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Vertaal:
              Howard Zinn - de V.S. `met behoefte aan opstand'
Vrijdag, 12 September, 2008 Al Jazeera spreekt aan Howard Zinn, de auteur, de Amerikaanse historicus, de sociale criticus en de activist, over hoe de oorlog van Irak houdingen ten opzichte van de V.S. beschadigde en waarom de V.S. „imperium“ dicht bij instorting zijn. Q: Waar is de rubriek van Verenigde Staten in termen van wereldmacht en invloed? Herz: Amerika heeft - voor wat tijd, en leidt op dit ogenblik - naar steeds minder wereldmacht, steeds minder invloed geleid. Duidelijk, sinds de oorlog in Irak, is de rest van de wereld vanaf de Verenigde Staten gevallen, en als het Amerikaanse buitenlandse beleid op de manier verdergaat het - dat over het gevoel en de gedachten van andere mensen agressief en hevig en uncaring is - toen is geweest gaat de invloed van de Verenigde Staten meer en meer dalen. Dit is een imperium dat enerzijds het krachtigste imperium is dat ooit bestond; enerzijds een imperium dat - een imperium afbrokkelt dat geen toekomstig… heeft omdat de rest van de wereld en eenvoudig vervreemd is omdat dit imperium met militaire verplichtingen, met basissen rond de wereld, thuis met de uitputting van zijn eigen middelen top-heavy is. [Dit is] leidend tot more and more ontevredenheid en huis, zodat denk ik het Amerikaanse imperium de manier van andere imperiums zal gaan en ik denk het nu op zijn manier is. Q: Is er om het even welke hoop de V.S. zijn benadering van de rest van de wereld zullen veranderen? Herz: Als er om het even welke hoop is, ligt de hoop in de Amerikaanse mensen. [Het] ligt in Amerikaanse mensen die boos genoeg en verontwaardigd genoeg worden over wat aan hun land, over het verlies van waardigheid in de wereld, over het verhongeren van personeel in de Verenigde Staten, het verhongeren van onderwijs en gezondheid, de overname van het politieke mechanisme door collectieve macht en het resultaat is gebeurd dit op het dagelijkse leven van de Amerikaanse mensen heeft. [Er zijn ook] de hogere en hogere voedselprijzen, de more and more onzekerheid, het sturen van de jonge mensen naar oorlog. Ik denk elk van dit zeer goed in een beweging van opstand kan opbouwen. Wij hebben bewegingen van opstand in het verleden gezien: De arbeidsbeweging, de burgerrechtenbeweging, de beweging tegen de oorlog in Vietnam. Ik denk wij, als de Verenigde Staten rubriek in de zelfde richting houden, een nieuwe populaire beweging kunnen goed zien. That is the only hope for the United States. Q: How did the US get to this point? HZ: Well, we got to this point because … I suppose the American people have allowed it to get it to this point because there were enough Americans who were satisfied with their lives, just enough. Of course, many Americans were not, that is why half of the population doesn’t vote, they’re alienated. But there are just enough Americans who have been satisfied, you might say getting some of the “goodies” of the empire, just some of them, just enough people satisfied to support the system, so we got this way because of the ability of the system to maintain itself by satisfying just enough of the population to keep its legitimacy. And I think that era is coming to an end. Q: What should the world know about the United States? HZ: What I find many people in the rest of the world don’t know is that there is an opposition in the United States. Very often, people in the rest of the world think that Bush is popular, they think ‘oh, he was elected twice’, they don’t understand the corruption of the American political system which enabled Bush to win twice. They don’t understand the basic undemocratic nature of the American political system in which all power is concentrated within two parties which are not very far from one another and people cannot easily tell the difference. So I think we are in a situation where we are going to need some very fundamental changes in American society if the American people are going to be finally satisfied with the kind of society we have. Q: Do you think the US can recover from its current position? HZ: Well, I am hoping for a recovery process. I mean, so far we haven’t seen it. You asked about what the people of the rest of the world don’t know about the United States, and as I said, they don’t know that there is an opposition. There always has been an opposition, but the opposition has always been either crushed or quieted, kept in the shadows, marginalised so their voices are not heard. People in the rest of the world hear the voices of the American leaders. They do not hear the voices of the people all over this country who do not like the American leaders who want different policies. I think also, people in the rest of the world should know that what they see in Iraq now is really a continuation of a long, long term of American imperial expansion in the world. I think … a lot of people in the world think that this war in Iraq is an aberration, that before this the United States was a benign power. It has never been a benign power, from the very first, from the American Revolution, from the taking-over of Indian land, from the Mexican war, the Spanish-American war. It is embarrassing to say, but we have a long history in this country of violent expansion and I think not only do most people in other countries [not] know this, most Americans don’t know this. Q: Is there a way for this to improve? HZ: Well you know, whatever hope there is lies in that large number of Americans who are decent, who don’t want to go to war, who don’t want to kill other people. It is hard to see that hope because these Americans who feel that way have been shut out of the communications system, so their voices are not heard, they are not seen on the television screen, but they exist. I have gone through, in my life, a number of social movements and I have seen how at the very beginning of these social movements or just before these social movements develop, there didn’t seem to be any hope. I lived in the [US] south for seven years, in the years of the civil rights movements, and it didn’t seem that there was any hope, but there was hope under the surface. And when people organised, and when people began to act, when people began to work together, people began to take risks, people began to oppose the establishment, people began to commit civil disobedience. Well, then that hope became manifest … it actually turned into change. Q: Do you think there is a way out of this and for the future influence of the US on the world to be a positive one? HZ: Well, you know for the United States to begin to be a positive influence in the world we are going to have to have a new political leadership that is sensitive to the needs of the American people, and those needs do not include war and aggression. [It must also be] sensitive to the needs of people in other parts of the world, sensitive enough to know that American resources, instead of being devoted to war, should be devoted to helping people who are suffering. You’ve got earthquakes and natural disasters all over the world, but the people in the United States have been in the same position as people in other countries. The natural disasters here [also] brought little positive reaction - look at [Hurricane] Katrina. The people in this country, the poor people especially and the people of colour especially, have been as much victims of American power as people in other countries. Q: Can you give us an overall scope of everything we talked about – the power and influence of the United States? HZ: The power and influence of the United States has declined rapidly since the war in Iraq because American power, as it has been exercised in the world historically, has been exposed more to the rest of the world in this situation and in other situations. So the US influence is declining, its power is declining. However strong a military machine it is, power does not ultimately depend on a military machine. So power is declining. Ultimately power rests on the moral legitimacy of a system and the United States has been losing moral legitimacy. My hope is that the American people will rouse themselves and change this situation, for the benefit of themselves and for the benefit of the rest of the world. Have Your Say: Howard Zinn - US ‘in need of rebellion’ Please read our posting guidelines before posting. Alternatively you can discuss this report here. Related News
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