The Message from Porto Alegre to the United States:
Restrain the Empire
by Robert Jensen
Dissident Voice
February 3, 2003
Speech to the "Get Up, Stand
Up" rally, Austin, Texas, February 2, 2003
Last week at the
World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, I talked with dozens of people from
around the world. I learned a lot about the struggles for justice in their
countries, but the most important lesson I brought home was about my own
country.
The question I
thought people at the Forum would ask me is, "Why does the U.S. government
follow such brutal policies of economic and military domination around the
world?" I thought they would want me to explain the United States to them.
But they didn't -- because, I came to realize, they already knew the answer to
the question.
In one session I
listened to a man who works with the MST, the landless movement in Brazil that
is widely considered to be the biggest and most important social movement in
the world today. He told us that the people he works with often are lucky if
they get a fourth-grade education; many are illiterate. "But I don't have
to tell them about imperialism," he said. That they understand. They live
with it.
The question
that people in Porto Alegre did ask me was simple: What are people of
conscience in the United States -- what am I -- doing to stop the U.S.
government, especially in its mad drive to war in Iraq?
Those of us
organizing in the United States are in a strange situation. Our task is to work
to educate the people of our own privileged and affluent culture about what the
rest of the world already knows: The United States is an empire, and -- as has
been the case throughout history -- empires are a threat to peace and life and
justice in the world. There is no such thing as a benevolent empire.
It is crucial
that we in the United States who have so much unearned privilege that comes
with living in the empire face their question: What are we willing to do to
stop our government? What are those of us in the heart of the beast doing to
tame that beast?
The United
States is preparing for a war in Iraq that virtually the entire world opposes.
No matter how brutal the regime of Saddam Hussein, the world understands that
even more threatening is the empire unleashed and unrestrained.
The cynical
among us say that it is clear that Bush and his boys want this war, and that
the war will come. That may be true; there's no way to see the future. But I
know that no matter what will come, our task is clear:
We are the first
citizens of the empire. In the past, empires had subjects. But we are truly
citizens, with freedom of expression and rights of political participation that
aren't perfect but are real. With those freedoms comes a responsibility, to use
them to stop our government from pursuing a war that will kill and destroy
innocents while further entrenching U.S. power in the Middle East and U.S.
control over the strategically crucial oil resources there.
We have a
choice. We can hide from our responsibility. Or we can stand up, speak up,
organize, and join the people of the world in movements to challenge the powerful,
to resist the empire.
It may seem
safer to avoid that choice, to hide from that responsibility. But I learned one
other thing in Porto Alegre: The people of the world do not accept the American
empire. All over the world there are movements for social justice that are
strengthening, gathering support and challenging power. They are the future.
History is not on the side of the empire.
To take the side
of the empire is to give into our fear, to cast our lot with the past. To
resist the empire is to grab onto hope, to cast our lot with the future. It is
literally a choice of empire and death, or resistance and life. This is not
about liberals v. conservatives or Republicans and Democrats; both parties are
on the wrong side of this struggle right now. This is about a far more
fundamental choice.
There is much
work to be done on many fronts. One thing we can all do is come out on Saturday,
Feb. 15, when people in New York City, Austin and around the world will rally
to oppose the U.S. drive to war. Information is available at http://www.unitedforpeace.org/
If you doubt the
importance of this, think back to September 11, 2001. On that day, we got a
glimpse of what it will look like if the empire is dismantled from the outside,
if the empire continues to ignore the world. But we have a choice. We, the
first citizens of the empire, can commit to dismantling the empire from within,
peacefully and non-violently, in solidarity with those around the world
struggling for justice.
Let me leave you
with one image from Porto Alegre, from the floor of the arena in which the
closing ceremonies took place. As the conveners of the World Social Forum delivered
a final declaration and stood on stage, the sounds of John Lennon's
"Imagine" came over the loudspeakers, and the 15,000 people in the
arena stood, held hands, moved with the music and sang of a world with no
countries, a world living life in peace, a world without possessions and greed.
When the song
was over, I turned to an older man sitting next to me. I had told him I was
from the United States and we had exchanged nods and smiles throughout the
event, but he spoke little English and I spoke even less Portuguese. At that
moment, language mattered little. I extended my hand to him. But he rejected
it.
Instead, he
reached out, grabbed me and enveloped me in a hug as big as that song, as big as
Brazil, as big as the world.
"Peace,"
he said. "Paz," I replied.
We are
Americans, but if we choose to resist we are not the American empire. And if we
do resist, there is a world we can join, a world that is waiting for us.
Perhaps
I am investing too much symbolism in one simple hug. But that moment with that
man, that hug in Porto Alegre, was for me the promise of life outside the
empire. It was the feel of a future that we can all imagine. It is easy, if we
try.
Robert Jensen, an associate professor of journalism at the University of
Texas at Austin, is the author of Writing Dissent: Taking Radical Ideas from
the Margins to the Mainstream and a member of the Nowar Collective. Email: rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu. Other articles are
available at his website: http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~rjensen/home.htm.