Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 12 - 18 October 2000 Issue No. 503
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875

	Egypt Elections Palestine International Economy Opinion Culture Books Interview Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters

Something to count on

By Hani Shukrallah

Resistance to oppression is not a strategy, nor is it an ideological or cultural product, though it can only be expressed in (always constraining) ideological and cultural terms; it is an assertion of people's fundamental humanity. This is a humbling thought, at once gratifying and sorrowful.

It is gratifying in as much as it underlines some of what is best about the human condition; that kernel of innate dignity and the rebelliousness it fuels, both of which never cease to surprise both the oppressors and the oppressed, as they come ó almost always unexpectedly ó to overturn our equally human aptitude for servility, submission and sheer survival, on practically any terms at all. It shows that we have a capacity for empathy, social solidarity and self-sacrifice, at least as much as we have for cruelty, greed and egotistical self-interest. The question, after all, is not about which set of "qualities" are more consistent with our "human nature," but rather about the moral choice involved in defining our humanity ó in itself, a process of struggle.

The flip side of this coin is not so optimistic, however, for it readily concedes that the possibility, or even the hope, of success is not a condition for the act of resistance to take place; only oppression is.
"What is happening in Nazareth today is a pogrom, bearing all the hallmarks which were well known to Jews in Czarist Russia ó primarily the collusion between the racist attackers and the police. This is a day of shame for the state of Israel ó and it is a warning sign for the disaster in store, if the country does not rid itself of the racist scourge." It was thus that the Israeli peace group Gush Shalom on Tuesday described the orgy of unbridled violence unleashed by thousands of Israeli Jews against Palestinians, not in the "Territories," in the West Bank or Gaza, but in Galilee ó against "citizens" of the "Jewish" state.

The self-styled latter-day Sparta had let loose its fury, and armed force, against the only unarmed section of what otherwise is a soldier-citizenry, for the victims had dared to raise their voices in solidarity with their brethren across the Green Line; they had been moved to anger by the televised murder of a 12-year-old boy.
And so it happened. In less than two weeks, a quarter of a century of peace processing came apart at the seams. The fundamental nature of the so-called Israeli-Palestinian, or Israeli-Arab, conflict, which the peace process was specifically designed to obfuscate and distort, was laid bare as never before and, throughout "historical" Palestine, oppressor and oppressed faced off in open confrontation: missiles, tanks, helicopter gunships and genocidal rage on one side of the barricade, stones, the odd Klashnikov and a will to resist that never ceases to astound (even to perplex) on the other.

Resistance has no reference other than itself, and oppression. The ramblings of Hillary Clinton, Madeleine Albright and the rest about "Arafat's responsibility" would have been laughable, had laughter been possible while being subjected to one barrage after another of images of unrestrained brutality backed by overwhelming force. All this and ultimatums too, after which, the Israeli ambassador in Cairo tells us, "the Israeli army will do as it pleases."
The peace process is over and done with. Its basic logic was to adapt the Arabs to Israeli regional supremacy and the Palestinians to the status of a subject population. The mechanisms were complex as they were manifold. One need only recall the Arabs' peace strategy following the October War to realise how effectively they were divested of each and every negotiating card they believed they held. The post-war "joint Arab front" was quickly dismantled; each Arab "party" was pitted against the others, and international legitimacy was transformed into sole American sponsorship. Deferment, confidence-building measures, the continual transmutation of the Arab sides' (for soon enough there was no Arab side) minimum demands into pre-negotiation maximums from which new sets of minimum demands had to be extracted: all of these were epitomised by the Oslo process. Above all, a lengthy time frame was needed for the growing weakness of the Arab and Palestinian parties to be not only achieved, but internalised and conceded. The Arabs were to be given an historic lesson in realism. In return, all they could expect were "creative" cosmetics by which the reality of Israeli regional supremacy and Palestinian subjugation and dispossession might be made more palatable.

But just at the moment of fulfillment, it all came apart. Cosmetics are no longer possible. The only options now available are either continuing resistance or an utterly humiliating surrender which only a barefaced Quisling could sign. Some among Arafat's aides may possibly be equal to the task. I very much doubt that Arafat is.

Resistance is not a strategy, but the Palestinians are not a suicidal nation. Strategy must kick in; the Palestinian people's indomitable will to resist oppression needs to be transformed into a plan for successful resistance. And in doing so, they need to be able to count on the prospect that the solidarity sentiments that have swept the Arab world at the cost of a 12-year-old's agony and death will not dissipate; more, that they will be developed beyond the usual empty rhetoric, slogan-mongering and just sheer silliness.

Egyptian students have been wonderful. The solidarity rallies of the opposition parties, in which right-wing liberals declared total war on Israel and Islamists called for a boycott of American cigarettes, were merely depressing.

 

© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved

	weeklyweb@ahram.org.eg