[Reader-list] Fw: McCarthyism Again? : FBI after Women in Black

[Geeta Patel]

Sent: Friday, October 12, 2001 6:49 PM
Subject: Fw: McCarthyism Again? : FBI after Women in Black


>
> ----- Original Message -----
>
> >
> > > [ Original Source for this report missing]
> > > the below URL is an audio segment of Ronnie Gilbert speaking about
> > > WIB under investigation by WIB
> > > http://www.flashpoints.net/cgi-bin/ra.pl?date=20011005&start=10:50
> > >
> > > ========================
> > >
> > > FBI Investigates Peace Group
> > >
> > >
> > >   McCarthyism Again?
> > >
> > >   This is a letter to the editor by Ronnie Gilbert, famous
> > >   as a member of the folk group "The Weavers" who brought
> > >   all kinds of songs into popularity. One of the original
> > >   members, Pete Seeger is still on the road.
> > >
> > >   The group "Women in Black" that she refers to is a group
> > >   of women from Isreal and Palestine that hold peace vigils
> > >   dressed stylishly in black and who work to end the
> > >   occupation of Palestinian territory, through cooperation
> > >   between the two peoples. There are women throughout
> > >   the world who have decided to start "Women in Black"
> > >   vigils, including the one in San Francisco that Ronnie
> > >   Gilbert is a member of.
> > >
> > >   The letter is about the FBI's scrutiny, apparently of
> > >   peace groups.
> > >
> > >   Please relay it on. This could be important.
> > >   *****************************************************
> > >
> > >   Dear Editor:
> > >
> > >   For the second time in my life - at least - a group
> > >   that I belong to is being investigated by the FBI.
> > >
> > >   The first was the Weavers. The Weavers were a recording
> > >   industry phenomenon. In 1950 we recorded a couple of songs
> > >   from our American/World folk music repertoire, Leadbelly's
> > >   "Goodnight Irene" and (ironically) the Israeli
> > >   "Tzena, Tzena, Tzena" and sold millions of records for the
> > >   almost-defunct record label. Folk music entered the mainstream,
> > >   and the Weavers were stars. By 1952 it was over. The record
> > >   company dropped us, eager television producers stopped knocking
> > >   on our door. The Weavers were on a private yet well-publicized
> > >   roster of suspected entertainment industry reds. The FBI came
> > >   a-calling. This week, I just found out that Women in Black,
> > >   another group of peace activists I belong to, is the subject of
> > >   an FBI investigation.
> > >
> > >   Women in Black is a loosely knit international network of women
> > >   who vigil against violence, often silently, each group
> > >   autonomous, each group focused on the particular problems of
> > >   personal and state violence in its part of the world. Because
> > >   my group is composed mostly of Jewish women, we focus on the
> > >   Middle East, protesting the cycle of violence and revenge in
> > >   Israel and the Palestinian Territories.
> > >
> > >   The FBI is threatening my group with a Grand Jury investigation.
> > >   Of what? That we publicly call the Israeli military's occupation
> > >   of the mandated Palestine lands illegal? So does the World Court
> > >   and the United Nations. That destroying hundreds of thousands of
> > >   the Palestinians' olive and fruit trees, blocking roads and
> > >   demolishing homes promotes hatred and terrorism in the Middle
> > >   East? Even President Bush and Colin Powell have gotten around
> > >   to saying so. So what is to investigate? That some of us are
> > >   in contact with activist Palestinian peace groups? This is bad?
> > >
> > >   The Jewish Women in Black of Jerusalem have stood vigil every
> > >   Friday for 13 years in protest against the Occupation; Muslim
> > >   women from Palestinian peace groups stand with them at every
> > >   opportunity. We praise and honor them, these Jewish and Arab
> > >   women who endure hatred and frequent abuse from extremists on
> > >   both sides for what they do. We are not alone in our admiration.
> > >
> > >   Jerusalem Women in Black is a nominee for the 2001 Nobel Peace
> > >   Prize, along with the Bosnia Women in Black, now ten years old.
> > >
> > >   If the FBI cannot or will not distinguish between groups who
> > >   collude in hatred and terrorism, and peace activists who
> > >   struggle in the full light of day against all forms of terrorism,
> > >   we are in serious trouble.
> > >
> > >   I have seen such trouble before in my lifetime. It was called
> > >   McCarthyism. In the hysterical atmosphere of the early Cold War,
> > >   anyone who had signed a peace petition, who had joined an
> > >   organization opposing violence or racism or had tried to raise
> > >   money for the refugee children of the Spanish Civil War, in other
> > >   words who had openly advocated what was not popular at the time,
> > >   was fair game.
> > >
> > >   In my case, the FBI visited The Weavers' booking agent, the
> > >   recording company, my neighbors, my dentist husband's patients,
> > >   my friends. In the waning of our career, the Weavers were
> > >   followed down the street, accosted onstage by drunken "patriots,"
> > >   warned by friendly hotel employees to keep the door open if we
> > >   rehearsed in anyone's room so as not to become targets for the
> > >   vice squad. It was nasty. Every two-bit local wannabe G-man
> > >   joined the dragnet searching out and identifying "communist spies."
> > >
> > >   In all those self-debasing years how many spies were pulled in by
> > >   that dragnet? Nary a one. Instead it pulled down thousands of
> > >   teachers, union members, scientists, journalists, actors,
entertainers
> > >   like us, who saw our lives disrupted, our jobs, careers go down the
> > >   drain, our standing in the community lost, even our children
> > >   harrassed. A scared population soon shut their mouths up tight.
> > >
> > >   Thus came the silence of the 1950s and early 60s, when no notable
> > >   voice of reason was heard to say,"Hey, wait a minute. Look what
> > >   we're doing to ourselves, to the land of the free and the home of
the
> > >   brave," when not one dissenting intelligence was allowed a public
> > >   voice to warn against zealous foreign policies we1d later come to
> > >   regret, would be regretting now, if our leaders were honest.
> > >
> > >   Today, in the wake of the worst hate crime of the millennium, a
> > >   dragnet is out for "terrorists" and we are told that certain civil
> > >   liberties may have to be curtailed for our own security. Which ones?
> > >   I'm curious to know.
> > >
> > >   The First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech or of the press?
> > >   The right of people peaceably to assemble? Suddenly, deja vu -
> > >   haven't I been here before?
> > >
> > >   Hysterical neo-McCarthyism does not equal security, never will. The
> > >   bitter lesson September 11's horrific tragedy should have taught us
> > >   and our government is that only an honest re-evaluation of our
> > >   foreign policies and careful, focused and intelligent intelligence
> > >   work can hope to combat operations like the one that robbed all of
> > >   us and their families of 6,000 decent working people. We owe the
dead
> > >   that, at least.
> > >
> > >   As for Women in Black, we intend to keep on keeping on.
> > >
> > >   Ronnie Gilbert
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>