From Gulf to Gulf

[GABRIELLA MODAN]

Thanks, Celso, for informing us of the material conditions in our own country. I'm sure we all (and, as you say, "particularly the US scholars") now feel very englightened.

Galey Modan

----- Original Message -----
From: Celso Alvarez Cáccamo <lxalvarz at UDC.ES>
Date: Friday, September 2, 2005 11:46 am
Subject: From Gulf to Gulf

> (I apologize for cross-posting)
> 
> Dear all,
> 
> I have just listened in CNN International to four full, forceful 
> speeches 
> on the hurricane Katrina crisis by four USA Afro-American 
> representatives 
> talking to the Black Caucus. In my opinion, all the speakers 
> indirectly 
> brought to fore the deepest political crisis that the USA regime 
> and the 
> USA as a country have experienced in recent years, a much greater 
> crisis 
> than 9/11, which "united" the country in tragedy. In powerful and 
> transparent ways, class and race (poverty, slavery, and the empire 
> of the 
> market) in the USA have been linked, and sometimes nuanced with 
> elements of 
> a religious ideology (a representative quoting the Bible to his 
> "fellow 
> Christian" president Bush) that clearly parallel the convergence 
> of state, 
> politics and religion in so-called fundamentalist Muslim countries 
> that the 
> USA army is supposed to be fighting.
> 
> In such a terrible situation as the one that thousands of people 
> are 
> experiencing now in the USA, I believe it is not time for refined 
> exercises 
> of discourse analysis (at least, I would be unable to do them) 
> that, for 
> the sake of academic "rigor" and self-complacency (which too often 
> are one 
> and the same issue) would obscure the fundamental issues at stake 
> in this 
> crisis. The simple issue is that the bodies and minds of poor 
> people always 
> DIE in greater quantities and SUFFER more than other economic 
> classes under 
> critical circumstances. If you have an opportunity, do search for 
> and 
> listen to these speeches, for example. I doubt that CNN will make 
> them 
> available on line.
> 
> And to the international academic community (particularly the US 
> scholars) 
> I can only suggest, with all due respect and humbleness, to 
> consider anew 
> or review the role that the material bases of society, and 
> particularly 
> objects such as "class", "class relations", "poverty", or the 
> like, play in 
> the models (?) that inform (?) their respective forms of discourse 
> analyses.
> Please understand me: I am not trying to raise an unfruitful 
> "academic" 
> controversy in which I myself would not be able to defend my own, 
> unelaborated position, if I indeed have one. Simply put, realizing 
> that one 
> is alive to be able to continue to do academic work just because 
> one had 
> the MATERIAL means, for example, to flee from an upcoming disaster 
> (or to 
> survive an earthquake, or to escape bombings) is not a matter of 
> academic 
> controversies, but of ethics.
> 
> Cordially,
> 
> Celso Alvarez Cáccamo
> lxalvarz at udc.es
>