Fidel Castro: The lesson of Haiti

By Fidel Castro Ruz
January 15, 2010 -- Two days ago, at almost six o’clock in the evening Cuban time and when, given its geographical location, night had already fallen in Haiti, television stations began to broadcast the news that a violent earthquake -– measuring 7.3 on the Richter scale -– had severely struck Port-au-Prince. The seismic phenomenon originated from a tectonic fault located in the sea just 15 kilometres from the Haitian capital, a city where 80% of the population inhabit fragile homes built of adobe and mud.
The news continued almost without interruption for hours. There was no footage, but it was confirmed that many public buildings, hospitals, schools and more solidly constructed facilities were reported collapsed. I have read that an earthquake of the magnitude of 7.3 is equivalent to the energy released by an explosion of 400,000 tons of TNT.
Tragic descriptions were transmitted. Wounded people in the streets were crying out for medical help, surrounded by ruins under which their relatives were buried. No one, however, was able to broadcast a single image for several hours.
The news took all of us by surprise. Many of us have frequently heard about hurricanes and severe flooding in Haiti, but were not aware of the fact that this neighbouring country ran the risk of a massive earthquake. It has come to light on this occasion that 200 years ago, a massive earthquake similarly affected this city, which would have been the home of just a few thousand inhabitants at that time.
At midnight, there was still no mention of an approximate figure in terms of victims. High-ranking United Nations officials and several heads of government discussed the moving events and announced that they would send emergency brigades to help. Given that MINUSTAH (United Stabilization Mission in Haiti) troops are deployed there -– UN forces from various countries –- some defence ministers were talking about possible casualties among their personnel.
It was only yesterday morning when the sad news began to arrive of enormous human losses among the population, and even institutions such as the United Nations mentioned that some of their buildings in that country had collapsed, a word that does not say anything in itself but could mean a lot.
For hours, increasingly more traumatic news continued to arrive about the situation in this sister nation. Figures related to the number of fatal victims were discussed, which fluctuated, according to various versions, between 30,000 and 100,000. The images are devastating; it is evident that the catastrophic event has been given widespread coverage around the world, and many governments, sincerely moved by the disaster, are making efforts to cooperate according to their resources.
Why is Haiti so poor?
The tragedy has genuinely moved a significant number of people, particularly those in which that quality is innate. But perhaps very few of them have stopped to consider why Haiti is such a poor country. Why does almost 50% of its population depend on family remittances sent from abroad? Why not analyse the realities that led Haiti to its current situation and this enormous suffering as well?
The most curious aspect of this story is that no one has said a single word to recall the fact that Haiti was the first country in which 400,000 Africans, enslaved and trafficked by Europeans, rose up against 30,000 white slave masters on the sugar and coffee plantations, thus undertaking the first great social revolution in our hemisphere. Pages of insurmountable glory were written there. Napoleon's most eminent general was defeated there. Haiti is the net product of colonialism and imperialism, of more than one century of the employment of its human resources in the toughest forms of work, of military interventions and the extraction of its natural resources.
This historic oversight would not be so serious if it were not for the real fact that Haiti constitutes the disgrace of our era, in a world where the exploitation and pillage of the vast majority of the planet's inhabitants prevails.
Billions of people in Latin American, Africa and Asia are suffering similar shortages although perhaps not to such a degree as in the case of Haiti.
Situations like that of that country should not exist in any part of the planet, where tens of thousands of cities and towns abound in similar or worse conditions, by virtue of an unjust international economic and political order imposed on the world. The world population is not only threatened by natural disasters such as that of Haiti, which is a just a pallid shadow of what could take place in the planet as a result of climate change, which really was the object of ridicule, derision and deception in Copenhagen.
Real and lasting solutions needed
It is only just to say to all the countries and institutions that have lost citizens or personnel because of the natural disaster in Haiti: we do not doubt that in this case, the greatest effort will be made to save human lives and alleviate the pain of this long-suffering people. We cannot blame them for the natural phenomenon that has taken place there, even if we do not agree with the policy adopted with Haiti.
But I have to express the opinion that it is now time to look for real and lasting solutions for that sister nation.
In the field of healthcare and other areas, Cuba –- despite being a poor and blockaded country -– has been cooperating with the Haitian people for many years. Around 400 doctors and healthcare experts are offering their services free of charge to the Haitian people. Our doctors are working every day in 227 of the country’s 337 communes. On the other hand, at least 400 young Haitians have trained as doctors in our homeland. They will now work with the reinforcement brigade which traveled there yesterday to save lives in this critical situation. Thus, without any special effort being made, up to 1000 doctors and healthcare experts can be mobilised, almost all of whom are already there willing to cooperate with any other state that wishes to save the lives of the Haitian people and rehabilitate the injured.
Another significant number of young Haitians are currently studying medicine in Cuba.
We are also cooperating with the Haitian people in other areas within our reach. However, there can be no other form of cooperation worthy of being described as such than fighting in the field of ideas and political action in order to put an end to the limitless tragedy suffered by a large number of nations such as Haiti.
The head of our medical brigade reported: "The situation is difficult, but we have already started saving lives." He made that statement in a succinct message hours after his arrival yesterday in Port-au-Prince with additional medical reinforcements.
Later that night, he reported that Cuban doctors and ELAM’s Haitian graduates were being deployed throughout the country. They had already seen more than 1000 patients in Port-au-Prince, immediately establishing and putting into operation a hospital that had not collapsed and using field hospitals where necessary. They were preparing to swiftly set up other centers for emergency care.
We feel a wholesome pride for the cooperation that, in these tragic instances, Cuba doctors and young Haitian doctors who trained in Cuba are offering our brothers and sisters in Haiti!
[Fidel Castro Ruz is the former president of Cuba.]

The West’s role in Haiti's Plight

By Peter Hallward
[An earlier version of this article first appeared in the British Guardian. This slightly updated version appears in Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with Peter Hallward's permission.]
January 14, 2010 -- If we are serious about assisting this devastated land we must stop trying to control and exploit it.
Any large city in the world would have suffered extensive damage from an earthquake on the scale of the one that ravaged Haiti's capital city on the afternoon of January 13, but it's no accident that so much of Port-au-Prince now looks like a war zone. Much of the devastation wreaked by this latest and most calamitous disaster to befall Haiti is best understood as another thoroughly manmade outcome of a long and ugly historical sequence.
The country has faced more than its fair share of catastrophes. Hundreds died in Port-au-Prince in an earthquake back in June 1770, and the huge earthquake of May 7, 1842, may have killed 10,000 in the northern city of Cap ­Haitien alone. Hurricanes batter the island on a regular basis, most recently in 2004 and again in 2008; the storms of September 2008 flooded the town of Gonaïves and swept away much of its flimsy infrastructure, killing more than a thousand people and destroying many thousands of homes. The full scale of the destruction resulting from this earthquake may not become clear for several weeks. Even minimal repairs will take years to complete, and the long-term impact is incalculable.
Colonial exploitation
What is already all too clear, ­however, is the fact that this impact will be the result of an even longer-term history of deliberate impoverishment and disempowerment. Haiti is routinely described as the "poorest country in the western hemisphere". This poverty is the direct legacy of perhaps the most brutal system of colonial exploitation in world history, compounded by decades of systematic postcolonial oppression. The noble "international community" which is currently scrambling to send its "humanitarian aid" to Haiti is largely responsible for the extent of the suffering it now aims to reduce. Ever since the US invaded and occupied the country in 1915, every serious political attempt to allow Haiti's people to move (in former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide's phrase) "from absolute misery to a dignified poverty" has been violently and deliberately blocked by the US government and some of its allies.
Aristide's own government (elected by some 75% of the electorate) was the latest victim of such interference, when it was overthrown by an internationally sponsored coup in 2004 that killed several thousand people and left much of the population smouldering in resentment. The UN has subsequently maintained a large and enormously expensive stabilisation and pacification force in the country.
Poverty
Haiti is now a country where, according to the best available study, around 75% of the population "lives on less than [US]$2 per day, and 56% – four and a half million people – live on less than $1 per day". Decades of neoliberal "adjustment" and neo-imperial intervention have robbed its government of any significant capacity to invest in its people or to regulate its economy. Punitive international trade and financial arrangements ensure that such destitution and impotence will remain a structural fact of Haitian life for the foreseeable future.
It is this poverty and powerlessness that account for the full scale of the horror in Port-au-Prince today. Since the late 1970s, relentless neoliberal assault on Haiti's agrarian economy has forced tens of thousands of small farmers into overcrowded urban slums. Although there are no reliable statistics, hundreds of thousands of Port-au-Prince residents now live in desperately substandard informal housing, often perched precariously on the side of deforested ravines. The selection of the people living in such places and conditions is itself no more "natural" or accidental than the extent of the injuries they have suffered.
As Brian Concannon, the director of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, points out: "Those people got there because they or their parents were intentionally pushed out of the countryside by aid and trade policies specifically designed to create a large captive and therefore exploitable labour force in the cities; by definition they are people who would not be able to afford to build earthquake resistant houses." A small minority of these migrants are lucky enough to land a job in sweatshops that pay the lowest wages in the hemisphere, around US$1.75 a day. Meanwhile the city's basic infrastructure – running water, electricity, roads, etc. – remains woefully inadequate, often non-existent. The government's ability to mobilise any sort of disaster relief is next to nil.
The international community has been effectively ruling Haiti since the 2004 coup. The same countries scrambling to send emergency help to Haiti now, however, have during the last five years consistently voted against any extension of the UN mission's mandate beyond its immediate military purpose. Proposals to divert some of this "investment" towards poverty reduction or agrarian development have been blocked, in keeping with the long-term patterns that continue to shape the ­distribution of international "aid".
The same storms that killed so many in 2008 hit Cuba just as hard but killed only four people. Cuba has escaped the worst effects of neoliberal "reform", and its government retains a capacity to defend its people from disaster. If we are serious about helping Haiti through this latest crisis then we should take this comparative point on board. Along with sending emergency relief, we should ask what we can do to facilitate the self-empowerment of Haiti's people and public institutions. If we are serious about helping we need to stop ­trying to control Haiti's government, to pacify its citizens, and to exploit its economy. And then we need to start paying for at least some of the damage we've already done.
[Peter Hallward is professor of modern European philosophy at Middlesex University, member of the Radical Philosophy editorial collective and author of Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide, and the Politics of Containment. London: Verso, 2007.]

Anti-imperialism in 3-D - AVATAR

http://socialistworker.org/2010/01/07/anti-imperialism-in-3D

Review: Nagesh Rao

Anti-imperialism in 3-D

There is much more to Avatar than the spectacular special effects, says Nagesh Rao.

AVATAR IS a visually stunning marvel of film technology, as many reviewers will tell you, but what really stands out in James Cameron's newest film is its unabashed critique of corporate greed and its inspiring tale of solidarity and resistance against occupation.
Set on a distant planet called Pandora, Avatar re-enacts the genocide of indigenous populations by colonial capitalism, and links this history to the rapacious resource wars of our own times. The film is not a moralistic wringing of hands that relies on "white-guilt fantasies" as some commentators have claimed; rather, it is an uncompromising defense of the principle of self-determination and the right to resist exploitation and plunder.
Listing some of Cameron's blockbuster films--The Abyss, Aliens, the Terminator films and The Titanic--is enough to remind us that we are dealing with a master of visual effects technology. Fans of his earlier work won't be disappointed with Avatar's special effects--the 3-D version in particular is a breathtaking experience. As the New York Times reviewer Manohla Dargis writes:

This isn't the 3-D of the 1950s or even contemporary films, those flicks that try to give you a virtual poke in the eye with flying spears. Rather, Mr. Cameron uses 3-D to amplify the immersive experience of spectacle cinema...After a few minutes the novelty of people and objects hovering above the row in front of you wears off, and you tend not to notice the 3-D, which speaks to the subtlety of its use...

Similarly, we find ourselves dazzled by the brilliantly rendered planet of Pandora, replete with bioluminescent flora and fauna, ethereal floating mountains and touch-me-nots that look like giant seashells. All of this, no doubt, represents advances in special effects not seen since the Wachowski brothers invented "Bullet Time" for The Matrix, and Peter Jackson brought Gollum to life in The Lord of the Rings. Only the most jaded and cynical of moviegoers would deny Cameron's accomplishments in this area.
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HOWEVER, FOR all the gushing praise that Cameron has received from critics for the film's technological accomplishments, reviewers have been less enthusiastic about Avatar's political message. Some of them seem to be so dazzled by the spectacle that they don't even notice its ideological significance.
In the New York Times, Ross Douthat dismisses it as a "long apologia for pantheism--a faith that equates God with Nature." Similarly, while Dargis' review acknowledges the film's "anti-corporate message," she seems unmoved by its uncompromising anti-imperialist message.
On the other hand, left-wing critics have panned the film's politics for its director's "banal and conformist outlook" (David Walsh's review at wsws.org) and as "a fantasy about race told from the point of view of white people" (Annalee Newitz's much-circulated post for the sci-fi Web site io9.com).
Let's concede a couple of points at the outset. James Cameron isn't Gillo Pontecorvo, and Avatar is no Battle of Algiers. It's a popular science fiction thriller, and a damn good one at that. It thus conforms to some of the conventions of the genre, employing stock characters like the mercenary Col. Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), and predictable plotlines such as the romance that ensures a happy ending.
No doubt the dialogue is, at times, contrived and clichéd, and the film could have used a better script. Nevertheless, its narrative arc is compelling, and the transformation of its central character, disabled marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), is convincing.
Jake is your archetypal warrior hero, except for his disability (he is paralyzed from the waist down), which draws sneers from the other marines (one refers to him as "meals on wheels"). When we first encounter him, he is awakened from a state of hibernation in the gravity-free environment of a spaceship. Here, as the characters hover and float around, we fail to notice Jake's paralysis.
When we see him in his wheelchair for the first time, his comrades taunt him, and we see, through his eyes and from his perspective, the mammoth scale of the war machines and armaments being deployed by the mercenary forces on Pandora.
His disability, in other words, isn't incidental. It's central to his character, because his disability marks him out as an underdog among the top dogs, so to speak. His disability sets him apart as someone who might not necessarily conform to all that he sees around him. Moreover, as the plot unfolds, we learn that his colonel is trying to hold him hostage to his disability, promising him the use of his legs in return for acting as the colonel's stooge.
Early in the film, we learn that Jake cannot afford the medical care he needs to be able to walk again, and that although he isn't looking forward to the mission on Pandora, he can do little else, given the state of the economy.
White man though he is, Jake Sully is nevertheless himself a victim of oppression. And crucially, Jake's liberation is contingent upon his identification with the natives of Pandora, the Na'vi, a tribe of 12-feet tall, blue-skinned humanoids with prehensile tails.
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IN THIS sense, Avatar can't simply be dismissed as a "white man's guilt" narrative, as Annalee Newitz does in her post on the sci-fi Web site io9.com. Newitz rightly points out that the trope of the white man who "goes native" is an old one, which has its origins in European colonial ideology.
Sure enough, as Newitz points out, in contemporary Western culture in general and Hollywood in particular, the fantasy of "going native" often ends with the white man not only assimilating into the "native" culture, but emerging as their leader in their quest for salvation or liberation from some oppressive force or circumstance. Think here of films as diverse as Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, The Last Samurai and City of God.
Certainly, Jake feels conflicted and guilty about what his comrades are about to do to the Na'vi and to Pandora. And certainly, this is at least partially a result of his falling in love with Nyteri (Zoe Saldana), the female Na'vi warrior. And yes, Jake's avatar emerges as the leader of the Na'vi in their struggle against the human plunderers. But surely this in itself is insufficient grounds to condemn the film as just so much unreconstructed Orientalism.
By plugging into the avatar, Jake's consciousness is quite literally embodied in the "other"; in this sense, he comes closer to genuine empathy with the Na'vi than can be realistically conceived (hence the term "science fiction"). If we grant this central premise of the film, then it seems to me somewhat churlish to suggest that Jake Sully is nothing but a 21st century T.E. Lawrence or Indiana Jones.
Furthermore, Jake's Na'vi self initially rebels against the human incursion into Pandora as an act of self-preservation. He attacks the giant bulldozers that arrive on the scene while he is asleep (and back in his human incarnation) with a desperation that the audience can identify with, as they seem intent on mowing down everything in their path, including Jake and Nyteri.
It's not too much of a stretch to suggest that the bulldozers destroying the Na'vi forests are like the Israeli bulldozers in occupied Palestine, and that Jake's defiance of them is like the courageous stance of activists like Rachel Corrie.
By slow degrees, Jake comes to identify with the "other" and their way of life. Once he becomes fully aware of the mercenary calculations of the corporation that will stop at nothing in its bid to extract the precious "unobtanium," Jake switches sides, as do the team of scientists led by the strong-willed Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver). To suggest that this act is little more than a demonstration of "white man's guilt" is, I think, to render meaningless the idea of solidarity.
Jake's speech rallying the Na'vi, and calling on them to reach out to the other tribes reminded me of Tecumseh and of later anti-colonial revolutionaries who rallied diverse colonized peoples against their common oppressors. The conclusion of the film, which shows the chastened humans being escorted back to their waiting spaceship, just as surely harkens back to the images of the withdrawal of the defeated American forces from Vietnam.
In the context of the wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, this is cultural dynamite. And in the context of Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize lecture on "just war," Jake Sully's wry admission is timely: "I was a soldier who tried to bring peace, but sooner or later everyone has to wake up."
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ANOTHER ELEMENT of the film's anti-imperialism that critics seem to have missed is its subtle criticism of the negative historical role played by anthropologists and other social scientists working for colonial powers. Grace and her team of scientists are employed by the same corporate entity that has hired Col. Quaritch and his trigger-happy mercenaries.
In this respect, the scientists in the film are like those employed by the U.S. Army's "Human Terrain System," whose stated purpose is to "improve the military's ability to understand the highly complex local socio-cultural environment in the areas where they are deployed."
But Grace is no military lackey, and her team's meticulous attention to the scientific project, as well as their moral and ethical sensibilities drive them to oppose Col. Quaritch and their corporate sponsor, in the form of Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi). The film's insistence that the aims of social science can't be reconciled with those of imperialism stands in stark contrast to the complicity of academics currently involved in the Human Terrain System program.
Like most sci-fi films, Avatar offers a withering critique of the world that we live in. But unlike most recent sci-fi films, it is filled with a utopianism that we haven't seen in a while. Is this a nostalgic longing for lost innocence? By presenting the Na'vi and their way of life as akin to indigenous cultures destroyed by colonialism, does the film run the risk of grasping at an irrecoverable past?
Perhaps here too Avatar offers more than at first meets the eye. There is something undeniably futuristic about Pandora itself, where flora and fauna alike are interconnected as if part of one gigantic neural network. The network of energy that binds everything on Pandora is ultimately responsible for Jake's resurrection as his Na'vi avatar.
The process that transfers his consciousness from his human body to his Na'vi body seems to involve millions of tendrils that resemble tiny optical fibers. Interestingly enough, this postmodern, high-tech aesthetic stands in stark contrast to the decidedly modernist, industrial design of the humans' arms and armaments, which recalls the gritty and clunky aesthetic of Battlestar Galactica.
Such utopianism in our time might seem unjustified, if not incongruous, but it is certainly a breath of fresh air. There are those who will squirm at the film's obvious references to our contemporary reality (as when the campaign against the Na'vi is referred to as "shock and awe"), and those who will wince at its sometimes clumsy dialogue.
But there's no denying that millions of moviegoers around the world are flocking to a film that unflinchingly indicts imperialism and corporate greed, defends the right of the oppressed to fight back, and holds open the potential for solidarity between people on opposite sides of a conflict not of their choosing.
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Review: Movies

Avatar [1], written and directed by James Cameron, starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver and Stephen Lang.

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1. [1] http://www.avatarmovie.com/
2. [2] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0

Genocide in Gaza: Cartoon by CARLOS LATUFF

Germany In Black And White By Jayati Ghosh

10 December, 2009

Deccan Chronicle

A recent documentary film made by one of Germany’s most renowned investigative reporters, Gunter Wallraff, has once again created a public debate about racism in Germany. Wallraff — known for his undercover exposes of social and political problems in Europe for the past four decades — disguised himself as a black person by painting his skin dark and donning a curly black wig. He then secretly filmed the responses of ordinary Germans to what should be straightforward actions like renting accommodation, purchasing things in shops and attending football games.

The responses, recorded in this riveting documentary, Black on White, ranged from patronising and mildly insulting to absolutely violent. He was almost beaten up by neo-Nazis after a football match in eastern Germany. Outside a small-town nightclub he was told by a skinhead: “Europe for whites, Africa for apes”. Perhaps even more disturbing are the quotidian acts of discrimination that he recorded: being told by a landlady that she could not possibly rent out her flat to a black person, or not being allowed to try on an expensive watch by a shop owner who willingly handed over the same watch to the next (white) customer.

Many non-white residents who live in Germany point out that such incidents are part of normal life for them. Last year in Berlin alone, the police registered 140 violent race attacks, and these are seen as only the tip of the iceberg. Many foreign students, especially but not exclusively in eastern parts of the country, have suffered violent attacks, while a much larger number have experienced subtle or open racial discrimination in different ways.

Of course, this is not a German problem alone, as Europe in general and western Europe in particular struggle to come to terms with becoming multi-racial societies. Past historical and economic trends as well as current demographic patterns have contributed to a process that is unlikely to be reversed, but it has been associated with social tensions that are also increasingly reflected in the greater popularity of very right-wing political forces.

The current economic downswing, with its attendant effects on employment and wages, has of course exacerbated such unfortunate tendencies across the region, as actual or perceived “outsiders” get targeted. This notion of the alien as scapegoat is a very old social tendency. We can find examples of it in India as well, in reprehensible and divisive forces like the ones displayed in demands for reservations of jobs for Marathi-speakers in Maharashtra, or attacks on other linguistic or ethnic groups in Northeast India, and so on.

But Germany is perhaps a unique and even extreme case, because of its complicated recent history of integration as well as its Nazi past. The issue of racism has been politically sensitive for some time: just two years ago, the Social Democratic former minister Uwe-Karsten Heye, who now leads an anti-racism organisation called “Show Your Colour”, was widely pilloried for suggesting that there were parts of the country where black people were not physically safe, even though many black supported his claim. The German government refused to attend the Durban Review UN Conference against Racism held in Geneva in April 2009, citing concerns that it would be used “as a platform for other interests”. In general the government’s response has been denial rather than proactive intervention to stop the problem.

What explains the apparent spread and occasionally virulent form of racism in Germany? A book by Sudeshna Chakravarti (German Racism: An old or new disease, K.P. Bagchi & Company, Kolkata 1998) provides a fascinating insight into this question. Chakravarti visited post-unification East Germany over extended periods in 1991 and 1992, and again in 1994, and had extended discussions with refugees, journalists, writers, members of political parties, film directors and common people. Her short book provides a thoughtful and illuminating account of the different forces that have contributed to the problem.

As she notes, Germany has a rich thread of racism in its history, from the colonial period to the Nazi images of Aryan racial supremacy. But even so the renewed wave of racism in Germany cannot be attributed to a single reason. “There are many complex and interwoven factors — the old colonial heritage; the memories of occupation by coloured troops (during the World War II); the racism of the Nazi era, which was even more virulent and deadly but whose targets and methods were somewhat different; the imperfect de-Nazification, under the cover of a socialist state in the German Democratic Republic; the all enveloping crisis following re-unification; the present recession, which has affected even the prosperous West Germany; the need to find scapegoats for the general misery; the psychological urge to unite the ‘natives’ of the two Germanies, at the expense of the aliens; the general rise of racism and fascism all over Europe”.

The analysis remains remarkably contemporary, pointing to the depressing conclusion that in this respect very little has changed 20 years after the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Indeed, Chakravarti notes that “the fall of the Berlin Wall opened Hitler’s grave”, unleashing neo-Nazi tendencies that had been suppressed rather than eliminated in the years of Communism. Controlling this will require more active intervention from the non-racist mainstream of German society as well as the state.

Free Palestine Now and The Free Gaza Movement

Activists for Palestine have to have the same goal as Palestinians – the liberation of Palestine. They have to pay attention to not being diverted from this objective or to interfere with a greater geopolitical situation that may have consequences none of us can predict and which can cancel for a long time our hopes for liberation and return. Our fear is legitimate. We fear the emergence of the Zionist ultimate project, "Greater Israel" in the ashes of the destruction of Arab unity, which is not a lofty ideal, but present in the Arab masses and is a source that must be tapped into, and the Zionist project can be accomplished if we are not vigilant in all we do and if we shift our rage away from Israel and weaken the Arab masses. I shall explain.

Freedom activists march to Gaza

Let's assume that the Egyptian government was replaced with new democratically elected one, what do you think would happen? The answer seems vague, but believe me, it is very simple. Remember what happened in Occupied Palestine four years ago? Hamas was elected and the entire world witnessed real democracy in action. What happened next? The entire world, including most Arab countries, refused to accept Hamas as the new official government and nearly all of them decided to cut relations and aid to the new Palestinian government. The tag was ready for all of them to push off to the ears of the world, "Hamas is a terrorist organization. Full Stop!"

Now, we are not arguing here if Hamas was a good choice or not for and from the Palestinians, but it was their choice in fair elections and it must be respected by anyone who believes in democracy. And, it’s no secret that real democratic elections will always bring surprises. Remember Dubya’s slogans about bringing democracy to the Middle East and new dawn in the Arab world? Well, this was not what they expected. Not what they paid for, and no one ever heard these slogans coming from them ever again in Palestine after Hamas won.

Back to Egypt, who can guarantee that the newly elected government and its president will not be the same as the previous regime? And if we are very optimistic and think that activists and Egyptians succeed in changing the existing regime and a truly elected system comes to their royal palaces, why should anyone believe that it would not face the same ending like the Hamas government did and Egyptians shortly end in a situation similar to that the Palestinians are suffering?

If this comes true, even worse things can happen. It will not only affect Egypt, but the Arab world in general and Palestinians in particular, especially the Palestinians of Gaza, because Israel will not stop to think for a second before they rush to occupy Gazan borders again (let's say they will intensify their occupation and bring back their soldiers to Gaza/Egypt borders). This time without the Palestinian and Egyptian proxies. In fact, I believe that in a situation like this, the Zionists will find it the moment of history when they can establish their dream of Greater Israel. They might not only occupy Sinai, but invade Egypt across the Red Sea until Israel reaches the Nile. What may happen next is another story.

So what we have today is extremely bad, but in a certain viewpoint of realpolitik and understanding exactly how Israel operates, it may be better than what could happen if the existing regime in Egypt or a newly elected one opens the borders with Gaza in the present conditions of Palestine, without any international guarantees that Palestine is going to be autonomous in controlling its own borders for the good of the people in Palestine and not to serve factions whose agendas are not acceptable to any patriot. Even Hamas understands this and they know that what they have for now is more than what they can dream of having in a day or two until Israel reacts. Hamas knows very well that Israel is closing the borders, not Egypt. All they say in press conferences is nothing more than slogans for local consumption to remain patriotic in the eyes of their supporters, but they are aware of the situation they find themselves in, and they too are blocked. Unless we really think that both sides, Egypt and Hamas, are ready to commit suicide by enrolling themselves in a third world war.

Freedom activists march to Palestine

It seems to me that the world has forgotten the word 'Palestine', and how can anyone blame them? These days we only hear the words Gaza and West Bank. In fact, if you watch the mainstream media you will even hardly hear 'West Bank'. Everyone has forgotten that part of Occupied Palestine. Some activists even forgot that the Map of Palestine is from the River to the Sea (Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea). Anyway…

The West Bank is not in better shape than Gaza. Yes, our brothers and sisters in Gaza are suffering from the siege and a high level of poverty due to this siege, but Palestinians in the West Bank are not in much better conditions at all. All the checkpoints (more than 700) are in the West Bank. The Israeli Apartheid Wall is cutting the West Bank into tiny pieces. No one is allowed to enter Jerusalem. Kidnapping and assassinations are around every corner. Add to it the corrupted Palestinian Authority. So the question remains, where are our friends and activists when it comes to the West Bank? Why don't they try to break the Walls and remove the checkpoints and open its borders with the Arab world? If you think a Palestinian or non-Palestinian can travel from Jordan to the West Bank without the Israeli permission and passing through Israeli immigration offices, you are wrong. So, the West Bank is still under Israeli occupation.

We have to keep in mind that big picture. Over sixty years ago we were fighting for all of Palestine. Since Oslo, we started to talk only about the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem. Now activism is mostly focusing on food and aid to one part of Palestine, Gaza. In other words, putting a band-aid on a deep wound. In a few years’ time we will be demonstrating just to know or hear if there is anyone still alive on this land!

So, what are we doing and what are the alternatives, you ask?

First and foremost, we need to realign and look at the big picture again. The whole of Palestine is occupied, not Gaza and the West Bank only.

Second, the Right of Return is a divine right for all Palestinians. If the two states solution is not going to guarantee the return of those who want to return (and it will not guarantee it) then to hell with this solution! Jews are welcome like all other religious and non-religious people to live side by side with Christian and Muslim Arabs and Palestinians in One State. No special conditions for Jews.

Third, we are not fighting to break the siege only in one part, but in all of Palestine, once and for good.

Fourth, our enemy is not the messenger, but the real occupier and whoever supports them.

Now, you ask me where to go!

Your Borders and Israeli Borders

One can't really say that there aren't a lot of great, dedicated people around the world, devoted to the cause of Palestine's freedom, and they deserve a lot of credit for putting their time and energy to the cause. We can question their timing, methods and even their overall goals, which might not go as far as many Palestinians would desire, but their good faith seems to be beyond doubt. However, to not lose an important opportunity not only for activists to really do something concrete as well as for them to make tidal wave of support happen, strategy does count, because lives are on the line and Palestinians pay for every day that the occupation drags on. There were several movements that acted in these days, and one day we will be able to draw the sums of their effectiveness.

In spite that fact of the 1,400 activists (a very small number) who went to Cairo for the Gaza Freedom March (GFM), which didn't happen (other than the 100 who were permitted to go to Gaza). In the end, they came up with a document that has many good points which can be brought back to their countries to add to their strategy planning, and this is no bad thing. We can also look at the Viva Palestina (VP) convoy which traveled from one continent to another (and now crossing the sea) driving those useless brand new cars they bought to "aid" Gazans; in the meantime gaining a lot of publicity and that, in itself is not always a bad thing.

But again, the question begs, because it must: how effective were these movements? Personally, I think it was a big failure, and despite all the human and economic resources invested in it, didn't achieve much, however grateful we might be that something was done. But what we ask of them is something much simpler, yet doubtlessly more effective.

In each country around this world, there is a US embassy, UK embassy, etc… Why don't you gather in your own countries in front of these embassies and demonstrate? What's wrong with Washington, the White House and the Congress? What's wrong with Number 10, Downing Street? etc… At least your numbers will be much greater, no harassment from US/Israeli proxy Arabian dictatorship and much more effective. Eventually and slowly, the mainstream media will notice you whether they like it or not, and CHANGE, real change (not what Obama promised in Cairo) for a just resolution of the Palestinian/Arab/Israeli conflict will become reality.

Another way, which is so far hardly used, are the Israeli borders themselves. Why don't the freedom marchers travel to the "democratic Israel" and gather at the occupation internal borders? The ISM is doing an amazing job inside the West Bank and the weekly demonstrations in Nil'in and Bil'in are amazing, but are they enough? NO! What we need are more activists on the other side of the Wall. No, Peace Now is not good enough, however we thank them.

Several activists were killed while they were protecting Palestinians or trying to help them save their properties and lives, and to them go our deepest thanks, love and respect. However, true activism is not only shouting slogans here and there without actions, serious actions, which no one can guarantee anyone’s safety. So, if you are not ready for the risk of being killed by the Israelis, which is a real risk, stay home and do what you can there, not in Cairo or surrounding occupation proxies. I'm not asking you to commit suicide, but your governments and media need to see the real enemy and you need to wake up your nations. We need you to educate your country's citizens and pressure your official for real and lasting peace, not to demonstrate in the streets of Cairo and give a chance for the regime to describe you as hooligans and coup promoters.

Free Gaza

My friends, Free Gaza Movement was a good example of the above. Their plans, actions, risks and effectiveness are beyond all what GFM and VP tried to do in the last few weeks. Unfortunately, the way GFM and VP was run and ended has served no one but to smear Egyptians (as a nation, the regimes will still get their cheque) and let the criminals run away with their crimes on the first anniversary of Israeli War Crimes against Gaza, Palestine. This is a mistake in judgment that we should not have afforded. The opportunity for Palestinians to express their pain and remember their dead was missed. The focus was on Egypt. Free Gaza Movement not only really broke the siege on Gaza time after time, but they risked their lives in the last trip that sailed to Gaza and the Israeli marine ships tried to sink their ship (more on DIGNITY), not to mention the attention of the media on the victims in Gaza, Palestine. I stand to salute all this group of activists who set an example of real activism to free Palestine.

In the future, activists have to take either of two routes. Going in and through Israel itself to break the walls, checkpoints, crossings and borders, or by sea, where you need no one's permission but are entitled to demand their protection. However, please don't ask for protection from Egypt or Arabs, but from your Western greater powers. If you are coming from the US, ask Obama to protect you. If you are coming from the UK, ask Gordon Brown to protect you. If you are coming from France ask Sarkozy to protect you, and so on.

Bush we agree to everything Israel agrees to: Obama: DON’T agree except on what “Israel” agrees to!

by Jalal Al Rifa’i