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Understanding Palestine : Introduction of On Palestine book
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The speaker discusses their role as an educator, academic, and activist in sharing anecdotes about Palestine through podcasts. They highlight the importance of understanding and questioning the motivations behind activism. The speaker explains how they became an activist through reading books and express the belief that literature is a powerful tool for change. They discuss their collaboration with Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pape on a book about Gaza and the importance of discussing the past, understanding Zionism, and the role of civil society in advocating for Palestinian rights. They also touch on the future of Palestine and the challenges faced during the writing process. The speaker hopes that their book will challenge the dominant narrative and contribute to the struggle for justice. Welcome everyone. Right now we are facing genocide in Gaza, and as an educator, as an academic, and as an activist, I would like to, through these podcasts, share you various anecdotes that have been written by prominent scholars on understanding Palestine. Today we are going to discuss a brief snippet of it by a book called On Palestine by Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pape. The introduction of the book starts with, How did you become an activist and why Palestine? These are the types of questions many activists will be asked at one or the other point when talking about their life, work, motivations with a non-activist person. While I often want to reverse the question and ask, why aren't you an activist? I usually decide with insight to try my best in answering this potentially frustrating question. Why? Because I think it is important to understand where the questions are coming from, and it is an important tool to look inside yourself, take a step back, relive your journey, pause, and realize that you too, not that long ago, may have asked the same questions of anyone engaged in working toward a better world, where equality, justice, and freedom apply to all, regardless of nationality, ethnicity, country of origin, skin color, political affiliation, or even sexual orientation. How then does one become an activist? The easy answer would be to say that we do not all become activists. We simply forget that we are. We are all born with compassion, generosity, and love for the others inside us. We are all moved by injustice and discrimination. We are all inside concerned human beings after all. We all want to give more than to receive. We all want to live in a world where solidarity and companionship are more important values than individualism and selfishness. We all want to share beautiful things, experience joy, laughter, love, and experiment together. But we have a problem, a big one. We live in a society and an epoch where we do not have the time to think any longer. We live in a time when taking a step back and a deep breath have become a luxury that many cannot afford. We live in a world where the mainstream education system teaches you to obey and listen to authority from the earliest age and does not offer you the chance to think for yourself and express yourself in ways that are outside the proclaimed norm. We live in a society where the nothing, which is shopping, watching TV, has become something, and a something, which is relaxing, meditating, sharing, has become a void in need of being filled. Our minds, our souls, have slowly been corrupted by materialistic nothingness that have been created for us, billboarded in front of our eyes, and printed, tattooed on our cells by advertising, marketing, and vulture capitalism. The remote control of our world only has two buttons, play and fast forward, while the ones we all are looking for is pause. I became an activist through books. After having worked since my early twenties in various menial jobs, and like a good citizen doing my nine to five, looking away at ticking clock, enjoying my life for the reasons I was told where I needed to enjoy it, fulfilling the potential that I had been allowed to have by society and its leaders, I stopped. I quit my job, moved from the city I had been living in for the last six years, and started studying again. I read loads of books and realized that I wanted this period, which was supposed to be temporary, because of the dread of unemployment and boredom potentially creeping in, to last forever. Reading and feeling enlightened by those books really played a big part in changing my vision of life, and it was supposed to mean in that way. I started with reading Chomsky and slowly became very interested in anything that had to do with Israel-Palestine. Reading Edward Said, Mehmood Darwish, Qasim Qanafani, John Berger, Tanya Ranhart, Ilan Pape, Norman Finkelstein, Kurt Vonnegut, Arundhati Roy, Naomi Klein, all became part of my daily routine. Books changed me, and I think that they are, more than anything else, one of the best tools we can use to learn, reflect on, and truly understand the world we are living in. They are a bridge between languages, continents, and people. They are a bridge between you and me. A book will accompany you and stay with you. It will mark you like nothing else. You will go back to it, quote it, argue about it. You will borrow one and lend one. The written word, in my opinion, is therefore more effective and long-standing than a spoken one, as a tool for change. I felt very lucky and privileged when, in 2008, two of my authors I read again and again in Palestine, Professors Norm Chomsky and Ilan Pape, agreed to work on a book with me. A long email exchanges became Gaza in Crisis, Reflection on Israel's War against the Palestinians, which found a broad influence and was translated into many languages. After that book, Norm, Ilan, and I continued talking, mostly via emails. One day, during a meeting with Ilan in Brussels, we both came to the conclusion that a follow-up to that book was necessary. One thing that was indeed left me frustrated working on Gaza in Crisis was how the email exchanges between Norm and Ilan were not interactive. Norm answered a set of questions and Ilan did the same. The two authors had no way to respond to or argue with each other. Ilan and I therefore decided that if another book were produced, it would have to consist of a face-to-face set of conversations. Truly excited by the prospect, I emailed Norm, pretty sure that he was not going to be available due to his extremely busy schedule. To my surprise, Norm Chomsky responded positively and a few months later I sent the email. Ilan and I boarded a plane for Boston to meet Norm in his office in MIT. In preparing the questions and the topics we were going to address, I thought that it was important to start with the past. Some commentators argue that you should always look forward, think about the future, that thinking about the past tends to be a stumbling block that impedes on the negotiations, the peace process. They are often on purpose missing the point. The past, as far as Palestinians are concerned, is 1948, the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of two-thirds of the population. Yes, two-thirds. Try to put this in perspective and do the math with the country you are living in right now, that was expelled from the historical Palestine to make space for a new state, Israel. It is a not-so-distant past. We are talking about centuries ago. It is a very present past for all Palestinians. Talking about it, analyzing it, is therefore crucial to understanding the current situation. Understanding Zionism is also key, and the two professors have slightly different perspectives on the matter. In discussing the present, we focus on the role of civil society and the impact it can have on radically changing the narrative and the actual policies on the ground. The huge growth and impact of boycott, divestment, and sanction, called as BDS movement, cannot be underestimated in putting Palestine back on the map. The BDS movement helped rejuvenate and rebuild the solidarity movement worldwide. It offered a step-by-step guide on how to turn from a defensive stand to an offensive one. The BDS movement asserted, let's stop just trying to justify our actions, let's act. This made for a very engaging discussion. The BDS movement is a subjective debate between Professor Pape and Professor Chomsky, and both this book and Gaza in Crisis allow room for differences between the two. I do think there is something to gain by enabling this conversation, that it can be constructive and reinforce the struggle for Palestinian rights. Finally and obviously, we talk about the future, the day after question. What is actually meant, practically, by a free Palestine? What kind of state is possible? Is state a solution? How will Palestinians and Israelis share the country? What constitution will be drafted? While it is important to focus on the present, as things on the ground are getting worse every day, having a clear strategy and a political vision is also crucial if we want people around the globe to see what is possible. With that, the conversation part was concluded, and as far as I was concerned, this was good enough. Elan Howard thought we needed something more. He offered to write what I think is an amazing and incredibly timely and challenging original piece called The Old and the New Conversations. It is a rallying call to move forward, change gears, and totally rethink the vocabulary we use when it comes to the Palestine question, to use semantics as an educating tool for change. This piece makes, in my opinion, the book a much better and solid one. It fills in the blanks and opens up the debate of the world. But something brought us back to the present in the most forceful way, another Israeli aggression in Gaza. Shortly after we submitted this book to the publisher, Israel was at it again, mobbing down the lawn, as they horrifyingly call it, the carpet-bombing of an imprisoned population by its occupier, with the support of the most Western states, spurred Elan and Norm to write additional contributions. Working on the book again, while Israel was indiscriminately carpet-bombing a population of 1.8 million Palestinians, was often very, very difficult. When things are radically wrong, writing does not feel like the most obvious response for an activist. Writing, while feeling extremely angry and useless, often does not produce the best results. I was glad to see some of my close friends involved in civil disobedience actions against all over the world. It gave me strength and faith. With good people like that around, the struggle, after all, might not be endless. But the writing was essential, and I hope that this book will help challenge the narrative of the powerful, the PR of the governments, repeated in loop by the corporate media that helps justify the crimes that allow them to be committed, that paralyzes people. The Palestine question is emblematic of what is wrong with the world. The role played by Western states, the complicity of corporations of various institutions, make this case a very special one. The fact that Israel actually benefits from violating international law and receives red carpet treatments in the West means that we all have a role to play in ending this injustice that the Palestinians are facing. The injustice in Palestine has ramifications throughout the world. From Ferguson to Athens, via Mexico, it is clear that many governments are pre-producing the tools that Israel uses to repress and oppress the Palestinians. The replication of those same tactics, methods, and often weapons serve as a proof that the Palestinians are now used as guinea pigs for experimentation. And Palestine is a great laboratory. Exploring the Palestine case is therefore crucial for understanding where we stand as human beings and what we stand for. Finding a solution to this question could then open the door to a new vision, a new world, a new possibility for all of us. Palestine is slowly becoming global, a social issue that all movements fighting for social justice need to embrace. The next step is connecting the dots between the various struggles around the world and creating a truly united front. We are many. We will prevail. Frank Barat, Brussels, September 2014. Thank you, readers, for your time. And I hope that as we continue to the first chapter of this book, you will be listening as intently as you listen to this podcast. Thank you for the privilege of your time, Dr. Shobda Choudhury.
