Australians For Peace, First posted on peoplesgeography.com – 13 February 2009
Based on Eqbal Ahmad’s “Strategy for Palestine”, artist and author Ricardo Levins Morales has written a propositional strategy for Palestine.
Excerpted from Morales’ Lihish’tah’weel: The Dystopia principle and the strategic basis for a just peace in Palestine (March 2007)
“In 1968 Pakistani revolutionary scholar Eqbal Ahmad was asked to give the principal address at a conference of Arab activists, including some of the leaders of the recently formed coalition, the Palestine Liberation Organization.² The delegates were stunned when Ahmad, a veteran leader of the Algerian revolution, outlined an unexpected analysis of the Palestinian situation. He suggested that the principle task of a liberation movement–whether armed or not–was to “out-legitimize” its opponent. This meant to dramatize the central contradiction in the colonizing society until it can no longer sustain the strain. This is how Gandhi understood the achievement of Indian independence. The Indian movement undermined the self-image of the English people. Their view of themselves as a decent, generous and democratic nation could not withstand the pressure of seeing British troops shooting, brutalizing, imprisoning unarmed civilians for the crimes of collecting salt and weaving cloth. Public support for the occupation collapsed and Britain pulled out rather than risk a deepening internal crisis. At this time Ahmad recommended a parallel strategy for Palestine: “This is a moment to fit ships in Cyprus, fit boats in Lebanon and say, ‘We’re not going to destroy Israel. That is not our intent. We just want to go home.’ Reverse the symbols of the Exodus. See if the Israelis are in a mood to sink some ships. They probably will. Some of us will die. Let us die.” He predicted that Israel would be unable to contain the internal pressures that would build up.
…
This was the era of the rising tide of national liberation movements. The Cuban revolution had triumphed and the United States military had followed France into the unforgiving jungles of Viet Nam. Guerrilla movements were causing tremors through colonial and semi-colonial regimes across Africa, Asia and Latin America. The road of armed struggle was the top item on the menu and it promised great successes to those who embarked upon it. Ahmad would return, along with his protégé, Edward Said, to meet with Palestinian leaders at later turning points in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Each time they would propose equally innovative courses of action. Each time they would be graciously thanked and their ideas ignored.
Given the actual course that history has followed, it is worth taking note of the trajectory of other anti-colonial and secessionist movements. Those conflicts that began as–or were transformed into–racial or religious confrontations between peoples, fueled by a cycle of retaliatory atrocities (Sri Lanka, the Basque country and Ireland as well as Palestine) are still ongoing or were fought to a standstill. Those who effectively highlighted the colonial or racist nature of the conflict and engendered divisions in the opposing civil society (India, Viet Nam, the Portuguese colonies in Africa–Angola, Mozambique and Guinea Bissau–and South Africa) divided the citizenry of the colonizer, isolated their governments, and achieved victory. In the Algerian revolution–which employed both terrorism and guerrilla warfare–the rebellion was defeated militarily by French counterinsurgency but had shifted the center of the struggle to the political arena and succeeded by securing the moral isolation of the French government.
Endnote:
2 Edward Said, Cherish the Man’s Courage. Introduction to David Barsamian, Eqbal Ahmad: Confronting Empire. 2000. South End Press
Australians for Palestine for more