Patterns Repeating

The importance of being on the right side of history

Photo by Patrick Perkins on Unsplash

Last week mass graves were discovered. Hundreds of Palestinian civilians, including women and children, had been tortured and executed by Israeli soldiers.

• Evidence of torture as nearly 400 bodies found in Gaza mass graves: Some victims found at two hospitals were ‘buried alive’ while others were ‘executed’ by the Israeli military.

Western media predictably ignored this. Even one person killed by a Palestinian leads to front page news about their “barbarity” - but atrocity after atrocity committed by Israel against the natives of Palestine gets ignored. That’s the level of hypocrisy and racism that is embedded in our government, media and society. The US president openly stated that there is “no red line” - nothing Israel could possibly do - that would stop him from supporting it. Not genocide, not mass torture, not war, not continuing land theft. He’s happy to turn a blind eye. Perhaps because this year alone he has been given almost two million dollars in bribes by Israeli lobbyists, on top of the millions already received.

And in the UK, Conservatives and Labour are the same, supporting the ongoing war crimes of Israel, an illegal occupying colony we created (with the help of hypocritical Conservative scummer Bloody Balfour) on stolen Palestinian land.

As part of the media trying to distract people from the horror of children being tortured or buried alive by Israel, it tried to imply that the student protests against the genocide, which have erupted in US universities, was somehow a bad thing.

Oh my, it’s what gives me hope!

Let me reiterate: these are brave students resisting American support for genocide. They are calling for peace and justice, even as the universities turn on their own students and professors, and have them battered and arrested by riot police.

• US campus protests over Israel-Gaza war – in pictures (Guardian)

• Revolt in the Universities (Chris Hedges)

• Gen Z Just Might Save The World (Caitlin Johnstone) (which also has a wonderful point about how the US rings another country with military bases whilst calling them expansionist!)

• Petition: Stop Suppressing Students Against Genocide In Gaza

• Will they crush the biggest student movement since Vietnam? (Jewish Voice for Peace)

Those students have the moral courage that most of our cowardly politicians and institutions lack.

I was heartened to see Greens standing up for the students, even when facing violence and injustice from the police. Jill Stein from the US Green Party (who is the politician I would vote for if I lived in the US!), was assaulted and arrested for being one of the few politicians willing to stick up for morality.

• US police capture Hamas leader at US university: They stopped the 73 year old woman by shoving a bike in her face

(The article linked to is satire, in case it's not obvious!)

See, the Greens are on the right side of history, with conviction and honesty.

These protests brought to mind similar protests against America's war crimes in Vietnam, how the students fought against war and oppression.

In both cases the people were right, but the government ignored them because it profits from war and supports genocide. I just watched the wonderfully satirical film Triangle of Sadness (the meal from hell scene was a masterclass in escalation). Amongst the many memorable quotes was Woody Harrelson’s character in this speech:

“My government murdered Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Bobby Kennedy, and John F. Kennedy.. My government overthrew good, honest, democratic leaders of the people in Chile, Venezuela, Argentina, Peru, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama, and Bolivia. Along with Britain, we carved up the Middle East, creating artificial geographical boundaries and installing puppet dictators.”

“War itself became our most lucrative industry. Every bomb that's dropped, somebody makes a million dollars. You don't have to know where those bombs are exploding. You don't have to see the grieving mothers and the mangled bodies of their children.”

“Eugene Debs gave this speech in Canton, Ohio, in 1918: "Throughout history wars have been waged for conquest and plunder... The master class has always declared the wars. The subject class has always fought... They've taught you to believe it to be your patriotic duty to go to war and to have yourselves slaughtered at their command... When Wall Street says war, the press says war."”

It is so relevant to what is going on around the world today. The mentions of progressive political figures being assassinated by the US establishment brought to mind one of my favourite eponymous albums, Rage Against the Machine, especially their blast of a song, Wake Up.

I recommend reading the lyrics. The song used to play at my university’s alternative disco, and I learnt every lyric by singing it along with my friends while dancing.

That cover shows Malcolm Browne’s photograph of Thích Quảng Đức, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, burning himself alive in Saigon in 1963 in protest. It has been repeated this year by the unbelievably brave and heroic US soldier Aaron Bushnell who set himself on fire in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington while screaming “Free Palestine”, a calculated sacrifice to show the horrors that our governments are inflicting on other nations. February 25th should be Aaron Bushnell day everywhere.

The patterns repeat again and again. Atrocities repeat again and again. There is a direct connection between the USA’s support for Israel and its My Lai massacre, its Sand Creek massacre, and its dropping of nuclear bombs on civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Malcolm X - referenced in the song Wake Up - said “The problem that exists in Palestine is not a religious problem... It is a question of colonialism. It is a question of a people who are being deprived of their homeland.” (Source.)

This has not changed, though the Israeli apartheid and oppression of his day has now escalated to genocide.

There’s an interesting article called A visual history of Black-Palestinian solidarity, which illustrates how protests against one form of injustice are not exclusive, and a fight for one is a fight for all.

(PS, for those who might think I am attacking the USA and forgiving the UK - bollocks. The UK is no better. I just can’t list every atrocity by every Western nation every time I mention the evil we have done. Don’t worry, I fully acknowledge the utter evil of past and present UK governments and leaders. The original colonisation of America and Australia, killing and stealing land from natives; slavery; firebombing civilians in Dresden; ripping India apart; choosing the US and Israel as allies, aligning ourselves with oppressors rather than allying with the victims of repression. Reparations are owed.)

But I want to end on something positive, not the arsehole behaviours of UK and US bunglers who have encouraged a world of violence, oppression, colonisation and war and led us to where we are today, whilst doing all they can to make things worse. Instead, here is Chris Hedges’ Sermon for Gaza. It represents why good people resist injustice, and why we are united in doing so. I particularly loved this quote:

“I encountered singular individuals of varying creeds, religions, races and nationalities who majestically rose up to defy the oppressor on behalf of the oppressed. Some of them are dead. Some of them are forgotten. Most of them are unknown. These individuals, despite their vast cultural differences, had common traits—a profound commitment to the truth, incorruptibility, courage, a distrust of power, a hatred of violence and a deep empathy that was extended to people who were different from them, even to people defined by the dominant culture as the enemy. They are the most remarkable men and women I met in my 20 years as a foreign correspondent. I set my life by the standards they set.”
—Chris Hedges

Promoted by Karl Drinkwater (Green Party) at The Gate, Keppoch Street, Cardiff CF24 3JW.
Disclaimer.