>From Humiliation to Hate, by Kevin C. Morris What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore -- and then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over -- like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode? - Langston Hughes As we struggle through the still smoldering haze, as the inevitable war simmers to a thunderous boil and innocent blood begins to spill over, and the American people sit idly by in the dark - uninformed and overwrought with grief and fear -- these 51 prophetic words by the great poet from Missouri may shed some much-needed light at a rather dark and confusing time. "Why?" so many have asked, revealing either a startlingly intense naïveté or an embarrassingly profound ignorance of world history. "Why do they hate us so much?" and "How could they be so cruel?" While the White House and many in the jingoistic journalist corps, especially the likes of Thomas Friedman and William Safire of the New York Times, rush to characterize any thoughtful examination of the so-called root causes as giving "aid and comfort" to our enemies, we must remember that "cause and effect," according to Ralph Waldo Emerson, "are two sides of one fact," and that if we fail to understand why, we'll always be faced with a more frightening question: when, that is, when next?
Hughes, grappling with Black America's utter angst, agony and outrage during the age of white supremacy and political, economic and legal subjugation from the not-too-distant past, posed the same question, except in foresight rather than hindsight. "What happens to a dream deferred?" he asked so plainly, plaintively and presciently. What will happen, in other words, when the powerful overpower the powerless? When they have no court of last resort to bring their grievances, no sympathizers, no recourse, no escape, no hope? Just as the United States was eventually forced to answer to its own oppressed class, today - as the world 's sole super power - it must address the grievances of the oppressed people of the post-colonial age, or it will remain the target of their frustration, which like Hughes' raisin in the sun, may - optimistically -- just "dry up" or "fester" or "stink" or "crust over" or "sag," or - more ominously - "explode." Here we stand at the threshold of a new century without having scraped the mess off our boots from the last. The consequences of hundreds of years of cultural, economic and religious imperialism, that is, the imposition of power, authority and influence over others (usually darker than us), are now festering throughout the world, just as the military powers of the West conspire to keep the same system in place with a new name: globalism. And while all seems quiet on the western front, chaos and tensions are brewing everywhere else in the world (Africa, Southeast and Central Asia, Central and South America, Eastern Europe, and especially the Middle East), thanks to the economic neglect and historic denials of the self-serving, arrogant West. Summarizing the dehumanization of imperialism, Richard J. Barnet in The Roots of War (1971) wrote, "The essence of imperialism, regardless of the economic system from which it proceeds, is the unjust bargain. Human beings are used to serve the ends that are not their own and in the process they pay more than they receive." And Louis Fischer in his 1950 biography of Mahatma Gandhi added, "Imperialism, like dictatorship, sears the soul, degrades the spirit, and makes individuals small, the better to rule them. Fear and cowardice are its allies. Imperialism is government of other people, by other people, and for other people." Imperial humiliation, which is defined as the extreme destruction of one's self respect and dignity, is the core emotion expressed by many in the third world, (and even some right here at home). And it cannot be dismissed as mere coincidence that, just two weeks before the Twin Towers attack, both the United States and England refused to even attend the United Nations conference on race, because, as the world's primary beneficiaries of Western colonialism - they feared being held accountable for their historic injustices. And, as any psychologist will tell you, humiliation - especially when denied and dismissed -- eventually metastasizes, like a cancer, into hate. Little wonder, then, that the oppressed people of the world have become susceptible to messages of hate and violence from the likes of bin Laden because they have no other place - not even the United Nations -- to lay down their burdens. It should have been obvious that they would eventually come clambering at the towering gates of Almighty America. And even more grievously, America - like a bent-backed butler -- has stood idly by holding Israel's hat in its hand while American-made helicopter gunships, F-16 fighter jets, and armored tanks reign terror on the stone-throwing teenage Palestinian refugees of the illegally-occupied residential neighborhoods of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. And, according to many press reports, 5,000 infants die each month (for a total of over 500,000) as a result of America's merciless economic and military sanctions on Iraq since 1991. It appears to many -- both Arab and non-Arab -- that no end to this suffering will soon come, for these callous crimes go unseen and unconsidered by Americans preoccupied by Condit's sex life and sensational shark attacks. Still the anger brews, Western denials resound, and the hate comes closer to fruition. Now as we seek to carve a more prudent path into the future and overcome our propensity for patent leather patriotism and blind rage, it is up to the American public to insist that our leaders address the historic root causes of terror, both state- and guerilla- sponsored, attempt to reconcile the globe's deep divisions through international courts of justice for which we appear to have an arrogant disdain and, above all, rid the world of the notion that only might, that is raw military power, makes right. Otherwise, we will see more explosions and more death and more senseless violence from all sides. There is simply no safe alternative to "true peace," which, according to Martin Luther King, Jr., in Stride Toward Freedom (1958) "is not the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice." Kevin C. Morris is a freelance writer and business consultant. You can reach him at [EMAIL PROTECTED] November 20, 2001 "In drafting impeachment articles the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives charged Nixon with "misuse of the CIA." The more fundamental question was outside the scope of their inquiry: What is the proper use of the CIA?" - Richard J. Barnet, "Killers and Jokers", Review of The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence by Victor Marchetti/John D. Marks Knopf, 1974 in the New York Review of Books, Volume 21, Number 15 · October 3, 1974 Source: http://www.popandpolitics.com/articles_detail.cfm?articleID=1052
