The slopes of Lebanon

An essay titled "Hebrew Melodies" from Amos Oz's 1988 collection called The Slopes of Lebanon.

Discussing the 1982 invasion of Lebanon . . .


The guilt for Lebanon lies not with Begin alone…We will have to grit our teeth and admit that this war was a war of the people. The people wanted it and the people (most of them) supported it, took pleasure in it, and hated the handful who were opposed. At least that is how it was until the war got "bogged down"…There are times when I forget a little, when I try to persuade myself that the "people" learned a lesson, that they have learned—the hard way—the limits of power, that there's a catch in a philosophy based on violence. There are times when I think that "it" can't happen again."


. . .

[A]mong the victims of the Lebanon War was "the Land of Israel, small and brave, determined and righteous." It died in Lebanon perhaps precisely because, in Lebanon, its back was not to the wall…After Lebanon, we can no longer ignore the monster, even when it is dormant, or half asleep, or when it peers out from behind the lunatic fringe. After Lebanon, we must not pretend that the monster dwells only in the offices of Meir Kahane; or only on General Sharon's ranch, or only in Raful's carpentry shop, or only in the Jewish settlements in the West Bank. It dwells, drowsing, virtually everywhere, even in the folk-singing guts of our common myths. Even in our soul-melodies. We did not leave it behind in Lebanon, with the Hezbollah. It is here, among us, a part of us…That which you have done—whether it be only once in your life, in one moment of stupidity or in an outburst of anger—that which you were capable of doing—even if you have forgotten, or have chosen to forget, how and why you did it—that which you have done and regretted bitterly, you may never do again. But you are capable of doing it. You may do it. It is curled up inside you."

Perpetual revolution

From Naguib Mahfouz's Sugar Street (book III of the Cairo Trilogy):

"I believe in life and in people. I feel obliged to advocate their highest ideals as long as I believe them to be true, since shrinking from that would be a cowardly evasion of duty. I also see myself compelled to revolt against ideals I believe to be false, since recoiling from this rebellion would be a form of treason. This is the meaning of perpetual revolution."

Abortion Rights

The Bush administration, although advocating for human rights as being universal, has resorted to doing the very same thing that it accuses other countries such as Iran, China, and Saudi Arabia of doing: applying a cultural relativists justification for denying a certain right, in this case, the right to abortion as a human right. By reaffirming a “culture of life” through the regulation of cultural values, the far right has created the perception that American values are under threat, that moral absolutes exist, and therefore these values ought to be preserved.

In this post, I attempt to provide a brief history of the abortion litigation. Most Americans don't really understand the legacy of Roe.

In the United States, a woman’s right to an abortion (or a “woman’s right to choose”) is founded in the right to privacy. Even though American courts have noted that the Constitution does not explicitly provide for a right to abortion, the courts have creatively carved out such right from the right to privacy. The right to privacy, which is also not explicitly stated in the Constitution, has its founding in the “substantive due process” clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution. The Fourteenth Amendment, in its pertinent part, states that no “state shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” This clause has come to be known as the substantive due process clause. The right to privacy, and consequently, the right to abortion are carved out of this clause of the Constitution.

The right to privacy cases first appeared in the 1920s. Even though the case of Meyer v. Nebraska, was a case about family autonomy, it nevertheless laid the foundation for a right to privacy. In Meyer, the Supreme Court ruled that a state statute that makes it criminal to teach children any language other than English violates the due process guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution. The state of Nebraska had passed a statute making the teaching of any language other than English in its public schools a crime punishable by jail sentence. Meyer, a teacher, was tried and convicted by a Nebraska court for teaching German to a child. The Supreme Court granted certiorari and held that the liberty guarantee of the Fourteenth Amendment does not only include economic rights, but the right to “acquire useful knowledge, to marry, establish a home and bring up children, to worship God according to the dictates of [one’s] conscience, and generally to enjoy those privileges long recognized at common law as essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness of free men.” The Court found that the Fourteenth Amendment provides parents the right to control the upbringing of their children. Meyer was the first case which defined the term liberty in the Due Process Clause to protect the basic aspects of family autonomy.

In a similar case, Pierce v. Society of Sisters, the Supreme Court ruled that parents have a right to choose the type of school to send their children to – whether public or private. Even though both of these cases did not explicitly establish that the parents have these rights under the right of privacy, they were nevertheless landmark case that were later cited to create a right to privacy.

The case explicitly recognizing to privacy was Griswold v. Connecticut. Griswold relied on Meyer and Pierce in order to find such a right. Griswold, the Executive Director of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut was convicted under a Connecticut law which made counseling of married persons to take contraceptives a criminal offense. The Supreme Court overturned the convicted and held that the various guarantees of the Constitution create “penumbras,” or zones of privacy. These penumbras of privacy are created by the First Amendment’s right of association, the Third Amendment’s prohibition against the peacetime quartering of soldiers, the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures, the Fifth Amendment’s self-incrimination clause, and the Ninth Amendment’s reservation to the people of unenumerated rights. The Court held that the Connecticut law violates this right to privacy because it forbids the use of contraceptives in a couple’s house. The Court noted that “[i]f the right of privacy means anything, it is the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a child.”

The right to abortion in American jurisprudence has its doctrinal roots in the rights concerning family and reproductive autonomy as discussed in Meyer, Pierce, and Griswold. The leading case which declared abortion to be a right in American law is Roe v. Wade. In Roe, the plaintiff challenged Texas abortion laws that outlawed abortion. Most states had adopted similar laws. The Supreme Court was presented with the question of whether the constitutional right of privacy includes a woman’s right to choose and terminate her pregnancy. Justice Blackmun, writing for the majority of the Court, held that even though the Constitution does not explicitly mention any right of privacy, such a right has been recognized by the court’s earlier decisions – as summarized above. This right of privacy, Blackmun wrote, is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision to terminate her pregnancy. A statute regulating a fundamental right, such as a right to privacy, he argued, can only be justified only by a compelling governmental interest. The state of Texas had argued that the fetus is a person within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment, whose right to life is guaranteed by that amendment. Justice Blackmun noted that the fetus has never been recognized as a person and that Texas may not override the rights of a pregnant woman by making such an argument.

However, the Court also noted that the woman’s right is not absolute and that the state does have a legitimate interest in preserving the health of the pregnant woman and protecting the potential life of the fetus. The Court established a trimester framework and ruled that during the first trimester, a woman’s right to abortion overrides the states’ interests. However, the state may regulate the abortion procedure in the second trimester to protect the health of the mother, and may even proscribe abortion in the third trimester to protect the life of the fetus. Under Roe, a state could not regulate a woman’s decision to terminate her pregnancy in the first trimester, while the state’s regulation of abortion in the second and third trimester must be narrowly tailored to a compelling government interest.

By the 1990s, however, the change in the composition of the Supreme Court raised questions as to whether Roe would be overruled. In 1989, in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services,four out of the nine justices seemed poised to overrule Roe. However, in the landmark case of Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the Supreme Court narrowed Roe instead of overruling it. In Casey, the Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act required a doctor to provide a woman seeking an abortion with information designed to persuade her against abortion and imposed a waiting period of at least 24 hours between provision of the information and the abortion. The law also required a minor to obtain consent of one parent or a judge’s order before having an abortion, and a married woman to sign a statement stating that her husband had been notified, among other things. Five clinics and doctors sued the governor of the state claiming that the law was unconstitutional as it violated Roe. The Court’s holding in this case, even though preserving the right to abortion, differed greatly from Roe as it weakened a woman’s right to choose. The Court held that the law was unconstitutional because it places an “undue burden” on a woman’s right to an abortion before fetal “viability.” Moreover, the law places a “substantial obstacle” in the path of woman seeking to exercise her right.

The Court rejected Roe’s trimester framework and noted that medical technology has altered the age of viability – which is the point at which a fetus can be said to be an independent life. Therefore, a state’s interest in protecting the fetus post-viability outweighs the mother’s decision-making interest. The Court held that the application of the rigid trimester framework often ignored state interests. The Court also held that information requirement is not an undue burden and that “truthful, non-misleading” information on the nature of the abortion procedures may lead the woman to choose life. Moreover, a 24-hour waiting period does not create a health risk and reasonably furthers the state’s interest in protecting the life of the unborn child. Furthermore, a state may require parental consent for a minor provided that there is a “judicial bypass procedure.” Even though the court held the statute to be unconstitutional, it marks the first time the Court downgraded a fundamental right which stemmed from Roe and free from any restrictions or burdens to a protect liberty – which may be regulated as long as there is no undue burden placed on the woman.

Prior to Casey, the Court had invalided waiting periods for adult women’s abortions. In City of Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, Inc., the Court declared that a city ordinance prohibiting physicians from performing an abortion until 24 hours after the pregnant woman signed a consent form was unconstitutional. However, in Casey, the Court used the undue burden test and upheld the constitutionality of a 24 hour waiting period. Prior to Casey, the Court had held that laws requiring that woman be advised about the fetus and its characteristics at the state of pregnancy were unconstitutional. However, after Casey, these requirements are much more likely to be upheld as long as they do not place an undue burden on a woman’s right to choose. In Akron, the Court had held that a city ordinance that required physicians to inform women seeking abortions about the developments of her fetus and that the “unborn child is a human life from the moment of conception” was unconstitutional. Such a statute will most likely be held to be constitutional under Casey.

Moreover, in Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the Court had invalidated a Pennsylvania law that required women to be given seven different kinds of information at least 24 hours before they give consent for abortion. These included telling the woman that there may be unforeseeable detrimental physical and psychological effects to having an abortion, the possible availability of prenatal and childbirth medical care, and the father’s liability to pay child support. The physician also had to inform the woman of the availability of printed materials that described the anatomical and physiological characteristics of the “unborn child” at two weeks gestational increments. The Court, however, ruled that such a law was unconstitutional because it was motivated by a desire to discourage women from having abortions and because it imposed a rigid requirement that a specific body of information be communicated regardless of the needs of the patient or the judgment of the physician.

In Casey, however, the Court upheld a provision virtually identical to that invalidated in Thornburgh. The Court in Casey stated that “to the extent Akron and Thornburgh find a constitutional violation where the government requires … the giving of truthful, non-misleading information about the nature of the abortion procedure, the attendant health risks and those of childbirth, and the ‘probable gestational age’ of the fetus, those cases are inconsistent with Roe’s acknowledgment of an important interest in potential life, and are overruled.” The Court’s shift in Casey abandoned the position that the state may not regulate abortions in a way to discourage the woman from having an abortion. The Court responded to the growing discontent of Roe in the political and social climate of this country and decided to limit a woman’s human right to choose.

Another important decision which stems out of the Casey framework is Stenberg v. Carhart, which placed limitations on what the conservatives has described as "partial birth abortion."

The Supreme Court and abortion litigators have picked a strategy which was used to limit the holding of Plessy v. Ferguson. The Court does not want to declare abortion unconstitutional right away, rather it wants to chip away from Roe's holding, and make abortion such a difficult thing to get that in a few years Roe will be easier to overturn. It took the Court over 60 years to overturn Plessy, and when it finally did so in Brown v. Board of Education, Plessy had been limited, or was chipped away at, by numerous cases. The same strategy is being used for Roe.

An inadvertent mistake in Holcomb

"Until one morning in mid-November of 1959, few Americans - in fact, few Kansans - had ever heard of Holcomb. Like the waters of river, like the motorists on the highway, and like the yellow trains streaking down the Santa Fe tracks, drama, in the shape of exceptional happenings, had never stopped there." (From Truman Capote's In Cold Blood).

I had read about Truman Capote (Truman Streckfus Persons) in a New Yorker article some time ago. But when his biographical movie came out, I decided to read some of his work before watching him on the big screen. I was told that the movie focuses on the latter half of his literary career - the writing of In Cold Blood.

Capote was born in New Orleans to a 16-year old mother and a father who could not hold a job. Financial troubles led to a divorce between his parents, and Capote was sent to live with an aunt and other relatives in Monroeville, Alabama. Growing up in Alabama, Capote made friends with Harper Lee, who portrayed him as Dill in her Pulitzer Prize winning novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. Lee describes Dill the following way:

"Dill was a curiosity. He wore blue linen shorts that buttoned to his shirt, his hair was snow white and stuck to his head like duckfluff; he was a year my senior but I towered over him. As he told us the old tale his blue eyes would lighten and darken; his laugh was sudden and happy; he habitually pulled at a cowlick in the center of his forehead."

After his mother's second marriage, Capote followed her and her new Cuban husband to the northeast, where he attended school in Greenwich, CT, and then began writing for the New Yorker. Capote never attended college. He is probably most famously known for Breakfast at Tiffanys. When I read Breakfast at Tiffanys (never seen the movie), I could not help but draw stark comparisons between Capote, himself, and the narrator. The narrator is given the same birthday as Capote (September 30). But interestingly, he is portrayed as a hot-blooded-rigid-heterosexual - probably the complete opposite of Capote.

So I went to see Mr. Capote on the big screens on Friday night. I was surprised to see that the movie has been nominated for five Academy Awards and has been in theatres for months now. I was also surprised to see that the theatre was packed.

In Cold Blood is a non-fiction novel which took Capote six years to finish. It involves the murder of a wealthy family from Kansas by two young killers, one of whom caught Capote's obsession. This is a must see movie. And you must see it after reading the novel. Capote is very objective in his novel - he explains the crime, the investigation, and the killers with great detail, without showing any mercy or compassion for either the victims or the killers. But when you see the movie, you realize that much more was going on in Capote’s head when he was writing the novel.

The movie begins with Capote discovering an article in the New York Times describing the murders in Kansas. The story caught Capote’s eye. The story gave him an opportunity to test his theory that he can make non-fiction as compelling as fiction. Along with Harper Lee, Capote sets out to investigate in order to write about the impact the murders had on the tiny town of Holcomb, Kansas. He is able to convince the New Yorker in giving him an assignment for a short story which later develops into a book. Capote first thought that the fate of the killers would be irrelevant to his novel. Though it turns out to be true for the purposes of his novel, the fate of the killers nevertheless transform him for the rest of his life. Once the killers are found, Capote sets out to inquire into the reasons why one Perry Smith and his co-agent Richard Hitchcock killed this family. Capote develops an intimate relationship with Smith, whose childhood replicated Capote’s.

In order to secure his story (which could only be done by befriending Smith) Capote pays for the federal habeas corpus appeal of the perpetrators' state court convictions. The District Court, and the Circuit Court deny relief. Capote is able to secure his story by befriending Smith who describes in gruesome details of the night of the murders. The Supreme Court grants certiorari. Now that Capote has already attained what he wanted from Smith, he awaits his death so that he can publish his novel. Smith then writes to Capote asking him for help in finding a lawyer who would argue before the Supreme Court. Capote does not reply and Smith continues trying. All Capote was interested in now was Smith’s and Hitchcock’s death – all he wanted to do now was to publish this much anticipated novel.

Finally, Capote learns that the Supreme Court has affirmed the District Court’s denial of habeas relief and that Smith and Hitchcock are to be hung by the government. The night of the hanging is the defining moment of Capote’s intellectual life. It transforms him. He sees the hanging of these two boys who are now paying with their lives for the mistake of a few seconds.

The movie concludes by noting what happend to Capote after the hanging of Smith and Hitchcock: The writer of Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948), A Tree of Night and Other Stories (1949), Local Color (1950), The Grass Harp (1951), Beat The Devil (1953), The Muses Are Heard (1956), Breakfast at Tiffany's (1958), Turn of the Screw (1960), The Innocents (1961), Selected Writings (1963), A Christmas Memory (1966), In Cold Blood (1966), The Thanksgiving Visitor (1968) was unable to publish anything valuable after witnessing the hangings.

Although he published The Dogs Bark in 1973, in an unpublished novel titled Answered Prayers, appearing in Esquire magazine after his death, Capote writes, “Sometimes more tears are shed on answered prayers than unanswered ones.” Capote became an alcoholic after Smith’s and Hitchcock’s hanging and later died from its complications. Obviously, the answered prayer was Capote’s wish for the death of Smith and Hitchcock. Capote lived a miserable life after publishing the novel. He got into major feuds with Gore Vidal, Norman Mailer, and even Jackie Onassis.

Like their replicated childhoods, Capote’s and Smith’s deaths also draw parallels. Both of them died as the results of an inadvertent mistake. The book and Capote's career represent strong statements against the death penalty - that it does not only kill the perpertrator of a crime, but also - though indirectly - unintentionally kills some of the most creative people of our society. In Smith's case, it destroyed two lives.

"In the disposition of capital cases in the United States, the median elapsed time between sentence and execution is approximately seventeen months. Recently, in Texas, an armed robber was electrocuted one month after his conviction; but in Louisiana at the present writing, two rapists have been waiting for a record twelve years. The variance depends a little on luck and a great deal on the extent of litigation. The majority of the lawyers handling these cases are court-appointed and work without recompense but more often than not the courts, in order to avoid future appeals based on complaints of inadequate representation, appoint men of first quality who defend with commendable vigor. However, even an attorney of moderate talent can postpone doomsday year after year, for the system of appeals that pervades American jurisprudence amounts to a legalistic wheel of fortune, a game of chance, somewhat fixed in the favor of the criminal, that the participants play interminably, first in the state courts, then through the Federal courts until the ultimate tribunal is reached--the United States Supreme Court. But even defeat there does not signify if petitioner's counsel can discover or invent new grounds for appeal; usually they can, and so once more the wheel turns, and turns until, perhaps some years later, the prisoner arrives back at the nation's highest court, probably only to begin again the slow cruel contest. But at intervals the wheel does pause to declare a winner--or, though with increasing rarity, a loser: Andrews' lawyers fought to the final moment, but their client went to the gallows on Friday, November 30, 1962." (In Cold Blood (p. 370))

Execution

The past two months have been extremely distressful for capital punishment abolitionists. It was only a few month ago, on December 2, 2005, when North Carolina executed the 1,000th person, and South Carolina followed with the 1,001th person to be executed since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976. Furthermore, a Noble Peace Prize nominee, a man who claimed innocence till his last breaths, Stanley Tookie Williams, was executed in California on December 13, 2005. So far, eight people have already been executed in the year 2006. They include: Clarence Allen, Perrie Simpson, Marion Dudley, Marvin Bieghler, Jaime Elizalde, Glenn Benner II, Robert Neville, and Clyde Smith - all executed by lethal injection. While all these executions have become routine, so is the list of death row inmates being exonerated. Just today, we learned that members of the Arizona House and Senate offered apologies to Ray Krone, a former Arizona death row inmate. Krone was freed in 2002 following new DNA tests. Krone was lucky enough to have found exculpatory DNA evidence. The tragedy, however, is that many others cannot find such DNA evidence and die an undeserving death.

But even the most guilty of us do not deserve this cruel, inhuman and unusual punishment. As Albert Camus, the philosopher of absurdity, has put it in "Reflections on the Guillotine, Resistance, Rebellion & Death" (1966):

"An execution is not simply death. It is just as different from the privation of life as a concentration camp is from prison. It adds to death a rule, a public premeditation known to the future victim, an organization which is itself a source of moral sufferings more terrible than death. Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal's deed, however calculated can be compared. For there to be an equivalency, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date at which he would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had confined him at his mercy for months. Such a monster is not encountered in private life."

What is even more disturbing is the fact that the death penalty is not applied equally and violates, in my opinion, the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. If we are going to kill people because they have killed others, we should kill them equally. A person who kills a black person should get the death penalty in the same manner that a person who kills a white person gets the death penalty. An empirical study of North Carolina's death penalty from the years 1993-1997 conducted by UNC found that race plays a significant role in who gets the death penalty. The researchers found that that defendants whose victims are white are 3.5 times more likely to be sentenced to death than those with non-white victims. The study was based on data collected from court records of 502 murder cases from 1993 to 1997.

Another research study conducted by researchers at the University of Maryland found that Maryland's death penalty system is tainted with racial bias. This study also found that defendants are much more likely to be sentenced to death if they have killed a white person. Yet another study conducted in Indiana found that race of the victim plays a role in death penalty sentencing. Furthermore, a report released by the New Jersey Supreme Court found that the state's death penalty law is more likely to proceed against defendants who kill white victims. The report concludes that "[t]here is unsettling statistical evidence indicating that cases involving killers of white victims are more likely to progress to a penalty phase than cases involving killers of African-American victims."

Therefore, the issue of the death penalty has created chaos in all moral and ethical paradigms: from the issue of cruelty, actual innocence, equality and many others. The activists of all generations have a particular challenge, i.e., World War II, the Civil Rights movement, the resistance against the Vietnam War, the fight against totalitarianism in Eastern Europe, so on and so forth. Death penalty is the moral challenge of our generation.

I found some solace in the words of Alberto J. Mora, the former General Counsel of the Department of the Navy, as quoted by Jane Meyer in "The Memo" (Feb. 27, 2006):

"If cruelty is no longer declared unlawful, but instead is applied as a matterof policy, it alters the fundamental relationship of man to government. It destroys the whole notion of individual rights. The Constitution recognizes that man has an inherent right, not bestowed by the state or laws, to personal dignity, including the right to be free of cruelty."

Lolita

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.

She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.

Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, a certain initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns.

These are perhaps some of the most provocative literary words of the 20th century. From Nobokov's Lolita.

The cartoons

Feb 19, 2006

Representative Carolyn McCarthy
United States House of Representatives
106 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515-0001

Dear Representative McCarthy,

As your constituent, I urge you to take action and sponsor a congressional resolution condemning the publication of cartoons defaming the Muslim Prophet Muhammad by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. I call on you to follow the lead of President George W. Bush who has called for "dialogue and tolerance," while the State Department has pronounced the cartoons as "offensive," and its spokesman has scolded that "inciting religious or ethnic hatred in this manner is not acceptable." Furthermore, even former President Bill Clinton has condemned the cartoons as being "totally outrageous." It is now Congress's turn to act.

The publication of these cartoons cannot be justified by the doctrine of free speech. The real issue with the cartoons is not whether the Danish newspaper had a right to depict the Muslim Prophet. Even I concede that they did have that right - as granted to them by their legal framework and cultural traditions. Indeed, even Muslims have depicted their Prophet without causing any serious protests in the Islamic world. The real issue, however, is whether the Danish newspaper had a right to depict the Muslim Prophet with a bomb - arguing in fact that the Prophet, like his followers, was a terrorist. This type of hate speech is not protected by any tradition or legal framework.

In applying the First Amendment of our Constitution, which arguably provides the most freedoms to those exercising free speech, the publication of the cartoon would be prohibited by the Supreme Court's decision in Virginia v. Black, 538 U.S. 343 (2003) (holding that Virginia's ban on Cross-burning with intent to intimidate is not protected by the First Amendment); see also Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568, 572 (1942) ("[L]ewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or 'fighting' words-those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace" are not protected by the First Amendment; see also R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, 505 U.S. 377 (1992) (listing types of speech not protected by the First Amendment). The general rule is that fighting words - words likely to illicit a violent response - are not protected by the First Amendment. That is exactly what the cartoons have done: they have instigated a fight between Islam and the West, a fight not protected by free speech. This is the very reason why it is imperative that you sponsor a congressional resolution condemning the publication of these cartoons.

The Danish newspaper probably knew that publishing these cartoons will illicit a violent reaction from the Muslim world. In fact, the newspaper's editor held a contest to determine which cartoons were "fit to print." Obviously, the publishing of the cartoons was not a random thought. It was very well thought out. Its repercussions were probably realized. But the newspaper still chose to publish it. Protecting the newspaper's actions by using the doctrine of free speech amounts to intellectual nihilism.

I urge you to take advantage of this critical opportunity to show the Muslim world that America has not declared a war on their religion and peoples. I urge you to take advantage of this critical opportunity to show the Muslim world that America practices what it preaches: freedom of religion. I urge you to take advantage of this critical opportunity to show the Muslim world that America cares about their human rights and concerns. Indeed, that is the very reason why we have risked the lives of our sons, daughters, mothers, fathers and friends to protect the freedom of religion and speech of the Iraqi people.

This is the time to win the hearts and minds of a people which have lost their faith in the world's superpower. I am not asking you to pass a resolution that requires an apology from the newspaper. In fact, my demands are narrow and thus feasible. I only urge you to work with other congressmen and congresswomen to sponsor a resolution that would condemn the publishing of these cartoons.

We learned today that Muslim fundamentalists have burned an American embassy in Indonesia while protesting the cartoons. It is time for Congress to take action, separate our country from the religious intolerance shown by the Danish newspaper, and convince the moderate Muslims that the very free speech that we are trying to import to their nations does not bring religious
intolerance with it.

Our nation's founders wisely established a bill of rights to allow free speech while also preventing against its abuses. For the sake of this country's integrity and commitment to democracy in the Muslim world, Congress must take action to convince the moderate Muslims that we stand with them, and not with the fundamentalist whether they be Muslim fundamentalists or fundamentalists of religious intolerance finding refuge under the doctrine of free speech.

We cannot play politics when nothing less than our freedom is at stake. I look forward to your immediate action.

Sincerely,

Contrapuntalist

A convo between the proprietor and the shaykh

From Naguib Mahfouz's Palace Walk (Part I of the Cairo Trilogy).

When al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad reached his store, situated in front of the mosque of Barquq on al-Nahhasin Street, his assistant, Jamil al-Hamzawi, had already opened and readied it for their customers. The proprietor greeted him curiously and, smiling sweetly, headed for his desk. Al-Hamzawi was fifty. He had spent thirty of these years in this shop as an assistant to the founder, al-Hajj Abd al-Jawad, and then to al-Sayyid Ahmad after the father’s death. He remained loyal to his master both for the sake of his job and out of devotion. He revered and loved him the way everyone did who had any dealings with him, whether of business or friendship.

The truth was that he was dreaded and feared only in his own family. With everyone else – friends, acquaintances, and customers – he was a different person. He received his share of respect and esteem but above all else was loved. He was loved for the charm of his personality more than for any of his many other fine characteristics. His acquaintances did not know what he was like at home. The members of his family did not know him as others did.

His store was of medium size. Containers of coffee beans, rice, nuts, dried fruit, and soap were crammed on shelves and piled by the walls. The owner’s desk with its ledgers, papers, and telephone stood on the left opposite the entrance. To the right of there he sat there was a green safe mounted in the wall. It looked reassuringly solid, and its color was reminiscent of bank notes. In the center of the wall over the desk hung an ebony frame containing an Arabic inscription illuminated in gold that read: “In the name of God.”

Business was light early in the morning. The proprietor began to review the accounts of the previous day with a zeal inherited from his father but preserved with his own abundant vitality. Meanwhile al-Hamzawi stood by the entrance, his arms folded against his chest. He was reciting to himself the Qur’an verses he knew best. His voice could not be heard, but the continual motion of his lips gave him away. From time to tome a faint whisper slipped out from a sibilant s sound. He continued his recitation until the arrival of the blind shaykh who had been retained to recite the Qur’an every morning.

Al-Sayyid Ahmad would raise his head from his ledger every so often to listen to the recitation or look out at the street and the endless flow of passerby, hand and horse carts, and the Suares omnibus, which was so big and heavy it could scarcely wobble along. There were singing vendors who chanted jingles about their tomatoes, mallow greens, and okra, each in his own style. The commotion did not interfere with the proprietor’s concentration. He had grown accustomed to it over a period of more than thirty years. He was so lulled by the noise that he was disturbed if it ceased.

A customer came in and al-Hamzawi waited on him. Some friends and neighbors who were merchants stopped by. They liked to visit with al-Sayyid Ahmad, even if only for a short time. They would exchange greetings and enjoy one of his pleasantries or witty sayings. They made him feel proud of his skill as a gifted storyteller. His conversation had brilliant touches relating to popular culture that he had absorbed not from schooling, but from reading newspapers and befriending an elite group of gentry, government officials, and attorneys. His native wit, graciousness, charm, and status as a prosperous merchant qualified him to associate with them on an equal footing. He had molded a mentality for himself different from the limited mercantile one. The love, respect, and honor these fine people bestowed on him doubled his pride. When one of them sincerely and truthfully told him, “If you had had the opportunity to study law, you would have been an exceptionally eloquent attorney,” this statement inflated his ego. All the same, he was good at hiding his pride with his charm, modesty, and affability. None of these visitors stayed long. They went off one after the other, and the pace of work increased in the shop.

All at once a man rushed in as though propelled by a powerful hand. He stood in the middle of the store, squinting his narrow eyes to see better. He aimed them at the owner’s desk. Although he was no more than three meters away, his efforts to make him out were to no avail. So he called out, “Is al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad here?”

The proprietor replied with a smile, “Welcome, Shaykh Mutawalli Abd al-Samad. Have a seat. You bless us with your presence.”

The man bent his head. It so happened that as al-Hamzawi approached to greet him, the visitor, who did not notice his outstretched hand, sneezed unexpectedly. Al-Hamzawi drew back and took out his handkerchief. A smile and a frown collided on his face. The shaykh plunged toward the desk, muttering, “Praise God, Lord of the universe.” He raised the edge of his cloak and wiped his face with it. He said down on the chair his host offered him.

The Shaykh appeared to be in enviable health for his age, which was over seventy-five. If it had not been for his weak eyes, his eyelids that were inflamed at the edges and his sunken mouth, he would have had nothing to complain of. He was wrapped in a faded threadbare cloak. Although he would have exchanged it for a better one through donations of benefactors, he clung to it. He said that al-Husayn had blessed him in a dream and thus had given the cloak he wore an excellence that would not fade away. The shaykh had performed miracles by penetrating the barriers of normal human knowledge to the invisible realm. He was known equally for his healing prayers, amulets, candor, and wit. He was at home with humor and mirth and that especially endeared him to al-Sayyid Ahmad. Although a resident of the quarter, he did not burden any of his disciples with his visits. Months might pass without anyone knowing where he was. When he dropped by after an absence, he received a warm welcome and presents.

The owner gestured to his assistant to prepare the usual present of rice, coffee, and soap for the shaykh. Then he said to welcome him, “We’ve missed you, Shaykh Mutawalli. We haven’t had the pleasure of seeing you since the holiday of Ashura.”

The man replied bluntly, “I’m absent when I think fit and present when I choose. You should not ask why.”

The proprietor, who was used to his style, stammered, “Even when you are absent, your blessing is present.”

The shaykh did not seem touched by this praise. On the contrary, he shook his head in a way that showed his patience was exhausted. He said gruffly, “Haven’t I warned you more than once not to speak to me until I address you? You should be silent.”

Feeling an urge to vex him, the proprietor said, “Sorry, Shaykh Abd al-Samad. I forgot your warning. My excuse is that I forgot it because you have been absent so long.”

The shaykh struck his hands out together and shouted, “An excuse is worse than a sin.” Pointing his index finger in a threatening way, he continued: “If you persist in disobeying me, I’ll be unable to accept your gift.”

The proprietor sealed his lips and spread out his hands in submission, constraining himself to be quite this time. Shaykh Mutawalli waited to be sure of his obedience. After clearing his throat he said, “I commence with a prayer in honor of Muhammad, the beloved master of creation.”

The proprietor responded from his depths, “God’s blessing and peace on him.”

“I praise your father as he deserves; may God have plentiful passion for him and grant him a spacious abode in His paradise. I can almost see him sitting where you are. The difference between the two of you being that your late father retained the turban and you have traded it in for this fez.”

The proprietor murmured with a smile, “May God forgive us.”

The shaykh yawned until tears came to his eyes. Then he spoke again: “I pray to God that He may grant your children prosperity and piety: Yasin, Khadija, Aisha, and Kamal and their mother. Amen.”

Hearing the shaykh pronounce the names Khadija and Aisha sounded odd to al-Sayyid Ahmad, even though he was the one who had told him their names a long time ago, so he could write amulet inscriptions for them. It was not the first time the shaykh had pronounced their names, nor would it be the last, but never would the name of any of his women be mentioned outside their chambers, even on the tongue of Shaykh Mutawalli, without having a strange and unpleasant impact on him, even if only for a short time. All the same, he muttered, “Amen, O Lord of the universe.”

***

The shaykh leaned back and closed his eyes to rest a little. Meanwhile the proprietor scrutinized his face and smiled. Then the religious guide opened his eyes and addressed him in a calm voice and a note tone, giving warning of a new subject. He said, “What an astute and gallant man you are, Ahmad, you son of Abd al-Jawad.”

The proprietor smiled with pleasure. He responded in a low voice, “I ask God’s forgiveness, Shaykh Abd al-Samad…”

The shaykh interrupted him, saying, “Not so fast. I’m the sort of person who praises only to clear the way to speak the truth, for the sake of encouragement, son of Abd al-Jawad.”

A wary circumspection was evident in the eyes of the proprietor. He muttered, “May our Lord be gracious to us.”

The shaykh gestured at him with his gnarled forefinger and asked him threatening, “What do you have to say as a devout Muslim concerning your lust for women?”

The proprietor was accustomed to his candor. Thus he was not troubled by the assault. After a brief laugh he replied, “How can you fault me for that? Didn’t the Messenger of God (the blessing and peace of God upon him) speak of his love for perfume and women?”

The shaykh frowned and looked even grimmer in protest against the proprietor’s logic, which he did not like. He countered, “Licit acts are not the same as forbidden ones, you son of Abd al-Jawad. Marriage is not the same as chasing after hussies.”

The proprietor stared at nothing in particular and said in a serious tone, “I have never allowed myself to offend against honor and dignity at all. Praise God for that.”

The shaykh struck his hands on his knees and exclaimed with astonishment and disgust, “A weak excuse fit only for a weak person. Immorality is damnable even if it is with a debauched woman. Your father, may God have mercy on him, was crazy about women. He married twenty times. Why don’t you follow his path and shun the sinner’s?”

The proprietor laughed out loud. He asked, “Are you one of God’s saints or a nuptial official? My father was sterile, so he married many times. Even though I was his only child, his property was split up between me and his last four wives, not to mention what he lost during his lifetime in divorce settlements. Now I’m the father of three males and two females. It wouldn’t be proper for me to slip into more marriages and have to divide my wealth that God has bestowed on us. Don’t forget, Shaykh Mutawalli, that the professional women entertainers of today are the slave girls of yesterday, whose purchase and sale God made legal. More than anything else, God is forgiving and merciful.”

The shaykh moaned. Shaking his torso right and left, he said, “How adept you are, you sons of Adam, in embellishing evil. By God, you son of Abd al-Jawad, were it not for my love of you, I would not suffer you to speak to me, you fornicator.”

The proprietor spread out his hands and said with a smile, “God grant…”

The shaykh snorted in annoyance and yelled, “If it weren’t for your jokes, you’d be the most perfect of men.”

“Perfection is God’s alone.”

The shaykh turned toward him and motioned with his hands as if to say, “Let’s put this aside.” Then he asked in the tone of an interrogator tightening his grip around his victim’s throat, “And wine? What do you say about that?”

Suddenly the proprietor’s spirits flagged. His discomfort was apparent in his eyes. He remained silent for some time. The shaykh sensed submission in his silence. He shouted in triumph, “Isn’t it forbidden? No one would succumb to it who strives to obey and love God.”

The proprietor interrupted with the zeal of a man fending off a veritable disaster: “I certainly strive to obey and love Him.”

“By word or deed?”

Although he had an answer ready, he took some time to think about it before replying. He was not accustomed to busying himself with introspection or self-analysis. In this way he was like most people who are rarely alone. His mind did not swing into action until some external force required it: a man or woman or some element of his material life. He had surrendered himself to the busy current of his life, submerging himself totally in it. All he say of himself was his reflection on surface of the stream. Moreover, his zest for life had not diminished as he grew older. He was forty-five and still enjoyed an ardent and exuberant vigor like that of an adolescent youth. His life was composed of a diversity of mutually contradictory elements, wavering between piety and depravity. Contradictory though they were, they all met with his satisfaction, without needing to be propped up by any pillar of personal philosophy or hypocritical rationalizations. His conduct issued directly from his special nature. Having a clear conscience, he was good-hearted and sincere in everything he did. His breast was not shaken by storms of doubt, and he passed nights peacefully. His faith was deep. It was true that he had inherited it and that there was no room for innovation in it. All the same, his sensitivity, discernment, and sincerity had added an elevated, refined feeling to it, which prevented it from being a blind traditionalism or a ritualism inspired by nothing but desire or fear. The most striking characteristics of his faith as a whole was its pure, fertile love. Using it, he set he set about performing all his duties to God, like prayer, fasting, or almsgiving, with love, ease, and happiness; not to mention a clear conscience, a heart abounding in love for people, and a soul that was generous in its gallantry and help of others. These qualities made him a dear friend. People vied to enjoy the pleasures of his friendship.

With the same ardent, overflowing vitality, he opened his breast to the joys of pleasures of life. He delighted in fancy food. He was enchanted by vintage wine. He was crazy about a pretty face. He pursued each of these pleasures with gaiety, joy and passion. His conscience was not weighed down by guilty feelings or anxious scruples. He was exercising a right granted him by life, as though there was no conflict between the duty life gave his heart and the duty God entrusted to his conscience. At no time in his life he felt estranged from God or a target of His vengeance. He communed peacefully with Him. Was he two separate people combined into one personality? Was his faith in the divine magnanimity so strong that he could not believe these pleasures really had been forbidden? Even if they were forbidden, should they not be excused so long as no one was harmed? Most probably what happened was that he embraced life with his heart and emotions without resorting to thought or reflection. He found within himself strong instincts, some directed toward quenched in play. The integration of all these within him was secure and carefree. His soul was not disturbed by any need to reconcile them. He was not forced to justify them in his thoughts, except under the pressure of criticism like that with which Shaykh Mutawalli Abd al-Samad confronted him. Under such circumstances, he found himself more distressed by thinking than by the accusation itself, not because he shrugged off being accused before God, but because he could not believe that he was actually being accused or that God would truly be angry at him for having little fun that harmed no one. Thought, however, was a burden and revealed how trivial his knowledge of his religion was. For this reason, he frowned when the other man challengingly asked him whether his obedience was “by word or deed.”

He responded in a tone that did not hide his distress. “By word and deed both. By prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. By remembering God whether I am standing or sitting. Why is it wrong for me, after that, to refresh myself with a little fun, harming no one, or for me to overlook one rule? Is nothing forbidden save these two things?”

The shaykh raised his eyebrows and closed his eyes to indicate that he did not agree. Then he muttered, “What a perverse defense!”

The proprietor suddenly went from anxiety to gaiety, as was his wont, and said expansively, “God is clement and merciful, Shaykh Abd al-Samad. I don’t picture Him, may He be high and exalted, being in any way spiteful or sullen. Even His vengeance is mercy in disguise. I offer Him love, obedience, reverence, and a good deed is worth ten…”

“In the calculus of good deeds, you have the most to gain.”

The proprietor motioned Jamil al-Hamzawi to bring the shaykh’s present. He said happily, “God’s all we need, along with the favors of His deputy.”

The proprietor’s assistant brought him the parcel, which he took and presented to the shaykh. “To your health,” he said with a laugh.

The shaykh accepted it and said, “May God provide for you generously and forgive you.”

The proprietor mumbled, “Amen.” Then, smiling, he asked him, “Weren’t you well off once, master?”

The shaykh laughed and replied, “May God go easy on you. You’re a generous man with a good heart. I take this occasion to caution you against excessive generosity, for it is not compatible with making a living as a merchant.”

The proprietor asked in astonishment, “Are you tempting me to withdraw the gift?”

The man rose and replied, “The gift to me is not excessive. Begin somewhere else, you son of Abd al-Jawad. Peace to you and God’s mercy.”

The shaykh left the store in a hurry and disappeared from sight. The proprietor kept on thinking. He was mulling over the dispute that had flared up between him and the shaykh. Then he spread his hands out in entreaty. He mumbled, “God, forgive me both my bygone and recent sins. God, You are clement and merciful.”

In the loving memory of June Jordan

June Jordan was the most published African American woman in American hisotry. I guess one of the advantages of being sick for weeks, along with numerous other disadvantages such as missing school, etc., is that I get to listen June Jordan speeches on my laptop.

Here is a taste of this very sexy woman.

Intifada.

Detention in concentration camps we trade stories, we take turns sharing a straw mat or a pencil. We watch what crawls in and out of the sand.

A salaam aleikum.

The guards do not allow the blue woolen blanket my family traveled far to bring to this corpuscular angelic cell where my still breathing infant son and I defy the purgatory implications of the state-created hell.

Wa aliqum A salaam.

The village trembles from the heavy tanks that try to terrify the children. Every day my little brother runs behind the rubble, practicing the tactics of the stones against the rock. In January, soldiers broke his fingers one by one. Time has healed his hands, but not the fury that controls what used to be his heart.

Inshallah.

Close villages, close the clinics, close the school, close the house, close the windows of the house, kill the vegetables languishing under the sun, kill the milk of the cows left to the swelling of pain, cut the electricity, cut the telephones, confine the people to the people.

Do not despair of the mercy of Allah.

Fig trees will grow and oranges erupt from desert holdings on which plastic bullets, 70% zinc, 20% glass and 10% plastic will prove blood soluble and fertilize the earth where sheep will graze and women no longer grieve and beat their breasts, they will be beat, clean, fine woven rugs outside of a house smelling of cinnamon and nutmeg.

Alhumdullialah

So says Imam, the Teacher, the future of peace, the shepherd on the mountain of the lamb, the teacher of peace who will subdue the howling of the lion, so that we may kneel as we must, five times beginning just after dawn, and ending just before dusk in Ibada of prayer.

Allah hu Akbar, Allah hu Akbar, Allah hu Akbar.

Here is more:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this killer crusade, this conversion of a stranger’s land into a killing field, this reduction of a people to a video display. This homicidal rhetoric that history does not support, that our common destiny is certain to condemn. This war has not saved one human being. This war has not saved a single American life. This war has not saved a single Israeli life. This a war has not saved a single Iraqi life. This war has not rescued the lives of Kuwait. This grand undertaking, this enormous, this infinitely casual overkill, this draining of our hearts, this annihilation of all tenderness, this erasure of every reason, every rational and civilized approach to dispute. This arched and leering assault upon all peaceable possibilities, this blasphemy unleashed against our shrunken trembling earth, that has become in the hellified lexicon of the killers ruling us, a target rich environment. This war has not saved one human being from terror or from unspeakable agonies of extinction. Then, why do we permit this blasphemy to persist, expand, and explode our body politic as well as the entire middle east?

I grieve the sorrow roar, the sorrow sob. I grieve the monstrous consequences of this war.

And you thought this was about the recent war on Iraq. Nope. This was her speech from 1991.

Here is more.

This is the column that I wrote on the night there was, among other things, the anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X was last Thursday. On a recent cold Sunday morning in Kennebunkport, Maine, George Bush and his wife, Barbara, apparently seated themselves inside a small country church of God to think about what? Alma Powell, wife of the Joint Chief of commanders of the armed forces reports that she likes to keep comforting foods like vegetable soup ready on top of the stove for Colin, her certainly hard-working husband. Alma adds that these days she knows that her Colin doesn't want to hear little stories about the children, just the soup, ma'am.

Secretary of Defense, Dick Cheney, second only to his boss in blood thirst for arms length armchair warfare has never served half an hour even in the Army, the Navy, the Air Force or the Marines. I know, it's not right to pick on him just for that. Last Saturday, at a local anti-war rally, organized by the Middle East Children's Alliance, I noted aloud that the war to date was costing us $56 billion every 24 hours a, the cost is $1 billion at least. I therefore, proposed the following to the crowd scattered on the grass and under the trees. $1 billion a day for seven days for Oakland. Can you imagine that? $1 billion a day, but to hell with the imagination. This is our city. This is our money, these are our lives. $1 billion a day for seven days for Oakland. Or do we accept that that there is only the will and the wallet when it's about kill or be killed? Do we need this money, or not? Do we need it here? Do we need it now? And so on. When I left the stage, a reporter came up to me. “You meant $1 million, didn't you?” “No“, I answered him amazed. “$1 billion. $1 billion a day for seven days for Oakland. That's the bill. That's our bill for housing and drug rehabilitation and books in the public schools and hospital care and all of that good stuff.”

$1 billion a day. It's a modest proposal. In less than three months, those maniacs in the White House and the Pentagon have spent $56 billion in my name, and with my taxes trying to obliterate Iraq and its people and their leaders. I'm saying call home the troops and the bucks. We need these big bucks to make this a homeland, not a desert right here for the troops and for you and for me. What's the problem? It's a bargain. $7 billion of a serious improvement of American life in Oakland versus $56 billion for death and destruction inside Iraq? What's the problem? But the reporter was giving me a weak smile of farewell that let me understand he found my proposal preposterous. $1 million for life okay. Billions for kill, or be killed okay. But really big bucks on us, the people of these United States? $1 billion a day to promote, for example, the safety and educational attainment and communal happiness of 339,000 Americans? I must be kidding. As I walked away from the park, I felt a heavy depression overtaking me. The reporter, a tall, white man with clear eyes could not contemplate the transfer of his and my aggregate resources from death to life as a reasonable idea. Worse, he could not suppose his and my life to be worth anything close to the value of organized high-tech and boastful murder. But then, other people stopped me to ask how can we do that? Do we write letters or what?

So, as I write this column tonight, I am reassured because not every American has lost her mind or his soul. Not every one of my compatriots who become a plaid-wrapped lunatic, lusting after oil and power, the perversions of kicking ass, preferably via TV. A huge number of Americans has joined with enormous numbers of Arab peoples and European communities in Germany, England, France, Italy, Spain and Muslim communities throughout India and Pakistan to cry out “stop”! When I say huge, I mean it. If 1,000 Americans contacted by some pollster can be said to represent 250 million people, then how many multi, multimillions do we anti-war movement gatherings of more than 100,000 coast to coast and on every continent, how many do we represent? How come nobody ever does that kind of political math? Tonight, February 2, 1991, when yet again, the ruling white men of America despise peace and sneer at negotiations and intensify their arms length arm-chair prosecution of this evil war, this display of racist value system that will never allow for any nationalism that is not their own and that will never allow third world countries to control their own natural resources and that will never ever express let alone feel regret or remorse or shame or horror at the loss of any human life that is not white. Tonight, I am particularly proud to be an African-American. By launching the heaviest air assault in history against Iraq on January 15, George Bush dared to desecrate the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr.

Tonight, and 83,000 bombing missions later is the 26th anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X. On this sorry evening, the world has seen the pathological real deal behind the sanctimonious rhetoric of Bush & Company. The Persian Gulf War is not about Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait. The war is not about Kuwait at all. Clearly, it's not about international law or respect or United Nations resolutions since by comparison to Washington and Pretoria, the Butcher of Baghdad is a minor league Johnny come-lately to the realm of outlaw conduct and contempt for world opinion. What has happened tonight is that the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev and the government of Iraq have reached an agreement whereby Iraq will withdraw from Kuwait, and that is a fact regardless of anything else included or omitted by the proposal. This agreement should provide for immediate ceasefire, a cessation to the slaughter of Iraqi men and women, and a halt to the demolition nationwide of their water supply, the access to food and security. What is the response of the number one white man in America? He's gone off to the theater. I guess that means that the nearest church was closed. Or that Colin Powell was busy dipping his spoon into the comfort of a pot of soup somebody else cooked for him. And that Dick Cheney was fit to be tied into any uniform so long has nobody would take away his Patriot missiles and Apache helicopters, and B52 cluster bombers, and black and brown and poor white soldiers and sailors and all of the rest of these toys for a truly big-time coward. Confronted with the nightmare prospect of peace, Bush goes off to the theater because he will be damned if he will acknowledge that Saddam Hussein is a man, is the head of a sovereign state, is an enemy to be reckoned with, an opponent with whom one must negotiate. Saddam is not a white man. He and his Arab peoples must be destroyed. No peace, no cease-fire, no negotiations. And I am proud tonight to remember Dr King and Malcolm X and to mourn their actions even as I pursue the difficult challenge of their legacy. Both of these men became the targets of white wrath when they in their different ways developed into global visionaries persisting against racism in Alabama, in Harlem, in South African, in Vietnam. Neither of these men could have failed to condemn this current attack against the Arab world. Neither of these men ever condoned anything less than equal justice and equal rights.

Hence, the undeniably racist double standards now levied against Saddam Hussein would have appalled and alienated both of them completely. I am proud to shake hands with the increasing number of African-American conscientious objectors. I am proud to remark the steadfast moral certainty of the United States Congressman Ronald Dylan's opposition to the war. I am proud to hear about the conscientious objections of Congressman Gus Savage, and John Conyers and Mervin as I am proud to observe that even while African-Americans remain disproportionately represented in the United States armed forces, we as a national community stand distinct, despite and apart from all vagaries of popular opinion. We maintain a proportionately higher level of opposition to this horrible war, this horrendous evasion of domestic degeneration and decay.

I want to say something else specific you to, Mr President. It's true you can humiliate and you can hound and you can smash and burn and terrify and smirk and boast, and defame, and demonize and dismiss and incinerate and starve, and yes, you can force somebody -- force a people to surrender what happens, what happens to remain of their bloody boweled into your grasping, bony, dry hands -- but all of us who are weak, we watch you. And we learn from your hatred, and we do not forget. And we are ready, Mr. President. We are most of the people on this god-forsaken planet.

May God rest her soul in heaven.