The Governor
of Virginia, Timothy M. Kaine, has just pardoned Gabriel Prosser
for leading a slave revolt in Virginia over
200 years ago. Prosser sought to organize thousands of
slaves to accomplish the "wholesale massacre" of
whites in Richmond and other slave-holding areas, according
to historian Virginius Dabney. Kaine cited Prosser's "devotion
to the ideals of the American revolution – it was worth risking
death to secure liberty." Kaine concluded, "Gabriel's
cause – the end of slavery and the furtherance of equality
of all people – has prevailed in the light of history."
So seeking
to massacre Americans can come from devotion to the ideals
of the American Revolution, even if it's done by people not
quite considered real Americans? Of course it can. The
American Revolution involved killing lots of people too. Prosser
was not hanged for advocating violence but for opposing slavery
and advocating violence against slave owners. Of course,
in the light of history, over 200 years too late we can recognize
the horror that slavery was and see slave rebellions as acts
of self-defense. It is slightly remarkable for a Virginia governor
to say so out loud, even today. But it's not a great
moral breakthrough.
The moral breakthrough
would have been for the slave owners in 1800 to have said, "My
God, they dislike slavery so much they are willing to kill
and die to end it. Slavery must be wrong. We will
end it peacefully. We will make amends. We will
share the burden together of moving past slavery so as to avoid
a future war." That would have been the moral breakthrough.
Today, rebelling
slaves are called insurgents. They speak a funny language
called Arabic. They practice a strange religion. They
dress weirdly. And almost every depiction of them on
television is negative. But we've killed an estimated
1,028,907 of them in Iraq alone
and driven another 4 million Iraqis out of their homes. They
are in utter and desperate poverty. Diseases are sweeping
their remaining population. They are dying at twice the
rate this year as last year. Their fury at the occupying
army of slave owners is immeasurable. Slave owners today
are called Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, and the Congress.
The moral breakthrough
today would be to recognize that Iraqis defending their country
against an occupying and murderous force – a force, which in
fact uses slave labor to construct its gargantuan embassy -
is acting in self-defense. The moral breakthrough would
be to recognize now, before it's too late, that the Iraqi resistance
is, in fact, in line with the ideals of the American Revolution
and is, in fact, destined to prevail in the light of history
- if we all survive long enough to have that history.
My friend Dahlia
Wasfi recently said:
"Our
so-called 'enemies' in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, our other colonies around the world
- and our inner cities here at home - are struggling against
the oppressive hand of empire, demanding respect for their
humanity. They are labeled 'insurgents' or 'terrorists' for
resisting rape and pillage by the white establishment, but
they are our brothers and sisters in the struggle for justice.
"Last
Sunday, my family's luck ran out, and one of my cousins in Iraq was killed
in the violence we have brought upon Iraqis and their children.
He leaves behind a wife; a 2 year old son who keeps asking
'Where’s Daddy?'; a heart-broken mother and brother; and an
entire family devastated by grief, for whom life will never
be the same. If there are political differences, then whatever
they may be, there's nothing complicated about fighting for
Iraqi women and children, who are the majority of the suffering
population. And if we respect their humanity, can we not respect
their grief as they lose their brothers, fathers, husbands
and sons, the same way we mourn with and share the pain of
American military families?"
Perhaps we
can, Dahlia. It just might take us a couple of hundred
years.
David Swanson
is the Washington Director of Democrats.com and of ImpeachPAC.org. He is co-founder
of the AfterDowningStreet.org coalition,
creator of MeetWithCindy.org, and a board member of Progressive Democrats of America,
and of the Backbone Campaign. He was the organizer in 2006 of Camp Democracy. He serves
on the steering committee of the Charlottesville Center for
Peace and Justice and on a working group of United for Peace
and Justice. His website is www.davidswanson.org. Click
here to contact Mr. Swanson and BC.