That was the rethorical question Craig Murray, the former British ambassador to Uzbekiztan, asked himself in his speech at a UCBerkeley event few weeks ago. This question marked the climax of his speech: (more less) ... after so many attrocities perpetrated by the empires, after so much torture in the Middle-East, oh, we are now so barbarians, so lawless, what have we become?!
Ok, first let me tell you that he was not the only one speaker in that event, there were others such as, Daniel Ellsberg, Janice Karpinski, and two more, but I don't remember their names.
The event was intended to raise awarness on the current illegal invasion and occupation (say, who are the illegal invaders? Do they have documents? Just asking ...) of a very tortured country in the Middle-East.
Daniel Ellsberg was ok, I mostly agreed with what he said. I also mostly agreed with what Larry Everest said. I disliked Mrs. Karpinski (yeah right, I'll believe she's speaking out because of a moral duty. Come on! She was betrayed by her own system, that's why she's speaking out, hadn't she be betrayed, she'd still be there next to Sánchez, et al).
But when Mr. Murray so sadly asked himself "oh, God, what have we become?" I just thought "you know, that's it!". Enough of this crap. I have to tell him what I think of what he just said. So after he finished his acclaimed (acclaimed by whites ... like him) speech and when I could get a hold of him I just told him "you know, about your rethorical question 'what have we become?' I'm sorry to tell you that you have been like that for hundreds -maybe thousands- of years. As far as I as a Native-American am concerned, you have been like that for 500 years, but to find out exactly how long it's been like that you might want to ask the Irish people. You see, you, especially you the British, have applied torture, rape, genocide, etc, etc to Native-Americans. After we saved you from starvation you returned the favor with genocide. So, as you can see, you have long been like this and for a very long long time and you sure have tons of 'sins' on your shoulders. Maybe the question should be 'how long have we be like this?'".
Don't know if this matters, but at the very least I was able to tell him in his own face what I thought of his innocently surprised rethorical question.
[If you want to hear Mr. Murray's entire speech click the link below and go to the minute 28 of the recording: http://157.22.130.4/data/20060530-Tue1700.mp3 This is a link to the KPFA radio program Flashpoints which recorded the entire event though is only featuring excerpts from the same]
