The thousands of murders of September 11th WERE a major crime against humanity. But it is important that we understand the political and economic aims of the hijackers and their accomplices. This will give us a better understanding of what has happened and why.
I will attempt to contemplate the events from three points of view: the military Islamic fundamentalists, the capitalist globalisers and 'us'.

The Islamic point of view.
On a certain level, the attacks can be traced back to accelerating process of globalization that started in Saudi Arabia in the late 1990s. Other very important factors have been the hegemonic role of the US in the region and the building of US bases right in Saudi Arabia.
It all started when the Saudi government ratified a new foreign investment law, under which "Wholly owned foreign businesses will have the right to own landŠ" This land, effectively offered to US and European oil companies, is Islam's most sacred land.
Perhaps certain elements hoped that if enough turmoil could be generated by the attacks in the US, they would generate a strategic US retreat from the Arabian Peninsula just as the bombing in Lebanon in 1983 lead to the US pull out there.
On the basis of this analysis, then, the September 11 attacks on New York City and Washington DC were the "collateral damage" of a struggle over the fate of oil politics in its heartland.

The Bush and corporations point of view:
According to a US oil magnate, "The energy reserves in or adjacent to the Caspian region are in fact many times greater than those of the North SeaŠ". As with all wars in which USA gets involved, oil is an important aspect. In the Caspian case, many members of the Bush administration have direct involvement in the oil companies that are heavily invested in this area.
More embarrassing and endangering for many people in the US government and in the governments of the Middle East is the fact that they have financed and trained the very generation of dissidents who are now hunted under the banner of "terrorism."

How all this affects us.
The events of September 11 and their consequences have given governments the opportunity to close public spaces and to repress dissent from whatever source in the interests of "public safety."
But fortunately, the overwhelming majority of people on this planet do not fit into the "us" versus "them" model that Bush's war configuration of September 11 requires.

What can we do in this situation?
Our first task is obviously to mobilize against a US-led war on Afghanistan or any other country the Bush administration picks to be a target for its "war" on "terrorism."
We also need to build solidarity within our communities, but especially with and within the Arab and immigrant communities. These people are now under attack on all fronts, in the media and on the streets.
To begin to move again we must re-see our own past in order to understand our future in this context.
Let us remember our own story. From Seattle in November 1999 to Genoa in July 2001, the anti-capitalist movement expressed in the First World the recognition that the supranational agencies (IMF, World Bank, WTO, G8) are illegitimate on two counts: they have failed to solve these problems and they have no democratic responsibility to humanity.
The anti-capitalist movement, which had started in the mid-1980s with the resistance against structural adjustment in the countries of the Third World, had finally surfaced in the streets of the First. The antiglobalization movement challenged these supranational agencies.
It took the interests of the poor and dispossessed of Asia, Africa and the Americas seriously. Hundreds of thousands of people worldwide were willing to risk arrest, beatings and torture to project these struggles as well as their own into the precincts of the powerful.
At the very least, these demonstrations were able to stop or disrupt their meetings, and to take them out of a conveniently designed anonymity. The economic and political crises caused by globalization have intensified in the last two years. Naturally, the official response to the movement has become increasingly violent and repressive.
In this context, the priority of the anti-capitalist movement is to offer valid alternatives to the deadly politics of both the capitalist and the Islamic fundamentalists.
It is crucial that the anti-capitalist movement begin to build connections with the Middle East. We must address their more urgent demands. This making of connections will present many difficulties, logistic, cultural and otherwise; but a starting point is to make connections with the immigrant Middle Eastern and West Asian communities in our own countries.
The power of the anti-capitalist movement is in our potential to build a real, not simply ideological, political struggle against globalizing capitalism.)

This article is a very edited version of an essay (www.thecommoner.org) written on 10/6/2001 by George Caffentzis.
The original aim was to classify and explain some facts and immediate consequences of the killings of September 11. We hope that in trying to make his essay more accessible and easier to read we haven't betrayed the honest intentions of its author.

In 1996, Madeline Albright, the then US secretary of state, was asked on national television what she felt about the fact that 500,000 Iraqi children had died and are still dying as a result of US and UK economic sanctions. She replied that it was a 'very hard choice', but that, 'all things considered, we think the price is worth it.'

Resistance to War
In the weeks since September 11th, over half a million people have demonstrated in over 550 actions and rallies around the worldŠand that's just the ones reported on the internetŠ there is a frequently updated list of protests worldwide at: pax.protest.net/Peace/protest_numbers.html for actions, check out www.indymedia.org.uk and follow the links.
While hundreds and thousands have marched all over Japan, Belgium, England, Germany, Sweden, Pakistan, Greece, Italy, Canada, USA, Spain, Indonesia, Holland, France, Australia, and Scotland to name a just a few, some of the direct actions and smaller protests are listed on these pages.

• Faslane Peace Camp, Scotland The Sunday the bombing happened 3 people occupied a crane with banners saying 'Welfare not Warfare' for 12 hours.
  The next day 800-1000 folk came to a rally across town activists locked onto the roof of the MOD building holding signs saying 'what do the dead eat?' in response to the dropping of food after bombs. The Big Blockade, took place on October 22nd. 500 people came from all around, effectively shutting down the Faslane nuclear base - just under 150 nicked.
• Over 400 high-school students went on strike on 26th October in Lille (France). They marched behind the banner "NEITHER WARS, NOR BORDERS"
  Together with the students from 3 universities, ongoing actions are planned.
• In Turkey On November 1st, Anarchist Platform demonstrated against war, poverty, and capitalism in Istanbul. With bread (symbolizing poverty) and black flags in their hands, anarchists burned American and Mc Donald's flags. Police attacked the anarchists violently and 58 anarchists were arrested.
• Brighton and Bristol October 11th, about 20 people occupied the armed forces recruitment office in Brighton, as a protest against the war. Despite uniformed squaddies on the door, the protesters barged their way in, shutting down the office for 2 hours.
• Anarchists in Bristol In early October, the windows of the armed forces recruitment offices in the centre were graffittied with glass etching fluid ; "War of Lies", accompanied by a paint bomb and glued locks, and for a fluffy tail end ;-), a world record attempt at the most people hugging was held at Wollongong's South beach, Oz, on the October 1st.

Why act now?
'All Gods and systems have a secret vunerability, they cease to exist when people no longer believe in them'
The days are short and cold, the streets are uninviting. The political climate seems as chilly as the winter winds, and everybody is saying that 911 changed everything. Why take action now? The government, the media, even some of our own allies warn us that public opinion is no longer with us, that repression will be high, that any action we take will be too costly both personally and politically, that we should hold back and wait. But The WTO, the IMF, the World Bank, and the other institutions of corporate capitalism are not waiting. They continue to meet, to argue for a new round of trade negotiations, to impose policies that result in a widening gap between rich and poor, and a staggering global death toll.
And as winter nears, the potential rises for massive starvation in Afghanistan if relief trucks cannot deliver supplies because of our bombs.
And so on bad days we hear our own inner voices murmuring, 'It's hopeless. We've lost. The forces we face are too strong for us. Give up." These voices seem reasonable, sensible. But any Witch can recognize a spell being cast. A spell is a story we tell ourselves that shapes our emotional and psychic world. The media, the authorities tell a story so pervasive that most people mistake it for reality. We're fighting a righteous war against the Source of All Evil, and everyone supports Bush, and corporate control is the only way to be safe and to provide what we need, and to question is Evil, too.
The counterspell is simple: tell a different story. Pull back the curtain: expose their story for the false tale it is. Act 'as if'.
Act as if we weren't doomed, as if what we did in the next weeks and months could shift the balance of fate.
Act as if the movement were coming back stronger than ever, attracting thousands and hundreds of thousands who have had their eyes opened by the war.
Act as if this movement were the most creative, visionary, inspiring, funny, welcoming, transforming and truly revolutionary movement that had ever been. As if we had new language, new tactics, new ways of communicating that could waken the dormant dissent and the sleeping visions in every heart.
Act as if a whole new public dialogue was beginning outside the boxes drawn by our traditional political lines and our TV sets.
Act as if all the different factions in our movement were learning how to support each other, how to work in true coalition and act with true solidarity. As if all who should be allies were able to come together and work for our common goals.
Act as of we were going to win.
November, two years after Seattle, will see the WTO meeting in Qatar November 9-13. Imagine hundreds of Seattles springing up in the many local and regional actions being planned, opposition rising up all over the world.
The IMF and the World Bank have rescheduled their meeting for Ottawa on November 17 and 18. Imagine the demonstrations now being called against them and against the war astounding the world, confounding the police, shutting down the meetings and revitalizing the movement.
The School of the Americas Watch is having its annual action that same weekend in Fort Benning, Georgia. Imagine that action getting the attention it deserves, awakening the conscience of the people of the United States to the role our government has played in training state terrorists around the globe.
But won't these actions alienate and polarize people? Maybe, if they're ill conceived, gratuitously violent, or simply a matter of screaming the old slogans of the sixties over bullhorns. Or if they're timid, apologetic, whining, they may simply leave people bored and yawning. But our silence will not change public opinion, will not educate people or get them thinking again about larger issues. Actions that are creative, vibrant, confident and visionary, actions that directly and clearly confront the institutions we oppose and pose alternatives can be empowering both to those who take part and to those who hear of them.
We need to advance, not retreat, to take the political space we want and claim it. If we silence ourselves, we're tacitly agreeing that our protests are indeed some distant kin to the terrorists' acts. If we insist that our voices be heard, that open dissent is not terrorism, but the deepest commitment to democracy, once the inevitable vitriol wears off, we'll find that we've gained legitimacy and shifted the ground of the dialogue. The longer we wait to claim that space, the more rigidified the patterns of oppression will grow. We need to act now, while the future is still fluid, and set the pattern ourselves.
Since September 11th, I've been to more rallies and marches than I can count. I've marched with Gandhian pacifists and white-haired women in wheelchairs. I've marched with dancing, drumming Pagans. I've marched with Socialists and militants screaming about imperialism. I've marched with black masked anarchists surrounded by riot cops. And you know what? It's been okay. The police have behaved like police behave, sometimes restrained, sometimes provocative, occasionally vicious-but that's not new. At times we met counter demonstrators, but never been more than a handful. And we often received unexpected support. I've seen construction workers flash peace signs at the Black Bloc. Of course, our fears aren't just based on fictions. The authorities command real force, real tear gas, real clubs, real guns, real jails. Real people do die, go to prison, suffer. So might we.
But fear makes things worse than they are. Fear limits our vision and our ability to take in information, makes the power holders seem omnipotent, and leads to our suppressing ourselves, saving the authorities the cost and trouble of doing it. And despair leads to paralysis.
The counterspell for fear is courage: facing the possibility of the worst and then going ahead with what you know is right. The counterspell for despair is action in service of a vision. The counterspell for paralysis is stubborn, persistent passion. Even if we're wrong, if nothing we do does makes a difference, courage and passion are a better place to be than hopelessness, cynicism and fear. If the authorities repress us, that's better than becoming people who repress ourselves. If we see our dreams ripped out of our hands, that's better than never daring to dream at all.
And if we tell our own stories with enough intensity and focus, we'll start to believe them, and so will others. We'll break the spells that bind us. We'll start to want that other world we say is possible with such intensity that nothing can stop us or deny us. All it takes is our willingness to act from vision, not from fear, to risk hoping, to dare to act for what we love.
www.starhawk.org

WOMEN speak out
Women and children are 90% of those killed and maimed in armed conflict, and 80% of refugees worldwide. Throughout history, women have been crossing geographical, cultural and idealogical borders in search of peace.
Women have been prominent in active opposition to the war and vocal in declaring it 'Not in our name' ­ many of the vigils, pickets and Women in Black events have not been reported anywhereŠ but they've been happening everywhereŠ from Kosovo to Korea, India to Indiana. In some places, just standing together carries a risk.

• National Garments Workers Federation

Faslane: On September 23rd the convoy support vehicle was stopped as it accompanied a warhead vehicle into Faslane ,Scotland. Three women dressed in pink & silver walked hand in hand, stopped the vehicle and climbed on top, stopping the convoy. It was a call for women to take action and to demand no-one bombed Afghanistan.

• The Philippines - Women in Purple & Black

• Uganda:

A network of women all over the world, will start taking the message that they oppose this war, and that there are other visions and paradigms that need to be shared in the next few weeks. If the leaders and the media refuse to listen, they will start passing the message, just among women ­ across all borders, to the other side of the world. Start listening now.