I am now re-posting this very good article by my former Lecturer at USM, Penang. During my second year in 1975 he taught us a paper on "The issues in Malaysian Politics".
He is married to a USM alumna who is my super senior, a nice lady from Kedah. By the way he is polio stricken. At that time he moved around with a special walking stick. Now he sits on a wheel chair and being pushed around by his loyal and elegant wife.
May Allah give His blessings and Protection to this honourable man Professor Dr Chandra Muzaffar and all his family members. Ameen Yarrabul Aalameen.
CHANDRA MUZAFFAR:
Palestinians should seize this moment
2010/06/12
CHANDRA MUZAFFAR
CHANDRA MUZAFFAR
There are five signs that we may want to focus upon.
One, the flotilla has underscored the growing significance of people’s movements and citizens’ groups in the Palestinian struggle. In a sense, people’s movements have always been part of the resistance to Zionism.
It was people’s movements that first stood up to the intensification of organised Zionist colonisation of Palestine, following the Balfour Declaration of 1917. In the last 20 years there has been a proliferation of people’s movements and citizens’ groups in the Palestinian struggle, including groups that are part of the Palestinian diaspora.
People’s movements and citizens’ groups are a source of strength to the Palestinian cause. Since they are less constrained by considerations that inhibit governments from committing themselves totally to the Palestinians — considerations such as their relationship with the United States in an international system dominated by the West — these forces are able to adopt principled positions on behalf of the oppressed and dispossessed.
Though US and Western dominance is declining, there are still many governments in the Arab and Muslim world that are eager to project themselves as allies of Israel’s most devoted patron and protector. In such a situation, it is not surprising that people’s movements and citizens’ groups have been able to campaign with much greater vigour and vitality for Palestinian rights.
Two, the flotilla has also shown that the movement for Palestine is becoming more and more multi-religious, multiethnic and multinational.
There were a number of prominent individuals from outside the Muslim and Arab world in the six ships that were part of the May 31 flotilla and in earlier flotillas — the most notable of whom was the Irish Peace laureate Mairead Maguire. Equally significant, the active and extensive involvement of Turkish nationals has taken the Palestinian struggle beyond Arab boundaries.
The Palestinian movement should be encouraged to become more diverse in every sense of the word. It is when it embraces the whole of humanity that it will have the moral might and power to overcome Israel and Zionism, with their inordinate influence over US elites s in every sphere of life.
Some Muslim groups that tend to see the Palestinian struggle in exclusive religious terms will have to learn to appreciate the importance of an all-encompassing movement that transcends the Muslim ummah.
Three, the flotilla episode has also highlighted the value and virtue of peaceful, non-violent protest. The flotilla was a protest against the inhuman, unjust, illegal, blockade of Gaza imposed by the Israeli regime since 2007. None of the boats was armed. None of the passengers carried weapons.
It was the barbarism of the Israeli commandos who hijacked the lead ship, the Mavi Marmara, in contrast to the humanitarian mission of the flotilla that has created so much moral outrage. When stark violence is employed to crush peaceful protest, human sympathy is transformed into human solidarity with the victim. It is because the Israeli regime under Benjamin Netanyahu knows that non-violent resistance to Israeli power has tremendous psychological impact upon people that he is going all out to convince the world that the Mavi Marmara activists were violent.
As non-violent opposition to the Israeli regime gathers momentum, as rejection of Israel’s arrogance and intransigence becomes a global phenomenon, it will be totally isolated in the international arena. Israel’s isolation brought about through its own haughtiness will eventually compel its protector, the US, to force Israel to change its policies and to recognise the legitimate rights of the Palestinians.
This is why Palestinian freedom fighters themselves should not at this critical juncture undermine their struggle by resorting to acts of senseless, mindless violence. Killing Israeli civilians or indulging in revenge for its own sake will not advance the Palestinian cause. The goodwill and support generated by the flotilla tragedy should be harnessed to the hilt to strengthen the struggle.
Four, as a consequence of the flotilla episode, advocates of Palestine should step up efforts to tell the world their story. An oppressed people who have justice on their side should not hesitate to convey the truth to millions who still do not know how the Palestinians became the dispossessed, how Zionism and colonialism conspired to deprive them of their land, how the UN betrayed its own Charter and the inalienable right of the Palestinians to self-determination in order to create the state of Israel, and how over the last 62 years through wars, expulsions, usurpation of land, and territorial expansion, successive Israeli regimes have sought to cleanse an ancient land of its indigenous population.
Compared with Israel and the Zionist propaganda machine, whose tentacles extend to every nook and cranny of the planet, the Palestinians have been rather ineffective in sharing their pain and anguish with their fellow human beings.
It is not only the Palestinian case that should be put across with intelligence and eloquence; Israeli manipulations and machinations, its distortions and fabrications, its atrocities and injustices should be disseminated as widely as possible.
Five, if the flotilla tragedy has succeeded in bringing almost the whole of the human family together in condemnation of the Israeli action, can it help to unite the two warring Palestinian groups? Is there anything to suggest that the Palestinian Authority that administers the West Bank and Hamas that is in charge of Gaza, will now bury the hatchet?
If PA and Hamas cannot work together, if their feud continues unabated, will all the other changes that we have talked about here mean anything at all? Without unity and cohesion, without a single overriding purpose that transcends group interests, what hope is there for the Palestinian struggle?
Palestinian leaders from the PA and Hamas should realise that if they do not turn to one another in amity, the flotilla tragedy of May 31 might not be a turning point in the Palestinian struggle for justice and peace.
Dr Chandra Muzaffar is president of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST) and professor of global studies at Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang
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