My summary for Tuesdays class. more Thobani...

Sunera Thobani, War Frenzy, in Terror Counter Terror Women Speak Out, p. 90-99

The article War Frenzy by Sunera Thobani was a response to the criticism she received for a post 9/11 speech she gave at a women's conference on violence against women, in which she had critiqued American Foreign policy and the further mobility of America's neo-colonial imperialist agenda in the Middle East. This response provided a space for her to address the biased media coverage of her speech, to make public the harassment and severe criticism she has received, and to once again emphasize the importance of critiquing American Foreign Policy in order to help create an environment where women's freedoms "can be furthered" (97). Thobani's speech has been referred to as a "hate-speech" and the backlash was taken so far that one critic filed a "hate-crime" complaint against her with the RCMP. In the article she describes how she has received harassment for her work as an activist, for her position as an immigrant, and in reaction to her views on the 'war on terror'. While she admits that it is frustrating, she also discusses the value causing controversy and of creating a dialogue around these issues and around Canadian support of the American agenda.
In the article Thobani initially runs through a very brief history of American Foreign policy and American involvement in the high death tolls in countries like Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Iraq. She describes the US pattern of foreign intervention, which has been namely to "overthrow leftist governments and activists to impose right-wing regimes, which in turn support US interests..." (92). She segways from this into a discussion of language, which seems to be a focal point within this article. First she acknowledges how she very deliberatively and concisely chose to use an extremely embodied language in her speech, in order to humanize and illustrate the reality of U.S. Foreign policy, which is often talked about very statistically, with a professionally appropriate amount of emotional distance. She emphasized that her use of terms like "horrific violence" and "soaked in blood", while receptive of massive amounts of criticism, were poignant and all too reflective of the reality of neo-colonialism and U.S. military foreign involvement. Thobani describes herself as "more convinced than ever of the need to engage in the language and politics of embodied thinking and speaking" (93).She goes on to discuss how the Bush administration’s own use of disembodied language, ‘good versus evil’ propaganda and manipulation of public opinion has been a very frightening tactic for mobilizing support on the 'war on terror'. It provides the foundation for an environment of non-dissent, where any critique of American Foreign policy is not only subject to distrust, but those who oppose the war are forced into a position of demonization.
Furthermore, she notes how this language is also used to manipulate, distort, and silence the actual experiences of Afghani women. Afghani women groups who stood up against the U.S. backed Taliban and the Northern Alliance are being invisibalized, while the Bush administration and biased media reports paint Afghani women to be victims of Islam and in dire need of rescuing by the West. "If we listen to the voices of these women," says Thobani, "we will very quickly be disabused of the notion that US intervention is going to lead to the emancipation of the women of Afghanistan" (97). That being said, she goes on to examine how "imperialism and militarism do not further women's liberation in western countries either" (97). Thobani's speech and her article entitled War Frenzy both serve as a call to rally Canadian and American feminist opposition to U.S. foreign policy and to U.S. military intervention in the Middle East and all over the world. In this article, through her observation of media distortion and from her contemporary and historical overview of the devastation that U.S. Foreign policy has wreaked, she clearly articulates that women's emancipation cannot be achieved anywhere, so long as the U.S. continues to advance their neo-colonial imperialist agenda worldwide.