Forum with Naomi Klein on the War at Home

Tonight I attended a Forum on the War at Home held at the Andrew’s Wesley Church downtown Vancouver. The three speakers of the evening were Terry Engler, Harsha Walia and Naomi Klein. Terry Engler opened the talks regarding new laws affecting longshoreman that were apparently stripping there rights in the name of security. While I didn’t agree with everything he had to say I do agree with two major points he made, one was that to help secure our ports we should be reinstating the port police, as well that having well paid and happy workers far exceeds any type of background checks and police reports and profiling.

Harsha Walia spoke next. She was somewhat all across the board, and a little unfocused I thought. At times Harsha came off almost fanatical, and from the way she talks she sounds like she is against everything if you know the type, and I find that turns people off from listening, even if you have brilliant ideas. She also seemed to be caught up on semantics and liked using the big catch phrases or words and in so doing her point was lost. I think in her first 30 seconds of her talk she must have said democratic rights over 20 times.

Naomi Klein spoke last and mainly on the occupation in Iraq. She gave a good report on the prelude to the elections in Iraq, what the people there really were looking for, and also touch on a few subjects like how the world could have help in certain aspects. One thing I have to say is that I give Naomi a lot of credit, she really knows her stuff. She is very intelligent and well researched and can clearly present her ideas and information. A lot of what she talked about was how the elections in Iraq are a first phase for the US, and depending on how they go there may be a second phase. The second phase according to Naomi was that if the new government would start to make radical changes, or become very fundamental that there would be a push for civil war in Iraq and a segregation of the country into 3. One slice for the Kurds, another for the Sunnis and a final slice for the Shi’a Muslims. Another point Naomi made was how foolproof the US has made the Iraqi elections and how the interim governments sole purpose was to sell off all the Iraqi assets, setup big free trade zones, and put into the some of the most liberal economic policies ever seen. Oh and on top of that they also drafted the Iraqi people their own interim constitution, not written by the peoples elected government, but rather the US government lead by Mr Bremer. Basically the US has setup the country of Iraqi for massive privatization after the elections, in which private companies can own 100% of Iraqi assets and take 100% of the profits out of the country.

Some other things she talked about was that we should push and demand that democracy and freedom be brought to Iraqi. She said that this whole campaign by the US has been marketed as being to help the Iraqi people however everyone knows that it was all about getting their assets. So to thwart them force the US to accept the lie they have told to justify this war. She then went on to say that this wasn’t such a popular idea among many people because it would mean that some good could have come from this war. To that she said something to the effect of, “Who the hell cares? Who cares about our anti-war egos? Which is really what this is about.”

One of the most interesting thing Naomi talked about was our role, or what we can do to help. She talked about how on the eve of the war everyone came out to march against the unjust war and protested. However last January when 100,000 Iraqis marched in Baghdad chanting “Elections Yes, Occupation No” there was nobody else around the world helping them out. She thinks that what should have happened was for people all across the globe to be marching and mirroring those same chants, the chants of the Iraqi people for what they want. It is funny to think that over a year ago the Iraqi people went to the street and demanded democracy, yet the US told them they couldn’t have it. Why? Well because they didn’t have a plan in place yet to control the assets of the country yet. What is sad is that if they would have had elections a lot sooner a lot of bloodshed probably would not have happened as most of the outbreaks came after this time.

One last thing. During the QA someone asked about the role of the resistance in Iraq. Naomi said that while yes in some ways it is good to see they are resisting occupation it is also very easy for us to say so living in our comfort and security. Several people cheered when she talked a bit about the resistance, to that she said that nobody should be cheering it. Innocent people are being killed in the crossfire, by the bombs, and the country is becoming more and more dangerous for people to live in.

Anyway I think Naomi Klein is an amazing woman who is very well informed and truly compassionate about helping the Iraqi people. I highly respect her opinion and really like her attitude that our goals should be about making peoples lives better rather than being against things just to satisfy our egos.