File spoon-archives/postcolonial.archive/postcolonial_2003/postcolonial.0304, message 127


From: "Mohammed BEN JELLOUN" <mohammed.benjelloun-AT-mail.bip.net>
Subject: Re: Thoughts on Said's "A Stupid War"
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2003 21:08:21 +0200


Welcome to the pocolist Ben!

But let's spare some discussion time. Were you for or against this war and do you think the US occupier should stay or withdraw from Iraq immediately? I personally think there's nothing wrong with anti-colonial hate speeches. So, if you too hate colonialism I have good news for you: Chi'i Muslims in Nassiriyah and Baghdad have been demonstrating massively today against the occupier and the unpatriotic pro-American opposition of Chalabi and the like. I hope the American media did report it satisfactorily.
Greetings,
Mohammed

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ben" <neuronengesang-AT-yahoo.com>
To: <postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2003 7:06 PM
Subject: Re: Thoughts on Said's "A Stupid War"


> Hi Maldoror!  Thanks for the response.  Here's my
> re-response  :)
> 
> 1)  If as you say, the word 'current' (meaning Iraq as
> under siege by America) is the key to differentiate
> between Said's threatening nation and non-threatening
> nation, that means that Iraq before the siege
> (non-current) was a threatening nation.  Which was the
> point of the siege in the first place, I thought, to
> elimate the threatening ability of Iraq.  Said is
> saying that now that Iraq is no longer threatening,
> American troops should leave?  That's a back-handed
> approval for besieging in the first place.
> 
> 2)  You're quite right about Said criticizing the
> American media showing the same happy Iraqis over and
> over, heh.  I by no means think that all of Iraq's
> people would be happy to have Americans there; but I
> don't actually know anyone pro-war who thinks that,
> either.  It is too bad we don't have access to
> al-jazeera here, that would be lovely.
> 
> 3)
> > amerikkkan tv is not the only news outlet in the
> > world. just because it's not seen on u$ tvs doesn't
> > mean it's not shown in other places or that it
> > didn't
> > happen. amerikkkan tv is far from omniscient.
> 
> Again, the misinformation of out-of-context quotes, my
> fault for not quoting more fully the passage I was
> referring to.  Said had said that the American
> criticism of Iraq's displaying American prisoners on
> tv was hypocracy because of our media "showing rows of
> Iraqi prisoners made to kneel or lie spread-eagled
> face down in the sand", and I was just unsure when our
> media (I really hate to blanket all American media
> like that, but oh well, the limitation of
> utilitarianism) did show these images, that's all.  As
> you said, it doesn't seem that American media did show
> them.
> 
> 4) I wouldn't deny that Bush's speeches are written by
> his advisors, or that his actions are largely dictated
> by them, though to call him a 'puppet' without being
> privy to the advising sessions seems somewhat
> presumptuous; I just meant that should an academic
> essay attempt to partly base its argument against the
> ideology of a war on the fallibilities of the
> president's speaking ability?  That seemed juvenile to
> me, is all.  It's the difference between farce (a la
> Southpark) and 'responsible' discourse that respects
> the other side, or at least pretends to (ie, that
> doesn't dismiss the 'other side's' arguments out of
> hand).  Although I suppose the use of the envalued
> word 'stupid' in the title clearly designates this
> piece as farce?
> 
> Thanks
> Ben
> 
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