compared2what? wrote:I accept your apology and retraction. Thanks.
Talk about Orwellian!
compared2what? wrote:It was perfectly clear that he was talking about European and American western societies, which were and are white -- and also happen to have a very long history (extending into the present) of treating Arabs as a racial group with a predisposition for acts of violent savagery.
No, European and American Western states happen to have a very long history of armed robbery on a massive scale, which they obscure and justify by systematically demonizing and dehumanizing the people whose rights they violate in the process.
Omar Barghouti wrote:"Normally I am nice, but I won't take this from a white person lecturing us about non-violence. And I added something that may have sounded racist, you know: the "white race" is, like, the most violent in the history of mankind. Just look at World War I and II and the Holocaust and, you know, and on, and on, and on, and colonialism and...you just don't lecture us about violence and non-violence."
To me, it's a strange statement, especially for a responsible spokesman for an international non-racial, anti-racist movement to make. Omar Barghouti may, indeed, have been influenced by the same racist thinking of the zionists that he opposes. Those of us who are familiar with zionist logic would recognize it instantly. It's the classic zionist argument: "After the Holocaust, when the world stood by and did nothing as millions of Jews were murdered, NO non-Jew, anywhere, has the right to criticize ANYTHNG that Israel does." It's the logic by which any German today, who objects to Israeli war crimes, or who defends Palestinian human rights, is accused of being a Nazi.
It's the kind of statement I dislike, but would find more understandable if made by a black person who's been oppressed by those who claimed superior rights on the basis of their 'whiteness', especially in the context of a racist state that systematically oppresses black people and privileges whites. Similarly, in a misogynist society, some women blame 'men' for the systematic oppression of women, rather than focusing their struggle on delegitimizing the chauvinist ideology that justifies it, and redressing the institutional factors that enforce it. It's not logical, but the context nurtures this kind of misguided thinking. The Palestinian people are being destroyed explicitly and officially in the name of "Jewishness", an ideology that ascribes superior rights to Jews, not "whiteness", but Omar Barghouti would not have the guts to make a similarly erroneous statement ascribing racial blame to all Jews. If he had, instead of being applauded, he would have been booed off the stage.
Nobody is 'good' or 'bad' because of their 'race'. The Palestinian people are engaged in a political and humanitarian struggle, not a racial one. Barghouti could have asked the French person to direct her calls for non-violence to her own government, who recently 'liberated' Libya to smithereens, and who is complicit with the US, Saudi Arabia and Israel in supporting armed violence in Syria, with considerable support from French socialists. He could have asked her if her principled rejection of armed struggle is consistent, or only applies to Palestinians.
He could have quoted to her from
UN General Assembly Resolution 36/103 which affirms:
The right and duty of States fully to support the right to self-determination, freedom and independence of peoples under colonial domination, foreign occupation or racist regimes, as well as the right of these peoples to wage both political and armed struggle to that end, in accordance with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations;
And informed her that just as Palestinians have the
right to wage armed struggle, should
they (not she) determine that it is the appropriate course of action at a particular time, it is her
duty to support their struggle for liberation as long as they employ legal means to wage it.
compared2what? wrote:Frankly. He's not anybody's servant, or satellite. He's entitled to speak from the worldview he has.
ON EDIT: I mean, are you for Palestinian self-determination? Or do you just want to dance with whoever hates Jews the most?
Of course he's entitled to speak his mind, just as Atzmon and others are entitled to point out his hypocrisy in making such a biological determinist, ie racist, statement, especially since he recently joined the call to boycott Gilad Atzmon, who is not a racist, and who doesn't recognize, let alone justify, any hierarchy of 'rights' or morality linked to skin color or religion.
The Palestinian struggle is about making the world recognize and respect one standard of justice for all people and equality under the law. If Omar Barghouti ascribes, as his statement indicates, different 'rights' and moral traits to others on the basis of skin color or religion or gender or whatever, then he is mistaken, in my opinion, and is unwittingly mirroring, and therefore reinforcing, the world-view that he claims to oppose.
compared2what? wrote:Alice wrote:racism -- especially in the devastatingly destructive form of institutional racism -- is an effect of unequal power (and therefore wealth) distribution, not their cause.
That would seem to contrast with your remarks above.
How?
"If you're not careful the newspapers will have you hating the oppressed and loving the people doing the oppressing." - Malcolm X
