human stories that never make the headlines of the mainstream media and judge for yourself if Israel’s security really justifies the collective imprisonment and brutalisation of an entire population.
The following article by a Diaspora Palestinian Amin Abbas is also featured on the websitealong with other news and views. - SK
We have a Dream
by Amin Abbas
7 September 2008
On this day, the 28th of August, 45 years ago, Martin Luther King Junior
stood in front of a crowd of many thousands at the Lincoln memorial and said
“I have a dream”. That memorable line came to signify the greatest
demonstration in the history of his nation, the march on Washington for jobs
and freedom.
Dr King, the preacher, Nobel peace prize winner and undisputed leader of the
US civil rights movement, came to the fore almost two centuries after the
US declaration of independence. Enshrining the people's inalienable rights
to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, the application of this model
document for modern liberty had its shortcomings when it came to the negro.
But a prevalent culture of racial discrimination couldn’t withstand the
upheaval that began with Rosa Parks on an Alabama bus. The inspiration of
Gandhi and the philosophy of Satyagraha, or non-violent resistance,
prevailed, and America had its Civil Rights Act.
Forty-five years on, the face of American racial equality still bears its
scars and blemishes. The riots in Los Angeles after the beating of Rodney
King and the havoc in New Orleans post-Katrina exposed the dream's
fragility. Yet the very real prospect of a black man as 44th president
raises the hope that the majority of Americans may truly have overcome on
the question of race.
Dr King affirmed the power of non-violent resistance. Be it ending colonial
rule in India or equality and civil rights in the US or South Africa, the
moral standing of the oppressed can overpower the brutality of the
oppressor. In addition to the obvious drive to end an ideology of
subjugation, Dr King’s struggle challenged three notions; the doctrine of
"separate but equal"; the idea of peace as the absence of conflict rather
than the presence of justice; and the shallow understanding of people of
good will. All three bear relevance to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Often misunderstood as a case of two warring countries and peoples, this is
in reality a case of a place with two names. Controlled by one government,
that of Israel, the inhabitants belong to one of two crowds, A and B. Crowd
A rules, crowd B is ruled; crowd A has access to all roads, crowd B has
access to some roads; crowd A can live anywhere, crowd B can live somewhere;
crowd A has the law of return, crowd B has no right of return; crowd A has
full rights and crowd B may have some basic rights.
In the late 80s, when crowd B, the Palestinians, embarked on their own
spontaneous non-violent resistance, the first Intifada, the Israeli
military failed to suppress it. The rapid successes of the popular
resistance led the Israeli leadership to adopt the strategy of "separate but
equal", encapsulated in the dreadful Oslo accords that Israel declined to
even honour. Since then the Israelis have extended this approach with their
one-sided disengagement from Gaza and the building of the walls of
separation. Unlike Dr King and his movement, the Palestinian leadership
failed to grasp that privileged groups seldom give up those privileges
voluntarily, and that separate was not equal.
Dr King’s movement rejected calls to soft-pedal their resistance for the
sake of easing tension. From Dr King’s perspective, it was always the
absence of peace and justice that caused conflict, not the other way around.
The status quo is never an option for those under oppression. For today’s
Palestinians, however, decades of Israeli occupation, economic misery and
the residence of half their population of around nine million in refugee
camps are not perceived as sufficient to justify resistance. They constantly
face total alienation by the United States, Europe and the subservient Arab
regimes at the slightest hint of unrest.
For Dr King, the shallow understanding of people of good will was more
frustrating than the total misunderstanding of those of ill will. He didn’t
tolerate the ignorant position of the white Christian leadership, and
confronted the indifferent clergy of the intolerant South. The world's
ignorance of and indifference to the rights of the Palestinians, living as
sub-class citizens in their native land at best and stateless refugees at
worst, is wrong and immoral. A world that preaches universal values of
equality and is anxious to apologise to native peoples for past colonial
injustices has a duty to face up to the needs of Palestinians.
For their part, Palestinians must lay the terminal peace process and the
stunted form of segregated governance it created to rest. They must reinvent
inclusive organisations of resistance and mobilise at the grass roots to
embrace a new way. They should study Gandhi, King and Mandela and what has
been tried and worked. A fresh blend of Satyagraha and Sumud, or
steadfastness, must be the strategic and shortest path to Palestinian
freedom.
Let us dream that one day, Palestinian children will be judged not by their
race or creed but by the content of their character.
Amin Abbas
Diaspora Palestinian
0 Have Your Say!:
Post a Comment