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 Posted by Worse than a Crime on January 27 2008 (Sunday) : 04:25 PMUri Avnery, as usual, eloquently states exactly what I was thinking. What I find so fascinating about this latest development is that it is truly something new. The cycle of violence caused by Israel's incursions into Gaza and the Hamas' retaliation with Qassam missiles is so predictable, it is not worthy of comment. The Israeli government's and the Hamas' cynical endangerment of their own civilian populations, is again nothing new. But the "prison break" - now that is something truly novel and a constructive and pragmatic response. Constructive and pragmatic, first and foremost, because it relieves some of the relentless and inhuman pressure on the Palestinian population. But the political implications are equally important. Firstly, it exposes to all that not only Israel bears responsibility for this inhuman and illegal collective punishment. It could never have worked without the active collaboration of Abbas and the PA, Egypt and of course the U.S. But it also required the passive acceptance by the E.U.and the Arab states. I understand why the Palestinians might feel the whole world is against them. Exposing the truth doesn't necessarily bring change. What gives me hope that this act of defiance might in fact be a harbinger of real change, is that it truly is something new and different in the context of this conflict. I recently mentioned reading Tony Judt's book Postwar. He spends a good deal of the book talking about the horrors of the Communist regimes in postwar Europe, and the collapse of the USSR. He writes that the authoritarian regimes are propped up by what one might characterize as a type of "Stockholm syndrome." The population is so demoralized and hopeless, that they collaborate in their own oppression. People censor their thoughts and actions and don't even try to revolt because they believe the regime is omnipotent and their situation cannot change. They become active tools in keeping the regime in power. Hannah Arendt argued that violence is not power. Violence is weakness. But as Machiavelli long ago pointed out, violence is the main tool of totalitarian regimes precisely because it creates fear in people's minds. It is fear that creates the psychological collaboration between oppressor and oppressed. And this collaboration leads to a self-loathing which further reinforces the hold of the regime on the people. This analysis doers not "blame" the victim or remove responsibility from the oppressor. However, change can only happen when something or someone exposes this hollow core. Some catalyst helps remove the fear which leads to collective acts of rebellion. Moreover, the collective revolt helps overcome the self-loathing. People feel the "we" again, instead of the shame of the "I" or the fear of the neighbor. We are all in this together - we may have collaborated before but now we will redeem ourselves. Once this process gathers steam, no regime can long withstand it. Inevitably, even the army or police who implement the regime's control, will join the "We" and turn against the regime in the face of this collective power. Judt argued that it may have seemed as if the Communist regimes melted away. But what melted away was the fear that propped them up and kept them going. As soon as Gorbachev loosened up some of the control mechanisms, the hollow core was exposed. And as fear melted away, the collective power of the people found expression and led to the regimes' non-violent collapse In my City of the Dead series, I write about how during the first Intifada, our main job was to get Palestinians to pull down flags and whitewash slogans. At the time I thought it was a ridiculous waste of time. But now I understand it was quite a brilliant tactic. Not only did we instill fear in the population but we turned them into collaborators in their own oppression. We turned their hatred against us into hatred against themselves. Fear and self-loathing: the tools of totalitarian regimes. The breaking of the wall is an equally brilliant tactic. It removes the fear, but more important, it becomes a collaborative and collective act of defiance. The Palestinian people as a whole crossed the border into Egypt and actively chose not to collaborate anymore in their own oppression. They chose to change their lives for the better. If they continue down this path, no one can stop them. < Hamas Won't Go Away | >
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"Entre los individuos, como entre las naciones, el respeto al derecho ajeno es la paz -- Among individuals, as among nations, respect for the rights of others is peace" -Benito Juárez
"It isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it." -Eleanor Roosevelt "Let them call me a rebel and welcome. I feel no concern from it. But should I suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul" -Thomas Paine | |
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Worse than a Crime
