Bakunin Chomsky

“Bakunin Chomsky”

By assuming a fictitious character Bakunin Chomsky, Professor Jonathan Graubart delivered the following speech at the Fred J. Hansen/ Charles Hostler Lecture Series.

It’s a pleasure to be here: Thanks to Professor Gupta for inviting me to fill in for Prof. Graubart.      Please don’t confuse my views with Graubart’s. For all the FBI and Homeland Security informers in the audience, please just report my name. He is after all, untenured.
          
I’m Bakunin Chomsky, long-time political activist, freelance professor of law and IR, now based at the Emma Goldman Institute in San Cristobal, Mexico. My parents named me after one of the legendary 19th century Anarchists, Mikhail Bakunin. I’m in town for US-Mex celebrations of the 120th anniversary of the anarchist-led Haymarket demonstrations held in Chicago, May 4, 1886. Haymarket was a wildly successful demonstration of anarchist-led protests to improve daily working condition and social organizing of the workplace. The Haymarket demonstrations have since become the most celebrated event of worker solidarity in the globe, popularly known as May Day.

Interestingly, the one country in the world in which the Haymarket demonstrations of May, 1886 are not well known is the one where the events occurred, the USA. I decided then that my brief comments today on terrorism will touch on two other prominent terrorist events in US history that enjoy very little reflection here. The deeds of the great abolitionist John Brown in the period right before the Civil War and the US State’s dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Let me point out now, to avoid being lynched: I consider the 9/11 plane attacks a clear example of terrorism and one that merits wide condemnation.

My Point today: show a historical pattern whereby our gatekeepers in academia, the media, and governments apply a double standard toward Terrorism. Thus, Terrorism of the Weak that challenges the dominant Order is brutally condemned without any consideration of context while Terrorism of the Powerful is at best ignored and more often Praised.

I. Start with a Generic Def. Of Terrorism: My father Noam likes to refer to one given in 1980s by US Army: Calculated use of violence or threat of violence to attain goals that are political, religious or ideological in nature through intimidation, coercion, or instilling of fear.
     Implication: intended audience is not just immediate victims but a far broader one, maybe a whole society.  Ok, reasonable enough.
     
II. John Brown Example:
A. 19th Century Christian-socialist-feminist Abolitionist who had this crazy view that slavery was a moral obscenity. Concluded that nonviolent protest was not sufficient: slavery remained and slaveholders were well organized in killing and intimidating both slaves who threatened revolt and abolitionists seeking to end slavery through legislation.

B. Two famous deeds:
     1. Goes to “Bleeding Kansas” in 1856 where there is a battle over whether the territory will be a free or slave state. In response to series of lynchings carried out by slaveholder groups in territory, Brown leads a group that hacks to death five slaveholders. Pt: send a message to all slaveholders.

     2. Leads armed raid on US military base, Harpers’ Ferry, Virginia, 1858. Holds a group hostage with hopes of inspiring a mass slave revolt. This failed, Brown was captured and killed by the state.

C. Assessment: clearly terrorist: General view of all “responsible” politicians of time (including most Republicans) was to condemn Brown uncritically and not scrutinize the far more heinous and structural form of terrorism, known as slavery, that Brown and many others resisted.

D. But was Brown wrong? I submit it’s not an easy answer. You might think it accomplished nothing. But the close historical record suggests you are wrong. With the help of influential thinkers, like Henry David Thoreau, Brown’s actions become widely publicized and disseminated. This publicity likely both accelerated the start of the Civil War and pressured moderates in the Republican Party, like Lincoln, to demand the abolition of slavery as a condition for ending the war.
     Worthwhile to point out that although Brown is somewhat well known, he has long been considered a kook despite the overwhelming historical record that his actions were well thought out, occurred in a context of unspeakable atrocities backed by state authority.

II. Event 2: US Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, Aug 6, Aug 9, 1945:
A. Although these bombings are reasonably well known of in US history, there is very little commentary that points out that these are the two most heinous terrorist actions committed in world history. In Japan, the term “Ground Zero” has a very different meaning.

B. You have bombs that by design are meant to kill upward of a hundred thousand civilians. Hard to imagine a more flagrant condemnation of Laws on War Crimes.

C. Think about the Setting: Japan was effectively defeated. Only sticking point was whether surrender would be unconditional or not (meaning let Hirohito stay emperor). Hirohito, in fact, made overtures through Stalin to inform Truman of Japan’s willingness to surrender.

E. Truman and his Sec. Of War, James Byrnes refused the overtures. Why, they wanted to drop the atomic bombs. Why did they want to drop Atomic bombs? Not to hasten Japan’s surrender or save US lives. It was to send a message to USSR to back off in its own imperial ambitions to grab more of Europe and Asia.
     In other words: US govt ordered two consecutive bombs intended to kill hundreds of thousands of civilians to send a broader message of geopolitical intimidation to the USSR.
     Actual toll: 200 thou dead right away, another 100 thou over 5 years.
     After 2 bombings, Japan did surrender. US then allowed Japan to retain its emperor, which had supposedly been unacceptable before.

F. One would like to think such horrendous actions would have been condemned in the US: No, Americans wildly celebrated the “successful” mass terrorist murders of innocents in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Even now, 61 years later, there has been shockingly little scrutiny of this most heinous action. Indeed, Truman is now worshipped, especially by our so-called opposition political party, the “fighting Dems” who say vote for us because we can wage war more effectively, like Wesley Clark),

III. Big Points About the War on Terror that Go beyond Brown and Hiroshima:
A. There is a Continued Pathological Unwillingness to Scrutinize Terrorist Actions of the Powerful: If anything we hear about how the US needs to be even more brutally terrorist to accomplish its objectives.  

B. At the UN, all the so-called antiterrrorist efforts are designed to back the US agenda.
     Thus the UNSC passed a binding resolution that requires all states to institute domestic policies that parallel the Patriot Act-led policies of the US.
     Moreover, the UN Sec Gen’l is pushing for a GA def of terrorism that limits terrorism to that committed by nonstate actors. The idea is then to allow the SC to interpret which actors are deemed terrorist; meaning the US and other great powers effectively decide for us.

C. This is Both Morally Abominable and has the effect of Increasing Both the Terrorism of the Strong and the Terrorism of the Weak.
      US, other powerful states, like Russia and China, and friends of the powerful, like Israel and Turkey, will feel unleashed to engage in state terror for their own “security” concerns.
      Such actions, will in turn increase desperation and misery in areas suffering from State Terror: Meaning they will turn to the retail terror of the weak, like blowing up synagogues, mosques, churches, making lethal weapons out of planes, trains, and buses.