How willing are we to be inconvenienced
How willing are we to be inconvenienced to get peace/justice?
by MBQ June 5, 2007
An old saying in the fight against segregation in the South was "free your mind and your ass will follow". I was thinking about this in the past few days in several events that ranged from racists lecturing their audience about how muslims treat non-muslims to supposed peace gatherings that did not want to deal with violations of human rights and international law when it is done to Palestinians (too controversial! even though funded by our taxes) to gatherings of few dedicated activists discussing the growing (but still in its infancy) movement of boycotts, divestments, and sanctions. Hypocricy, racism, and infiltration of peace movements by government agents, racists and others is not new (read e.g. David Dellinger's book "From Yale to Jail" about the 1960s). But in this short article, I want to focus on something else, 70% of the US public thinks the invasion and occupation of Iraq was wrong, nearly 100% of Arabs and Muslims in America think both the occupation of Iraq and of Palestine are wrong. Yet of these millions few want to change their routine to effect change. I want to take time to address those who have yet to do so by asking them the question How willing are we to be inconvenienced to get peace/justice? and till when will those who are silently observing (or cursing the darkness instead of lighting a candle) remain silent. But first, please take the time to review this very short vide on Gaza. It will change you even if you think you know what is going on: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhOa5hv3zas
So How willing are we to be inconvenienced to get peace/justice?
After all, it is about convenience. Fear of inconvenience permeates us. Our lives are commercialized (go shopping Bush told us after 9/11), sanitized from the suffering of others, routinized lest we encounter the unfamiliar, and stigmatized (both stigmatizing ourselves and others). All in all, avoiding what the Budhists call "having joyful participation in the sorrows of this world".
How willing are we to be inconvenienced to get peace/justice?
After 60 years of ethnic cleansing, 6 million Palestinians refugees and displaced people. After 530 depopulated villages and towns and more land being confiscated daily (All done with Western governments direct and indirect support).
How willing are we to be inconvenienced to get peace/justice?
After American-made Caterpillar bulldozers uprooted over 1 million olive and other fruiting trees. After colonial settlers (some of them soldiers) with US made M16 killed thousands of native civilians in their own lands including when the natives were protesting peacefully.
How willing are we to be inconvenienced to get peace/justice?
After nearly $1 trillion of OUR taxes were sent to support the Israeli apartheid state (over $11 million daily) and some of it was circulated back to spread propaganda in America and gain the subservience of Congress with bribes (free trips, campaign donations, etc).
How willing are we to be inconvenienced to get peace/justice?
After the lobby, lobby that was rated by Fortune magazine as third and sometimes fourth in power (and the first that advocates for a foreign state) with its tentacles in media and academia, after this lobby managed to get us into a war on Iraq that cost the lives of nearly 1 million people (and made 2 million refugees, a genocide 10 times the size of the atrocities in Darfur), After this lobby ramped up its campaign of lies and distortions about Iran to prepare us for another, even larger catastrophe.
How willing are we to be inconvenienced to get peace/justice?
After an International Court of Justice ruling that the apartheid wall violates International Law, after Israel continues to violate dozens of UN security Council resolutions and hundreds of UN General Assembly resolutions. After our Israeli-Occupied US Congress violates US laws by funding those who persistently violate human rights and by issuing "resolutions" that are contrary to US laws and constitutional protections (e.g. on separation of religion and state).
How willing are we to be inconvenienced to get peace/justice?
After our government held and tortured so many people without charges and without benefit of trial for years at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and countless secret prisons around the world.
How willing are we to be inconvenienced to get peace/justice?
After Howard Zinn once wrote "you can't be neutral on a moving train" and countless books and literature (much of it available on the internet shows that you can't complain while feeding the beast that is devouring your brothers and sisters. Curse not the darkness, light a candle.
How willing are we to be inconvenienced to get peace/justice?
Will we be inconvenienced by working with those whom we do not agree with 100%? Will we be inconvenienced by having to argue for our positions, defend ourselves, speak truth to power? Will it be easier to just talk to the converted?
How willing are we to be inconvenienced to get peace/justice?
Will we be inconvenienced by demonstrating in Washington DC this Sunday (see endtheoccupation.org) instead of watching TV or whatever else we do? Will we be inconvenienced by taking time to write letters to editors, churches, and politicians? Will we be inconvenienced by picking up the phone to call them while not sure of the response? Will we be inconvenienced by engaging in boycotts, divestments, and sanctions, thus risking being called names ("anti-Semitic", "self-hating Jew", etc) by those who promote segregation, apartheid and racism? Will we be inconvenienced by taking matters into our own hands instead of waiting for Arab or American politicians (people becoming the leaders that politicians follow)?
How willing are we to be inconvenienced to get peace/justice?
And when death comes knocking on our door (as it inevitably will), will we remember how much time we spent at our jobs, petty lives, conveniences, fun? Or will we remember ...How willing were we to be inconvenienced to get peace/justice?
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Mazin Qumsiyeh |