How to reach people
We asked: What can help us reach people to get them to show some moral fortitude, to show some spine, to shed their chains, to be free of being oppressor or oppressed?
Here are selected answers we got:
For me, it was psychological discomfort that made me start going to protests and writing and posting articles and visiting refugees here….
There is something fearful about lies and lying, especially when they come from influential sources such as leading politicians. Lies make a mockery of communication and without true communication we are cut off from each other…
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I believe that those people who form the vanguard of resistance to oppression and who lead campaigns for human rights are born with a highly developed 'justice-sensitive' gene that responds with immediate sympathy to reports of cruelty and is readily affronted by lies and hypocrisy. There is something fearful about lies and lying, especially when they come from influential sources such as leading politicians. Lies make a mockery of communication and without true communication we are cut off from each other. There is a close relationship between lies and insanity. Hateful ideologies depend upon lies to survive and as a result they are doomed to follow a downward spiral of deepening irrationality.
There are those who almost instinctively know that they must reach out to others and restore the balance in favour of truth. Most people have an innate sense of right and wrong but for many people it fades into the background amid the daily noise and bustle of everyday living. Dictators, politicians and advertising executives are acutely aware that many people do not want to bother with thinking things out for themselves and prefer to be told how to think. Those people are not bad - just pliable - they could be persuaded to follow Gandhi or, just as easily, Hitler.
This brings us back to communication, knowledge and information without which we would all be lost. The mass news media are corporate owned and they filter the news in the interests of corporate sponsored government. I believe that sports broadcasting and reporting are used by corporate interests to distort, out of all proportion, the proper role of competitiveness in society to provide a safe apolitical conduit for energy, passion and commitment. Add to that, the constant appeals to acquisitiveness and you have diversions galore (panem et circensis) to discourage enquiry and scepticism.
The wonderful thing is, though, that millions of people are not taken in by corporate hype and political news-speak and they are becoming increasingly sceptical. What they thirst for is reliable information, the refreshing breeze of honesty and sense of a truly shared humanity. This places a huge burden on all who consider themselves committed to the furtherance of justice and human rights to campaign, protest, write letters and articles, demonstrate, jump up and down and do whatever it takes to unite humanity in a shared vision of a more humane world. Looked at in historical terms, as black as things sometimes seem, there is much progress. Once recognised, the term 'human rights' can never be ignored - it's here to stay. We just have to make sure that those who would turn the clock back for their own insane, selfish reasons find themselves well and truly frustrated by the rest of us.
Please feel free to share as you please,
Sincerely,
Leslie
Palestine Human Rights Campaign Aotearoa/New Zealand
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We in Minnesota are participating in Minnesota Break the Bonds. We want our state to divest itself of the money invested in Israel bonds. During the recent precinct caucuses on Feb. 2, we introduced the resolution that says that Minnesota should divest from its Israel bonds. The resolution was brought up in approximately 35 precincts. It was passed in 31 precincts. The old guy running our precinct meeting is Jewish. He supported the resolution. He said Israel's behavior is criminal. We are finding more and more people who support the ending of the Israeli occupation. And we are in this effort "for the long haul." …..
Bill
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In my opinion, usually what causes people to get up and do something is either psychological or physical discomfort. Physical discomfort forces people to act for obvious reasons but the psychological is harder. People can live with guilt and ignore it and sweep it under the rug their whole lives. The key is to humanize the victims and put them (complacent bystanders) in the shoes of the oppressed. For example, how would you feel if your children had to walk by tanks and were in danger every day on their way to school or if it was your grandfather being harassed and beaten by violent settlers. Plays, books, movies and pictures (especially of children or harsh realities) help. Unfortunately, money is also a huge motivator so the phrase 6.8 million dollars/day in tax dollars to Israel needs to be repeated everyday to Americans.
Also, people see the situation in Palestine as different because they see both the indigenous Palestinians and the Israelis as natives. This is obviously a myth (for the most part) so it needs to be put in context and compared to similar situations so that people understand it.
For me, it was psychological discomfort that made me start going to protests and writing and posting articles and visiting refugees here. I always spoke out but it wasn't enough. The feeling that I had to do more was like a constant nag in the back of my mind. It still is. Failure to take a side in the face of oppression means you've sided with the oppressor. Neutrality is a farce!
Here is an article I just wrote in a small online publication about the situation of stateless Palestinians in Iraq. Feel free to post my views or article if you would like. Thanks for your emails!
http://www.examiner.com/x-37221-Chicago-ArabAmerican-Culture-Examiner~y2010m2d10-Citizens-of-nowhere-from-Iraq-to-Chicago
Faten
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Most people in Hawaii, where I live are oblivious to the problem. This is a mostly laid-back society. The newspapers are bad. The sports section takes precedence. People don't care. Yet for those who do know but don't care, I can't explain it. My husband and I have lived in Hawaii for 22 years now. I'm the only Chinese person I know of who cares. All my friends and relatives know that I care, but no one wants to get involved. If I bring up the subject it's like "There she goes again." Most of them are Christian or purport to be Christian. Some of them I suspect to be slanted towards fundamentalism. Some of them just don't want to spend the time to be political. Sports or shopping is more important. However, I consider this one of America's leading problems. If we can solve Palestine, we wouldn't have to fight all our unnecessary wars with Arabs or Muslims. Look at the lives and money we'd save!
When you figure this problem out, please let me know.
Lea
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You raise a very interesting, provocative - and, certainly, important - question as to why some people change while others remained enslaved by their positions on this issue, as well as how does change come about.
I have been somewhat active in this issue for some time now, having co-founded MEPAC, which acts as an advisor to Rep. Barbara Lee here in the SF Bay Area. So, I have been very interested in this human dynamic - particularly since I am of Lebanese descent while my wife is an American Jew. My wife has, over the years, come to understand the issue quite well, particularly because of me, and is sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinian people. However, her son and daughter remain 'closed down' to any attempts to discuss the issue openly, and are staunch supporters of the right-wing, Zionist position. As to why my wife has been able to change while my step son and step daughter cannot, I would offer the following thoughts:
1. My wife, to start with, was never an ardent Zionist. As she puts it, she was raised to neither sympathize nor hate the Palestinian people. Instead, she was raised, as were many of her Jewish friends at that time (she is 65 years old), with a narrative of the founding of the State of Israel that almost totally excluded mention of the Palestinians ! This reminds me of how we were raised in this country with so little knowledge of the existence, let alone the great suffering, of our own indigenous people. She was also raised as a secular, rather than a religious, Jew. Finally, she has always had a strong interest in other peoples and cultures. All of this in her character and background better enabled her to listen to the Palestinian narrative and be open to it. Once she opened herself to it, and actually met with Americans and Palestinians who have been victimized by the Occupation (The Nasrallah family and Rachel Corrie's parents once stayed with us for a couple of days), she was able to make the transformation. It's important to note that, despite all of these factors that enabled her transformation to occur, she has suffered the loss of friends and isolation from a number of Jews with whom she had quite close relations - in some cases, for many years. So, despite her general predisposition towards change, it has not been an easy transformation for her at all.
2. As for her kids, I theorize that much of the problem has to do with generational differences. Both her son (47) and her daughter (34) were deeply influenced by the 1967 War when, for the first time in modern history, Jews could ' celebrate' a 'great victory' of the Jewish people. They began to idolize the 'courageous' little State of Israel. Furthermore, the subsequent 'selling' of the Holocaust by the Holocaust Industry of which Prof. Finkelstein speaks so powerfully in his book on the subject, has created this extreme tribal culture, especially particular to this generation of Jews. This group has been instilled with so much fear of experiencing yet another holocaust in their lifetime, and of being condemned to permanent victimhood, that they are terrified of anything or anyone that might force them to reexamine their rigid position on the issue. In this emotional state, they are simply unable to see any humanity in the Palestinian people, who remain a 'subculture' or 'sub-civilization' in their minds. This pathology has been discussed by many others who are far more qualified and articulate than I am. However, I have been able to experience it, up close, with my wife's children for over 10 years. When I see that much fear in a person, I know that the possibility of reaching them, at least while they are in that emotional state, is remote. At this point in my relationship with them, I have totally given up trying.
I believe the only thing that will bring people like my stepchildren around on the issue is to, somehow, break through the fear by bypassing their minds and appealing to their hearts. Once they can begin to see the Palestinian people as human beings suffering under this terrible oppression - rather than terrorists, or terrorist sympathizers and supporters, bent on the destruction of the Jewish people - the opportunity for change will be there. That opportunity may, indeed, be created by their own children, most of whom are not burdened by the deep-seated fears of their elders and are able to clearly see how Israel's behavior violates the principles of Judaism that they have embraced.
Anyway, that's my two cents on the subject. Hope it sheds a little light.
Gene St.Onge
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Spot on, Mazin!
We need to free the Israelis.
I visited Palestine in 2004, for the first time as an adult, with the peace Cycle.
One of my reasons for getting a European passport was to get into my stolen homeland.
I got the passport in 1997, but waited till 2004 to visit with a group of Europeans........... WHY??
I was scared.
I was afraid, and thought that the Europeans provided me with protection.
(There were all the other psychological factors and fear of fulfilling a dream!!!!!!!!! But that is another story)
I found home then and there...
A year later I participated with a group of activists near Al-Khader village against stealing their land and allowing the farmers to work their lot...
I watched, dazed, the armed soldiers and the unarmed participants engage in a physical stand off (standing in two lines, holding hands and pushing each to make room/stop the participants from reaching the land)......
I found myself gazing at the face of one of the young armed soldiers and was amazed at my own feelings ............
It was a sort of 'out-of-body experiences', where I saw myself walking over, through the line of my Palestinian friends, hugging the young man, soothing him and telling him that it is OK, and that I do not want to hurt him...... He is safe with me.........and then I woke up, and could literarily feel me walking back to my spot, of fear getting shot before I reached him.
So, my answer to you would be; to liberate the Israelis, to take away their fear and to make them understand and believe that we never had anything against them as Jews in the first place........ We fight for our existence against whoever took our land irrelevant of who they are.......
Once that is reached, we have to address the injustice done to the Palestinians and correct it.....
Hope I made some sense.....
Love,
xo xo xo
Sahar
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I regret I cannot be with you at Ush Ghrab to help defend your land--I live in Brooklyn, New York. But with your permission, I will circulate your letter to everyone on all my lists. You ask the most important question: Why do some go along with injustice, while others decide they cannot be silent? I don't know the answer; but I do know that through our work, and especially through your work, more and more people are realizing the extent of the crimes being committed against the Palestinian people and are ready and willing to take steps to put an end to them. We see this dynamic in the US, and I believe it is the same in Europe as well.
Please know that our movement is growing stronger and more united every day here in metropolitan New York and elsewhere, and that while we cannot share your day-to-day struggles, we look every day for ways to express our support and solidarity.
Naomi Allen
Brooklyn For Peace
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Let me make a weird artistic practical suggestion--read a novel--Clock Without Hands--by Carson McCullers (born Smith), a woman from working class Southern US, popped up into the New York art scene, burned out, but her first and last novels, which I read, show a determination to explain why "whites" were racists down there. Clock is the last, the most mature, adult, plain, non-sensational, common-sensical. Her first, that got her famous, on her Gauleiter fellowship or whatever it was, Guggenheim, was Reflections in a Golden Eye, which told the same story but sort of allegorically, indirectly, by suggestion of scene and tone and gesture, whereas Clock has, in the classic style, some long conversations between the main players, main ideas, where the philosophy of racism is examined--or, as you would say, how people manage to live without questioning--one definition of philosophy being to ask deep questions.
Well, the practical effect of reading that might lead you to conclude that racists are deeply lonely, so what you need is to hug them.
Christopher C. Rushlau
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i don't have any answers to your question but i just wanted to write that i think about this all the time, well, at least often. i think the problem, or a major problem is the US media, or maybe the world media. people are just uninformed here. i think if they had more information they would want justice. or at least some of them. but how to get better media? i write to the hartford courant all the time. they used to print my letters but then stopped. my criticism of them has become unacceptable i guess. i still send them articles they (the editors) need to read.
Nina
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