[Dialogue] FW: {Disarmed} Fwd: Power of the people

[Harry Wainwright]

From: James Wiegel [mailto:jfwiegel at yahoo.com] 
Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2008 12:43 PM
To: Colleague Dialogue
Subject: {Disarmed} Fwd: Power of the people

 



 Power of the people 
Nada Elia writing from the United States, Live from Palestine, 29 January
2008 





Palestinians walk into Egypt over the Israeli built wall on the southern
border of the Gaza Strip after it was destroyed by Hamas, 26 January 2008.
(Matthew <http://justimage.org/>  Cassel) 


Today, more than any other day in my life, I am proud to be Palestinian.

Let me explain. Nation-states mean little to me. They represent artificial
boundaries, legal restrictions, "No Entry" signs, and collective
brainwashing into the "uniqueness" of cultures that only humans acknowledge.
What fish has ever stopped swimming as it approached that most invisible
"water line" separating one country from another? What migratory bird's
instincts made it hesitate for even the briefest of moments as it crossed
from Canada to the US to Mexico, heading south for the winter? Show me a
flower, even in the most private garden, that doesn't mix its aroma with the
flowers in the garden next door, with the highest "security fence."

Such boundaries are unnatural. And because they are unnatural, I have never
related to them. Yes, I have long advocated Palestinian rights, but my own
national identity is tangential to my passion. I advocate Palestinian rights
because they are human rights that are violated for the sake of these
artificial boundaries. But today, as I see the Palestinian people represent
the finest in people power, I am proud to be Palestinian. I am proud to be
part of a people that refuses to submit to unnatural limits on our most
basic freedoms: the freedom to eat, to drink, to grow. 

The International Court of Justice declared the Wall illegal, but did not
have the power to bring it down. The Fourth Geneva Convention declared
collective punishment illegal, but did not have the power to stop it.
International law declared the occupation illegal, but did not have the
power to end it. And then Palestinians, possibly the most downtrodden of all
peoples today, brought the wall down.

Yet, ecstatic as I am, I am not naive. I know this is only a temporary
breach, and I know national leaders will take credit for this achievement.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has already claimed that he "allowed" the
Palestinians into Egypt because Gazans were starving, even as his security
forces arrested 500 demonstrators in Cairo for protesting the siege. And Dov
Weissglas, advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, referred to the
strangulation of Gaza as if he were doing Palestinians a favor: "It's like
an appointment with a dietitian. The Palestinians will get a lot thinner,
but won't die." 

But Palestinians are dying from the "diet" imposed upon them by the illegal
occupier. A World Food Program study conducted last year revealed that half
the Palestinian population is "food-insecure." Indicators of malnutrition
include being underweight, wasting, and stunted. Also as a result of the
restrictive Israeli measures, Palestinian still-births in the West Bank rose
by 52 percent in 2007. There are no such figures available for the Gaza
Strip.

And even as I am writing this, news comes in that Israel has killed Mohammad
Harb, the Gaza leader whose forces blew up sections of the wall, allowing
Palestinians to stock up on essentials. Harb paid with his life for the
temporary freedom of my people, the people who democratically elected him as
their representative, despite immense pressure from Israel and the US to
"elect" a peon of the occupation. So I do not want to forget. Harb was the
people's choice, and it is people power that brought the wall down. 

And that is one model we can all emulate, wherever we are. If
disenfranchised Palestinians could bring down a wall constructed by the
region's most heavily-armed nuclear power, backed by the world's uberpower,
then all oppressed peoples, everywhere, can do it too.

Today, for a brief moment, it feels great to be Palestinian.

Nada Elia teaches Gender and Cultural Studies at Antioch University-Seattle.
She is a founding member of RAWAN (Radical Arab Women's Activist Network)
and currently serves on the national steering collective of INCITE!
<http://www.incite-national.org/>  Women of Color Against Violence.

__._,_.___ 

The opinions expressed in the emails represent only the opinion of the
author and do not necessarily represent my personal position. 

"Dialogue implies questioning by its very nature. Without accepting the
priority of the question over the answer, we neither can conduct a genuine
dialogue, nor develop a new understanding, nor gain new knowledge." 

MARKETPLACE

  _____  

.

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