, which presage the next rounds of revolutionary upheaval. “People of the world have come to refuse a culture of wars and also the ‘democracy’ of the rich,” wrote Yanar Mohammed of the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI). In a neat flip on what is usually considered solidarity, the OWFI suggests that the poorly-labeled Arab Spring (which, from the get-go, was never restricted to the region or season whose name it bears) has already gone well beyond expectations: “Connecting such a movement globally was beyond even the wildest dreams of most visionaries, but has proven to be within reach.” Finally, as should be expected in times like these, the youth take the lead. Portland student Tyger Ricard, writing about reasons to give a very political thanks for the gains of this season, cites no less than seven achievements already won by the Occupy movement. It is heartening to recognize — and insightful to reflect — that, even if Wall Street has not given in to a particular #OWS demand, there is much which has been gained by having folks speak openly to one another, talking about “tough stuff from the bottom up.”

It is in this framework that my own local affinity group, Resistance in Brooklyn, issued the following statement as a discussion piece on moving beyond simple anti-racism in a 21stcentury context. As always, RnB welcomes and encourages your input.

Occupation: Liberation — Building Sustainable Resistance Movements

“It is not our differences which separate [us], but our reluctance to recognize those differences and to deal effectively with the distortions which have resulted from the ignoring and misnaming of those differences.” — Audre Lorde, 1984 (“Age, Race, Class, and Sex” in Sister Outsider)

“I felt like something important had just happened, that we had just pushed a movement a little bit closer to the movement I would like to see — one that takes into account historical and current inequalities, oppressions, racisms, relations of power, one that doesn’t just recreate liberal white privilege but confronts it head on. And if I have to fight to make that happen I will…. Later that night I biked home over the Brooklyn Bridge and I somehow felt like the world was, just maybe, at least in that moment, mine, as well as everyone dear to me and everyone who needed and wanted more from the world. I somehow felt like maybe the world could be all of ours.” — Manissa McCleave Maharawal, 2011 (So Real It Hurts: Notes on Occupy Wall Street), describing the successful push by what she calls “our amazing, impromptu, radical South Asian contingent” to strike the words about “being one race, the human race, formerly divided by race, class…” from the Declaration of the Occupation, and the intense educational discussions that followed.

Resistance in Brooklyn (RnB), a twenty-year-old anti-racist, anti-imperialist collective rooted in the 1970s/80s movements in solidarity with struggles of communities and nations of color, is awed by the creativity, tenacity, and commitment of the burgeoning Occupy movement. However long it lasts, and in what form, is not the point. The main thing in our view is that the young people who have led the way have thrown down a gauntlet for 21st century political action in the Global North that offers the possibility — if it takes on a broad enough solidarity agenda — to set the stage for overcoming the systems of oppression that shackle the majority of the earth’s people, animals, and land. Thus it is critical for ever-widening groups of people to support, join, and pick up on OWS with an eye toward helping it forge solidarity-based alliances with struggles of communities of color here and throughout the Global South. No successful, progressive social change movement in the U.S. has ever been successful without a diverse base of support; we must not let racism divide “the 99%.”

Much ink has been spilled and many words have been written about the Occupy phenomenon. We are especially grateful to our comrades in #OWS Anti-Racism Allies, who have written articulately on tips for white allies of People of Color who are struggling both within and without OWS. These tipsinclude the need to pay attention to who is talking; to listen from love; to share information and resources; to make it clear when there is a risk of arrest; and to support People of Color-created events. We are also indebted to the flyer that articulates the principle that talking about racism is NOT divisive; it is racism that has been used for centuries to divide us. What we are doing now is working hard to help #OWS become a genuinely anti-racist movement that can play a role in building an organized, mobilized, and unified force for radical change. We are most indebted to all the individuals and organizations in the Black, Latina, Native, and Asian movements which have taught and continue to teach us so much; the major social change movements of our millennia have all grown out of mass organizing efforts from these peoples.

RnB therefore humbly adds the following ideas into the mix, in an effort to contribute our experiences in dealing with racism, alliance-building, collectivity, and long-term resistance:

1. Racism is just one tool of White Supremacy: We must first understand that racism is not just an individual thing, but a dynamic that takes hold of every institution in a society based upon the premise of white supremacy. Prejudice — pre-judging and assuming things about people based on race, gender, sexual orientation, class, physical ability, and other conditions — is a problem that many people from all walks of life can sadly succumb to. But RACISM = PREJUDICE + POWER. Institutional power in a country founded on white skin privilege still affects people despite the election of a president of African descent. And racism is just one tool of white supremacy — the bedrock organizing principle that white is the “baseline” reality that defines what it means to be “normal,” “American,” “the center of things,” “culture,” etc.

2. Anti-racism means solidarity with, and respect for, self-determination, autonomy, and freedom by people, communities, and nations of color: Solidarity must be a two-way street, not a condescending “gift” of material aid from well-intentioned white philanthropists. Self-determination must mean that organizations and movements from oppressed nationalities and communities get to call the shots about the work in their own neighborhoods and struggles. And in cross-community/cross-national movements for radical change like #OWS, those same forces should be supported in having a major voice, stepping forward to offer direction, and being public spokespeople. Some groupings may want to build independent of any assistance or intervention from people of European descent; respect for autonomy means being clear that this is not only OK, but supported.

3. There is no Great White Hope: Too often, in a society so influenced by racism, even progressive and deeply anti-racist people and organizations put themselves forward in some solidarity activities in a way that suggests that they are the “true” anti-racists, while other activists are not advanced enough to play a leading role. In fact, all white folks must continue to grapple with our deeply rooted racist upbringings all of our lives, while also not operating out of guilt or defensive reaction. As we struggle against racism and white skin privilege, we must also struggle against the special privileges granted to some “special” white folks who monopolize interactions and conduct closed relationships with leaders from communities of color. We must struggle for collective liberation of all people. Conversely, we should not foster the notion that solidarity with oppressed communities and nations is a “specialty” area of activism that only certain “well-versed,” “well-connected,” or “particularly interested” white people need to or can engage in. In our efforts to overcome both our own racism and the limitations of our social change movements, one great challenge is to struggle with other white folks, without becoming elitist or sectarian.

4. “Color-blindness” is a myth: While it is true that the very concept of “race” is a biological myth from a DNA standpoint, and we understand that all people have some shades of “color,” we also recognize that race has a particular history in the U.S. That history cannot be wished away by either individuals or entire movements that want to “see beyond” race. As long as institutional racism and denial of self-determination for oppressed peoples continue to characterize U.S. society (not just back in those “bad old days before civil rights” or “before Obama”), white activists will have the responsibility not only to “see” these issues, but also to educate other whites to grasp them and to support struggles to overturn those unjust systems.

5. We must fight not only racism, but also colonialism and imperialism: In constructing a truly liberated society based on justice for all, we must not only move beyond whiteness as a social category, with all the injustices it creates, but also beyond colonialism, neo-colonialism, and imperialism. For example, our work against capitalism and racism must include an understanding that Wall Street has been occupied indigenous land since 1645, and must be de-colonized. It must include a call for the freedom and independence of the last major U.S. colony — we must call for the Un-Occupation/Decolonization of Puerto Rico. It must include freedom for the scores of U.S. political prisoners — activists held because of their beliefs and actions toward freedom and justice — and an end to the prison-industrial complex that incarcerates based upon racial injustice. Our fight for economic justice, while understanding that so many of us have been exploited by “the 1%”, must also understand that Blacks in the south (New Afrikans), Mexicans and Latina immigrants, Native Americans, Asians and other Third World peoples have been super-exploited through theft of land, labor, culture, and history. We must therefore join in the call — raised by Native Nations, New Afrikans, radical environmentalists, and others — to “Free the Land!”

6. Struggles against institutionalized oppression are interconnected: As we work together for liberation and revolution, not only do we struggle against white skin privilege, but also we seek to end all the divisions of people justified by false assumptions and prejudice. That means it is crucial that we actively learn about and support the struggles in society, and within Occupy Wall Street, against patriarchy, sexism, heterosexism, homophobia, trans-phobia, able-ism, ageism, anti-Semitism, militarism, and all forms of oppression. Many of the same principles outlined here about solidarity, autonomy, and self-determination apply similarly to relationships between activists from the group accorded relative privilege by society (for example, men) and the group that is oppressed (in this case, women).

7. Anti-racist trainings can only take us so far: Trainings that help white activists understand the historical and current injustices facing people of color, and the harmful dynamics often practiced by even well-intentioned white people, are valuable tools for strengthening our movement. But the only way to fully actualize the principles taught in those trainings is to engage in the active work of alliance-building solidarity, educating other white people about the key issues of white supremacy, and organizing against the empire. Furthermore, doing this hard work collectively (not just in one-on-one or small-group relationships) is the only effective way to develop as an anti-racist white person. No amount of training — or, for that matter, of activist experience — can prevent us from making mistakes. Our honest, self-critical, loving reflections upon those mistakes are the only way we can grow, as individuals and as a community.

As always, we encourage comments, ideas, additions, modifications, disagreements, debates, edits, suggestions, and the sharing of your own passions and experiences. We look forward to building dialogue and community with anyone who has read this far. Contact RnB/Resistance in Brooklyn at: resistanceinbrooklyn.ows@gmail.com.

Matt Meyer is an educator-activist, based in New York City, and serves as convener of the War Resisters International Africa Working Group. His recent books include Guns and Gandhi in Africa: Pan-African Insights on Nonviolence, Armed Struggle and Liberation (Africa World Press, 2000), the two-volume collection Seeds of New Hope: Pan African Peace Studies for the 21st Century (Africa World Press, 2008, 2010), and Let Freedom Ring: A Collection of Documents from the Movements to Free U. S. Political Prisoners (PM Press, 2008). Meyer is a contributing member of the Editorial Advisory Board for New Clear Vision.

[This statement was originally published in the e-zine Jadaliyya on November 3rd, 2011, by OWFI President Yanar Mohammed* and WRL national field organizer Ali Issa.]

Dear Occupy Wall Street,

The people of the world are watching you, following your news and hoping that – rather than just vent your anger and frustration – you achieve all of your dreams.

While democracy should guarantee all people an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives, you find yourselves forced to take to the streets, as politicians and bankers make decisions behind closed doors and hire an army of police to send you back home with nothing.

While a wealthy 1% ravages your jobs, health, and very lives, their focus is always on their banks and not on the welfare and future of innocent, unsuspecting millions of people. In times of growth, those banks are sustained by your labor, resulting in extravagant luxuries for the 1%; while their economic failures and crises deny you basic resources and economic rights.

This is the same 1% that pursued the war on Iraq without hearing the millions who marched – in the United States and around the world – expressing their opposition. While claiming democracy, the 1% builds vast armies to be launched not just against people all over the world, but also within their own borders.

A second wave of global revolutions has begun as the 99% (that is, the global working class) rejects the tyranny, marginalization, and poverty which capitalist authoritarian governments force onto billions of us. Despite all claims of representation, capitalist states make the people pay the price of the economic failures of their political systems with unemployment and government cuts, while the banks get bailed out by the same resources that people’s toil has created. Avoiding the poverty and starvation of billions is never the concern of these so-called democracies as much as the stability of their own political rule. Moreover, that same 1% re-creates the same failing model of “democratic” capitalist political structures in newly-invaded countries around the globe.

The so-called democracy of Iraq, created by the western capitalist states, divides Iraqi oil reserves between the 1% politicians and a massive, newly-built army, which is now well trained to crush the Iraq’s Tahrir square demonstrations (active since Feb 25th), with live ammunition, torture, and beatings. While the 99% of Iraqis seethe with anger waiting for the right conditions to claim what is theirs, they eagerly follow your progress in occupying Wall Street, as our enemy is one whether they are American or Iraqi. That enemy is the 1% of ruthless exploiters.

Although plans of US withdrawal from Iraq have been publicized worldwide, we are certain that US bases will remain around our cities and villages in one form or another, fully ready to attack and crush any popular uprising, whenever deemed necessary. Although the US administration has already installed Iraqis to maintain systems of inequality and suppression in Iraq, they will continue to keep their military arsenals on full guard for a worst case scenario. This is what our newly-installed democracy grants us: poverty, inequality, suppression of dissent, and a lack of civil liberties for the vast majority of the people, especially women.

People of the world have come to refuse a culture of wars and also the “democracy” of the rich. It is time for a political system of equal wealth for all, in other words, a socialist system, where free market rules cannot starve billions while filling the pockets of a few. Connecting such a movement globally was beyond even the wildest dreams of most visionaries, but has proven to be within reach in 2011. And your #Occupy movement has played a leading role in igniting it.

While hunger and wars are planned and organized by a ruthless 1%, it is the responsibility of the 99% to create a better world, built on values of humanity, equality and prosperity for all. In this world, decision-making will not be taken by World Banks, capitalists, and their representative statesmen, but by the immediate representatives of the working class.

Putting demands to the 1% is not the solution, as they have failed repeatedly and can only proceed with their methods of starving working people and bringing on more economic failures.

The time has come for a second step. After occupying the street, it is time to break into the castles and palaces of the 1%, and claim what is rightfully yours, to start a new era based on global peace, equal division of wealth, and humanity.

We stand behind you and carry on our continuous resistance to the rule of the 1% in Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, and the entire world.

Long live the struggles of the 99%, and down with the 1%!
Yanar Mohammed
Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq

10/31/2011

*Yanar Mohammed graduated from Baghdad University in 1984 and received a Master’s degree in Architecture in 1993. She co-founded the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI) in 2003, and is the chief editor of the newspaper Al Mousawat.

Some of OWFI‘s recent, often cross-movement work has included: expanding the Al Mousawat Radio Project, a radio station broadcast in Iraq, now in its fourth year, that focuses on women’s rights , leading a campaign against those responsible for the horrific damage done to the small northern Iraqi town of Hawija by a US military installation, and protecting an emerging leader in the Iraqi women’s movement, Aya Al Lamie, after she was detained and tortured by government-backed thugs. OWFI members have also been prominent in the Iraqi, Arab-spring style protest movement that began in late February.

[The WRL blog is excited to feature a third book review by Jeanne Strole, co-director of the A.J. Muste Memorial Institute, with which the War Resisters League shares a long history, as well as the building at 339 Lafayette St. in Manhattan.]

Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber (2011)

Review by Jeanne Strole

Right now, everyday people are increasingly feeling stress from all directions. Pressure from the faltering economy, violence and warfare, debt/deficit worries, and austerity measures are taking things to a breaking point. Human-scale economic considerations are being crushed beneath the massive weight of a world-wide permanent war economy and a bloated, lawless global financial system. The lingering 2008 financial crisis has this year sparked worldwide protest movements in one form or another that are hunkered down and gaining momentum in rebellion of the immense financial stresses effecting all but the richest among us.

Into this moment of epochal crisis comes Debt: the First 5,000 Years, by David Graeber, a book examining the real history of the economic forces that seem so permanently entrenched and that are affecting our lives so profoundly. It is an engaging, thoroughly researched text that is at times humorous and always thought-provoking. It presents a fascinating history of human financial systems and illustrates how changeable these systems actually are when viewed over time. Graeber takes the reader through an examination of various aspects of economic mechanisms and systems of exchange, then on a journey down a timeline of economic evolution, beginning from around 800 BC up through the present. While chapter by chapter, Debt is an accessible and interesting read, the book is also extremely dense and detailed, making it a long read.

The dynamic between debt and credit, and how they function, is the primary focus of the book. The author examines how debt is experienced very differently by economically disenfranchised people and countries in the global south compared to how privileged people and wealthy countries experience it. He notes that there are deep contradictions and economic double standards that have been at play for centuries and which have evolved into the power dynamics in force today. Graeber observes that it is the power and capacity to create violence that determines how an entity, a country, for instance, experiences debt and the pressure to repay that debt. “In the final analysis”, he notes simply, “the man with the gun doesn’t have to do anything he does not want to do.”

The underlying forces that govern which economic systems are employed when throughout history is also dictated by the absence or presence of violence, in the form of wars, military adventures and empire building. In order to facilitate the maintenance of armies and the fighting of wars, gold and silver exchange markets replaced debt and credit systems….but not permanently. Throughout the last 5,000 years, Graeber explains, human society has shifted back and forth between credit and bullion or gold and silver exchange systems based on the presence of institutional violence. The concept of how “violence, or the threat of violence, turn human relations into mathematics” is explored throughout the book.    

The author observes that the 2008 financial crisis presented an opportunity for a conversation about how our current financial systems might once again be dismantled and/or reinvented, this time to more intentionally serve human needs rather than violence, power and greed. But this conversation never really got started, the banks were never held accountable for their greed and incompetence, they never faced oversight and regulation, and the militarization of the economy was allowed to carry on. Graeber notes that, since then, in the wake of that missed opportunity, the financial crisis has worsened, like a global economic flu. Real people all over the world are enduring an accelerated degradation of their financial situations, loss of homes, the crush of consumer debt, mortgages and student loans, and draconian cuts in education, healthcare, and social welfare systems as the financial elite squeeze the last drops of blood from the world economy.

Graeber asks the question “How did we get here?” He suspects that what we are seeing and feeling is the last stages of the complete militarization of American capitalism. He goes on to speculate that “the last thirty years have seen the construction of a vast bureaucratic apparatus for the creation and maintenance of hopelessness, a giant machine designed, first and foremost, to destroy any sense of possible alternative futures.”

But he then writes that this ongoing crisis does present an opportunity for alternative solutions, for conversations about debt forgiveness for economically vulnerable countries and people and for reform of the system in general. Graeber writes that, in order to begin this process, “to begin to free ourselves, the first thing we need to do is to see ourselves again as historical actors, as people who can make a difference in the course of world events. This is exactly what the militarization of history is trying to take away.”

Enter 2011, witnessing the widespread protests of the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street, movements that are gaining momentum, each encouraging the other, and joining with the austerity protests breaking out all over Europe. The world seems poised to form the makings of a vast global rebellion and people seem to be taking up active roles to make change. Finally, it seems, also, that the conversation which did not happen in 2008 is beginning now in earnest.

Graeber points out that, when economic pressure has reached critical points in the past, people have been able to work for change. Jubilee or debt forgiveness and a re-distribution of resources have happened in many civilizations throughout history and he posits that we have reached again exactly such a moment.

How might debt forgiveness work for homeowners and students, for instance? Graeber’s comments on debt forgiveness may seem revolutionary, but he is by no means alone in this debate. This 2009 article from Business Week, for instance, describes one aspect of the growing movement for forgiving student debt to stimulate the economy. Many involved in this movement have begun to make progress pressing their congressional representatives for debt forgiveness and income-based repayment relief legislation. Mortgage forgiveness for homeowners is being fiercely debated but the prevailing sentiment is that any allowances for re-financing, principle forgiveness or overall mortgage forgiveness would endanger the mortgage-backed securities industry. Graeber would likely argue that the unregulated proliferation of questionable mortgage products and predatory lending practices started the problem, so the companies and banks responsible should be made to pay….and not out of taxpayer’s pockets.

The question of debt forgiveness on a national scale is another discussion. Haiti might be the first country that comes to mind when thinking about national debt forgiveness. Graeber writes that, when the slave population of Haiti won their independence in 1804, France levied a debt of reparations upon the new country of 150 million francs, the equivalent of 18 billion dollars today, a sum impossible to pay back. Haiti has been crippled beneath the weight of that debt ever since and is, consequently, the poorest country in the world. Ongoing debate about forgiving Haiti’s debt intensified after an earthquake devastated the island country in January of 2010. Some of that debt was forgiven, but Haiti still struggles under a burden of more than one billion dollars that it owes to various countries and international entities, much of that more recent debt accumulating during the brutal reigns of Papa Doc and Baby Doc Duvalier.

Graeber also notes that, often times, loans to countries in the global south end up in the bank accounts of dictators and not in the countries’ treasuries, and he questions the fairness of making these countries pay back the debts, rather than demanding the money back from the people who stole it from those national treasuries. Recently, the post-Mubarak transitional government in Egypt has been working on lobbying their lender countries like the United States to forgive some or all of its national debts. The Obama administration is currently considering some form of debt forgiveness as part of its next aid package to Egypt.

Some countries that have been pushed to the brink of default by foreign debt burdens have even managed to successfully negotiate refinancing terms with their creditors without the International Monetary Fund installing itself as the mandatory intermediary. Argentina, in debt restructuring negotiations with its creditors in the wake of its 2002 fiscal crisis, is one example.

Graeber notes that he wrote Debt, in part, to encourage people to begin to view economics as being changeable and not monolithic, and to spark some creative thinking about what the possibilities for the future of human beings might look like. He admits that it is anyone’s guess what might happen next but he suggests that new forms of human exchange and cooperation, forms reliant on human compassion, creativity and love, can break with the forces that continually have sought to reduce human activity to commodity.

We are taking back power, restoring ourselves as engaged, creative, socially interacting beings, retrieved from the shrunken, two dimensional roles as producers and consumers of goods and services that accepted economics would relegate us to. Debt, the First 5,000 Years, is an attempt at understanding the past in order to understand the possibilities of this moment in time and our future economic survival. Human economics based on relationships and efforts based on creativity, love, and passion could form a new system from within the shell of the old. We can change the system for the better forcing governments and financial institutions to forgive the debts of economically vulnerable people and countries alike, and re-ordering the future for people, not for armies and banks.

Jeanne Strole is an artist and social justice activist living in New York City. She is currently a co-director of the A.J. Muste Memorial Institute.

In this video, Afghan feminist freedom-fighter Malalai Joya delivers a message for the October 7th commemoration and breaks down the consequences of ten years of U.S. occupation of her country. Joya also proposes an anti-occupation solution to the problems caused by the U.S.-backed warlords currently in power in the Afghan government and attacks by rival warlords and  insurgent groups, including the Taliban.

The event will take place in Washington, D.C., but even if you are not in the area, you can watch proceedings live via http://www.ustream.tv/channel/war-voices. You can send questions to our speakers via Facebook, Twitter (@WarVoices), or email (ivaw@ivaw.org).  We will have live chat on the day of the event alongside the streaming video.

“I think that whoever talks of pressure has to be precise. I don’t feel any pressure. Even the Syrian regime has stopped talking about conspiracy and foreign intervention. Either they know there is pressure and they don’t dare declare it or there is very little actual pressure. The Syrian regime has benefited from total support of the Arab regimes until very recently. The Iraqi regime is still solidly supportive.” –Fawwaz Traboulsi (in Jadaliyya 9/2/11)

As the Syrian uprising enters its sixth month and shows no sign of turning back, the Syrian people took note of the Iraqi government’s strong support for Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s regime, who has been brutally repressing Syrians, tragically now with full military force. In mid-August Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki was reported to have met with Syrian business luminaries to create “stronger economic ties.” In response, the coalition of Syrian coordinating committees wrote a statement to the Iraqi people saying:

“We reassure our Iraqi brothers that our morning is surely coming, and that the  relationship between our two countries will be one of brotherhood . . . We ask our brothers in Iraq to offer one suggestion to the rulers of Syria: step down immediately . . .”

That is when members of protest-movement coordinating and media group “The Great Iraqi Revolution” released an “Open Letter to the Heroic Syrian Revolution“, writing:

“Know that your triumph is inevitable, no matter how long it takes. For you are more worthy of Syria than a regime that has unleashed its army and allowed it to kill its own  people while not once aiming a bullet at the occupied Golan Heights over these past decades [. . .] As for the Iraqi government – that stands in support of the regime of murder and blood – its position is predictable because the tyrants overlap in a shared project – sponsored by a regional power – whose goals are no longer hidden to anyone. And don’t forget that the politicos of the new Iraq were also embraced in the past by the same regime that is killing and targeting you.” They close by writing, “Be assured that your coming victory will strengthen us to resist our tyrants and the occupiers that sponsor them.” The full text of the letter is translated below by Farah Mohsen and Ali Issa.

Open Letter to the Heroic Syrian Revolution

8-22-11

We, along with all Iraqis, have read the message you addressed to Iraq and its people urging them to take a position on the Syrian revolution. Accordingly, we give you our answer as we look forward to your freedom that you are fueling with the blood of free men;  freedom you express through chants recited by Syrians young and old, singing for all the free men and women around the world:

“God . . . Syria . . . and Freedom only.”

Know, oh, brothers that we are living an era of “new blood”, after living half a century under tyranny and injustice. God has honored all of us with a change brought by a new generation that our “leaders” mistakenly thought couldn’t offer anything, thinking their regimes were successful in taming and alienating them from the true meaning of resistance against their unjust monarchs. But the will of God has made these young men, among them Syrian young men, into swords at the throats of the tyrants; battling them with bare chests and angry voices calling for freedom. They use modern-day technology – that  today’s dictators secluded from us for decades – as a method of communication, replacing the old way of underground meetings that were used in the past by  activists.

We approve of your blessed revolution, support its youth, and bless its steps as we anticipate its success and the accomplishment of its goals. This is our stance on every revolution that is lead by any nation that stands against its oppressor; and as far as we know this is the stance of all Iraqis on towards your revolution, as well as the stance of all people of conscience.  

As for the Iraqi government – that stands in support of the regime of murder and blood – its position is predictable because the tyrants overlap in shared a project – sponsored by a regional power – whose goals are no longer hidden to anyone. And don’t forget that the politicos of the new Iraq were also embraced in the past by the same regime that is killing and targeting you.

Finally, we wish to bring our Syrian revolutionary brothers’ attention to the importance of preserving the peacefulness of their revolution, and its noble objectives, not to give chance for those who are slaves to occupiers to “ride the wave.” Maintain the revolution’s national agenda in order for it to shine with its honorable goals, so that your grandchildren grow full of pride knowing that you created this revolution with your own two hands.

Know that your triumph is inevitable, no matter how long it takes. For you are more worthy of Syria than a regime that has unleashed its army and allowed it to kill its own  people while not once aiming a bullet at the occupied Golan Heights over these past decades.

Be assured that your coming victory will strengthen us to resist our tyrants and the occupiers that sponsor them.

Till we meet soon, God willing, under the shade of new regimes that gain their legitimacy from the will of the people, and are not taken in by the unjust among them that belittle their potential.

May God bless your martyrs’ souls, and may they dwell in heaven.

May God heal your wounded.

Go under God’s protective watch.

The Youth of the Great Iraqi Revolution