2004-12-13 - 9:45 p.m.
riverbendblog.blogspot.com
(an upper-middle class [or upper class?] young woman [teenager?] in Baghdad):
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All in all, it took E. and the cousin 13 hours to fill the car. I say E. and the cousin because I demanded to be taken home in a taxi after the first six hours and E. agreed to escort me with the condition that I would make sandwiches for him to take back to the cousin. In the end, half of the tank of gasoline was kept inside of the car (for emergencies) and the other half was sucked out for the neighborhood generator.
People are wondering how America and gang (i.e. Iyad Allawi, etc.) are going to implement democracy in all of this chaos when they can't seem to get the gasoline flowing in a country that virtually swims in oil. There's a rumor that this gasoline crisis has been concocted on purpose in order to keep a minimum of cars on the streets. Others claim that this whole situation is a form of collective punishment because things are really out of control in so many areas in Baghdad- especially the suburbs. The third theory is that this being done purposely so that the Iraq government can amazingly bring the electricity, gasoline, kerosene and cooking gas back in January before the elections and make themselves look like heroes.
We're also watching the election lists closely. Most people I've talked to aren't going to go to elections. It's simply too dangerous and there's a sense that nothing is going to be achieved anyway. The lists are more or less composed of people affiliated with the very same political parties whose leaders rode in on American tanks. Then you have a handful of tribal sheikhs. Yes- tribal sheikhs. Our country is going to be led by members of religious parties and tribal sheikhs- can anyone say Afghanistan? What's even more irritating is that election lists have to be checked and confirmed by none other than Sistani!! Sistani- the Iranian religious cleric. So basically, this war helped us make a transition from a secular country being run by a dictator to a chaotic country being run by a group of religious clerics. Now, can anyone say 'theocracy in sheeps clothing'?
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The assault on Falloojeh and other areas is continuing. There are rumors of awful weapons being used in Falloojeh. The city has literally been burnt and bombed to the ground. Many of the people displaced from the city are asking to be let back in, in spite of everything. I can't even begin to imagine how difficult it must be for the refugees. It's like we've turned into another Palestine- occupation, bombings, refugees, death. Sometimes I'll be watching the news and the volume will be really low. The scene will be of a man, woman or child, wailing in front of the camera; crying at the fate of a body lying bloodily, stiffly on the ground- a demolished building in the background and it will take me a few moments to decide the location of this tragedy- Falloojeh? Gaza? Baghdad?
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studying for exams still- it really really sucks- took a very undisciplined break yesterday and hung out for 5 hours with Jane, who I met at that anti-war rally- it's good to meet ppl i want to hang out with in boston
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http://raedinthemiddle.blogspot.com/
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chiapas, communism/anarchism, nationalism
the zapatistas seem to represent an alternative- preserving an indigenous community and dealing with the inevitable confrontation with the state- applied to the united states, the framework doesn't apply so well-
assuming that you can somehow get a region's population to wish to secede, you'd have to first expel the state in addition to keeping it out (police, IRS, everything!)
republic of new africa and other nationalist movements may be examples of this- you'd have to replace the functions of the state as well- the BPP did this with their social service programs- these programs are easily co-opted by the state-
just as the new deal adjusted to unrest and uprising, right after the L.A. uprising, there was a ton of funding for inner city non-profits-
this is the pendulum of capitalism...
breaking the pendulum is the goal...
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perhaps the best book I've found on the zapatistas is "never again a world without us"- compilation of women's first person narratives- it has stuff on the origins of the zapatistas i've never read anywhere else- if one reads about the zapatistas looking for empirical, concrete information of how the struggle in chiapas occurs, you gotta get this book- for instance, the intro has stuff on the formation of the zapatistas i haven't found elsewhere:
long before there were any zapatistas, "one of the bigest organizations formed in the rainforest was K'ip Tik Talekumtasel-Tzeltal for "Our organization's Strength is for our Liberation." ...a grassroots indigenous movement that grew out of the Indigenous Congress, a state-wide meeting of Indian peoples organized by Bishop Ruiz and the San Cristobal Diocese in 1974...[there was a split] eventually it became the Rural Association of Collective Interest...By the mid-1980s, the membership of ARIC includced 6,000 families from 130 communities...
...post-1968 leftists helped the communities to organize into ejido unions to support each other and to make demands of the government...
[some weird stuff happened with a Maoist group who ended up being expelled reappeared in the ruling party PRI government]
In 1983...another small group of post-1968 leftists came...they had been members of the FLN, an urban guerilla organization made up of middle class students, intellectuals and activists...this small group grew into the EZLN...in 1994, the ARIC again split into two factions, those who agreed with Zapatista demands and those who did not..."
interesting stuff! damn i wanna visit chiapas- i always start crying when i read about it
