You can now hear and read an interview I recently did with Richard Capes of More Thought.
…The values that we’re seeing in the occupy movement right now, of direct democracy, of creating the world that we want to live in…the whole ethos of direct action – anarchist values and practices are all there. But everyday attempts to undermine the system are what counts in the long run – what happens between these protest waves.
The following from Israeli anti-occupation activists:
================
Dear Friends and supporters,
We are confident that you have already heard of Friday’s two grave attacks at the Anatot settlement. Most media reports have been partial and biased; we wanted to give you a full update on the chain of events and keep you informed of our plans.
Last Friday afternoon, a group of activists visited Yassin al-Rifa’i and his family in the village of Anata village, whose lands have been taken over by the settlement of Anatot (also called Almon). The settlers of Anatot have abused the family for years; in repeated attacks, they uproot trees, block water sources, steal agricultural equipment, and harrass and attack the farmers attempting to reach their lands. On Friday afternoon, it was a Palestinian flag that Yassin put up over a tent on his land that gave the settlers of Anatot an excuse for their pogrom. Dozens of settlers, armed with sticks and rocks, brutally attacked Yassin and his family, as well as the activists that accompanied him. The police were present during the pogrom, but stood on the sidelines and did nothing. Three people were hospitalized with serious injuries, three activists were detained for interrogation. Not a single one of the attackers was arrested.
That same evening, forty activists returned to the scene of the pogrom, in order to protest. When we reached the gate of the settlement, we were forbidden enterance, and we remained in front of the locked gate to protest the settlers’ violence and the lack of police resposibility. The settlers of Anatot quickly amassed at the gate: some had participated in the afternoon’s pogrom, some were soldiers and police officers in civilian dress, youths and grown men seething with hatred and hungry for violence. A number of police officers in uniform that were present did nothing to restrain the raging crowd. The settlers demanded that the gates be opened, and under the aegis of the police officers, they charged us, with fists, rocks, and clubs. One of the attackers tried a number of times to stab activists with a knife. When we tried to get away from the place, the attackers chased us, chanting “Death to leftists!” They were accompanied by a group of uniformed police officers. About 10 demonstrators were injured, three of whom were evacuated for medical treatment. Six cars were seriously damaged, and some were totally destroyed. One car door was etched with Starof David. Despite the attack, which was captured by both stills and video cameras, the police did not arrest a single rioter.
It’s not easy to process the meaning of these events. The magnitude of the hatred that the settlers of Anatot – ostensibly non-ideological and non-extremist settlers – showed, and the forgiving and accommodating behavior of the media, are a troubling testimony to the indifference that characterizes Israeli society after years of occupation and repression. We don’t pretend to know how to continue from here. But we feel that the events in Anatot last Friday are – and must be – a watershed moment. We turn to you in hope that we can continue to count on your support and participation in the near future.
Call to action!
Six years ago, the settlers of Anatot decided to move the fence on the southern part of the settlement and to annex private lands owned by residents of the village of Anata. Today their access to their own lands is blocked, thanks to this illegal fence. In Anatot, like in the rest of the settlements, there is no justice and no accountability, and the settlers can do as they please. The violence that took place on Friday is the clear product of the settlement project, the same project advanced and supported by every single government in the past four decades. Its consequences are occupation and repression, theft and land expropriation, the marking dissidents as traitors.
This policy is maintained by the courts, the police that are in collusion with the settlers, the media that doesn’t do its job, and an Israeli society that keeps its mouth shut.
We will not remain silent.
In the next few days we will announce our plan of action for Anatot.
In the meantime, help us out.
Share this video of Friday’s pogrom in Anatot so that as many people as possible can see with their own eyes the true face of the occupation.
Share the following links and stay tuned for more reports and information as they come in.
Incidents in Anatot, September 30, 2011: updates, videos, and call to action!
Where Solidarity Ends | Sara Benninga
The Ugly Face of Occupation | Yael Kenan
Policeman identified among settlers who attacked activists
23 Israelis and Palestinians injured in settler attack outside Jerusalem
A preliminary report with two clips and photos was published on Mondoweiss yesterday. A new (third) and longer clip from the attack was posted on Youtube today.
A new report – translated testimonies
Israeli Activists report about the attempted lynching of Palestinian farmers and Israeli activists by Anatot settlers, with Israeli police collaboration – 30/9/11
Background, as reported by activists:
For four years Yasin Abu Saleh el-Rifai and his wife Iman are fighting an almost doomed battle to save their land. The plot has belonged to his family, the el-Rifai family, for generations and it is his land, by inheritance. His grandfather’s tomb is situated there too. The impressive structure of the tomb still stands, but the settlers have desecrated it, removing the bones from the tomb and destroyed the any remains in order to eliminate the evidence. Unfortunately for him, and for many other residents of Anata, some of them members of his family, an Israeli settlement by the name of Anatot (aka Almon) was built on their land in 1982. This settlement has grown over the years and today its fenced-off area includes hundreds of acres of private, taboo-registered Palestinian land, which the Palestinian owners cannot access.
A few words about this settlement: the settlers of Anatot are some of the worst people. It is a secular, extreme right-wing settlement of police officers and army officers, some of them retired. So the law is with them…and far away from the public eye they do what they want, a constant rampage. Sicilian Mafia in Israel of 2011. Netanyahu’s personal driver is also a resident of Anatot.
El-Rifai’s story is somewhat different from the story of the other Palestinian landowners. He and his wife, an Israeli citizen, formerly Jewish with a “blue” ID are allowed to enter the settlement and they are not denied access to the land. This is not the case for the other landowners, who are not Israeli citizens, and are therefore required to conduct impossible coordination procedures in order to reach their land and cultivate it.
Their ‘blue’ ID cards have not spared el-Rifai and his wife a great deal of agony. In recent years Anatot’s settlers have been doing all they can to try to expel them from their land. The land that appears to be barren in the clip was once full of olive trees. Settlers ran over el-Rifai’s wife with a mini-tractor, the two were beaten on several occasions, requiring hospitalization. Yasin was also stabbed. Their share of misery has also included the uprooting of all fruit trees on the plot, destruction of agricultural equipment, contamination of the water well by throwing carcasses and garbage into it, burning the cave which is located within the confines of the plot, constant uprooting of any newly-planted trees, threats against the two as well as physical assaults on them. Countless complaints have been submitted to the police, but nothing has been done to stop the abuse. El-Rifai and his wife have not given up, and against all odds they are trying to hold on to their land. Yasin, desperate to find some support, contact activists through the Internet a few months ago.
Activist Tal’s account:
On Friday, a group of Israeli activists from various groups came down to sit with Yasin on his land, drink coffee, eat something, plant a few symbolic trees, and raise a Palestinian flag on his plot. We were certainly not looking for trouble. We were a small group, women and elderly people among us.
As we were sitting there, eating and laughing, Yasin received a call on his mobile phone, and the settlement’s security officer threatened him that “people want to come up and beat you to a pulp, if that’s what you want, keep the flag there”. The phone call was recorded. You can listen to it here.
Afterwards, seven police and military vehicles appeared on the main road. They stood there for half an hour. Then a few civilian (privately-owned) cars drove up to them, and there seemed to be an exchange going on. All of a sudden, all the military vehicles disappeared, except for one police car, and within minutes tens of private cars gathered on the road. Around 50 people came out of these cars, led by an army officer and a border police, who were not trying too hard to stop them…The rest is history. They came up to us, cursed us, beat us with stoned and clubs and iron rods, plundered. Yasin was thrown to the ground, his head cracked open with an audible bang (he’s not a young man, and he suffers from a heart condition and diabetes). He lay motionless on the ground for a few minutes, his wife holding his head and trying to stop the bleeding. We formed a protective ring around him, so that the bloodthirsty settlers don’t reach him. At that time I thought he was dead. I yelled “get an ambulance”, but no one paid attention. Miri (an activist) saw another activist, Edo, being beaten right next to a police officer, the settlers taking his camera. The officer was speaking on his phone. She approached him and said: “They stole Edo’s camera and now they are hitting him!”. The officer’s nonchalant response was “you’re interrupting my conversation”. I stood there trying to prevent the attackers from reaching Yasin. A police officer came and took me away saying he’s doing it to protect me. None of the officers protected Yasin. None of the attackers were pushed back or detained. Three of us were arrested on false charges and released later that evening because there was no case against them. The settlers chased us with their cars, causing damage to our cars, all the way up to West Jerusalem. Police officers who drove along, escorting us, did not think something had to be done about that. An entire spectrum of Anatot settlers, children, youths, women, the young and the elderly participated in the attempted lynching. No one would have cared if we had been killed there. Only the police who would have had to account for this.
Activist Guy’s account:
Three months ago, we, Taayush activists, received an appeal from the couple. They were almost desperate and they asked for our help. We came down there, another activist and I, and we met a lovely couple, whose sole request was not to be driven off their land and not to suffer physical abuse and damage to property.
Due to various constraints, it was difficult for us to help at the time, but we did try to enlist various activists and groups. In recent weeks, activists have come down a few times and planted new trees, but each time, after a short while el-Rifai found them uprooted.
Today, Friday 30.9.11, a few of us decided to come and visit the couple. We numbered around 15 people. we brought work tools with us, such as hoes. Needless to say, we were welcomed with open arms and much love.
A short time after our arrival, we saw the settlement’s security vehicle stop on the main road. It seemed that the security officer didn’t like our presence there and called the police. A Border police team arrived, but they didn’t intervene or interfere. Gradually, more and more settlers gathered on the main road, approximately 200 Meters in front of the hill where we were working. By noon, more than 20 settler cars could be spotted there. Then we saw two of them going up towards us, and I immediately called the police and alerted them to the danger. Below us, on the main road, we were able to see a few police cars, but they didn’t prevent the two settlers from approaching us. When they came near us, they cursed and threatened us. Other settlers began to go up the hill towards us, dozens of them…
I called the police again, I warned them that bloodshed was imminent, I begged them to send the policemen who were present uphill, towards us, but to no avail. The settlers came up to us, and attacked us. This was simply an attempted lynching. I was punched a few times, knocked down to the ground, and when managed to lift myself up, I saw a border police officer. I ran to him and begged him to protect me, to save me, I practically hung onto him. But they just kept hitting, not heeding his calls to step back. They broke one of the cameras which I was holding, snatching it and throwing it to the ground and trampling over it. More punches and I am screaming and seeing the end. Again, I find myself on the ground, again lifting myself up and starting to flee, my glasses are gone and I don’t know where I’m running, and I do see the settlers approaching me, and screaming at me. I ran towards the road and saw a police officer. Weeping and distraught, I asked him to save me.
He took me to the car and somehow I along with another activist managed to escape and exit the settlement.
But what about the rest?
They continued to be beaten, and the attempted lynching went on. Three of us are still at the hospital, one with a head injury, and I came out of all this, miraculously, with just one arm broken and lots of bruises
Courtesy of Variant magazine from Glasgow.
Darcus Howe, a West Indian Writer and Broadcaster with a voice about the riots.
An open letter to those who condemn looting (Part one)
Anarchists respond to the London riots – Solidarity Federation
Britain and its Rabble
A message to a country on fire
Moral Economy of the Crowd
A CALL FOR MORE UNDERSTANDING AND LESS MORALISING
Nothing ‘mindless‘ about rioters
There is a context to London’s riots that can’t be ignored
via Mute – A quick round-up of media which doesn’t fall into the backlash category
Criminality and Rewards – Max von Sudo
My first attempt at a short, generic “What is Anarchism” article, published in the last issue of the UK magazine New Internationalist
‘Mindless, violent thugs, hell-bent on sowing chaos.’ That’s the kind of press anarchists often get. Uri Gordon provides a more sympathetic take on a growing yet still little understood political movement.
I must have been eight or nine years old when I first heard the a-word. I don’t remember the context, but I do remember asking my mother what ‘anarchists’ were. She said: anarchists are people who want to destroy everything, and rebuild it all from scratch.
To her credit, my mother’s answer was quite generous: at least it included the part about rebuilding. It did get me thinking that anarchists had good intentions, that they wanted to ‘destroy everything’ not just for the hell of it, but because they thought ‘everything’ was unjust and dysfunctional. Her definition was neither accurate nor very nuanced, but there was a grain of truth to her association of anarchism with the notion that society needed to be changed at a very fundamental level, and that such change couldn’t happen through piecemeal reform but instead required a thorough transformation from the ground up.
I think I was lucky; imagine what most kids hear in response to the same question.
In 1910 American activist Emma Goldman wrote: ‘Anarchism stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion; the liberation of the human body from the dominion of property; liberation from the shackles and restraint of government. It stands for a social order based on the free grouping of individuals.’
A full century after Goldman penned her inspiring words, there remains the same need to dispel misconceptions about anarchism, bred of the unholy matrimony between plain ignorance and vile slander. Chaos, suffering, destruction, tumult, strife – these are things that anarchists have never called for. Yet most people imagine anarchists as people who do actively desire such things, people who must be either evil or insane.
But actually there is nothing very surprising here. As Goldman noted in the same essay: ‘In its tenacious hold on tradition, the Old has never hesitated to make use of the foulest and cruellest means to stay the advent of the New… Indeed, as the most revolutionary and uncompromising innovator, anarchism must needs meet with the combined ignorance and venom of the world it aims to reconstruct.’
This has led many who endorse anarchist values to shun the label itself. Some activists will call themselves ‘libertarian socialist’, ‘anti-authoritarian’, ‘autonomous’, or nothing at all, just to avoid the a-word and its bad PR. But there are also those of us who carry the label with pride, and tirelessly repeat what it really stands for.
What, then, do anarchists want? The answer is simple. Anarchists want a social order without rulers or hierarchy. Anarchists want freedom and equality for all. We want a world with no borders and no social classes, no gods and no masters, where power is as decentralized as possible and every individual and community can determine their own destiny. We believe in independent thought, international solidarity, voluntary association and mutual aid. This is why we seek the abolition of capitalism and the state, which place economic and political power in the hands of a tiny minority. It is why we resist patriarchy, white supremacy, compulsory heterosexuality and all other systems of domination and discrimination. And it is, I suspect, why so many teachers, corporate journalists, clergy, business people and police work so hard at hiding our values from the general public.
What also distinguishes anarchists is a strong commitment to being the change we want to see in the world. This approach, sometimes called ‘prefigurative politics’, is evident in decentralized organization, decision-making by consensus, respect for differing opinions and an overall emphasis on the process as well as the outcomes of activism. It is also the motivation for our constant effort to deprogramme ourselves and overcome behaviours and prejudices that are sexist, racist, homophobic, consumerist and conformist. As anarchists we explicitly try to be and live what we want, not just as end goals, but as guides to political action and everyday life.
This relates to the core of practical anarchist politics – the principle of direct action. Anarchists understand direct action as a matter of taking social change into one’s own hands, by intervening directly in a situation rather than appealing to an external agent (typically the government) for its rectification. It is a ‘Do It Yourself’ approach to politics based on people-power, mirrored by a total lack of interest in operating through established political channels.
Most commonly, direct action is viewed under its preventative or destructive guise. If, for instance, anarchists object to the clear-cutting of a forest, then taking direct action means that rather than petitioning the loggers or engaging in a legal process, they would intervene literally to prevent the clear-cutting – by chaining themselves to the trees, or lying in front of the bulldozers, or pouring sugar into their gas-tanks – all acts which can directly hinder or halt the project.
But direct action can also be understood in a constructive way. Anarchists who propose non-hierarchical social relations, or an ecologically responsible economy, undertake to construct and live such realities by themselves. Building alternatives from below, anarchists are involved in many projects, collectives and networks which are intended to be the groundwork for a new society within the shell of the old. Leading by example, anarchists seek to demonstrate in the most practical terms that ‘another world is possible’.
The anarchist idea is as ancient as the institutions it resists; the notion that people can live together without a class of rulers or concentrations of wealth inspired the earliest slave rebellions as well as religious heretics throughout the ages – including the early Christians. Modern anarchism, for its part, emerged with the workers’ movement of the 19th century, and at least in southern Europe, was the political orientation of its overwhelming majority. The first writer to call himself an anarchist was the French social theorist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who also declared that ‘property is theft’. Anarchism became clearly defined as an independent movement with the 1872 split in the First International between the workers’ representatives who followed Karl Marx, and those who followed Proudhon and the Russian revolutionary Mikhail Bakunin. Unlike the Marxists, who expected to overwhelm capitalism through parliamentary elections (or, later on, by seizing state power), anarchists called for abolishing the state and capitalism simultaneously. Whether they were peasants staging an uprising or militant unionists building up to a general strike, anarchists consistently steered a revolutionary course towards stateless socialism by stateless means.
It is only in the recent decade or so that anarchism has experienced a full-blown revival on a global scale
Anarchism had its ‘golden age’ during the early decades of the 20th century. These saw massive peasant and industrial union activity in almost every country of Europe and the Americas, as well as the liberation of much of the Ukraine during the Russian civil war of 1919-21, and much of Catalonia during the Spanish civil war of 1936-39. But the physical elimination of most of the European anarchist movement by the Bolshevik and Fascist dictatorships, as well as the American ‘Red Scare’, effectively wiped anarchism off the map.
It is only in the recent decade or so that anarchism has experienced a full-blown revival on a global scale. This was largely the result of the rediscovery – since the late 1960s – of anarchist values and tactics by numerous social movements which did not use the label. Activists also progressively came to see the interdependence of their agendas, manifest in ecological critiques of capitalism, feminist anti-militarism, and the interrelation of racial and economic segregation. Contemporary anarchism is rooted in the convergence of the radical ends of feminist, ecological, anti-capitalist, anti-racist and queer liberation struggles and agendas, which finally fused in the late 1990s through the global wave of protest against the policies and institutions of neoliberal globalization.
Today the anarchist movement is a mature global network of activist collectives, involved in any number of struggles and constructive projects – from resistance to mining in Indonesia and anti-nuclear action in Germany, through solidarity with Palestinians in the West Bank and communal farming in France, and on to climate campaigning in Britain and labour struggles in South Africa. Anarchists also participate in, and are often the main organizers of, projects and campaigns which have a much broader appeal – research groups who monitor the corporate world or international institutions, local economic initiatives, women’s health collectives, non-profit bicycle workshops, public art projects… The number of anarchist publications, bookfairs and websites is rising every year, as is the geographical, cultural and age diversity among anarchists themselves.
Another feature of anarchist action is its creativity and playfulness. Inspired throughout its history by avant-garde movements from the surrealists to the Situationists, and more recently by a diversity of global cultures and subcultures, anarchism today displays more humour and fun than perhaps any political movement in history. Activists will often stage street theatre displays, art exhibitions and elaborate hoaxes; they might come to a demonstration dressed up as turtles, pink fairies or business people; and they will certainly pay attention to the beauty as well as the productivity of their eco-farms and community gardens.
Yes despite all these features, most of the public is only exposed to anarchism when some of its exponents employ confrontational tactics in mass protests – smashing the windows of banks and corporate outlets, blockading political and economic summits and, in some countries, fighting police and/or neo-Nazis in the streets. Whether these tactics are still effective or have turned into theatrical rituals is debatable. I, for one, believe that the occasional public display of organized rage and well-targeted disruption contributes to the vigour and dynamism of the ongoing social struggle. Also debatable is whether this gives anarchists a positive or a negative reputation. Here, it is worth noting that many people who complain about confrontational action in their own countries are quite supportive of similar or even more militant tactics when they occur in Libya, Bolivia or Iran. Are they merely not-in-my-back-yard pacifists? Or do they believe that their right occasionally to elect a capitalist politician gives their governments more legitimacy than a dictatorship should enjoy? Anarchists certainly do not.
In a future plagued by energy scarcity, climate instability and financial meltdown, anarchist values and forms of organization will become increasingly important. The 21st century may well see the collapse of global capitalism under the weight of its own excesses – but there is no guarantee that what we get instead will be any more humane or equal. Eco-fascism, eco-feudalism and eco-fundamentalism are just as likely. The challenge anarchists and their allies face today is to disseminate their skills and ideas, creating a better chance that the move through industrial collapse will lead to a truly liberated world.
Emma Goldman, Anarchism and Other Essays
Colin Ward, Anarchy in Action
Gustav Landauer, Revolution and Other Writings
Daniel Guerin, No Gods, No Masters: An Anthology of Anarchism
Peter Marshall, Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism
David Graeber, Direct Action: An Ethnography
Uri Gordon, Anarchy Alive!: Anti-Authoritarian Politics From Practice to Theory
My article “Anarchism Reloaded” – also the second chapter of AA! – has been translated into Slovenian and appears in the newly released collection Antologija anarhizma 3 from the publisher Zalozba Krtina.
Here’s a machine translation of the blurb:
When the end of the 19th century seemed that we will see a “century anarchism,” the political events again showed that “competition of ideas” throughout history has never been particularly fair. Only a few decades the anarchist movement was due to a systematic anti-anarchist “heresy” is only a pale shadow of the global network, which is prefigurirala completely new political alternative. It is therefore not surprising that many authors in recent decades has announced the end of anarchism too, but then again were forced to revise their theses. Today it is unnecessary to emphasize that within the “post-seattelskega” alter-globalist movement anarchism space just the most creative and most lucid radical boil. A return to Anarchism for a new notebook Anthology of Anarchism represents both relief and a new problem. In recent years, recorded a bifurcation anarchist thought and practice which lead to a degree where it is due to heterogeneity difuznosti and “flow” practically impossible to determine the limits of anarchism. Despite these limitations, the choice of trying to overcome the risk of smoothing anarchism on one dimension, the task of identifying relevant and anachronistic within the new anarchism left to the reader himself. The new notebook does not support “true” anarchism, nor an uncritical and naive inventory of cases and evidence that anarchism is possible and necessary. If the texts collected in this volume Anthology of Anarchism in less than clear and unambiguous answers, stressed the heterogeneity and provide internal kontradikotrnost questions about anarchism, this is only the successful realization of the goal.
Just got the cover art for the new book The Accumulation of Freedom: Writings on Anarchist Economics in which I have a chapter on “Anarchist economics in practice”.
Here’s a quote from the blurb:
The only crisis of capitalism is capitalism itself. Let’s toss credit default swaps, bailouts, environmental externalities and, while we’re at it, private ownership of production in the dustbin of history. The Accumulation of Freedom brings together economists, historians, theorists, and activists for a first-of-its-kind study of anarchist economics. The editors aren’t trying to subvert the notion of economics — they accept the standard definition, but reject the notion that capitalism or central planning are acceptable ways to organize economic life.
Contributors include Robin Hahnel, Iain McKay, Marie Trigona, Chris Spannos, Ernesto Aguilar, Uri Gordon, and more.
The Polish Anarchist Review is running a translation of my article on anarchism and the politics of technology in its current (12th) issue, with a commentary by Jarosław Urbański. I’m still waiting to receive the latter, so I can run it through google translate and see if I understand anything…
Also featured are sections on “Capitalism in a green disguise” (with an article by my friend Kolya Abramsky), “Collective rebellion” and “The apparatus of daily repression”.
Declaration from students in Rome
…You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows: occupation of universities everywhere in Europe, blockage of the cities, manif sauvage, rage. This is the answer of a generation to whom they want to cut the future with debts for studying, cuts of welfare state and increasing of tuition fees.
The determination of thousand of students in London, the rage of who assault the Italian Senate house against the austerity and the education cuts, has opened the present time: this is because the future is something to gain that start when you decide collectively to take risk and to struggle.
The extraordinary struggles that we are living have the capacity to show a present with an intensity that exceed the linearity of the time, that refuse our precarity condition: it is an assault to the future!
We don’t want to get into debt, we don’t want to pay more fees to study in London as well as in Paris, Wien, Rome, Athens, Madrid, Dublin, Lisbon. This European movement is about refusing austerity policies, refusing to get into debt for these miserable politicians. Que se vayan todos!
What is happening nowadays in Rome first spread out in Athens and Paris, then in Dublin and London: it is the irruption of a movement who speaks a common language, the same young generation in revolt, who inhabits different cities but shares the same determination to struggle, «floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee».
We have to meet each other and invent a new political grammar against the weakness of the Nation-state and their strategy to face the crisis: their receipt is just austerity, cuts and debt. In Italy we have occupied not only universities, but also blocked motorways and the mobility of the country in order to circulate struggles outside the national borders and coming in Europe and beyond. The circulation of struggles is living within the Book Block and the wild demonstration in London, Paris and Rome.
This autumn we are living a real European student movement, that is various and radical, really heterogeneous. Its common reclaim comes from a protest that is born in the middle of the crisis, and that represents the most courageous answer. It is a struggle composed by different struggles, heterogeneous temporalities that reclaim more scholarships for student and a public university for everyone.
Within the book block a new generation recognized and found itself in the protest. Today in lots of cities the Italian student movement is showing something more than just solidarity: this is because your struggle is our struggle and all around Europe students are against the increasing of fees, the privatisation of the university and the education cuts. You are not alone in UK: an European event, a new generation do not want to stop. We have the force whom want to change the world and we have the intelligence to do it. It is just the beginning!
We propose to students, researchers, precarious workers and PhD students to build up together an European meeting at the beginning of the 2011, to continue the struggle, to transform this wind in a tempest!
Uniriot Roma, Anomalia Sapienza
>> more info: www.uniriot.org
Abdallah Abu Rahmah, a coordinator of the Bil’in Popular Committee Against the Wall and the Settlements, was arrested on 10 December 2009. Although committed to nonviolence, he was falsely accused and convicted of inciting violence, based on testimonies extracted under pressure from two children. This is his message on International Human Rights day.
A year ago tonight, on International Human Rights Day, our apartment in Ramallah was broken into by the Israeli military in the middle of the night and I was torn away from my wife Majida, my daughters Luma and Layan, and my son Laith, who at the time was only nine months old.
As the coordinator of the Bil’in Popular Committee against the Wall and Settlements I was convicted of “organizing illegal demonstrations” and “incitement.” The “illegal demonstrations” refer to the nonviolent resistance campaign that my village has been waging for the last six years against Israel’s Apartheid Wall that is being built on our land.
I find it strange that the military judges could call our demonstrations illegal and charge me for participating in and organizing them after the world’s highest legal body, the International Court of Justice in The Hague, has ruled that Israel’s wall within the occupied territories is illegal and must be dismantled. Even the Israeli supreme court ruled that the Wall’s route in Bil’in is illegal.
I have been accused of inciting violence: this charge is also puzzling. If the check points, closures, ongoing land theft, wall and settlements, night raids into our homes and violent oppression of our protests does not incite violence, what does?
Despite the occupations constant and intense incitement to violence in Bil’in, we have chosen another way. We have chosen to protest nonviolently together with Israeli and International supporters. We have chosen to carry a message of hope and real partnership between Palestinians and Israelis in the face of oppression and injustice. It is this message that the Occupation is attempting to crush through its various institutions including the military courts. An official from the Israeli Military Prosecution shamelessly told my Attorney, Gaby Lasky, that the objective of the military in my prosecution is to “put an end” to these demonstrations.
The crime of incitement that I have been convicted of is defined under Israeli military decree 101 regarding the prohibition of hostile action of propaganda and incitement as “The attempt, verbally or otherwise, to influence public opinion in the Area in a way that may disturb the public peace or public order” and carries a 10 year maximal sentence. This definition is so broad and vague that it can be applied to almost any action or statement. Actually, these words could be considered incitement if they were spoken in the occupied territories.
On the 11th of October of this year I was sentenced to 12 months in prison, plus 6 months suspended sentence for 3 years, and a fine. My family and I, especially my daughters, were counting the days to my release. The military prosecution waited until just a few days before the end of my sentence before appealing against my release, arguing that I should be imprisoned longer. I have completed my sentence but remain in prison. Though international law considers myself and other activists as human rights defenders, the occupation authorities consider us criminals whose freedom and other rights must be denied. In the year that I have spent in prison, the demonstrations in Bil’in, Naalin, Al Maasara, and Beit Omar have continued. Nabi Saleh and other villages have taken up the popular struggle. Within this year, the International campaign calling for Boycott Divestment and Sanctions of Israel until it complies with International law has grown considerably, as have legal actions against Israeli war crimes. I hope that soon Israel will no longer be able to ignore the clear condemnation of its policies coming from around the world.
In the year that I have spent in prison, my son Laith has taken his first steps and said his first words, and Luma and Layan have been growing from children to beautiful young girls. I have not been able to be with them, to walk holding their hands, to take them to school as they and I are used to. Laith does not know me now. And my wife Majida has had to care for our family alone.
In 2010 children in Bil’in and throughout the West bank are still being awakened in the middle of the night to find guns pointed at their heads. In the year that I have spent in prison, the military has carried out dozens of night raids in Bil’in with the purpose of removing those involved in the popular struggle against the occupation.
Imagine if heavily armed men forced their way into your home in the middle of the night. If your children were forced to watch as their father or brother was blindfolded, handcuffed, and taken away. Or if you as a parent were forced to watch this being done to your child.
This week the door of our cell was opened and a sixteen year boy was pushed inside. My friend Adeeb Abu Rahmeh was shocked to recognize his son, Mohammed, whom Adeeb had not seen since he himself was arrested during a nonviolent demonstration 16 months ago.
Mohammad smiled when he saw his Father, but his face was red and swollen and it was clear that he was in pain. He told us that he had been taken from his home two nights previously. He spent the first night blindfolded and shackled, being moved from one place to another. The next day after a terrifying, disoriented, and sleepless night he was taken to an interrogation room, his blindfold was removed and an interrogator showed him pictures of people from the village. When questioned about the first picture he told the interrogator that he did not recognize the person. The interrogator slapped him hard across the face. This continued with every question that Mohammad was asked: when he did not give the answer that the interrogator wanted, he was slapped, punched and threatened. Mohammad’s treatment is not unusual.
Young boys from our village have been taken from their homes violently and report being denied sleep, food, and water and being kept in Isolation and threatened and often beaten during interrogation.
What was unusual about Mohammad is that he did not satisfy his interrogator and with competent representation was released within a few days. Usually children, just because they are children, will say whatever the interrogator wants them to say to make such treatment stop. Adeeb, myself, and thousands of other prisoners are being held in prison based on testimonies forced or coerced out of these children. No child should ever receive such treatment.
When the children who had testified against me retracted what they said in interrogation and told the military judge that their testimonies where given under duress, the judge declared them hostile witnesses.
Adeeb Abu Rahmah and I are the first to be convicted with incitement and participation in illegal demonstrations since the first Intifada but, unfortunately, it does not seem that we will be the last.
I often wonder what Israeli leaders think they will achieve if they succeed in their goal of suppressing the Palestinian popular struggle? Is it possible that they believe that our people can sit quietly and watch as our land is taken from us? Do they think that we can face our children and tell them that, like us, they will never experience freedom? Or do they actually prefer violence and killing to our form of nonviolent struggle because it camouflages their ongoing theft and gives them an excuse to continue using us as guinea pigs for their weapons?
My eldest daughter Luma was nine years old when I was arrested. She is now ten. After my arrest she began going to the Friday demonstrations in our village. She always carries a picture of me in her arms. The adults try to look after her but I still worry for my little girl. I wish that she could enjoy her childhood like other children, that she could be studying and playing with her friends. But through the walls and barbed wire that separates us I hear my daughter’s message to me, saying: “Baba, they cannot stop us. If they take you away, we will take your place and continue to struggle for justice.” This is the message that I want to bring you today. From beyond the walls, the barbed wire, and the prison bars that separate Palestinians and Israelis
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