Stop the witch-hunts against Ward Churchill!
Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 06:22:07 -0500
From: "Fred Feldman" Fred Feldman
Subject: Re: AIM governing council on Ward Churchill!
The top leading body of the American Indian Movement and some on the
left are
currently seeking, on what I am sure they consider morally justified
grounds,
to counter the efforts to fight the witch-hunt against University of
Colorado
Professor Ward Churchill. Churchill faces an attempt by the University
of
Colorado to find grounds for firing him because of statements he made
about
the 9/11 attacks and to deepen the attack on ethnic studies at the
university.
I think these attacks are unsupported by convincing proof, unjustified
and
inappropriate - coming as they do from groups and individuals who have a
lot to
lose from the blow to all our democratic rights that is being aimed at
Churchill.
Some charge him with being an agent of a COINTELPRO operation against
the Indian struggle for rights. Their evidence is flimsy, and not
sufficient to convict anyone on any charge.
They challenge his claim to be an Indian, claiming that he is not a
"real" Indian genetically or spiritually. There has been no disproof of
his
claim to be 1/24th (or whatever) Indian and therefore the claim should
be
accepted.
(Another tack has been to raise the issue of whether he is not as good a
teacher as Vine Deloria. This has nothing whatever with the political
issues
being fought over and I invite those who have taken their classes to
debate
this to their heart's content. After all, it's supposed to be a free
country.)
Support for Indian rights does not oblige us to get into the
race-certification business, which usually has more to do with business
interests among the Indian nations than with rights per se. From the
standpoint
of the struggle for rights, the oppressed generally have no interest in
preventing others from identifying with them for whatever reason.
There should of course be affirmative action and treaty-based measures
to
support the business activities of Indian nations, including the
protection of
Indian identity in these operations (casinos, artwork, etc.). But the
defense
of the democratic rights of Indians and all of us should not be
disrupted by
inevitably poisonous campaigns about who is really an Indian genetically
or in
their deeper nature.
The charges that Churchill is an agent have no logical basis. It is
claimed
that his statements on 9/11 were a deliberate attempt to enable the
government
to label the American Indian Movement a terrorist group - an alleged
attempt
that was defused
by AIM's simply exercising its democratic right to disagree with the
statements
that he had an equal right to make..
Or they claim that Churchill raises this issue now because he is trying
to aid
the government's war against terror. But it was the enemies of
democratic
rights, not Churchill, who raised this issue now. The attempt to present
'COINTELPRO' - type government documents as proof positive are
unconvincing,
and the documents themselves - being written by expert liars
- actually PROVE nothing.
But above all, the attacks on Churchill - particularly the statement by
the AIM
top leadership -- legitimize the rightist claim that what Churchill said
about
9/11 goes beyond the limits of legitimate free speech, beyond the limits
of
what can be civilly debated in a democratic society,and that these
statements
could only be made by a US agent or a "fool."
This is an attack not only on Churchill but on everyone who differs from
the
only legitimate mainstream discourse on 9/11 - the passion of American
innocence violated by "evil" from abroad. This includes not only a
modest
minority of people in the United States, but millions in countries all
over the
world.
The attacks on Churchill are filled with vague and sinister references
to
COINTELPRO. As someone who was involved in a suit against the government
around
the COINTELPRO operations against the Socialist Workers Party (which I
belonged
to at the time), I read a lot of COINTELPRO documents and lots of court
testimony about them.
And I am struck by the resemblance between the charges and factional
attacks on
Churchill and the content and style of these FBI campaigns to divide and
disrupt struggles
for progressive social change and democratic rights by setting people up
with
rumors or "evidence" about their being agents, baiting about racial
purity, and
so on.
These attacks were sometimes deadly in their effectiveness. In New
Haven, FBI agents got Black revolutionaries to torture and kill each
otherin
the early 1970s over such accusations.
I am absolutely convinced that the current attacks on Churchill are not
part of
a government plot, but are a product of a tradition of blind
factionalism that
has plagued progressive struggles in this country for a long time.
In part, the FBI learned the art of "putting a snitch jacket" on a
targeted individual (portraying them as a government agent), and the
"tabloid expose" literary style of attack from the Communist Party.
Under the
influence of Stalin, the Communist Party from the late 20s,and for
decades
thereafter, tended to accuse all who disagreed including suspected
dissidents
in its own ranks, or working for various US or international police
agencies.
And the method was picked up from that source by various left and
nationalist
organizations, as well as by the FBI.
This played a role in the destruction of the Black Panther Party. It
helped undermine internal solidarity against the witch-hunters in the
Communist
Party.
It has eaten away at the counter-tradition in this country, the idea
that "an injury to one is an injury to all." Instead, it fostered the
idea that
the enemy of my factional enemy is my friend, or at least my practical
ally in
exposing or cutting down the factional enemy. It is division in the face
of the
enemy, which Fidel Castro said was never an intelligent or successful
strategy.
Instead of fighting the government's witch-hunt, the current attacks on
Churchill have the effect of supplementing the rulers' witch-hunt
against
challenges to their orthodoxy on 9/11 with a witch-hunt within the
movement
against dissenters and against those suspected - primarily for their
opinions,
but with other shreds of "evidence" thrown in to sweeten the pot - of
being
"agents."
In lending itself to this witch-hunt, the top leaders of AIM are
damaging their
own completely just struggle. They are undermining the democratic rights
of all
the Indian nations, as well as everybody else. They will be more
vulnerable to
witch-hunting because of the way they have handled their conflicts with
Churchill in this instance.
To pay too much attention to these attacks can worsen their divisive
effects. But I have to restate the class-struggle basics on this issue,
without
which we will tear each other apart to the benefit of our enemies.
No one should be considered a police agent without definitive and tested
proof
beyond reasonable doubt. Anything else is destructive. There is no
convincing
evidence that Churchill is a COINTELPRO agent. Therefore he is not. To
declare
that he is an agent without positive proof beyond reasonable doubtis
itself an
attack on democratic rights, and a contribution to the rulers' attack on
our
rights in this case.
An injury to one is an injury to all. Stop the witch-hunt against
dissent in the United States in general and the University of Colorado.
Oppose
the attempts to silence and punish Ward Churchill for his views - on
whatever
pretext.
Fred Feldman
Thank you to Dorinda Moreno for sending this on!
March Reports
Last updated on March 06, 2005