17 - 23 May 2001
Issue No.534
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 17 - 23 May 2001 Issue No.534 |
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Actions speak loudest
Egyptians marked the 53rd anniversary of the Nakba with growing anger and despair. But activists argue that a shift from mourning to confrontation is taking shape, writes Omayma Abdel-Latif
Cairo May 15, 1948: The Arab League is the venue for a press conference. Asaad Dagher, the Arab League's press officer, tells reporters that the Arabs are leading a fierce battle against a cruel enemy. "This war," he says, "is a matter of life or death. It was imposed on us by an enemy which invaded our land, destroyed our villages, killed our women and children and then declared a state. Making peace with such an enemy is impossible." The Palestinian issue, he goes on, will be only settled in Palestine. Dagher speaks against the backdrop of an Egyptian army entering Gaza "to put an end to massacres committed by the Zionist gangs," a declaration of emergency laws in Egypt and a frenzy of fund-raising activities for Palestinian victims by the Red Crescent.
Egyptians picketting the Arab League on Tuesday
photo: Abdel-Wahab El-Seheti
Cairo May 15, 2001: Fifty three years have passed, two wars, a peace treaty and countless official and popular denunciations of Israeli aggression. The venue is still the Arab league headquarters. A peaceful rally organised by anti-Zionist and anti-normalisation forces from across the political spectrum is taking place outside the building. The demonstrators are there to hand a statement of solidarity with the Palestinian people to the League's secretary-general. The statement protests what it describes as "the current state of Arab acquiescence" to Israeli atrocities. It calls upon all Arabs to support the Intifada, laments Israeli occupation and aggression and urges Arab masses to "take part in the confrontation with whatever means available, including sit-ins, strikes, marches, peaceful demonstration and petitions." The initial list of signatories to the statement includes scores of Egyptian political figures, artists and writers, as well as prominent Arab public figures such as former Algerian President Ahmed Ben Bella; George Habash, Palestinian leader and Activist; Leith Shbelaat, head of the Anti-Zionist Association in Jordan; Farouk Abu Essa, secretary-general of the Arab Lawyers Union; Abdullah Al-Nibari, MP and Coordinator of the Anti-Normalisation Committee in Kuwait; Naseer Shammah, prominent Iraqi lute player; Mohamed Ablaawy, head of the Bar Association in Algeria; and Abdulfattah Al-Bassir, head of the Bar Association in Yemen.
The picket lasts two hours. Protesters raise banners calling for the expulsion of the Israeli and American Ambassadors from Egypt and a total boycott of Zionist and American products. "People feel totally defenceless as the cycle of Israeli atrocities against Palestinians continues to quicken," Abul Ela Madi, an Islamist activist, former secretary-general of the engineers' syndicate and one of the picket's organisers tells Al Ahram Weekly.
The picket in front of the Arab league, which took place on Tuesday, was in fact just one of many activities which took place in Cairo during the week of anger (as opposition papers dubbed the week commemorating the Nakba). Other activities included sit-ins at the Doctors' Syndicate, the Writers' Union, and the Bar Association. On Monday, the Journalists' Syndicate organised a two-hour sit-in and called for a brief symbolic strike on Tuesday. Lawyers carried out a similar short strike.
Throughout the week, Cairo papers have suggested that disillusionment prevails among Egyptians. But observers noted that, subdued though overt signs of anger on the part of the masses may be, the people have not forgotten. On the contrary. "Never in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict has Israel been the centre of Arab hatred and anger as it is now" writes Mohamed El-Sayed Said in the weekly Cairo newspaper. He believes that the lack of any concrete measures which could translate such anger into action is due to the heavy hand of the state and the lack of civil society channels through which the masses could be mobilised.
While some have accused the Egyptians in particular and the Arab masses in general of "fighting their battle against Israel on the screens of Satellite channels," the picture which emerged from Tuesday was of a nation which remains committed to the Palestinian cause. But "people are trying to come to terms with new realities after Israel stepped out of the peace camp and treated the Palestinians to a season of carnage and cruelty," novelist Radwa Ashour, a member of the Egyptian university professors' committee against Zionism told the Weekly.
Indeed the activities during the Nakba week were in many ways a continuation of support for the seven-month old Intifada. The statement protesters submitted to the Arab League Secretary-General on Tuesday, signed by some 500 Arab public figures, is not, in the words of Ashour, just another 'verbal' support of the Palestinians. Ashour believes that it reflects a desire to go beyond rhetoric and transcend official political discourse. "We avoided the sonorous clichés and gaudy speeches and focused on a number of popular demands," Ashour said.
Those demands are: to sever all relations with the Zionist state, to stop all forms of normalisation with Israel and to reactivate the Arab League Boycott Office. Marxists, Islamists, Arab nationalists, Muslims, Christians and liberals have signed the statement. This, says Ashour, in itself shows the wide consensus on the need to "do whatever it takes to stand up to Israel." Ashour dismisses charges that the petition was words without substance because these requests, she argues, will put concrete pressure on the Arab states.
Madi believes that an official response to these requests is unlikely. But he thinks that in the long run actions such as Tuesday's picket will help build a vibrant mass movement. The first step towards achieving this goal, Madi said, was the formation of a steering committee to coordinate the work between anti-normalisation and anti-Zionist groups from across the Arab world, such as the anti-normalisation popular rally in the Gulf, the Kuwaiti Democratic front, the national committee of University professors in Egypt, the Egyptian popular delegation to lift the siege on Iraq, and the popular movement to combat Zionism and boycott Israel.
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