وَمَا خَلَقْتُ الْجِنَّ وَالإِنسَ إِلاَّ لِيَعْبُدُونِ [Qur'an, 51:56]
Order Out of Chaos – A Chronicle of the Gaza Freedom March 2009
A film by GFMer Sarah Mahmoud in Toronto, Canada.
Includes her own footage as well as footage from the wider GFM community. Screened in Toronto in March 2010.
Watch Part 1 below:
Click here to watch all 7 parts: Playlist
Students have carried out rallies at dozens of universities and schools across the United States in protest against cuts to public education funding.
Some demonstrations turned violent as students blocked the main gates of a California university and smashed car windows.
The fragile state of the economy has forced states in America to make difficult budget decisions, which has meant millions of dollars cut in funding.
Raegan Miller, associate director for Education Research at the Center for American Progress, told Al Jazeera the public has felt and will feel the difficult budget choices that have been made.
“The students should be upset, they didn’t cause the economic mess that we are in,” he said.
“The revenue situation is so severe which will mean cuts in the classroom, this means especially art, music and physical education which are considered less essential subjects.”
Al Jazeera’s Kristen Saloomey reports from a protest rally in New York.
[youtube es7dyWazV7E Al Jazeera – US students rally over budget cuts]
Source: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/03/20103553047747753.html
This week marks the Sixth Annual Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) which is taking place across the globe in over 40 cities. Since it was first launched in 2005, IAW has grown to become one of the most important global events in the Palestine solidarity calendar. IAW 2010 takes place following a year of incredible successes for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement on the global level. Lectures, films, and actions will highlight some of theses successes along with the many injustices that continue to make BDS so crucial in the battle to end Israeli Apartheid.
Along with the growing support for IAW, there has also been a large, growing opposition from the “other side”. IAW is largely a campus-based event taking place on college and university campuses around the world. Last year saw the first real backlash in opposition from university officials who made numerous attempts to shut down the week-long events and to demonize the student organizers. This year the opposition movement has grown even further to include members of Parliament and even Toronto School’s Director of Education, who have come out and condemned even the use of the word “apartheid” claiming it incites hatred and anti-semitism.
I think when the opposition becomes so desperate as to you use the crux of anti-semitism to validate their arguments, this is when we know we are on the right side. Unfortunately, in today’s political climate, this term is being used to paint those of us who stand for equality and justice with a broad stroke of the brush. In my opinion, it’s this term (anti-semitism) that is hateful, not the term “apartheid”.
Let’s be clear about something: what is taking place in the Occupied Palestinian Territories today and for the past 60 years is indeed apartheid and anyone who denies this fact is completely delusional or ignorant of what this term really means. Even South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu used the term to describe Israel’s actions, as did Israel’s own Ehud Barak. So let’s take a look at the United Nations’ definition of the crime of apartheid (as stated in 1973, describing the apartheid regime in South Africa) and decide for ourselves whether or not this applies to Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories:
“inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them”.
Sounds like Israel’s actions perfectly fit the bill of this definition…
Below is an episode from Al Jazeera’s hard-hitting program “Inside Story” which focuses specifically on Israeli Apartheid Week, the Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions (BDS) movement, and the implications they have for the racist apartheid regime of Israel.
[youtube 7Ac1SnQfOfw Al Jazeera’s Inside Story – Israeli Apartheid Week]
The Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram Weekly has a remarkable editorial titled “How to Protest” about the effects of the Gaza Freedom March and the events that unfolded in Cairo after the Egyptian government refused to allow 1362 international delegates to go to Gaza. Please substitute “internationals” for “Europeans” as our delegates represented 44 countries.
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2010/980/op4.htm
How to Protest
By Salama A Salama
European protesters took over our streets last week. In a show of solidarity with Gaza’s inhabitants and to protest against all sorts of injustices and blockades, European demonstrators marched through our streets, picketed our public squares and told us what they thought of the wall we’re building on Gaza’s borders.
Several hundred protesters came from 42 European countries to take part in pro-Gaza protests. So what did we do? We sent our security forces to contain them. We also prevented them from going to Gaza. Interestingly, the protesters refused to be intimidated. Instead, they picketed the French Embassy, they marched around the Giza Zoo, and they even stood guard at the famous steps of the Press Syndicate.
Curiously enough, the police did not prevent them from demonstrating in front of the Israeli Embassy. But clashes took place, and in some instances the Europeans had a taste of what Egyptians regularly experience at the hands of the police and their karate- trained auxiliaries.
During the past few days, Egyptians had proof that our police can act humanely, but only with foreigners. In front of the French Embassy, I saw a foreign man standing alone, surrounded by three circles of policemen. He was carrying a picket sign, but the police refrained from harming him in any way.
The Europeans came all the way to express their views, peacefully and orderly. In doing so, they gave us a rare glimpse into the working of peaceful resistance. And they stood for what they believe in. They vented their anger at a policy of blockade into which some Arab countries have become actively involved, either out of fear or desire to placate the Israelis.
The demonstrators slept in the streets and the squares. They occasionally obstructed traffic. And they sent to the Egyptians, Arabs, and the world a clear message, one which television stations relayed without delay across the world.
In this country, we don’t have a culture of protest. In this country, protest is treated as an act of sabotage, as a challenge to law and order. This is why we missed a rare opportunity to expose Israel’s crimes. How hard would it have been to let the European demonstrators walk into Gaza? Why did we fail to give them the chance to come face to face with an Arab nation living under occupation?
In Egypt, we don’t know how to encourage protest marches against Israel. But we know how to come up with lame excuses for building a controversial wall on our borders with Israel. Are we really worried about our own security, or are we protecting Israel?
In this country, it is wrong to protest. It is even wrong to be different. This is why our government gets so angry when opposition parliamentarians demand an explanation for the wall. Even in a parliament that prides itself on being a leader of all Arab parliaments, the opposition is demonised and abused for asking the right questions.
Worse still, our Islamic Research Council found itself pressured into issuing a statement in support of the wall. You would think that Sharia has nothing to do with security walls, but no. Our leading clergymen have decided to call anyone who opposes the wall an apostate. Don’t ask me why.
Many may ask what’s the point of it all. Did the Europeans achieve anything by marching in our streets? If you ask me, they achieved a lot. For starters, they sounded the alarm bells for the entire world, which is more than what our governments and nations have done so far. The protesters not only put Israeli actions on the line, but also underlined our own failings.
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Check out Democracy Now!‘s amazing coverage of the Gaza Freedom March in Cairo!
In Egypt, hundreds of solidarity activists from around the world are being prevented by the Egyptian government from entering Gaza. Dubbed the Gaza Freedom March, organizers were planning to cross the border last Sunday to commemorate the first anniversary of Israel’s assault on Gaza that killed 1,400 Palestinians and thirteen Israelis. We get a report.
