March 30 is the international day of action in support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Campaign (BDS) against Israel for its ongoing illegal occupation of Palestinian land.
People all around the world today have organized public acts of resistance to Israel’s illegal occupation, such as educational events, flash mobs, boycotts of companies like Caterpillar and a new campaign to target the Jewish National Fund will kick off today.
The International BDS Campaign is modeled on the anti-Apartheid Movement that eventually brought down the Apartheid government of South Arica. This movement includes the boycott of specific companies, divestment from banks and financial systems and other institutions, which are profiting from or doing business with the State of Israel and a call for international sanctions against Israel until it ends the decades long occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.
The 30th of March was chosen as the day to bring attention to the BDS campaign because this is the day that Palestinians commemorate as Land Day. It is also a day that Palestinians remember the Nakba. The Nakba commemorates the expulsion of thousands of Palestinians from their homes and land in 1948 by Israeli forces.
The Israeli government just passed laws that make it illegal for Palestinians to participate in such commemorations or to engage in the international BDS campaign.
Land Day has a rich history. Palestinian author and activist Mazin Qumsiyeh writes about this rich history of Land Day in his book Popular Resistance in Palestine:
“Away from politics, grassroots efforts were functioning. The increased mobilization among Palestinians inside the Green Line took a dramatic and bold step forward with a large meeting in August 1975 in Nazareth attended by 110 individuals to defend the land. At this meeting, a committee was selected, headed by Anees Kardoush, to prepare for an even larger meeting.
This meeting, held in October 1975, included about 5,000 activists from many factions and created the Committee for Defense of the Land (Lajnat Al-Difa’ ’An Al-Aradi) with 100 members and an eleven-member secretariat. It began by protesting against the confiscation of 22,000 dunums in the Galilee and the declaration of an even larger parcel of land belonging to three villages (in the Al-Mil area) as closed military zones, with the intention of building nine Jewish settlements in this closed zone. A meeting was held in Nazareth on March 6, 1976. This included 48 heads of municipalities and local village councils and called for a day of protests and strikes on March 30, 1976 should Israel go ahead with its land confiscation policies. When it appeared the strike would take place, many areas outside of the Galilee joined it, including in the West Bank.
This became known as ‘Land Day’ throughout Palestine. The events actually started on March 29, when a demonstration against the Israeli army’s provocative mobilizations in the village of Deir Hanna. Later that evening the village of Araba Al-Batoof demonstrated in solidarity and a young man, Khair Muhammad Yassin, was killed by Israeli soldiers. He was the first martyr of the 1976 Land Day. More martyrs fell over the next 24 hours. The events were well organized and participation was high. The Israeli authorities reacted violently. Many were injured, six nonviolent protesters killed and hundreds arrested.
The events coincided with the secret Koening Memorandum which laid out plans for further discrimination and ethnic cleansing to ‘make the Galilee more Jewish’. The
Israeli government condemned the leaking of the memorandum, but no government official repudiated its racist content. After this successful popular event, differences arose that weakened the organizing committee and yet, the movement continues strongly to this day.”
The only local action we are aware of is a presentation tonight at the Bloom Collective by a Palestinian at 7pm.
On this day in 1920, Emma Goldman—anarchist, activist, political writer and organizer—arrived in Moscow after being deported by the U.S. government for “dangerous, destructive and anarchistic sentiments.” Having been born Russian, and having written in a positive light about the Russian Revolution, Goldman thought at the time that she was, in a way, coming home. Later, she was to write, “The individual whose vision encompasses the whole world often feels nowhere so hedged in and out of touch with his surroundings as in his native land.”
Emma Goldman was born in Kovno, a town in the former Russian Empire (now Lithuania). When she was 16 years old, she emigrated to New York City with her family. There, she became a garment worker. But she also launched into her lifetime work of radical organizing, anarchist writing, and advancing the causes of justice.
She met and became the partner of Alexander Berkman, and together they became active in the trade union movement. Goldman was witness to a bloody battle at the Homestead Strike, a steel mill overseen by Henry Clay Frick. Striking workers were attacked by 300 hired Pinkerton strikebreakers. Seven workers were killed and sixty more severely wounded. Goldman and Berkman decided to take direct action, which she described as “the logical, consistent method of Anarchism.”
Goldman and Berkman planned the assassination of robber-baron capitalist Henry Clay Frick. Berkman stabbed Frick twice and shot him three times. Frick survived and Berkman was sentenced to prison for 22 years.
Goldman was not charged, but was closely followed and arrested for a number of activities, including her work against militarism, distributing birth control information, and handing out pamphlets telling the unemployed to steal the food they needed to survive. Undaunted by her jail sentences, she carried on with her work. She was a tireless lecturer, speaking throughout the country on topics of social injustice in the United States and the foundational principles of anarchy. She encouraged the formations of unions in and advised how to organize demonstrations and acts of protest.
When the Criminal Anarchy Act was passed in New York State in 1902, Goldman was forced to go into hiding, but continued her activism through her writing. She moved to the tenements of the Lower East Side and worked as a nurse for the immigrant residents.
Berkman was released from prison in 1906; together he and Goldman founded the radical Mother Earth magazine. One of her most famous pieces for the magazine was called “Self-Defense for Labor,” in response to a series of violent attacks on union organizers. In the essay, she called for workers to arm themselves for their protection.
When World War I broke out, Goldman and Berkman started a new publication, Blast. Later, both were accused of violating the War Powers Act by speaking out against U.S. involvement in World War I, even though, ironically, Woodrow Wilson had done the same thing. Goldman had harshly criticized Wilson for reversing his stance on neutrality in the war during his 1916 campaign, and noted, “If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.”
The newspapers called her “Red Emma.” Goldman was one of thousands arrested and told that, as “subversive” aliens, they had no legal rights in the United States. (At this point, it had been 35 years since Goldman had entered the country legally and established residence in the U.S.) Held in prison illegally by order of J. Edgar Hoover, Goldman, along with Berkman and 247 other radicals, were deported to Russia.
Once there, Goldman discovered that Lenin had turned his back on anarchism and that the tenor of the Revolution had changed. The people were no longer in charge; a centralized and elite group of autocrats were. While attending an anniversary commemoration of the October Revolution, Goldman said it was “more like the funeral than the birth of the Revolution.”
She was even more disillusioned with the revolution which she had supported so ardently as she traveled to Moscow and other cities, seeing widespread famine, demonstrations for bread shut down by the secret police and the rights of workers denied. Goldman decided she must leave. She managed to obtain a Swedish visa. Later, Goldman wedded a Welsh miner and workers’ rights advocate, James Colton, who offered marriage solely so Goldman could obtain British citizenship. This allowed her to travel and speak without constant visa applications and arrests.
After she left the Soviet Union, Goldman wrote two volumes about her experience that were published under the title My Disillusionment in Russia. The work prompted socialist author Lincoln Steffens to say, “Emma Goldman, the anarchist who was deported to that socialist heaven, came out and said it was hell.”
Goldman moved to Paris, where she became the central figure in a group of American and British radicals. It was from Paris that she went to Spain in 1936 to observe the situation during the Spanish Civil War. She founded the Committee to Aid Homeless Spanish Women and Children, and was in charge of a pro-revolutionary news source in London, where reports of the fighting in the Times and other papers were badly slanted. Later, friends said that when Franco came into power, Goldman’s heart was broken.
Emma Goldman died in Toronto in 1940. Her life of constant service to justice and workers’ rights spanned nearly seven decades. She was the author of four books and countless articles addressing issues such as freedom of speech, imperialism, the corruption of capitalism, the rights of homosexuals, women’s suffrage, birth control, the rights of unions to organize and protect workers, prison abuses, anarchism, and revolution.
Special permission from the United States government had to be obtained to allow the body of “the most dangerous woman in America” to be buried in Chicago, near the monument for the Haymarket.martyrs of 1886.
Obama’s Justification for Bombing Libya
Last night President Obama addressed the country in order to convince the nation that his decision to bomb Libya was the right thing to do.
There has been much written about the uprising in Libya and the US decision to enforce a no-fly zone and then begin a bombing campaign for supposed “humanitarian” purposes.
One of the major questions raised so far was why Obama did not consult Congress first before making his decision on Libya. US Foreign Policy analyst Phyllis Bennis asks the same question. Bennis noted that the President said, “some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different. And as president, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action.”
Bennis responds by saying, “The United States of America turns a blind eye to atrocities in other countries all the time. In fact our policies enable those atrocities far too often. Obama spoke of places “where change is fiercely suppressed.” But the only example he mentioned was Iran — an often-discussed possible future target of U.S. military attack. He didn’t mention any of the other places “where change is fiercely suppressed,” such as Bahrain, a regional ally in the Middle East, where U.S. actions – non-military actions – could have real impact.”
Obama also made the claim that he didn’t have time to consult Congress. John Nichols, writing for the Nation noted that Rep. Dennis Kucinich had a clear response to such a claim when he said, “President Obama owes the nation an explanation as to why he had time to consult with 15 members of the UN Security Council, 22 members of the Arab League, and later, with 28 members of NATO, to garner support for an attack with Great Britain and France, but had no time to come to the United States Congress for prior authorization before attacking Libya.”
Michigan members of Congress also weighed in on Obama’s speech, with local Republicans Amash and Huizenga critical of the President, while Senator Levin expressed support. Such weak partisan responses are not what we need when the US takes such politically costly actions as bombing another country.
We need a much more lively debate that provides significant political analysis like the debate that Democracy Now! hosted between Juan Cole and Vijay Prashad or the observations of Paul Craig Roberts. One question we should always ask when the US goes to war is who benefits? According to a recent posting by Open Secrets it seems clear that one of the beneficiaries of this new bombing campaign in Libya are US weapons contractors.
Lastly, one thing seems clear we should be highly skeptical of what the commercial media in the US is telling the public about this bombing campaign and how long they have known about it before reporting on it, an important point made in a recent FAIR critique of a Washington Post article.
Rally Next Monday to protest State policies in Grand Rapids
Next Monday there is a call for local communities across the country to protest the draconian policies of both the federal and state governments.
This call is an outgrowth of the US Social Forum and the People’s Movement Assembly from last June’s gathering in Detroit. The People’s Movement Assembly states:
“On April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, where he had gone to stand with sanitation workers demanding their dream: the right to bargain collectively for a voice at work and a better life. The workers were trying to form a union with AFSCME.
On April 4, 2011, join union members, community activists, people of faith, students, youth, LGBTQ, civil rights, and immigrant rights allies to stand in solidarity with working people in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and dozens of other states where well-funded, right-wing corporate politicians are trying to take away the rights Dr. King gave his life for: the freedom to bargain, to vote, to afford a college education and justice for all workers, immigrant and native-born. It’s a day to show movement with actions, teach-ins, worksite discussions, vigils, faith events – a day to be creative, but clear: We are one.”
In Grand Rapids the rally is planned for 4:30PM at the State building in downtown Grand Rapids. People are encouraged to come with signs and meet at the corner of Michigan and Ottawa. The flyer that was sent out states, “It’s Time to Pull a Madison in Michigan!”
This will be a good opportunity for people to not only demonstrate their disgust with Governor Snyder’s policies but to talk about the necessity of building a larger and more aggressive campaign to reverse the domestic shock doctrine being imposed on Michigan.
Last week 75 people came to a protest in Grand Rapids while Snyder was in town to promote his Emergency Management Plan. The numbers need to be much bigger on April 4.
It is also worth mentioning that Snyder will be visiting Grand Rapids 2 more times in the near future, which provides people with opportunities to send a strong message to him that we will not put up with these anti-worker, anti-local communities policies. Snyder will be the guest speaker at a luncheon being hosted by the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce on April 11 from 11:45 – 1:30PM and again on Monday, May 16 when the Economics Club of Grand Rapids will be hosting him for a luncheon. Both events will be held at the Amway Grand Plaza.
GVSU Senior Michael Wolf has started a campaign to end the university’s contract with bottled water giant PepsiCo.
The campaign, called Free Water, “is an appeal to Grand Valley State University to terminate its sales of Aquafina (Pepsi co). Although the sales and contract are very lucrative, the university is clearly undermining its own mission to provide Grand Valley administration, faculty, staff, students, and community stakeholders with the required skills and capabilities to become better stewards and responsible global citizens in the workforce, communities, and family life.”
PepsiCo is one of the world’s largest bottled water companies and contributes to significant environmental destruction and the theft of communal water in countries like India. PepsiCo has also admitted that much of the bottled water they sell is actually just tap water.
Despite the corporation’s abysmal track record on environmental issues, PepsiCo wants to present itself as a “green” company. Food and Water Watch has an excellent report on how the bottled water industry is engaging in Bluewashing, which makes they claim that they are promoting water just when in fact the opposite is the case.
The Free Water campaign at GVSU consists of a petition campaign to pressure the university to end its contract with PepsiCo. The petition states:
“With the demanding schedule of college life, bottled water has become a popular item for many Grand Valley students and faculty on the go. But with these convenient beverages, there are numerous long lasting negative impacts on communities and the environment.
In recent years, there has been great work done by many to make our campus more sustainable, but some how in all this progressive change bottled water seems to go unnoticed and unchecked. Although the sales and contract with Pepsi Co. has been very lucrative for the institution, it is clearly undermining its own mission “to provide Grand Valley administration, faculty, staff, students, and community stakeholders with the required skills and capabilities to become better stewards and responsible global citizens in the workforce, communities, and family life.”
In a recent letter to the STARS Assessment Committee, President Thomas J. Haas states “the university will hold themselves accountable for achieving their strategic goals that are built around seven values that define Grand Valley.” These include effective teaching, liberal education, scholarship, service, inclusiveness, community, and sustainability.
So as a community of students, educators, and co-workers, we must all recognize the problems with the bottled water industry and take the necessary steps to reach our goal of a sustainable campus.”
You can sign the petition and help GVSU rid itself of one of their corporate contracts.
Amnesty International, S.A.F.E. (Students Advocating Freedom & Equality), and Nouveaux Socialistes have teamed up to bring a 3 speaker panel to look at what’s behind our massive prison build-up, why so many people of color are locked up and what we can do about it.
From death rows to super-maxes, over 2.3 million men and women sit behind bars today. “Lethal Injustice” speakers are organizing on the front-lines of the fight against criminal injustice, taking a stand against the racist, prison build-up and harsh sentencing like the death penalty. The 3 Speakers are Victoria Law – author, Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women, Mark Clements – former police torture victim, sentenced to life without parole as a juvenile and Randi Jones – activist, organizer, and member of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty.
Wednesday, March 30
7 – 9PM
GSVU downtown campus
Loosemore Auditorium
This event is free and open to the public. There will be plenty of time for Q&A after the panelists speak.
Over the weekend I was reminded of the fragility of peace around the world, when I was contacted by a local immigration lawyer in order to provide an affidavit for a Guatemalan who is facing deportation.
The Guatemala sign Peace Accords were signed in 1996, after 4 decades of a brutal counter-insurgency war by the Guatemalan army. The armed resistance forces were disbanded after 1996 and there was an agreement for the Guatemalan army to decrease its numbers as well. Unfortunately, the Guatemalan army has not reduced its numbers in any significant way and has been using the so-called war on drugs as a justification for maintaining military bases and maneuvers, mostly near indigenous communities.
In addition there has been virtually no Guatemalan military personnel or state officials brought to justice for war crimes against the civilian population and particularly against the Mayan population, in what the Historical Clarification Committee called a “genocidal campaign.”
In addition, there has been ongoing investigation into the crimes committed during the worst years of the counter-insurgency campaign (1979-1983), some of which has taken on regional projects. One such project is ADIVIMA, a project of support for victims of the political violence in the departments of Alta and Baja Verapaz. Like in other areas of the country, more and more clandestine graves have been discovered which has assisted in the process of determining the crimes committed against people, but also in helping family members have some closure.
When I was contacted over the weekend by an immigration attorney I was put in contact with a Guatemalan woman from Alta Verapaz who was seeking assistance to prevent her brother from being deported. The woman told me about how her father, who was a member of the Guatemalan army, was killed in 1982. At the time she believed that the guerrillas were responsible for his death, but now has seen documentation to prove it was really the Guatemalan military.
While this revelation has been very helpful for the family in understanding whom was responsible for their father’s death, it has created another dilemma for them. Since none of the perpetrators of these brutal crimes are still living in Guatemala and are either in the military or still have military connections it makes it very dangerous for people once they have discovered who was responsible for the crimes, especially if they have been public about their feelings.
Since the 1996 Peace Accords there has been numerous well documented instances of political violence being perpetrated by current and former military personnel towards people who are seeking justice. The most visible case to date was the 1998 murder of Bishop Gerardi by a Guatemalan officer the day after the Catholic Church released its own findings on the political violence in Guatemala’s 40-year war.
The woman who contacted me told me that if her brother is deported back to Guatemala he will be in great danger. This fear that she expressed to me is a well-founded fear as there have been numerous cases of this kind of political violence perpetrated against people who could name those who committed crimes during the war years.
I was more than willing to produce and sign the necessary affidavit and hope it will prevent her brother’s deportation. This is of particular concern now, not just because of the family’s situation in Guatemala, but also because deportations have increased under the Obama administration.
This incident was also a reminder to me that these kinds of policies have a human face to it, where real flesh and blood people, not just numbers, are at great risk of losing their dignity or worse, losing their lives. This should be of importance for those of us in West Michigan, since there are thousands of Guatemalans who live in this area who are at risk of deportation as the growing anti-immigrant sentiment permeates our political culture.
The Guatemala Catholic Church’s report on the years of political violence is entitled, Nunca Mas!, Never Again! We must do whatever we individually and collectively to say Never Again when our fellow humans are put in harms way. Nunca Mas!
Palestinian survivor and film share experience of the Nakba
PALESTINE REMEMBERED: UNDERSTANDING THE NAKBA
7 p.m. Weds. March 30
Film: “The Sons of Eilaboun”
with Nimer Haddad, from the destroyed village of Albassa, sharing his experience
At The Bloom Collective, Steepletown Center
671 Davis NW
(Corner of 5th and Davis)
The Nakba (catastrophe) is often misunderstood in the Western World. Facilitator of this event,Cathryn Young of Olives for Hope has traveled to Israel and Palestine several times. She calls on her experience there to bring a better understanding of the past events which impact the current conflict.
“The Sons of Eilaboun” about one village’s experience with the Nakba. Nimer Haddad, from Albassa in Palestine, will be on hand to add some information about his experience as a survivor of the destruction of his village. Light refreshments will be served afterwards.
“The Sons of Eilaboun” (أبناء عيلبون) tells the story of the human toll that Israel’s Plan Dalet claimed as told by the men and women who witnessed Israeli soldiers commit atrocities on a fall day in 1948. These survivors are determined not to let the horrors of this brutal plan be forgotten. The story of Eilaboun was repeated hundreds of times across the land that today is called Israel. The killing, expulsion and looting of these villages was a tactic spelled out in a document called Plan Dalet, developed by the high command of the Israeli Army to rid the future State of Israel of its Arab inhabitants, which it saw as a threat.
View the trailer:
Michigan is part of Millions Against Monsanto
(Part of this article was reproduced from the Organic Consumers Association.)
The Millions Against Monsanto campaign is forming 435 local chapters, one for each U.S. Congressional District. Our goal is for each chapter to reach 2300 supporters by World Food Day. October 16, 2011, will be a nationwide day of action, turning out 1,000,000 people against Monsanto and in support of our right to know – and choose – what’s in our food. Sign and distribute the Millions Against Monsanto petition. Join your local chapter.
Monsanto has a long history of environmental destruction along with contributing to major human health problems, but this campaign is focused on the corporation’s history of both controlling and modifying our food system.
There are 15 Congressional districts in Michigan and as of this writing there are 8 that have chapters of the Millions Against Monsanto campaign. The 3rd Congressional District, which encompasses Grand Rapids, does not have a active chapter.
Check out this short video produced by the Organic Consumers Association that explains the campaign and the food policies of Monsanto.
This Tuesday the local group Healing Children of Conflict (HCC) will host a free screening of the film Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land: US Media and the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict.
This documentary is part of a series of films that HCC is hosting over the next few months, along with information about the current conflicts that the US is involved in – Israel/Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan.
According to the Media Education Foundation, “Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land provides a striking comparison of U.S. and international media coverage of the crisis in the Middle East, zeroing in on how structural distortions in U.S. coverage have reinforced false perceptions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This pivotal documentary exposes how the foreign policy interests of American political elites–oil, and a need to have a secure military base in the region, among others–work in combination with Israeli public relations strategies to exercise a powerful influence over how news from the region is reported.”
Tuesday, March 29
7pm
Calvin College, Bytwerk Theater in the DeVos Center
Discussion will follow the screening
