File spoon-archives/postcolonial.archive/postcolonial_2002/postcolonial.0212, message 59


From: "berry anchang" <nttd-AT-email.com>
Date: Mon, 09 Dec 2002 17:59:40 -0500
Subject: salon interview & rushdie & chomsky


thanks for all the responses to my query.  but could someone please take a look at the salon interview with geraldine brooks?  it seems to be a positive depiction of islam in a mainstream western publication, but i dont know about its accuracy.  any comments/thoughts/idears would be most welcome.

also, Maldoror, you state that "it's funny how ppl say that death penalties are brutal
in arab nations but yet never mention the brutality of
the electric chair or lethal injection in the US. it's
as though it's okay in the mighty 'first world' but if
the state mandated murder is enforced in the arab
world whoa, 'stop the presses those nasty arabs
massacred another one.' your language betrays the
bigot in you."

i disagree.  there is vigorous and ongoing debate in the u.s. about the death penalty, at the local, state and national level, in the mainstream and other press.  it is a touchstone issue in many elections, and there are many outspoken groups/networks in the u.s. devoted to fighting it (aclu, catholic church, etc).  not all states have the death penalty, and those that do administer it differently, sometimes infrequently, sometimes far too frequently (texas).  the use of dna evidence, for instance, is currently shifting the debate about the death penalty in the u.s. in new ways.  but the point is, there certainly isnt silence about this issue (about its brutality and injustice) in the u.s.

is this the case in most islamic nations?  i dont know the answer to this, and would appreciate any feedback.  do people in most islamic nations where the death penalty is administered have the opportunity to vote about its use?  to debate it openly and publicly as an issue?  my sense is that they may not (but again, i plead ignorance).  and so perhaps someone like rushdie uses his visibility to speak against it--on behalf of those who can not speak??

and can we please stop perpetuating this urban legend about noam chomsky being an outsider, the lone voice in the wilderness, unheard and alone (a myth chomsky himself continues to be invested in)?  noam chomsky has a kind of rock star cult status in the u.s.--the last time i heard him speak, it was before a standing room only crowd in a very large university auditorium, and it is standard for him now to speak to very large sold-out crowds.  His work is easily accessible in the u.s. in publications like The Nation, and is certainly addressed in mainstream publications like the new york times (which just reviewed the second american movie devoted to Chomsky, "Power and Terror").  He can often be seen on C-Span.  his days of speaking to a handful of vietnam war protesters in church basements are long since over, and his insistence on his outsider status thus is a bit disingenuous, to say the least. 
-- 
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