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CounterPunch
December
21, 2002
Real
Change Means People Must Change
Immediate Imperatives
by EDWARD SAID
The daily hemorrhage of Palestinian lives and
property accelerates without respite. Both the Arab and Western
media report horrifically sensational suicide bombings, complete
with pictures and names of the victims as well as gut-wrenching
details. I do not hesitate now to say again that these efforts
are morally repugnant and politically disastrous on all sorts
of grounds. But what I find just as awful is the fact that Israel
kills a far larger number of mostly unarmed Palestinian civilians
-- a 90- year-old man here, a whole family there, a mentally
disabled youth today, a nurse yesterday, and so on -- and refuses
to stop or in any way place restrictions on its troops who have
visited mayhem on the Palestinians unremittingly for far too
many recent months. Most of the time, however, these dreadful
slaughters are reported on the back pages of newspapers and never
mentioned on TV. As for the continued practice of extra- legal
assassinations, Israel is allowed to get away with phrases from
journalists who use words like "alleged" or "officials
say" to cover their own irresponsibility as reporters. The
New York Times in particular is now so clotted with such phrases
in reporting on the Middle East (Iraq included) that it might
as well be re-named "Officials Said".
In other words, the fact that illegal
Israeli practices continue to deliberately bleed the Palestinian
civilian population is obscured, hidden from view, though it
continues steadily all the time: 65 per cent unemployment, 50
per cent poverty (people living on less than $2 a day), schools,
hospitals, universities, businesses under constant military pressure,
these are only the outward manifestation of Israeli crimes  against humanity. Over 40 per cent of
the Palestinian population is malnourished and famine is now
a genuine threat. Non-stop curfews, the endless expropriation
of land and the building of settlements (now numbering almost
200), the destruction of crops, trees, houses have made life
for ordinary Palestinians intolerable. Many are leaving, or as
is the case with the inhabitants of Yanun village, must leave
because settlers' terror against them, the burning of their houses,
and threats against their lives make it impossible to stay. Ethnic
cleansing is what this is all about, although Sharon's demonic
plan is to do it in tiny daily increments that won't properly
be reported and are never seen cumulatively as part of a general
pattern. With the Bush administration backing his policies unconditionally,
no wonder that Sharon can afford to say "we are placing
no restriction on our operations. Israel is under no pressure.
No one is criticising us or has the right to do so. We are talking
here about Israel's right to protect its citizens." (Reuters,
IHT 15 November, 2002). Why this kind of arrogance goes unanswered
or isn't immediately associated with the kind of thing for which
Slobodan Milosevic is now being tried in the Hague is a sign
of how mendacious the international community has become. With
US cover, Sharon kills Palestinians at will under the guise of
fighting terrorism.
Were this not bad enough, there is in
addition the sorry state of Palestinian and Arab politics, many
of its leaders and elites never more corrupt, rarely more injurious
to their people as now. Neither collectively nor individually
have these people put up any systematic strategy, much less even
a systematic protest against Washington's announced plans to
re-draw the map of the Middle East after the invasion of Iraq.
All these regimes can do now seems to be either to market themselves
as indispensable to the US or to suppress any sign of dissent
in their midst. Or both together. The unseemly bickering and
disorderliness of the Iraqi opposition in London -- under the
watchful eye of the US's Zalmay Khalizad, an AUB graduate, once
a neighbour of mine in New York, now a neo- conservative protege
of Cheney and Wolfowitz -- gives an excellent idea of where we
are as a people. Representatives who represent only themselves,
the condescending imperial patronage of a power that is about
to destroy a country in order to grab its resources, the tyrannical,
discredited local regimes (of which Saddam's is the worst) ruling
by terror, the absence of any semblance of democracy within,
and without, such regimes -- these are not reassuring prospects
for the future. What is especially noticeable about the general
situation is the powerlessness and silence of the overwhelming
majority of the people, who suffer their humiliation within an
envelope of overall indifference and repression. Everything in
the Arab world is done either from above by basically unelected
rulers or behind a curtain by undesignated, albeit resourceful,
middlemen. Resources are bartered or sold without accountability;
political futures are designed for the convenience of the powerful
and their local sub-contractors; human compassion and care for
the citizens' well being have few institutions to nurture them.
The Palestinian situation embodies all
this with startling drama. As the culmination of its 35-year-old
military occupation the Israeli army has spent the last nine
months destroying the rudimentary infrastructure of civilian
life on the West Bank and in Gaza: people there, in effect, live
in cages, with electrical and concrete fences or Israeli troops
to guard and interdict their free movement. Yasser Arafat and
his men, who are at least as responsible for the current paralysis
and devastation because of what they signed away in Oslo, and
for having given legitimacy to the Israeli occupation, seem to
be hanging on anyway, even as extraordinary stories of their
corruption and illegally acquired wealth dribble out all over
the Israeli, Arab and international media. It is deeply troubling
that many of these men have recently been involved in secret
negotiations with the EU, with the CIA, with the Scandinavian
countries on the basis of their former credibility as surrogates
and servants of Arafat. In the meantime Mr Palestine himself
continues to issue orders and ludicrous denunciations, all of
them either futile or years out of date; his recent attack on
Osama Bin Laden is one example, as is his retrospective acceptance
of the Clinton plan of 2000. Still, he and his henchmen like
the sinister Mohamed Rashid (aka Khalid Salam) continue to employ
large sums of money to bribe, to corrupt, and to prolong their
rule past all decency. No one seems to be paying attention as
the infamous Quartet announces a peace conference and reform
with one voice on one day, withdrawing the plan the next, while
encouraging Israel in its repression on the third day.
What could be more preposterous than
the call for Palestinian elections, which Mr Arafat of all people,
imprisoned in an Israeli vice, announces, retracts, postpones,
and re-announces. Everyone speaks of reform except the very people
whose future depends on it, i.e. the citizens of Palestine, who
have endured and sacrificed so much even as their impoverishment
and misery increases. Isn't it ironic, not to say grotesque,
that in the name of that long-suffering people schemes of rule
are being hatched everywhere, except by that people itself? Surely
the Swedes, the Spanish, the British, the Americans and even
the Israelis know that the symbolic key to the future of the
Middle East is Palestine, and that is why they do everything
within their power to make sure that the Palestinian people are
kept as far away from decisions about the future as possible.
And this during a heated campaign for war against Iraq, during
which numerous Americans, Europeans and Israelis have openly
stated that this is the time to re-draw the map of the Middle
East and bring in "democracy".
The time has come for the emperor who
claims to be wearing new clothes, which he calls democracy, to
be exposed for the charlatan he really is. Democracy cannot be
imported or imposed: it is the prerogative of citizens who can
make it and desire to live under it. Ever since the end of World
War Two, the Arab countries have been living in various states
of "emergency", which has been a license for their
rulers to do what they want in the name of security. Even the
Palestinians under Oslo had a regime imposed on them that existed
first of all to serve Israel's security, and second, to serve
(and help) itself.
For all sorts of reasons, among them
that the cause of Palestine (like the liberation of apartheid
South Africa) has always served as a model for Arabs and fair-minded
idealistic people everywhere, it is today imperative that Palestinians
take steps to restore the fashioning of their destiny to their
own hands. The political stage in Palestine is now divided between
two unattractive and unviable alternatives. On one side there
is what is left of the Authority and Arafat, on the other the
Islamic parties. Neither one nor the other can possibly secure
a decent future for the citizens of Palestine. The Authority
is so discredited, its failure to build institutions so basic,
its corrupt and cynical history so compromised in every way as
to render it incapable of being entrusted with the future. Only
rogues will pretend otherwise, as some of its security chiefs
and prominent negotiators are now pretending. As for the Islamic
parties, they lead desperate individuals into a negative space
of endless religious strife and anti-modern decline. If we speak
of Zionism as having failed politically and socially, how can
it be acceptable to turn passively to another religion and look
there for worldly salvation? Impossible. Human beings make their
own history, not gods or magic or miracles. Purifying the land
of "aliens", whether it is spoken of by Muslims, Christians
or Jews, is a defilement of human life as it is lived by billions
of people who are mixed by race, history, ethnic identity, religion
or nationality.
But a large majority of Palestinians
and, I think, Israelis, know these things. And fortunately a
political alternative already exists that is neither Hamas nor
Arafat's Authority. I am speaking here of an impressive formation
of Palestinians in the occupied territories who in June of this
year announced a new Palestinian national initiative (moubadara
wataniya). Among its leaders are Dr Mustafa Barghouti and Dr
Haidar Abdel-Shafi, Rawia Al-Shawa, and many more independents
who understand that in its weakened state Palestinian society
is being targeted for "reform" by parties whose real
interest is to liquidate Palestine as a political and moral force
for years to come. Idle talk of elections by Arafat and his lieutenants
is meant to reassure outsiders that democracy is on the way.
Far from it -- these people simply want to continue their corrupt
and bankrupt ways by any means possible, including outright fraud.
The 1996 elections, it should be remembered, were conducted on
the basis of the Oslo process, the main aim of which was to continue
Israeli occupation under a different title. The Legislative Assembly
(al majlis al-tashri'i) was in reality powerless before both
Arafat's edict and the Israeli veto. What Sharon and the Quartet
now propose is an extension of the same unacceptable regime.
This is why the National Initiative has become the inevitable
choice for Palestinians everywhere.
In the first place, unlike the Authority,
it proposes liberation from, rather than cooperation with, the
Israeli occupation. Second, it is representative of a broad base
in civil society and therefore includes no military or security
people and no hangers on of Arafat's court. Third, it argues
for liberation and not a readjustment of the occupation to suit
elites and VIPs.
Most important, the initiative -- which
I am happy to endorse enthusiastically-- puts forward the idea
of a national unified authority, elected to serve the people
and its need for liberation, for democratic freedoms, and for
public debate and accountability. These things have been put
off for far too long. The old divisions between Fatah, the Popular
Front, Hamas, and all the others, are meaningless today. We cannot
afford such ridiculous posturing. As a people under occupation
we need a leadership whose main goal is to rid us of Israeli
depredations and occupations, and to provide us with an order
that can fulfil our needs for honesty, national scope, transparency
and direct speech. Arafat has a history of double talk. Barghouti,
on the other hand -- I use him as an example here -- takes a
principled line, whether he addresses Palestinians, Israelis,
or the foreign media. He has the respect of his people because
of his medical services in the villages, and his honesty and
leadership have inspired everyone who has had contact with him.
I also think it is very important that the Palestinian people
should be led now by modern, well- educated people for whom the
values of citizenship are central to their vision. Our rulers
today have never been citizens, they have never stood in line
to buy bread, they have never paid their own medical or school
bills, they have never endured the uncertainty and cruelty of
arbitrary arrest, tribal bullying, conspiratorial power grabs.
Barghouti's and Abdel-Shafi's examples, as do those of all the
main figures in the initiative, speak to our need for independence
of mind and responsible, modern citizenship. The old days are
over and should be buried as expeditiously as possible.
I conclude by saying that real change
can only come about when people actively will that change, make
it possible themselves. The Iraqi opposition is making a terrible
mistake by throwing its fate into American hands, and in so doing
paying insufficient attention to the needs of the actual people
of Iraq who now suffer the terrible persecutions of autocracy
and are about to be subject to an equally terrible bombing by
the US. In Palestine it should be possible to have elections
now, but not elections to re-install Arafat's ragged crew, but
rather to choose delegates for a constitutional and truly representative
assembly. It is a lamentable reality that during his 10 years
of misrule Arafat actively prevented the creation of a constitution
despite all his ridiculous gibberish about "Palestinian
democracy". His legacy is neither a constitution nor even
a basic law, but only a decrepit mafia. Despite that, and despite
Sharon's frantic wish to bring an end to Palestinian national
life, our popular and civil institutions still function under
extreme hardship and duress. Somehow teachers teach, nurses nurse,
doctors doctor, and so on. These everyday activities have never
stopped if only because necessity dictates unstinting effort.
Now those institutions and those people who have truly served
their society must bring themselves forward and provide a moral
and intellectual framework for liberation and democracy, by peaceful
means and with genuine national intent. In this effort Palestinians
under occupation and those in the shatat or diaspora have an
equal obligation to make the effort. Perhaps this national initiative
may provide a democratic example for other Arabs as well.
Edward Said
writes a weekly column for the Cairo-based al-Ahram.
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