Anwar al-Awlaki & Modern Lynching

Since at least the 18th century, the United States of America has engaged in the practice of killing someone by an extra-legal mob, is most often associated with the brutal killings someone by an extra-legal mob, is most often associated with the brutal killings of African Americans in the south from the period directly following slavery, till about the 1960s. In his article “Lynching and the Status Quo” in The Journal of Negro Education, renowned sociologist Oliver C. Cox defines lynching as “the fundamental reliance of the white ruling class in maintaining the status quo.” Cox argued that the "white ruling class" used lynching as more than just a way of punishing an individual for some alleged crime, but as a way of inciting fear into the African Americans of that area in order to "put to rest any tendency to criticize the whites for their partiality in government, education, economic dealings, and so on."

On September 30, 2011 news of assassination of Anwar al-Walaki had broke. Anwar al-Awlaki was a US born, Yemeni-American imam who had recently been accused of being a terrorist leader of the militant Islamist group Al-Queda. In an interview with Democracy Now! constitutional lawyer Glenn Greenwald reported on the story of Anwar al-Awlaki: "[al-Awlaki] was considered by the US government and the media to be a moderate Muslim cleric. In fact the Pentagon invited him to a lunch in the wake of 9/11 in order to talk to him and other Muslim leaders about how to root out extremism in the Muslim community...He became increasingly radicalized... began arguing that it wasn't just the duty but the right of Muslims to not just be passive receivers of violence by the US, but also to begin to attack the United States back as a means of deterring further violence.. The government began claiming that it wasn't just his messages and his ideas that were bothering them and making them want to kill him, but the fact he started to have an operational role in various plots..." This tragic story reveals that lynching is not just a relic of America's tragic past, but a tactic that it still uses as the "ruling class: to maintain the international status quo.

The tragic story of al-Anwlaki's death is unfortunately not an isolated incident that creates "a new precedence now set by this administration in the targeting of US citizens," as Democracy Now! anchor Juan Gonzalez reported. But rather, it is a continuation of the same old story now with a gruesome new, international twist. Just as the US went outside the law to incite fear amongst African Americans when it felt it was necessary, it is now doing the same to Muslim citizens. Muslim citizens who wish to speak out against the atrocities that the US government continues to commit against the Muslim world will undoubtedly think twice now that the see the US is once again willing to kill it's own citizens without due process. Lynching is no longer a past thing; it's an executive branch thing.