[Marxism] Polls and Camps

[<ykleftis@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Almost half of US favors legal restrictions on Muslims, 65% of
"highly religious" Americans believe Islam encourages violence:

http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Dec04/Muslim.Poll.bpf.html

This is especially dangerous given scattered, unclear reports of
planning and construction of possible concentration camps. Dozens
of rightist blogs, sites, etc. advocate concentration camps,
intensive surveillance, and summary deportation, but I did not post
them here. The existence of a pro-camp sentiment socially does not
mean that the state is actually building them; yet, take a glance
at this set of links to start your own research and decide for
yourself:

http://www.infowars.com/cc_archive.htm

I do not believe in conspiracy theory, only in history and culture.
There is a tradition and a mentality supporting concentration camps
in the US, so I would not be surprised if high-level discussions
have taken place about herding Americans and others of Arab,
Muslim, or other ?suspect? backgrounds into camps; indeed, US
concentration camps have a history extending past WWII internment
into the genocide of native Americans. Given the regressive 19th
century world view of many on the US right, a camp plan may already
be in place. Is the US one manufactured ?terrorist? incident away
from mass incarceration?

As for the ?oppressed women? perception reported in the poll, it
illustrates a large measure of hypocrisy along with plain ol'
ignance:

*Keep in mind that US women make about 75% of men's wages on
average and have never made more.

*Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Turkey, Yemen,
Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, India and other countries with a
large Muslim population had given women the vote before the Swiss
(1971) or the Portuguese (1974). Australians were given a
restricted franchise as late as 1962. The lack of women?s suffrage
as an indicator of ?oppression? is not correlated with the religion
of Islam.

*"Intimate violence" (meaning violence committed by known
relations, including murder), called "domestic violence" in the US
and western Europe but derisively termed "honor crimes" when
occurring other parts of the world, is slightly higher in the US as
a proportion of the population than in places such as Jordan. Do
the research and the math if you want to verify these figures and
compare them with other countries.

*It is also hard to see how the chaos and violence of war, such as
those waged by the US in countries with large Muslim populations in
Yugoslavia, Sudan, Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan, does not work to
oppress women (and men and children) as well.

The point here is not apologist, or even necessarily to demonize
the US; rather, we must do justice to feminist movements worldwide
and demonstrate that a universal conception of freedom and right
cannot be based on unreflective and simplistic self-perceptions by
so-called ?westerners?.

--Y. Kleftis




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