Laodicean wrote:Robert Lovelace's speech back in June:
Robert Lovelace's "warning" to the Israelis represents zionism's ultimate goal: to decimate the Palestinian people as the European colonists decimated the Natives of Canada and the US, leaving a few desperate remnants in scattered reservations, broken, impotent and for the most part alienated from each other and from themselves. It is frequently cited by zionists as a successful model which they explicitly strive to replicate in Palestine.
Lovelace's is a moving speech, but very, very sad. His comparison between the indigenous populations of indigenous Canadians and Palestinians highlights the strong similarities between the two, but there are also crucial differences. The colonialist genocide against indigenous Canadians occurred long before there were international laws that criminalized such barbarity, and even more importantly, long before the technology that has made it possible to monitor and meticulously document and widely publicize atrocities as they are committed. Native Canadians have been isolated from each other and did not have a diaspora and international solidarity movements from which to draw vital resources and to globalize their struggle effectively.
Today survivors are largely ignorant of their own history, culture, religion and language, and therefore cut off from the source of spiritual power that is a decisive element in any effective resistance. There are small signs that this may change.
In contrast, there are more Palestinians alive today than there were 10, 20 or 63 years ago, most of them at least as politicized and militant and committed to their people's struggle as their parents, or their compatriots under zionist colonial rule, or even more so. The Palestinian indigenous culture -- in terms of literature, visual arts, music, food, theater, etc., is more vital and influential than ever, constantly evolving and spreading from its deep historical, geographic and spiritual roots. My personal observation is that even Palestinians raised half-way around the globe from Palestine somehow manage to embody and evoke the Palestinians' unique identity and culture. As the modern Palestinian poet Mourid al-Barghouti wrote:
The fish
Even in the fisherman's net
Still carries
The smell of the sea.
It's highly symbolic that a poem written by Mourid al-Barghouti's 28-year old son Tamim, an eloquent Palestinian writer who grew up in Egypt and teaches university in the US, was
repeatedly broadcast throughout Tahrir Square at the height of the revolution. It's no accident that Tamim's father lived in exile for most of his life but still managed to succeed as a major essayist, poet and teacher, while his Egyptian mother Radwa Ashour is one of the Arab world's most prominent and respected novelists, feminists, political activists and university professors. Tamim himself was denied Egyptian citizenship, and was summarily kicked out of Egypt by its notorious State Security Forces after participating in a demonstration against the US invasion of Iraq when he was a university student. He is now himself a university professor in the US and his poems have given him "rock star" status among Arab youth around the world. Such remarkably resilient and multi-talented families are quite common among Palestinians.
Bottom line: with each generation the Palestinian people are becoming stronger and more determined and possess more and a greater diversity of resources today than ever before, and this process will continue to accelerate. In a way, like the anti-apartheid struggle of South Africa, the Palestinian struggle is, at the same time, becoming a magnet and source of inspiration for all sorts of other progressive movements, thereby empowering the Palestinians and at the same time themselves.
Also, I'm not alone in my conviction that any victory anywhere for genuine democracy, "people power" and human rights significantly empowers the Palestinian cause, and that this is true not only in Arab countries but elsewhere around the world.
This process is a two-way street. It would be ironic and wonderful if the moribund indigenous peoples of North America were, through solidarity with the Palestinians, to reconnect with their own power and become revitalized and able to save themselves.
"If you're not careful the newspapers will have you hating the oppressed and loving the people doing the oppressing." - Malcolm X
