RADIO INTIFADA (intifada=shaking off - oppression/silence)
What: ISRAEL AND IRAN
When: Thursday, April 8, 2:00-3pm PDT
Where: KPFK 90.7fm Los Angeles, 98.7 Santa Barbara
streaming live at www.kpfk.org
available on audio archive for 90 days
Yigal Arens, Director of the Intelligent Systems Division, USC Information
Science Institute activist, will talk about why the current US
administration is making settlement the key focus for re-igniting the peace
talks.
Sasan Fayazmanesh, Professor of Economics at CSU Fresno, discusses
the United States and Israel's policies toward Iran, its effect on the
region
and the impact on the region of imposing new stronger sanctions on Iran.
Produced & hosted by SWANA's Hamoud Salhi, Farah Davari and Lucy Der
Tavitian, analysis of regional news coverage by Hamoud Salhi
***
From: "Sid Shniad" <shniad@gmail.com>
http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/04/the-mighty-pen-of-edward-said/*
*The Mighty Pen of Edward Said *
by Ron Jacobs
Dissident Voice: April 3rd, 2010
In 1994, David Barsamian and Edward Said published a set of interviews
Barsamian had conducted with Said in the years previous. This collection was
titled *The Pen and the Sword *and was recently republished by Haymarket. I
remember reading the book as soon as it came into the library I worked at
then and being impressed by the clarity of thought contained therein. The
two men discuss many things: the role of culture in maintaining empires, the
responsibility of intellectuals in modern society, the surrender of those
intellectuals to the power structure, and the Oslo accords of 1993. It was
Said who made the clearest and most forceful critique of those accords,
essentially calling them a capitulation on the part of Yasser Arafat. This
analysis did not endear him to any of the power structures
involved–Washington, Tel Aviv, or the Palestinian Authority.
Re-reading Said today, then reading the news concerning the PA and its role
in opposing Hamas and the release of the Goldstone report makes Said's
observation that the Oslo accords were nothing but capitulation that much
truer. It was Said's contention that Israel needed a Palestinian partner to
go along with its decision to continue its expansion into Palestinian lands.
Sadly, says Said, they found that partner in the person of Yasser Arafat.
Arafat's death in 2004 (not long after Said's) and subsequent placement in
the pantheon of Palestinian heroes may have modified Said's impressions of
the latter day Arafat had he survived him. However, it is unlikely that
Said's perception of the accords and their subsequent annihilation by Israel
and Mr. Arafat's successors would have improved. In fact, the continued
flouting of those accords by Israel and the capitulation of the Palestinian
Authority to Tel Aviv's snubbing have only proven Said's original
impressions.
Some of the most interesting conversation in these pages regards the
Palestine Liberation Organization's (PLO) transition from a liberation group
to one concerned only with creating a nation, no matter how that nation
looked. Said's observations on the shortcomings of nationalism as an
ideology or strategy are telling and apply across the board to all national
liberation movements that trade in their desire for liberation for the
simple fact of nationhood. When this occurs, argues Said, the way is open
for those only interested in profiteering and power to take control. By
discussing this, the two men break the ice on one of the modern world's
major quandaries: how does a people make the shift from a colonial state to
one that doesn't just merely replicate the colonial situation without the
occupiers troops and administration? As any student of history can see, the
postcolonial world has not created a situation where equality exists between
the former colonies and the former colonialists. In fact, the disparities
and systems of control are arguably greater now than they were in colonial
times, at least in some circumstances.
These discussions make it clear that Said believes that the liberation of
one's land from the yoke of colonialism is not enough. A people also need to
liberate their minds from that yoke, too. This is where Said's thoughts on
culture–both that of the oppressor and of the oppressed–become so important.
He was one of a very few modern leftists that put the role of culture in
developing a people's consciousness foremost among the elements that go into
that development. Conversely, Said also understood and wrote a lot about the
use of culture by the imperial power to colonize the occupied peoples' mind.
Like Frantz Fanon, he was not afraid to challenge the assumption of the
occupiers mindset by some of the colonized. Interestingly,
religiously-inspired resistance groups like Hamas understand this only too
well. While Hamas certainly addresses the economic and political oppression
of the Palestinians with programs that feed and educate them, they also
celebrate an Islamic version of Palestine's culture of resistance, thereby
planting a relationship between Islam and Palestinian liberation. It's not
that secular Palestinian culture does not exist, says Said, it's that those
intellectuals who should be encouraging its spread have abdicated their
responsibility. Like intellectuals in the West, they have either ceded to
the power of politics, money or both.
Of course, Palestine has not thrown off the occupier's authority and
replaced it with their own. The control Tel Aviv exerts over the people of
the West Bank and Gaza today is more complete than it was before Oslo.
Nothing proves this more than the recent killings of Palestinians by IDF
forces and the subsequent incursion of Israeli tanks into Gaza. Furthermore,
the current argument in the media between Washington and Tel Aviv over new
settlements in East Jerusalem underlines that truth.
Despite the overall sense of historical tragedy underlined by greater
tragedies to come, Said manages to find some hope. Like a flower rising from
the dirt of a freshly dug grave or the phoenix rising from the ashes, the
despair present in these interviews is brightened by the hope for a
different future. One wonders whether he would find a similar hope today.
As I write this review, rumors of the possibility of another Intifada appear
in the media. The arrogant insistence of the Netanyahu government that the
international treasure that is Jerusalem belongs only to Israel and the
consequent territorial invasion of the Arab quarter by Israelis may well
exceed Palestinian patience once again. If another uprising does occur, the
plight of the Palestinians will once again be on the world's front pages, as
will the propaganda onslaught from Tel Aviv and Washington revising that
story to their perspective. Yet, when all is said and done, I wonder if
anything will really change.
Ron Jacobs is the author of *The Way The Wind Blew: A History of the Weather
Underground*. His most recent novel *Short Order Frame Up*
http://www.amazon.com/Short-Order-Frame-Ron-Jacobs/dp/0977459098>is
published by Mainstay Press.
He can be reached at: rjacobs3625@charter.net.
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