The Dangers of Dissent
by
Heather Wokusch
Dissident Voice
March 2, 2003
Dissent
isn't easy these days. You're branded unpatriotic for questioning an unelected
president's rush to war, and dismissed as insignificant even when you number in
the millions.
It gets much worse. If you
work in an American university, you could be blacklisted, harassed and even
lose your job for questioning the Bush Administration's conservative pro-war
agenda. Thanks to a small number of deep-pocket groups with close ties to the
government, campuses have been pummeled with a right-wing political agenda; one
stated goal is to replace
liberal-minded professors (found to be "short on patriotism" or
failing to teach that civilization itself "is best exemplified in the West
and indeed in America") with more politically correct conservatives.
If you're a human rights
activist in the States, things get even bleaker. Of the 10,000 who demonstrated
in Fort Benning, Georgia last November to shut down what they call a terrorist
training camp on US soil - the School of the Americas, renamed Western
Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (SOA/WHINSEC) - 96 peacefully
crossed the forbidden line into the facility and were charged with civil
disobedience. Those arrested included a priest, a reverend, Catholic nuns
and veterans; as of now, 83 have been adjudicated, many receiving federal
prison terms. Who says we don't have political prisoners in America?
But of course, dissent comes
at a high price everywhere. At the infamous 2001 Genoa G8 summit, the world was
stunned when a young protestor was shot dead by police, but only recently did
the rest of the ugly story emerge. In one especially vicious event, Italian
police raided a school being used as a temporary dormitory by international
demonstrators and independent media. Claiming two petrol bombs had been found
in the school and that an occupant had tried to stab an officer, police charged
into the school and proceeded to smash windows, computers and heads in a
gruesome attack that injured 72 occupants, many seriously. Bystanders kept outside
the school during the prolonged raid reported hearing spine-chilling screams
and then seeing the battered bodies carried out on stretchers.
What happened later is
significant. Of the 93 inside the school arrested by the police that night, all
were later released without charge. Then just last January, a full year and a
half after the brutality, it emerged that the Italian police had in fact
planted the petrol bombs at the school, and the officer who claimed to have
been stabbed had in fact lied.
In other words, the Italian
police had fabricated evidence against dissenters in order to justify beating
them to a pulp.
We could be heading that
direction in the States. The proposed Domestic Security Enhancement Act of
2003, a.k.a. Patriot Act II, would grant the government sweeping new powers for
surveillance, wiretapping, detention and criminal prosecution. Court appointed
limits on police infiltration and disruption of dissident political groups
would be terminated, and the government would be exempted from disclosing
information on individuals detained in terrorism investigations; in other
words, as the Bush Administration's "you're with us or with the
enemy" mentality seeps down into the domestic arena and dissent becomes
increasingly equated with terrorism, it will be easier to "disappear"
political opponents.
Despite the risks, dissent
is on the rise and from some unexpected sources. In the UK, an unprecedented
20% of reservists called up for military action have either ignored the order
or claimed exemption. Stateside, a group of soldiers, parents of soldiers and
Congress members have filed a lawsuit challenging the authority of George W.
Bush to launch a military invasion of Iraq without a congressional declaration.
Similarly, a bill making its way through the House of Representatives (House
Joint Resolution 20) would repeal Bush's authorization to use force against
Iraq. Over 120 cities in the US have passed resolutions against a war in Iraq.
And dissent today is not
without its own creativity - or humor. In an ironic twist, a delegation of
politicians, academics and scientists from abroad recently descended on the US
Army's Edgewood Chemical Biological Center in Maryland to search for Weapons of
Mass Destruction. Across the Atlantic, German relatives of US Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld castigated his warmongering and publicly disowned him.
But those pushing for war
have some creative ideas of their own. Last month, it was big news when ten
Central and Eastern European nations issued a statement supporting the Bush
drive to attack Iraq. Less well reported, however, was the fact that none other
than Bruce Jackson (former US Defense Department official and weapons
manufacturer executive) had helped draft the controversial statement and pushed
to have it released. And of course, the final pretext for the last Gulf war -
reports that Iraqi soldiers had ripped Kuwaiti babies from their incubators and
left them to die on hospital floors - was later exposed as a downright lie,
fabricated to silence dissent.
As the CIA says, it's the
"Mighty Wurlitzer" in action: propaganda repeated so often and by
such credible sources it becomes conventional wisdom.
Many of us can see past the
lies. We're horrified that nuclear devices, depleted uranium, and Orwellian weaponry
such as microwave technology and weather modification could be used against
civilians in the name of somehow creating peace. We're appalled by Rumsfeld's
plan to ditch the Chemical Weapons Convention, thus allowing American forces to
use
biochemical weapons against Iraqi troops and civilians proactively. We're
sickened at the prospect of sending our service members into this bottomless
pit.
The ultimate irony of course
is that the hawkish politicians leading us into this mess are the true dissenters.
Public opinion internationally opposes an attack on Iraq, but the handful of
men who have seized power apparently disagree. And everyone knows Iraq is just
their first stop.
Given the stakes, it is far
less dangerous for us to dissent than to accept the alternative.
Heather Wokusch is a free-lance writer with a background
in clinical psychology. Her work as been featured in publications and websites
internationally. Heather can be contacted via her website: http://www.heatherwokusch.com