Truths – Mazin Qumsiyeh
George Orwell said “in a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a
revolutionary act.” So let us all tell the truth:
-The Western governments have never really cared about human rights or
democracy. They propped dictators, toppled democratically elected
governments (like in Iran in 1953 and Chile in 1970), and engaged in
policies that killed many millions of innocent people. They support
murdering genocidal pyromaniacs like the rulers of the “UAE” and “Saudi
Arabia” and ”Israel”. They label as terrorists any genuine resistance
movements (in fact how vicious the attacks are on a country or a people
tells us precisely how honorable those being attacked are!).
-Palestine is just a physical base for Zionism to conquer the Arab world
and much beyond. The Zionists actually speak openly of how we will be their
servants and they our masters. All the data is there for people to study
and investigate. And as time went by, they made it impossible to criticize
Zionism or Israel and even increasingly “illegal” to do so. Again, an
assault on free speech and democracy in countries such as Germany, France
and the UK that claims the mantle of human rights.
-Colonial-Native struggles end in one of three scenarios: a) Algerian model
(nearly 2 million killed, 1 million colonizers and their descendents left
the country), b) genocide of natives (USA, Australia), c) coexistence in
one country of descendents of colonizers and of native people (the rest of
the world >140 countries). There is no fourth scenario. Palestine will not
be an exception. It is the last struggle and prolonged only because of the
resourcefulness and wealth of Zionists and the weakness of their
adversaries with collusion of corrupt dictators. But Zionists and all
those collusionists’ regimes need to decide on which of the three outcomes
they want. Prolonging it is not helpful to them. The number of Palestinains
today is 13 million (12 times what we were in 1917 when the Balfour and
Cambon declarations were made in support of Zionism). Impoverished natives
reproduce more than economically empowered.
-Those who engaged in exploitation and destruction in the past century
(Belgium in the Congo, British in Africa and Asia, US in Cambodia and
Vietnam etc.) largely got away with it because the world was fragmented.
Now, the world is far too crowded and us far too connected such that
military might no longer can be used effectively to dictate things without
repercussions. Hence the last attempts at this were failures (US in Iraq,
Israel in Gaza and Lebanon, US client states attack on Syria and Yemen).
This gives hope.
-Whether the PLO leadership of Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas signed the
Oslo accords out of ignorance or knowing intent of its criminality, staying
with it for three decades knowing how much of a charade it was and doing so
to keep their positions is indeed criminal behavior. And for the remainder
of Palestinain body politics, acquiescence is collusion. Why none of these
so-called leaders is willing to admit that this horrific delusion of
apartheid couched as “peace” was a second catastrophe/nakba at par with
1948/1949 nakba.
-The so-called Arab league since Jamal AbdelNasser died in 1970 (perhaps
assassinated) serves as a tool for US/Israeli of oppression and
imperialism. The gulf monarchies in particular used to tremble at the
speeches of AbdelNasser. Now they even get away with murdering and
dismembering an opposition journalist in their own embassy in Turkey. They
get away with committing genocide in Yemen and occupying it to give Israel
bases in the Island of Socotra. They get away with funding Israeli
apartheid and destruction of their own religious heritage. They impoverish
their people, and are happy to give hundreds of billions of dollars to
enrich coffers of imperialists and Zionists as long as those allow them to
keep oppressing people.
-The fault is not merely in our “leaders” who put short term financial
profit ahead of people and planetary survival. That would be easy to remedy
if it was. The fault is in us for keeping these “leaders” in power.
Clapping for them, facilitating their dominion over us, playing along with
their games of divide and conquer (fear mongering) and overall abandoning
our own dignity. We must believe in ourselves and our people (something
elite politicians do not want us to do). That is how we get rid of
colonialism (including Zionism), pandemics, the environmental nakba
(catastrophe) and the risk of nuclear war.
-Yet, the growth of the BDS movement and of people’s support for
Palestinian human rights miraculously continues to grow. If I look at the
number of attendees to webinars I am invited to speak to (2-3/week) and
growth of networks and actions, the conclusion is inevitable: Palestine
cannot and will not be liquidated. The question is where each of us stands:
the side of Biden, Trump, Netanyahu and ilk, or the side of native people.
If we were to tackle climate change, threats of nuclear war, global
pandemics, and much more, we should reconnect to native people and empower
them. Being on the wrong side here is existential.
The ultimate bit of truth is as Martin Luther King said: we either live
together as fellow human beings or die together as fools. A “win” of
business deals to control the world’s wealth will ultimately mean we either
wake up and reverse this or we ALL die as a species. We are afterall 7.5
billion people and they are a tiny minority who hope to run the world to
their short term advantage but will cause long-term catastrophe (extinction
as a species). Their children can have billions or they can have a livable
world but not both.
As for us common people, it is time to “revolt against the machine” as the
old song used to say OR we will all not survive (even our oppressors will
die with us).
Stay Human
Mazin Qumsiyeh
A bedouin in cyberspace, a villager at home
Professor, Founder, and (volunteer) Director
Palestine Museum of Natural History
Palestine Institute of Biodiversity and Sustainability
Bethlehem University
Occupied Palestine
http://qumsiyeh.org
http://palestinenature.org
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