Open Letter to John Halle and Progressives for Support of Mobilization Apart from the Left Establishment

Dear Friends,

Many thanks for the supports of our initiative

I should say that as the drafter of the original letter, I feel I owe the Muslim community an apology for not making Obama's disgraceful policy with respect to Israel/Palestine one of the main grievances mentioned within it.

Please rest assured that this was an oversight and nothing more. I have since made specific mention of this matter in a follow-up piece posted here:

Please accept my apologies and thanks for your endorsement and excellent website.

 John Halle

Our response follows:

Dear Protestobama.org:

We appreciate your recognition and reply to our endorsement of the Open Letter to the Left Establishment (here). We feel that it is an important step toward creating a real, conscious movement that can end American Empire, revive international sentiment based on the right of self determination free from external manipulation and heal wounds between the Muslim world and western nations generally. We also agree that there is absolutely no way that these noble goals are attainable without the complete denunciation and mobilization against all that is the Democratic Party and everything that even slightly resembles the apparent fraud that is the Obama Administration.

For us radicals and Islamic progressives of the Muslim community, it was extremely painful to observe the unconditional support for Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign. We watched as Obama pronounced that Jerusalem should belong solely to Israel in front of AIPAC, as his staff evicted two female American Muslims in hijab from camera's view, as he announced the intent to continue and expand drone attacks and military intervention in Pakistan and to sustain the war in Afghanistan, as he fraudulently pledged to end the war in Iraq while still expressing an intent to leave tens of thousands of so-called "non-combat" troops behind on permanent military bases surrounding the largest embassy the world has ever known, and as he sat silent while Israel rained bombs on our mothers, brothers, and children in Gaza. These are but some of the atrocious realities we endured even before he became president of the United States.

 We were troubled when Muslims and liberal Americans overwhelmingly supported his election, continued to give him the benefit of the doubt as he rescued his Wall Street backers, expanded the wars, continued the Bush doctrine of the Global War on Terror substituting the term "Islamic Extremists” for “Terrorists" with the brush of rhetorical sophistry that represents so much his narcissistic norm. And yet, still today, we are troubled as communities continue to give him the benefit of the doubt and remain silent in the face of Hitlerian wars of aggression and deception.

We are a minority in our own community and know what it is like to have our words bent and twisted, our homes invaded, our lives turned upside down, to receive death threats, labels of anti-Americanism and criticism from those that are supposed to be closest to home. Our counterparts have utilized similar straw man arguments to attempt to isolate our ability to reach a larger audience and influence the political discourse as well. They denounce our suspicions, usually proven prescient with time, as hate and conspiracy theory. It is much more convenient for them to capitalize on the mutually reinforcing complaint shadowed by doubt and inaction in order to remain beneficiaries of the institutions that help sustain the empire, to profit from blogs, books, and blurbs existentially suggesting dissent but in reality lacking the courage, self sacrifice and principled action that all real social struggles require.

Dismissed as conspiracy theorists or barbarians, the establishment of the left and right will certainly try to reduce your hope, instill fear, threaten you with worldly loss and perhaps if recent methods become the norm even frame you with false sexual allegations and, or waterboard you in secret detention.  It is apparent to us that by taking the stand stated emphatically in your Open Letter that you are so too willing to endure similar persecution, to face being cast out by your own and ridiculed by those you consider your brethren. From this we gain inspiration and motivation and we thank you and express our open-ended solidarity and gratitude for all that you do.   

Already your Open Letter to the Left Establishment has been criticized, referred to as "a malign force" that is supposedly to inflict damage to a "peace movement [that] will grow steadily in the months ahead, on its own." In reality, there is no "peace movement," there are virtually no voices calling for true fundamental change, there is little urgency based on the moral imperativeness of ending illegal war and state terrorism today, not tomorrow, not in the coming months, but now before another innocent is bombed, drug from their homes in night raid, raped or tortured in detention or demolished by silent drone.  There are already over a million dead in Iraq, perhaps more in Afghanistan, an ongoing occupation that maims and kills Palestinians daily, and yet when Wikileaks cables document a preoccupation with the Global War on Terror that has created diplomacy that fights terror with terror and aims to eradicate terrorism created by terrorism a simple grasp of the silent American majority actually suggests that there is no peace movement destined to grow anywhere.  This seems to be more of the false hope for change that beguiled so many on the campaign trail originally.

As you rightfully stated in your letter,    

“The election of Obama has not galvanized protest movements. To the contrary, it has depressed and undermined them, with the White House playing an active role in the discouragement and suppression of dissent – with disastrous consequences. The almost complete absence of protest from the left has emboldened the most right-wing elements inside and outside of the Obama administration to pursue and act on an ever more extreme agenda.”

Today we struggle against seemingly insurmountable odds, trying to create resistance amongst a passive and scared population: indebted, unemployed, lacking courage and political awareness. It is only a movement like the one that you’ve proposed that can develop into a platform that invokes the possibility of real fundamental change.

Despite sharing similar values such as the importance of charity, justice in the economic, political, legal and social realms and a rich historical tradition of struggle and activism against oppression, Islamists and those from the Left have shown little ability to work together despite sharing so many similar views. Usually this is due to the absolute rejection of liberals with regard to religion as a system that should have any influence in the political world and the mutually harmful stance of those claiming religion that theological difference must prevent those agreeing on principle from cooperating to advocate for justice.

It is unfortunate that many Leftists cannot see the similar worldview they share with those Muslims at the other end of America’s war against political Islam, those living under the oppression of tyrants armed and aided by the United States, those Palestinians suffering each day under mental and physical occupation, and those living in comfortable realities infuriated by knowledge of these policies on the ground. It is also equally unfortunate that those Muslims today struggling to find the means by which they can mobilize against external and indigenous oppressors have not taken more of an example from the history of social movements that have been largely effective in accruing new and preserving old rights within Western democracies.

The very basic conundrum of division and emphasis on difference is that it often quells any real possibility for change. It is our belief that the endeavor you have set forth may potentially do much more than create resistance to the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and throughout the Muslim world; it may unite humanity, people from diverse persuasions upon resistance that sets aside difference for the sake of peace. When this is the case, it is easy to understand each other. As Norman Finkelstein recorded in his recent work This Time We've Gone too Far with regard to his visiting Gaza and talking to Hamas, the U.S. designated yet democratically elected "terror" group,

"As we parted ways at the end of the visit I felt obliged to state publicly that in my opinion none of them was deserving of the death Israel has attempted to inflict on them.  I am aware that according to the "laws of war" they are "legitimate" military targets. But in a rational world the locution "laws of war" would make as much sense as "etiquette of cannibals." It is probably true that violent conflict would be more lethal and destructive in the absence of these laws, but it is also true that, in the pretense of neutrality they obscure fundamental truths. Whether from conviction, frustration, or torment, these young men have chosen to defend their homeland from foreign marauders with weapon in hand. Were I living in Gaza, still in my prime and able to muster the courage, I could easily be one of them."

It is in quotes like these, in the courageous ability to speak truth regardless of public opinion that we feel some really understand the perspective through which we endure the propaganda of the Orwellian corporatist State each and every day. Similarly you state emphatically, 

 

“We hope that you reconsider your continuing failure to come to terms not only with the catastrophe which is the Obama administration but also for the damage which your insufficiently critical support has inflicted on the only force which has the capacity to oppose it:  mass, organized, and militant expressions of popular protest.”

What was the civil rights movement absent the militancy of Malcolm X pushing in the background and giving Dr. King the appearance of moderation and the lesser threat? What was the American Revolution without the awareness that kings, queens and oligarchs never relinquish control without confrontation and violence? What was the message of Jesus Christ without the courage it took to cast the moneylenders from the temple? What was the message of Muhammad minus his staunch refusal to compromise, to preserve principles and true justice over false outwardly displays of change?

The notion that popular protest and majority mobilization creates change does not bear the test of realistic historical inquiry; instead long, hard and oftentimes unsuccessful clusters mobilize because it is the right thing to do and eventually their persistence forms a mass movement that creates the potential for change. As the quote attributed to Margaret Mead once expressed, “never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, dedicated citizens can change the world; Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.” We watch and we observe as your associates misinterpret and ridicule you, as you protest in the snow, as you are arrested, as the press refuses to give you the coverage you deserve. We empathize with your effort, appreciate your deeds, and recognize that it is only when we build bridges in the name of peace that we will ever end the clash of civilizations. We acknowledge that you have inclined towards peace and likewise do the same; therefore we implore all to assist you in your goals and objectives, express our solidarity with your movement, and will do our best to help it grow. If there is anything specifically we can do to assist please let us know.

Sincerely,

Younus Abdullah Muhammad

IslamPolicy.com