Blog #7 - Syeda

Reading Economix, pages 249-254 struck a chord.

“Despite years of scandals and political corruption, despite the stream of stories of personal greed and pirate of Gucci scamming the treasury, despite the retreat from the public sphere and the turn toward private privilege, despite squalor for the poor and gated communities for the rich, the great mass of Americans have not yet given up on the idea of ‘we, the people’... it's as if the clock has been rolled back to the early 60s, before Vietnam and Watergate took such a toll.” -Bill Moyers, journalist (October 2001).

“The military spending got a justification when Iraq, which had nothing to do with September 11, was declared an immediate threat.”

I felt vindicated. Growing up, again in a Muslim household, I often held a more diverse, broader worldview than my average classmate. I’ve been ridiculed for my religion, I’ve been teased for the place I happened to be born--during that war, I felt like the enemy. I felt like the enemy in my own country while I learned simple addition and simple subtraction. I’ve grown up with the subconscious need to justify my existence. “Not all Muslims are terrorists.” Well of-fricking-course they’re not. A Muslim has every right to be here like any Christian or Jew or Hindu or anyone else. I don’t need to fit the ‘white American” bill to be an American, and this really doesn’t need to be said anymore. I’ve been done needing to explain myself, so this should suffice. After all, the burden of proof is on the accuser. I also have Iraqi peers and acquaintances who have lost esteemed family members (doctors and politicians) to the US military in cold blood because every Iraqi became an enemy. So I often question if the men and women ever knew what they were fighting for. This war--this political and economic plot rather--certainly has been a defining, life-changing common denominator in the young American Muslim’s life. So that being said, you can see why I feel vindicated. Operation Iraqi Freedom really wasn’t ever a war on terror, but instead, just another form of flexing the US’s imperialistic muscles and a way to escape problems brewing at home, even if it cost the ~1 million Iraqi lives, 4,500 US servicemens’, and the stability of an entire region. And I’m sure that the US government could foresee all of this. ‘We want control of this land and we *might* make its inhabitants angry by killing their family members, so hmm an insurgency might happen...’ Anyone with a half a rat’s ass could anticipate this. I know I sound bitter, and I wasn’t joking when I said this struck a chord, but when a large part of my identity comes from always feeling the need (in the past) to justify my existence, particularly because of this time in US policy, it’s beyond relieving to see something I’ve known for so long be explained in a way that doesn’t sound like it’s coming from a conspiracy theorist. It sounds valid, certainly no doubt in part due to the excellent, accessible comic book medium that Goodwin chose. Normally, I’d be opposed to such vibrant animations that predispose readers to certain feelings, like the dislike you feel when you see a mischievous uncle Sam or the cold, looming corporations, but in the context of the Iraq war or even US economic policy in general where the US populace has seemingly been brainwashed and lied to time and time again, I think it becomes a powerful and almost necessary tool to effectively communicate the alternate perspective--and that, I feel it does wonderfully, making it an excellent intervention.