Another school shooting by a 17-year-old White student at Santa Fe yesterday (18th May 2018), and another round of “prayer” by Republican Senator Ted Cruz, Republican Governor of Texas, and other important and not-so important Americans! They admired the courage of some students, teachers, policemen, and mourned the deaths of ten victims of the attack, which was 22nd of its kind in the last five months across America. Nobody singled out the obnoxious Second Amendment of the US Constitution that allows US citizens to carry arms, as many and as lethal as possible. All in the name of defending freedom! The most aggrieved Americans – with some exceptions – questioned as to how the killers get access to the weapons! The overwhelming majority of Americans simply don’t believe that guns kill. They single out some “crazy” or “mentally deranged” people for the ongoing school shootings. None has so far has used the “T” word to designate these White Christian killers.
To the bulk of naïve and prejudiced Americans, only Muslims resort to “terrorism”, non-Muslim American killers, especially White, are either “mentally disturbed” or “Evil”, even if they kill indiscriminately innocent people, including school children. The average Americans are so narcistic, vain, and prejudiced against Muslims that after White terrorist Timothy McVeigh had killed more than 200 people with homemade bomb at a building in Oklahoma City in 1995, not only laymen, but experts and terrorism analysts also believed some Muslim terrorists had been behind the ghastly killings. Some of them came up with op-eds and editorials in newspapers appraising the various aspects of “Islamic terrorist attack” in Oklahoma City.
It’s not irrelevant to mention here that during the last eleven years of my teaching Global and America’s Homeland Security at undergraduate and graduate levels, at military and civilian universities in the US, I have never come across books and courses on Domestic Terrorism in America ever mentioning school shootings and random killings of civilians as terrorism. The “T” word seems to be a taboo here, it’s only used when the killers happen to be Muslims.
America since long is a nation which loves to kill people, within and beyond its borders. Before they became a nation in the 1780s, White European settlers killed tens of thousands of indigenous people, then they enslaved Black Africans. Many of them were killed before they reached the shores of America. Then they were brutalized in all possible manners for three centuries or so. Even after the formal abolition of slavery, African Americans faced the worst discrimination in human history for another hundred years. Their suffering did not end with the Civil Rights in the 1960s. They over-represent the prison population, and face discrimination every day in every sphere of life. Last but not least, African Americans get killed on a regular basis at the hands of White cops. White Americans are simply fond of killing humans, preferably non-Whites. They killed civilians in Mexico, Philippines, and elsewhere in Latin America — tens of thousands. They toppled regimes across the world almost in every continent for several decades. In the Middle East, Syria was the first victim of America’s “Regime Change” operation. In 1949, it toppled the democratically elected President Shukri Quwatly. Then the CIA toppled Iran’s elected Prime Minister Dr. Mosaddeq in 1953, with the help of (bribed) Ayatollah Kashani. They killed millions of people from Korea to Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Iraq, Afghanistan, and then Iraq again, Syria, Libya, Bahrain (by proxy), Palestine (Gaza and West Bank), Pakistan, Somalia, Indonesia and in so many places in Latin America. Now the gun crazy White Americans are killing school children, bulk of whom are White. In short, America has staged at least 10,000 9/11s across the world. They would love to kill more in North Korea, Syria, Palestine and elsewhere.
Many Americans are just abnormal people, many of whom psychopaths. NRA and KKK are just two heads of a hydra-headed monster. I don’t think there are so many psychopaths and serial killers anywhere in the world, who kill innocent people just for the sake of killing. The Santa Fe school shooter wore a T-Shirt displaying his ominous message: “Born to Kill”. And he is only 17-year-old!
Now Donald Trump and his associates are publicly warning, in the event of North Korea’s refusal to de-nuclearize itself, America would “Libyanize” North Korea! Soon after 9/11 the Bush Administration warned Pakistan that the country’s refusal to let American troops use its territory to invade the Taliban regime in Afghanistan (which had sheltered Osama bin Laden, the alleged mastermind of 9/11 attacks), America would bomb Pakistan to the “stone age”. America’s arrogance, threats of invasions, and invasions imply only one thing that is America (and its allies, including Israel) are the only countries entitled to make, and use nuclear weapons – when “necessary” – against other countries. America’s jingoism, and proclivity to using violent methods to kill people within and beyond its territories, are not separable from school shootings, and killing of African Americans in America.
What Americans shy away from admitting that all these school shootings, and random killings of innocent people and total strangers (and African Americans) by police and White civilians is TERRORISM. The killers have an ideology. They want to “Make America Great Again”, which they believe the election of Barack Obama (twice) made “America Dwarf”, and they should reverse the process. Trump represents KKK and NRA, and the bulk of the White killers admire Trump, KKK, NRA, and Hitler. So, the ideology behind these terrorist attacks is not that hidden, after all! Only when even a mentally deranged Muslim kills innocent people in America, the act become “terroristic”! One may assume that a significant proportion of the forty percent of White Americans – who are die-hard Trump supporters – turn a blind eye to school shootings and killing of African Americans. They are very enthusiastic about “Muslim Ban”, and invading countries right and left to kill Muslims and others to “protect” democracy and freedom in the world. In sum, school shootings are actually the tip of the iceberg. The real problem is at the core of American psyche, which is about promoting xenophobia, racism, and prejudice against “others”. Today, the most important questions are: Are Americans reverting to the pre-Civil Rights era? Isn’t Americans’ blind support for the NRA also reflects a section’s tacit support for the KKK? We must never forget the KKK and NRA were among the main sponsors of Donald Trump’s candidacy in 2016.
Dr. Hashmi teaches security studies at Austin Peay State University in Tennessee, USA. SAGE has recently published his latest book, Global Jihad and America: The Hundred-Year War Beyond Iraq and Afghanistan.
“America since long is a nation which loves to kill people, within and beyond its borders.” Is it? “A nation”? “A nation … loves to kill people”? A nation is a very, very, very big …. Isn’t? Does the nation “love to kill”? Or, something else than the nation that kills? In a nation, there are workers, children, farmers, women, singers, artists, working people, philosophers, professors, students, miners, writers, editors, common people, home makers, film directors, clerks, girls, amazing persosns, and many, many. Isn’t it? Only weeks ago, thousands of people including children marched in cities around the US. Weren’t they marching against gun violence? In the US, thousands of people in cities marched against war, against the Iraq War, against the Afghanistan War, against the Vietnam War, and so many others. Everyone knows, the sons of the people, students, in the US made supreme sacrifice while opposing the Vietnam War. Has that been forgotten? Remember the civil rights marchers. Remember the exposures. Remember the whistle blowers. How many instances can be cited from other lands? In cases, shamefully, none, nothing, not a single person, not a single voice. It’s difficult to find countries including the countries claiming to be of the same breed and creed where so many, so vast anti-war marches were organized. It’s very easy to find countries claiming to be of the same breed and creed where not a single anti-Iraq War or anti-Afghanistan War march was organized. In countries, it’s very difficult to find a single voice against barbarity, brutality, medieval age-style killing and blood-spilling carried on days and days, for weeks and weeks, for months and months. Not a shameful voice is there, not a remorseful voice is there. The US is the country from where peace activists regularly go to countries facing and fighting imperialism’s proxy wars and military and non-military interventions. In the US, many people regularly oppose drone wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen. Daughters and sons from among the American nation regularly fight for victims of so-called War on Terror, regularly reach the house of law to defend rights of persons accused of organizing terror. Many persons from the American nation are defending Moslems and mosques there although those persons are not of the same creed. Isn’t it? This story is very, very long, and is known to many, many persons, scholars, writers, analysts. So, there’s no need to present a detailed account here. All people, especially scholarly people should search answer to the question — should an entire nation be criticised, denounced, etc. while criticising imperialism? Are imperialism and nation the same? Are a killing machine and a nation the same? Are a killing mechanism and a nation the same? Scholars know answers to these questions. It’s very painful when an entire nation is branded as “loves to kill? Isn’t it?
Thanks for your commentary, Farooque. … In indirect relation, I have some religiously oriented and nonreligious friends who are willing to lay their lives on the line for others. … The religiously oriented ones think that they may go up with God after death and thereby find continuance of themselves or think that there is reincarnation, which is somewhat the same orientation (a continuation of consciousness of the self). … More interesting to me are my atheist and agnostic friends who step out to protect life with willingness (not liking it, but a willingness) to serve life at their personal own sacrifice of life. Indeed, the atheists think that it is the end of ALL for them when they move forward to serve in such a way that they can be killed in the process. The agnostics think that there is probably nothing after they die, but aren’t as firmly sure as the agnostics.
Yet people in both of these nonreligious groups, AS A MATTER OF CONSCIENCE, will step up with the full force of their little individual beings to serve causes that they believe from a moral standpoint is more important than their singular lives. Now this shows great conviction in my view for doing whatever is right and good regardless of the way that it personally turns out in the end for the self.
I’ll be honest. It may seem a tremendous act of courage when someone goes to that place to serve life forward by risking his or her own life. Often, though, it isn’t so. It is because one’s self gets so focused on the task at hand that one is unable to see anything else at the moment. Put another way, only the details of what you are doing, everything and everyone around you and a plan forward exists in those life-on-the line moments.
Put another way, you do not think about afterlife, death or anything else. You are totally in the here and now, and totally doing what you must (NOT choose but MUST) do. In short, you are a slave to your values, ethics, morals, principles and standards. You know nothing other than the stance that you willingly and HAVE TO subsume in that present time, and regardless of the outcome for it.
This is the place in which I live. I’m always on the ready.
This is the place where my sister, my brother-in-law and others who I know live. We’re always on the ready.
As I indicated, there is no choice involved. It is intrinsic to our sense of selves to be this way of being. We gladly embrace ourselves to be this way of being because on a simplistic level, we know nothing else than to be ourselves in the ways that we are configured.
It is not sanctimonious. It is not filled with hubris or any sort of self-glorification and self back-pats. It just is as is in a matter of fact way — and nothing more than that acceptance of fate or the current conditions being faced.
The good news is that with absolute clarity, you know exactly who you are. The bad news is that sometimes you walk or crawl forward alone. Who cares? You do it anyway out of conviction and quiet power despite fear that one may harbor, too.
The following verse by R. Tagore:
(I noted that while “they” is used for the opposed stance, one could easily
substitute “he” Or “she” for the “they” to represent contrary perspective.)
If they [he, she] answer not your call, walk alone;
If they are afraid and cower mutely facing
the wall,
O thou of evil luck,
Open the mind and speak out alone.
If they turn away and desert you when
crossing the wilderness,
O thou of evil luck,
Trample the thorns under the tread,
And along the blood-lined track
travel alone.
If they do not hold up the light when the
night is troubled with storm,
O thou of evil luck,
With the thunder-flame of pain ignite
thine own heart
And let it burn alone.
—
As the USA quip goes: “We have your back, Jack.” Some of us always will through no choice of our own.
Please accept my heartfelt thanks, Ms. Sally Dugman, for citing Tagore. In Baanglaa it’s: Jadee tor daak shoone keu naa aashe tabe aklaa cholo re.
Yes, I agree. I should have used “country”, instead of “nation”. Thanks for pointing it out. I wrote it in absolute haste, as a response to someone on FaceBook.
Thanks, Professor Hashmi, for your response. It’s nice that you consider comments of readers.
I’m not so sure about this being so, although I do agree with many of the views (not all) in this piece. Specifically this statement seems strongly inaccurate to me: “One may assume that a significant proportion of the forty percent of White Americans – who are die-hard Trump supporters – turn a blind eye to school shootings and killing of African Americans.”
You see, I live in the so-called pinko (meaning commie) state. Here’s what we do here regardless of our skin color:
Over 100,000 in our Boston pussy march, 40,000 in our anti-hate speech march, around 50,000 in Boston alone for anti-NRA march, along with more in each march in other locations in MA.
On Saturday, 175,000 Attend Boston Women’s March for America …
bcheights.com › City
Jan 21, 2017 – But many of those people were wearing the now iconic pink-knit pussy ear hat. All were headed to the Boston Women’s March for America.
Here’s what the Women’s March D.C. looked like to college women …
college.usatoday.com/2017/01/25/womens-march-on-washington/
Jan 25, 2017 – Handmade signs and pink “pussyhats” filled the crowd as more than 500,000 people marched through the streets of downtown Washington …
The NRA just sued my state and a Federal judge threw it out as bogus nonsense. Ha-ha! … Try to go for it again, NRA, and watch us all swing into action, especially Governor Charlie Baker, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Sen. Ed Markey, Rep. Jim McGovern, our state legislator members and our citizenry. Watch out because our population, which is all mixed races, ethnic groups, religions and so on are largely unified and we do not take kindly to being messed with! (It’s a cultural orientation that goes wayback to Revolutionary days and with which each generation since then has been instilled.)
Some people who I know can’t vote as a matter of conscience and for other reasons related to our belief systems. I mean — who could vote for hideous Hillery or dastardly Donald unless delusional or infused with the notion that a lesser of two evils is better? Not I! Not many of my friends!
FYI: Guess who seemingly loves or at least admires and tries to learn from Hitler?
donald trump poured wine down the back of writer’s dress for hitler …
Video for trump wine down back of dress nazi
▶ 3:04
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YxOlsb105Q
Nov 13, 2017 – Uploaded by CELEBRITIES NEWS
Editor Tina Brown didn’t hold back when speaking with CBS Sunday Morning about her experiences with …
Trump Dumped Wine on Reporter After She Wrote About Hitler …
https://www.thewrap.com/trump-dumped-wine-on-reporter-after-she-wrote-about-hitl…
Nov 9, 2017 – “She noted in the piece that he had Hitler’s speeches in his office. … she said that Trump once poured wine down the dress of a reporter after …
And people are suppose to vote for this abomination in the next Presidential election? We’ll see.