The passing of one of America's most admired iconoclastic intellectuals leaves a gaping hole in the country's moral fibre, notes Gamal Nkrumah was an unsung hero of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. He marched for civil rights and was fired for insubordination, ironically from a prestigious historically black university -- Spelman College, Atlanta, Georgia. For me, Zinn's dismissal by a black cabal masquerading as the very epitome of black academe inculcated one of my first political lessons: not all blacks are black and not all whites are white. It would be presumptuous of me to suggest that this obituary gives the whole picture of the political correctness of being black. Just as not all whites are tainted by the bane of being rednecks, not all blacks are whiter than white. Zinn (24 August 1922-27 January 2010) was the quintessential white liberal Jewish intellectual who championed the black cause. His political activism raised the salient questions on the true meaning of American democracy. Washington's wars and belligerent foreign policy were the direct consequences of a calculated deception. The dubious agenda of Washington's political establishment needs to be compliant with hawkish ambitions aimed at conquering by force, or subduing by peaceful mendacity anyone or any potential power that is seen as standing in the way of America's national interests, whatever that may be. "Americans have been taught that their nation is civilised and humane. But, too often, US actions have been uncivilised and inhumane." Zinn's genius was to zero in on the real threat to America's interests -- the military industrial complex. His analysis of the political spectrum of America in the post World War II period underscored the modalities of interaction between the American political establishment and the preservation of morality that the people they governed espoused. Zinn's 1968 bombshell Disobedience and Democracy took America by storm. His People's History of the United States (1980) investigated eloquently the everyday practices of government on the people of his homeland, the world superpower. American policymakers pretend to take pity on the world's poor -- witness the circus surrounding Haiti. So what about Zinn's influence on the people of the developing countries of the South? He was a WWII veteran, radicalised by the war. Zinn's diplomatic visit to Hanoi accompanied by Reverend Daniel Berrigan during the Tet Offensive of January 1968 led to the freeing of three US airmen, the first prisoners of wars (POW) released by North Vietnamese, an unprecedented event that captured world imagination and held peacemakers enthralled. His visit to Hanoi was followed by one of the earliest and most potent works urging the withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam -- The Logic of Withdrawal, 1967, at the height of the war. "He was the first person to say loudly, publicly and very persuasively that this simply has to stop. We should get out, period. No conditions, we have no right to be there, it is an act of aggression, pull out," Noam Chomsky exclaimed. Zinn was a wartime bombardier, yet he spoke out against the massive civilian casualties in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan and numerous other escapades that the American political and military establishments is engaging in abroad. "I suggest that the history of bombings -- and no one has bombed more than this nation -- is a history of endless atrocities, all calmly explained by deceptive and deadly language like 'accident', 'military target,' and collateral damage," Zinn observed. The son of a Jewish immigrant family, Zinn was born and bred in Brooklyn. In 1945 he participated in the first military use of napalm. He spoke from experience -- and perhaps even guilt. He felt no guilt, however, in pinpointing what he perceived to be United States President Barack Obama's shortcomings. Zinn understood what being top dog in the US implies. A US president's priority is contrary to perceived wisdom, not to serve his people's interests but that of his pay masters -- the powers that be in the military industrial complex. "We are citizens and Obama is a politician. You might not like that word. But the fact is he's a politician. He's other things, too -- he's a very sensitive and intelligent and thoughtful and promising person. But, he's a politician." Spot on. Zinn was an expert in diagnosing what was going wrong with post-WWII America. The American voters' concerns were often contradictory to his own recipes for figuring out how to fix what was wrong with America. No US president is fit to fix the sordid realities he faces. "Not only is Obama a politician. Worse, he is surrounded by politicians." Do we in the developing countries fully understand the implications of such a charade? "I got the sense that people were hungry for a different, more honest take," Zinn told The New York Times in one of his last interviews. Who, or rather where is today's Zinn? Zinn championed feminist causes, labourers, the resisters of slavery and anti-war campaigners. Indeed, Zinn, like the most perceptive of his contemporaries, understood the linkages between racism, sexism and war. Zinn wrote three plays about the celebrated anarchist Emma Goldman: Daughter of Venus ; Marx in Soho ; and Emma. Alice Walker, author of the celebrated The Colour Purple, a student of Zinn's, recalls, "I met in 1961, my first year at Spelman College in Atlanta. He was the tall, rangy, good-looking professor that many of the girls at Spelman swooned over." Spelman, the historically black women's college, was no panacea. "He was the first white person I'd sat next to," his former student noted. "I was Howard's student for only a semester," Walker mused, "but in fact, I have learned from him all my life. His way with resistance: steady, persistent, impersonal and often with humour." Walker's husband, like , is a radical Jew. "He has made an amazing contribution to America's intellectual and moral culture," Noam Chomsky explained. "He's changed the conscience of America in a highly constructive way." Chomsky, Zinn and Immanuel Wallerstein are the legendary troika of white Jewish intellectuals who have inspired generations of progressive Americans, now, alas, reduced to a redoubtable duumvirate. "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism," rang Zinn's famous rallying cry. "And the answer is yes we're dreamers. We want it all. We want a peaceful world. We want an egalitarian world. We don't want war. We don't want war. We don't want capitalism. We want a decent society." What on earth is wrong with that? "The market system is what we've had. Let the market decide, they say. The government must not give people free healthcare. Let the market decide." "So when you look at the American Revolution, there's a fact that you have to take into consideration. Indians -- no, they didn't benefit. Did blacks benefit from the American Revolution? Slavery was there before. Slavery was there after," pertinent questions Zinn noted in his Untold Truths about the American Revolution. "Do you know that there were mutinies in the American Revolutionary Army by the private against the officers? The officers were getting fine clothes and good clothes and good food and high pay," Zinn noted. The rank and file "weren't getting paid. They mutinied. Thousands of them." Today US troops return to a life of misery with a higher rate of suicide than at any time in recorded history. Zinn's passing is surely a time for retrospection.
