AMY GOODMAN: This is The War and Peace Report, and it’s day two of Democracy Now!’s return to the airwaves of Pacifica Radio. But the censorship and banning continues. Yesterday, Pacifica station WBAI in New York banned the show from the airwaves, while KPFK General Manager Mark Schubb refused to air the show at its regular peak time, the 9:00 slot, when the show has its biggest listening audience. He did air the program at 6 a.m. WPFW in Washington did air Democracy Now!, but they began the broadcast up to 10 minutes into the show, and the station censored the last several minutes of the program when I dedicated Democracy Now! to the banned and fired of WBAI and to Fidel Rodriguez and his Seditious Beats program pulled off the air by KPFK General Manager Mark Schubb in the last weeks. So, for those of you who were prevented from hearing yesterday, we rededicate this program to our fired and banned colleagues.

Right now we are going to bring you a few of the voices that Pacifica has refused to air over the last few months. After September 11th, we broadcast a daily, two-hour War and Peace Report. While we’re sorry Pacifica listeners couldn’t hear this, we thank the hundred community radio stations, public access TV stations and Free Speech TV channel 9415 of Dish Network, that did broadcast our two-hour War and Peace Report. We thought today we’d spend the first part of the program bringing you a medley of what Pacifica listeners have missed since September 11th.

AMY GOODMAN: From Ground Zero Radio, this is Democracy Now! in Exile.

HOWARD ZINN: There may be people in other countries who deserve to live as much as those people in the twin towers deserve to live.

AMY GOODMAN: Today, we hear the speech of radical historian Howard Zinn, speaking Sunday at the University of Vermont before more than a thousand people.

HOWARD ZINN: The medical students take the Oath of Hippocrates. You don’t know what to do. Something is bad, really bad. You must do something. But the first rule is: Do no harm. Let’s — you have to start off with that: Do no harm. We are doing great harm.

AMY GOODMAN: All that and more, coming up on Democracy Now! in Exile, The Exception to the Rulers.

HOWARD ZINN: Yeah, I’m concerned with our taking initiative to speak out, even though a certain blanket of intimidation has been spread across the country. I mean, am I exaggerating? Isn’t it intimidating when everybody, everybody in high political circles, and the people in the higher reaches of the media, when they all cry for unity and supporting the president, and where, you know, editors of The New Republic say people may be considered traitors for speaking out? …

You have Dan Rather, anchor man. What is he anchored to? He’s anchored to the establishment. That’s what an anchor man is. And he says on national television, “Bush is my president. When he says, 'Get in line,' I ask, 'Where?'” Well, this is strange. Here he is, independent journalism. And the idea of journalism is to be an independent voice, an independent critic, not a handmaiden of government, but, yes, somebody who represents the public and who inspects the government and does not immediately say, “Yeah, we’re together. And when the president says, 'Get in line,' I get in line, too.” No, that’s what happens in a totalitarian state, not in a democracy.

AMY GOODMAN: As Bush announced that the U.S. will go to war, many of those who lost loved ones are saying, “Not in my name.” Rita Lasar and Judy Keane both lost loved ones in the World Trade Center attacks. They’re raising their voices to call for peace. Rita Lasar joins us from New York.

RITA LASAR: Others will speak of the history leading up to this horrible event. I don’t have the skill or ability to do that. I just want to say something about my brother.

You know about his final act. People call him a hero. I don’t think he would think of himself that way. A poem he wrote several years ago reflects how he thought about himself. He wrote, “I dreamed I died and went to heaven. And when I got there, they asked me what kind of person I had been. And I said, 'Not so good.' So they sent me down to hell. And when I got there, they asked me what kind of person I had been, and I said, 'Not so bad.' So they sent me back to Earth.” That was my kid brother, not so good and not so bad.

This country must allow itself to see its own reflection in the mirror of this horror. We cannot continue to think of ourselves as innocents abroad.

AMY GOODMAN: Renowned British journalist Robert Fisk was severely beaten by a crowd of people in an Afghan village just two days ago, barely escaped with his life. We were able to reach him on the telephone yesterday to tell his story. I began by just asking Robert Fisk how he was feeling.

ROBERT FISK: I’m feeling better. Obviously, at the time, when you see yourself covered in blood, it’s a very disturbing experience, also because you realize that here were people who wanted to hurt you and, indeed, wanted to kill you. You know, it does bring you face to face with the — you know, the reality of the way people feel when they’re — when they feel humiliated and oppressed, I suppose, is the old socialist word, and the way in which — when they feel that they’re being, their families are being killed. You can see the brute force of a whole people who feel that they’re being destroyed by the West, if you like. And obviously, I was, so to speak, the symbol of the West in this incident.

And I think, as, you know, I wrote in my article in The Independent of London this morning, that if I had been them, if I had been encouraged to fight the Russians with weapons and money from the West, and then ignored, and then endured civil war, and then asked to fight the Taliban, and then had my home bombed by the Americans, and then lost members of my family, I mean, I would try to beat up any Westerner I came across. I’d try to attack Robert Fisk, too.

So, you know, it is impossible for me to feel anger against the people who did this. I mean, they shouldn’t have done it. But that’s not an argument that works in the kind of brutal landscape that we have helped to create out here. So, my overall feeling is that, you know, who can possibly blame them for striking back against the terrible things that happened to them?

AMY GOODMAN: Robert, can you tell us exactly what happened and when it happened?

ROBERT FISK: Yes. It was Saturday afternoon. I was traveling from the border town of Quetta in Pakistan down towards the frontier post at Chaman, towards a mountain chain that runs parallel with Afghanistan. And at a village called Killa Abdullah, which, by great misfortune to us, houses many thousands of Afghan refugees, the boiler started to boil over in the car, the radiator, and steam started to come out of the radiator as the car stopped in the middle of the road, in the middle of this crowded village, full, of course, of angry people, angry, as we learned later, not only because they had lost many relatives in the Kandahar, which is only about 90, 80 miles away as the crow flies from the village, but also because they’d been outraged by the film of the prisoners in Mazar-i-Sharif, most of whom were Pashtuns, as the refugees were in this village. They had seen also the videotape, so we were told later, of the CIA agents Dave and Mike interviewing, or rather interrogating, the Muslim man kneeling on the floor with his hands tied behind his back.

So, obviously, when two Westerners, Justin Huggler and myself, suddenly turned up with a broken car in the middle of the village, we became — well, first of all, actually, we became friends. We went around. People came around the car. We said, ”As-salamu alaykum,” “Peace be upon you,” ”wa-’alaykum s-salam.” And we shook hands, and people gave us a sort of two-handed handshake. And everything was all right for about a minute. The driver went off to get a new — you know, a fresh car, a taxi. The translator stood next to us.

And then we decided there was too big a crowd. A lot of the men were bearded. They were not smiling anymore. We moved towards the center of the road, very crowded road, because, you see, we had blocked the road when the car broke down. So, a lot of people, a lot of traffic. The crowd followed us. And as we walked, a little boy sort of snapped his finger against my wrist rather hard. I thought — I hoped — I hoped that it was just, you know, a joke. Then a pebble spun over my shoulder and hit Justin on the shoulder. And we looked — we looked at each other, Justin’s eyes full of concern, and we realized something was going wrong there.

We then found ourselves being jostled, pushed, punched — not very much, but a little bit. And we suddenly saw a bus driver beckoning us to get on. It was heading back to Quetta. Justin made it onto the bus. I put the first step up. Boys and young men grabbed the blue satchel that was around my shoulder, the satchel in which I carry my passport, credit cards, papers, etc., and tried to pull me back. Justin reached out his hand, and I grasped it. But he tried to pull me on. The crowd were pulling me back. And in the end, [inaudible] did let go of his hand.

And they were shouting. I don’t know what they were shouting. I don’t speak Pashto. I can speak Arabic. And then they started, really hit me, first of all, on the back, then the shoulders, and then I had fists on the face, and then stones sort of bouncing off my shoulders and bouncing off my head. And then two men came up and started to bash me on the face and the head with stones. And very quickly, there was blood running down my face. A man came up and smashed my glasses into my face. There was blood in my eyes. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t — I was short-sighted, and I couldn’t see at all. I felt my shirt going wet with blood. My pullover was drenched in it. It began splashing on my shoes and trousers. And I was obviously in a difficult situation, because although there were 60 at the beginning, I thought there were around a hundred people by the time I was bleeding. You know, it was like a bloody horse being slaughtered. It sort of attracted people in an animal-like way, which I don’t like to think about.

And I was then on my own. Justin and I had lost our grip of each other. And I remembered Lebanese always said, “If you’re in danger, whatever you do, don’t do nothing.” So, the next man, well, actually, he had already hit me once. There was a man with a stone who wanted to bash it into my face again. So I hit him with my fist, and I just saw out of the corner of my eye he spat his tooth out. In fact, on my right wrist now, I’ve got a big scar from the tooth which I knocked out. And then I went for three other people. I missed one and hit two others and started running. And just for a moment, the crowd held back, because, you know, the dying creature, so to speak, had suddenly come alive again, and that was obviously what I intended. And then I ran down the road.

And at one point a figure came out. I was standing in the road. The glasses had gone. They’d ripped off my spare pair. I had actually — unfortunately, they also, I later discovered, taken my contacts book away with 25 years of names and telephone numbers around the Middle East that had dropped out of my bag when they were trying to seize it. And I was trying desperately with my fingers to push the blood out of my eyes. And I saw this figure come that took me very gently by the right arm, a man in a robe with a kind of turban and a beard. I didn’t really see his face. I couldn’t [inaudible]. I kept saying, “Help me! Help me! As-salamu alaykum. Peace be upon you.” And I think he was some kind of religious person, a cleric, a mullah perhaps, a Muslim, of course. And as he led me away, the crowd sort of paused, and they sent stones after me, but skittering along the road, not at me, in case they hit the man. So he must have been important in the village.

And he put me on board a little police truck we found, and they were too terrified to move. And I was on the truck. I climbed up towards the back of the cab, a little window, and I kept banging on it, saying, “Help me! Help me!” And I remember my blood was just streaming down the window behind them. And they drove about 15 meters forward. Then the religious man came back and obviously told them to help me more, and they then drove about 300 meters. And there, like a miracle, incredibly, was a Red Cross, Red Crescent convoy.

AMY GOODMAN: Reporter Robert Fisk, speaking after he was beaten up in Afghanistan. You are listening to excerpts of The War and Peace Report over the last months. We’ll be back with more in a minute, as we go to break with Patti Smith.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to go to Israel right now. We’re joined by someone in the Dheisheh refugee camp just outside Bethlehem. In our studio, Ziad Abbas is with us, founder of the Dheisheh refugee youth camp. Ziad Abbas, can you tell us the latest news you have out of Bethlehem?

ZIAD ABBAS: The last news is one hour ago that the Israeli army killed two Palestinians in Bethlehem area, and still the clashes continue there in Bethlehem. They are still shelling the city, and especially they concentrate in the two refugee camps, Azza camp and Aida camp. Around 7,000 persons living in these two refugee camps, and it’s already surrounded by the Israeli army. And some of the soldiers, they occupy the roofs of the houses, and they are shooting anything moving inside the camp. Some families, since one week, they are stuck in their houses. They cannot leave the houses. They don’t have enough food. They don’t have enough water, and, of course, no electricity, because all the time the Israeli army, when they start to attack, they attack the generators of the electricity in the Bethlehem city in general. At the same time, Beit Jala city faces the same problem, because the tanks are still there since one week now, and they’re still searching in the houses, destroying everything in the houses. And we don’t know how many persons that were arrested.

But the situation in Bethlehem, which today that you spoke about the massacre in Beit Rima, but I can see there is a massacre in Bethlehem since one week, but they do it slowly, slowly. And I believe if Sharon will continue that, it will be a big massacre in Dheisheh refugee camp.

AMY GOODMAN: We are joined by Manar Faraj in the Dheisheh refugee camp. Can you tell us the scene on the ground right now?

MANAR FARAJ: About the situation here, I can’t explain it well, because there are no words to explain this hard happen. But I can say they are killing us every day and every place in Palestine. We are in the jail. We can’t breathe. We can’t sleep. Our life, it is a miserable life. The children, they don’t know about poem. They don’t know about music or any place to play. They know if this bomb or this voice for M16 or F-16 or it is a big bomb. But we are not afraid from them. And I say this because I mean it, not like the political people who are always speak and speak, and there is nothing new or good from them. I hate the politics. I’m just to speak about the reality here. And the reality, it is so hard, and it hurts a lot. And it say I speak with you today, but I don’t know. Maybe now or after I speak or after I finish with you, a bomb come here and kill me. But we love the death if it is for the God and for Palestine.

AMY GOODMAN: You’re listening to Democracy Now! in Exile, The War and Peace Report. We’re standing at a rally right near the White House. Thousands of people are here calling for President Bush not to respond to the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon in a like fashion. What’s your name?

JAMES McKINNEY: James McKinney, retired, United States Army.

AMY GOODMAN: When were you in the Army?

JAMES McKINNEY: What’s that?

AMY GOODMAN: When were you in the Army?

JAMES McKINNEY: I was in the Army ’65 to ’68. And then I got draft — I was drafted then, and then I retired, and I reentered the service. I spent 18 years in the National Guard. Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: So, you were in Vietnam?

JAMES McKINNEY: I was in Vietnam, right?

AMY GOODMAN: Why are you here at the antiwar rally?

JAMES McKINNEY: Well, I just want to voice my opinion on it. You know, I went through Vietnam. And they talk about terror. That was a war of terror. So, we went through 10 years of that, and now to hear this president say we’re going to go back and start this to fight terror, and the war is going to — instead of saying, “Well, I’m going to get it over with and finish it,” it’s going to be over a period of time. I said to myself, “I went through Vietnam for 10 years with this thing, and you’re going to talk about doing the same thing all over again?” And Vietnam was Vietnam. Now you’re talking about the whole world? So, you know, it’s just that aspect upsetting me. People have not learned about, you know, what people have gone through. When you mention war to a Vietnam soldier, he cringes and runs under the table, because he don’t want to hear about it. These people don’t know what in the world it’s all about. When I say “people,” that is your people in power and your power structure. And it’s really a shame.

PROTESTERS: No war! No war! No war!

PROTESTER: We see the issues of peace as being very much linked to the issues of social justice and economic justice. And as long as we have a world where there is such gaps between the rich and the poor, where power and wealth is being consolidated into fewer and fewer hands, we’re going to have increasing violence.

AMY GOODMAN: Reverend Lucius Walker, can you talk about why you came out today?

REV. LUCIUS WALKER: I came because it’s a time to break the silence and break the call for war, which is gripping the country right now. Those of us who understand that terrorism did not begin on the 11th of September, that terrorism is not the exclusive, you know, tactic of people from any other section of the world, but it is primarily a homegrown phenomenon, it’s primarily from the U.S., need to speak out.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined by Haider Rizvi, who is a U.N. reporter here in New York and freelance journalist of Pakistani descent. You were beat unconscious in the last week?

HAIDER RIZVI: Last week Saturday.

AMY GOODMAN: What happened? Where were you?

HAIDER RIZVI: At 3:00, I was a few blocks away from my home and wanted to buy cigarettes from a grocery store which is owned by a Pakistani, which is just a coincidence. And there were three unknown people outside the grocery store. And they looked at me and said, “You look like Osama bin Laden. Are you from Pakistan?” I said, “Originally, yes.” I wanted to say I’m from Brooklyn. I’m a Brooklynite now. They didn’t let me go there, started beating me with kicks and punches and broke my tooth.

AMY GOODMAN: Did anyone come out to help you?

HAIDER RIZVI: After they had left me unconscious, the grocery store worker came out, brought me in.

AMY GOODMAN: And got an ambulance?

HAIDER RIZVI: Got an ambulance.

AMY GOODMAN: It’s been over a week, and you’ve been going sort of up and down and suffering as a result of this. You’ve been doing a lot of reporting on the war.

HAIDER RIZVI: That’s true. That’s true.

AMY GOODMAN: So, what do you make of this?

HAIDER RIZVI: War and the antiwar demonstrations taking place in New York City, which the mainstream media somehow did not cover, most of the demonstrations here. The first demonstration that took place after this September 11 attack in Brooklyn, there were thousands of people, but mainstream newspapers did not cover it. They are not even covering the antiwar demonstrations taking place in London, in Frankfurt, all over Europe.

AMY GOODMAN: In the six weeks since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the mainstream media has flooded the airwaves and newspapers with glib commentary about the nature of Islam. We now turn to Farid Esack. He’s a Muslim scholar who’s lived the diversity of Islam from Pakistan to South Africa and developed what many call an Islamic theology of liberation, joining us in our firehouse studio. Can you talk about how you, as a Muslim and a scholar of Islam, explain the attacks and the deeply conservative variant of Islam practiced by the Taliban and others in the region?

FARID ESACK: I think that it is part of a fundamentalist mindset, a mindset that, in the case of the Afghans, it’s also a combination of tribalism and a mythical sense that religion provides you with a sense of rootedness, an essence, a stability, absolute truths in the face of whether it is the vicissitudes of time of war, on the one hand, or of modernity, on the other.

But I dare say that it is not a mindset that is peculiar to the Taliban or to Muslims. It’s a mindset that, at its raw manifestations, you see in the Jerry Falwells. You see it in the Pat Robinsons. And I dare say you also see it in the discourse of your president, this whole caricaturing of absolute rightness, absolute goodness, on the one side, and absolute evil, on the other side. I mean, really, this is the shades of the same coin.

But you didn’t ask me about your president; you asked me about Islam. And the reality is that there are many strands in Islam, as Edward Said says. I, for example, have spent much of my life working against all forms of religious fundamentalism. I don’t like the term “moderate.” I’m not a moderate. I’m a radical Muslim. I am bitterly opposed to all forms of religious obscurantism. I hate all forms of discrimination, whether it is against transvestites or transgendered people or gay or homosexual people or women or Black people. And I’ve spent my life opposing all forms of discrimination. I don’t like the equation of an Islam that stands for justice with a wishy-washy Islam that doesn’t take positions.

AMY GOODMAN: Will you continue to speak out against the bombing?

FARID ESACK: Absolutely. I think that — not because we’re going to succeed. You know, Amy, in the years of struggle against apartheid, we didn’t fight that battle because we knew we were going to win. We had no idea we would see a nonracial and a nonsexist South Africa in our lifetime. But we fought because our integrity was at stake. And so, we’re speaking against the war not because anybody is going to listen, but we’re speaking against the war for us to retain our faith in ourselves as human beings.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: And that was a mix that was put together by Jacquie Soohen, our webmeister, of some of the voices of the last two months of The War and Peace Report.