Politics

August 25, 2013December 11, 2020

What Does BDS Threaten and Who Really Makes Threats?

Last week, Salif Keita announced his decision to cancel his performance at the Jerusalem Festival of Sacred Music, held at the Tower of David in Occupied East Jerusalem, and funded by the American Zionist Shusterman Foundation. That the festival was held at such a location where Occupied people are routinely imprisoned, tortured, killed and their homes demolished for resisting Israel’s brutal Occupation, made a mockery of any pretense of “peace and reconciliation” through music.

Many BDS advocates and organisations, including BDS France and Professor Farid Esack from the University of Johannesburg and Chair of BDS South Africa, attempted to persuade Salif Keita to cancel his gig and respect the boycott. Other artists – Matt Schofield and his band, The Matt Schofield Trio, and Chris Daddy Dave – already had cancelled their Festival performances. The initial announcement of Salif Keita respecting the boycott was made on Ynet. The festival facebook page also recorded the cancellation, stating:

“Salif Keita canceled his participation in the Jerusalem Festival of Sacred Music. A few hours before his departure for Jerusalem the Malian musician Salif Keita decided to heed the demands of the cultural boycott of Israel and to cancel his participation in the closing concert of the festival.”

Several hours later, a statement withdrawing endorsement for the boycott call was released, blaming BDS for alleged “threats, blackmail attempts, intimidation, social media harrassment and slander”. Regardless of the statement in his name, Salif is thanked for his cancellation. One might speculate that such an announcement could act as cover for insurance purposes, or “a tactic that some artists resort to when they do not wish to violate the Palestinian call to boycott Israel, but do not have the courage to take a political stance”, or even to shield artists from real threats from angry Zionists in the future. The statement resembles a list of Israeli hasbara talking points. Is it coincidental that Adam Shay, program coordinator and researcher from the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, which participates in Israel’s hasbara strategy, recommended in May 2013 to

“focus on direct contact with the performers, their producers, agents, or anyone involved in the decision to play or not to play in a specific location. These efforts should not be carried out by the public at large, but rather by professional policy analysts familiar with BDS operations and methods, who can put BDS slander in perspective and present an unbiased picture of reality.”

The only concrete example given in the announcement is “slander stating that Mr Keita was to perform in Israel, not for peace, but for apartheid”. Yet this is not slander, but based firmly in fact. Since Israel deliberately and consistently uses all artist breaches of the boycott to spray whitewash over its very real apartheid and oppression, adding artists and quotes to the propaganda site Creative Community for Peace that shamelessly lobbies artists not to cancel, the example given is spurious.

As a former Israeli Attorney General stated:

‘Despite its best intentions, Israel has created a system of separation in the West Bank which fits the textbook definition of apartheid. According to Michael Ben-Yair, Attorney General of Israel throughout the nineties, “In effect, we established an apartheid regime in the Occupied Territories immediately following their capture. That oppressive regime exists to this day.” He is not alone in asserting this perspective. Many notable Israelis like Meron Benvenisti, Akiva Elder, and Shulamit Aloni, to mention a few, agree that Israeli style apartheid is a reality.’

In 2009, the Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa (HSRC) study affirmed that Israel is practising both colonialism and apartheid in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, with these findings confirmed by the Russell Tribunal Cape Town session findings on Israeli apartheid.

Within Israel itself segregation is nearly absolute:

“For those of us who live here, it is something we take for granted. But visitors from abroad cannot believe their eyes: segregated education, segregated businesses, separate entertainment venues, different languages, separate political parties … and of course, segregated housing. In many senses, this is the way members of both groups want things to be, but such separation only contributes to the growing mutual alienation of Jews and Arabs.”

As Zazafl says:

Apartheid is wrong. This is not a threat.
Ethnic cleansing is wrong. This is not a threat.
War crimes are wrong. This is not a threat.
Asking you not to play in a state that does all the above to a people is not wrong. This is not a threat.
Asking you to listen to the Palestinian people and to simply not cross their picket line is not wrong. This is not a threat.
Asking you to set aside your privilege and activate your conscience is not wrong. This is not a threat. There are no threats. To you.

Whether or not artists insist they are playing for peace and not politics, the Israeli regime believes differently and uses all culture as a political instrument to conceal its oppression.

In 2005 Nissim Ben-Sheetrit of Israel’s Foreign Ministry stated:

“We see culture as a propaganda tool of the first rank, and I do not differentiate between propaganda and culture.” (Ha’aretz; 21/09/05)

As Brecht said: “Thus for art to be ‘unpolitical’ means only to ally itself with the ‘ruling’ group“. Gil Ron Shama, producer of the Jerusalem festival and Goodwill Ambassador for the Israeli Foreign Ministry (which ministry plays a major role in hasbara dissemination) to Muslim countries and with whom Salif Keita was to perform admitted “Here everything is political, even art“. Artists cannot breach the Palestinian-led boycott, play in Israel and ignore the fact that by doing so, they assist the Zionist regime in its concerted efforts to obscure its crimes against humanity committed daily against Palestinians.

Previously, there have been reports about other artists – Eric Burdon, Arch Enemy, Joy Harjo and Joker – receiving threats yet no evidence has been ever produced. Significantly however, the use of mythical ‘threats’ by Zionists to attempt to smear BDS and price-tag activists has been documented.

Evidenced by Israel pumping another NIS3m investment into the use of paid ‘covert’ hasbara troops to spread its fictitious promotional material, BDS and its human rights advocates are regarded as a serious threat by the Zionist regime. The campaign to ‘delegitimize the delegitimizers’ was formulated by the propaganda strategy outfit, the Reut Institute. In January 2010, Reut Founder and President, Gidi Grinstein, said “Therefore, an extraordinary effort is required to respond to and isolate Israel’s delegitimizers. We must play offense and not just defense.”

Propaganda and lawfare outfit NGO Monitor President, Gerald Steinberg, called in July 2013 ‘to respond to delegitimization “like we’re in a war. We need counterattacks.”‘

Commanded from the top by the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, the network of Israeli hasbara is immense, very well-funded and highly organised. In contrast, BDS is a broad-based, unfunded grassroots movement of conscientious individuals around the world who are in solidarity with the call of the oppressed Palestinian people for justice, freedom and rights denied to them by apartheid, settler colonial Israel. As with the global boycott called by the ANC against apartheid South Africa, BDS activists act spontaneously on an ethical basis, in accordance with guidelines affirmed by Palestinian civil society, solidly grounded in human rights and international law, with no formal hierachy of command.

It is the Zionist regime and its oppressive practices which are threatened by BDS, a movement which has snowballed since commencing in 2005, with strong support from prominent people like Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nigel Kennedy, Pete Seeger, Mira Nair, Cassandra Wilson, Ronnie Kasrils, Gil Scott Heron, Naomi Klein, Miriam Margolyes and many, many more.

Because the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement is based in human rights and has firm anti-racist principles, the type of behaviour which the announcement in Keita’s name states is not commensurate with the moral grounds underpinning BDS. However, it is standard behaviour for Zionists who harass, slander and threaten daily. Therefore it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that if threats have been made, their source could be from Israel’s hasbara machine as part of a co-ordinated dirty tricks campaign.

A brief foray around the net reveals Zionist racism against the artist.

For example, on the original Hebrew Ynet cancellation story, the artist is excoriated by a racist Zionist: “let him go back to the trees he came down from – we don’t need him here”

On Salif Keita’s Facebook page wall, there’s more Zionist abuse against the artist:

Galit Levi: You speak about love and peace, but you act otherwise.

I think that you, who suffered ostracism yourself, about your color, you should be the first to call against this BDS, especially when they tell lies about the policy in Israel against Arabs who call themselves “Palastinians”.

Alon Idelson: You weren’t forced to cancel, you could come, but, you got chicken legs and afraid. Unlike many many other artists who got similar threats but gave the third finger to these threats & came to spread their message of peace & love to the people of Israel, which, as known, include jews, christians and muslims living together. Shame on you.

And bigoted Zionist attacks against Jews who support BDS:

TAAZ – The Anti Anti Zionist Haha, read Yael the bigot, by condemning the boycott he “did not breach the boycott”. It’s like telling Jews who escaped from Germany in 1933 that by leaving because the Nazis persecuted them, they supported the Nazis’ wishes. Oh wait – BDS says that too! https://sites.google.com/site/jewsagainstracistzionism/brenner-lenni-exposing-zionist-collaboration-and-complicity-with-the-nazis

TAAZ – The Anti Anti Zionist It’s always funny when professional anti-Israeli bigots blame those who fight their hateful messages for “being funded” by someone. Tsipi ___ is a professional activist in EU-funded organizations such as “Zochrot”. She’s getting her paycheck directly from associations that are dedicated to spread hatred, and then when she doesn’t like the fact that someone is exposing her lies, she uses terms like “Hasbara troll” and asks “who pays you”. But Tsipi is a professional hater not only against Israel – she will hate any group, as long as she is paid for it. On her blog you can read about her hatred of Israeli men, Israeli gays, and more – http://feminainvicta.com/

TAAZ – The Anti Anti Zionist You racist bigot, look at the threat on the left, it’s because of your bullying and harassment that he canceled. He rejects your hateful movement, and expresses his love for the people of Israel. Shame on you! You are on the verge of becoming a terrorist.

And Zionist attacks and threats against BDS activists:

TAAZ – The Anti Anti Zionist Falula, wherever you go, you will meet the Zionists who will name and shame you. We already understand that you and your gang have a problem with freedom of speech and think that they are the only ones who are allowed to spread their message. So no, in the real world, you will always find us defending against your lies.

With vile, genocidal Zionist racism:

Franco and Pepe Kalle Classic Round The reality is that Palestinians are no angels. They are the same people who use their kids and moms and girls as products to use. They are the ones who wanted to take over the Israel. Palestine should have not even existed. It is ashame that these guys cannot leave Israel and go to another country. Do not get me wrong, Israel has done some wrong but tell me what good Palestinian has done. Please some tell me. I am glad America is standing with Israel.

Perhaps the most ridiculously lurid and desperate Zionist accusation against BDS, which is a non-violent movement, is this one:

Adi Berger BDS is just like ansar al dine and the Al Qaeda groups who intimated and silenced artists in Mali.

Elsewhere on a Boycott Protest event wall, Israel’s anti-BDS Zionist propagandists also hate Jews who do not support their rightwing views.

Harvey Garfield: THE PROPHET ISAIAH WARNED THE JEWS that those seeking their destruction would emerge out of their own midst (Chapter 49, verse 17).

Jewish Leftists today serve as Jews-for-hire for every anti-Semitic and Israel-hating organization, magazine and web site on earth. These Jews who hate their own people are a tiny minority. Perhaps a mere five percent.
But they get around!

On another event wall for Tom Jones’ concert in Tel Aviv, there are serious, disturbing threats against BDS activists, and obscene photographs desecrating the Koran with human excreta which are unpublishable here, posted by proud Zionists:

Tim Collard: Won’t do any good. I have a photographic memory for these people’s names, and will happily pursue them all around the web.

Benji Hoshabyahu Arazi : BDS bullies belong in jail.

Robert Whyte: LEBANON BEING BOMBED AS I TYPE,SYRIA CHEMICAL WEAPONS, EGYPT ETHNIC CLEANSING OF CHRISTIANS, GANG RAPES IN PAKISTAN, INDIA……ETC.ETC………………AND THE JEW HATERS ARE HERE BECAUSE OF THE NATURAL COURSE OF EVOLUTION IN A MOSTLY PEACEFUL ISRAEL. YOUR ALL NAZI’S AND IF I GET MY WAY……….BEFORE I DIE OF CANCER……..YOUR GOING PAY……………THAT WILL BE MY LAST ACT ON EARTH. HOW SWEET IT IS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Robert Whyte I SEE IN YOUR EYES……..YOU GOT ARAB BLOOD. NOW I GET IT. MAYBE YOUR GRANDMOTHER SUCKED DIRTY ARAB COCK………..ICH !!!!!!!!!!

Aviel Mesayev: Fuck Palestine …..nothing is apartheid here..i join IDF soon and you guys be very sad

Racist settler colonial ideologies really bring out the worst in people.

Adam Shay of the JCPA specializes in battling the cultural boycott and hyping BDS ‘threats’. He provides the ‘professional’ Zionist hasbara perspective on combating BDS efforts to persuade artists to embrace the boycott of apartheid Israel online:

The aim of such efforts needs to be avoiding cancellation of concerts. A cancelled concert is a BDS victory. Every concert cancelled endangers future concerts, as it puts the burden of proof on the band/artists and requires them to justify and explain why they choose to play where others have chosen not to. Along the same logic, every concert that goes ahead eases future pressure on the next scheduled concert and the next boycott battle.

Clearly, the Israeli regime is threatened by boycott, divestment and sanctions, its propagandists are on the back foot, and with yet another performer cancelling their date with apartheid, BDS is winning!

On Orientalism, Islam and Feminism

On World Bulletin, Levent Basturk provides analysis on the role of orientalist western disciplines on development within islamic countries, and how this phenomena serves capitalism, noting that:

“The Orientalist viewed Asiatic society as a society whose social structure was characterized by the absence of civil society. In other words, a network of institutions mediating between the individual and the state is absent. The conditions for Oriental despotism were created as a result of the absence of these institutions because the individual was exposed to the arbitrary rule of the despot. The absence of civil society simultaneously explained the failure of capitalist development outside Europe and the absence of democracy. Such an absence fortified the Orientalist explanation of Muslim psychology.
…
England was characterized by Marx as “the unconscious tool of history in bringing about … revolution.[19]

In light of this view, the societies of the Orient could only be changed and transformed by exogenous forces because of their internally static condition. This exogenous force is the destructive effect of capitalist imperialism and colonialism. What can be inferred from this belief is that the struggle of colonized nations against the historical growth of the capitalist mode of production was, by definition, a reactionary struggle. Like other major figures of sociology and political economy, Marx and Engels concluded that the economic backwardness of the Middle East resulted from the combination of social and political causes, of which the absence of a middle class of entrepreneurs was especially important.”

As a result of the information ‘revolution’, the insertion of the orientalist point of view is deepened because it is elites largely who have the access to the information network. What happens when knowledge and access to the net becomes further diffused? The Orient is strengthening its voice, regardless of impact by western capitalism.

With the rejection of the orientalist western Femen movement, for example, feminists within Islam assert the primacy of their narrative. As the Frustrated Arab highlights:

Simply stating that you are in solidarity, that you support a woman’s right to don the headscarf, remove it, cover/uncover etc. is in no way dubious. It is when aforementioned solidarity crosses the red line and veers into the seizure of native voices and the tokenization of these voices does this become intensely problematic, ineffective and perverse.

Also it has long been chronicled that women of colour are often left out of mainstream feminist discourse, unless it is by means of humanitarian imperialism channels where they are simply tokenised. Bell Hooks (Gloria Jean Watkins), a feminist, social activist, does a magnificent job describing this in much of her work.

In terms of the mounting questions in regards to how one is to raise awareness in light of such groups as FEMEN: you raise awareness by highlighting native voices, not co-opting them. It is your duty to amplify, not commandeer.

August 20, 2013December 11, 2020

Official Statement from Nigel Kennedy on BBC Censorship

A spokesperson for Nigel Kennedy said:

“Nigel Kennedy finds it incredible and quite frightening that in the 21st century it is still such an insurmountable problem to call things the way they are. He thinks that once we can all face issues for what they really are we can finally have a chance of finding solutions to problems such as human rights, equal rights and even, perhaps, free speech. His first reaction to the BBC’s censorship & imperial lack of impartiality was to refuse to play for an employer who is influenced by such dubious outside forces.

Mr Kennedy has, however, reminded himself that his main purpose is to provide the audience with the best music he can deliver. To withdraw his services would be akin to a taxi driver refusing to drive their customer due to their political incorrectness. He, therefore, is not withdrawing his services that he owes to his audience, but is half expecting to be replaced by someone deemed more suitable than him due to their surplus of opportunism and career aspirations.

Mr Kennedy is glad, however, that by censoring him the BBC has created such a huge platform for the discussion of its own impartiality, its respect (or lack of it) for free speech and for the discussion of the miserable apartheid forced on the Palestinian people by the Israeli government supported by so many governments from the outside world.

Mr Kennedy believes his very small statement during his concert was purely descriptive and not political whatsoever.”

If you are a British TV licence holder with a British postcode, you can sign the petition calling on the BBC to reverse their decision.

To Salif Keita from Friends in South Africa

DEAR MR SALIF KEITA,

“The temptation in our situation is to speak in muffled tones about an issue such as the right of the people of Palestine…we can fall into the trap of washing our hands of difficulties that others faces. Yet we would be less than human if we did so. It behoves all South Africans, themselves erstwhile beneficiaries of generous international support, to stand up and be counted among those contributing actively to the cause of freedom and justice…we know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.” – Nelson Mandela, December 4 1997

You may not know me, nor of my work or the organization that I am part of (and am writing on behalf of), BDS South Africa (www.bdssouthafrica.com). However, I (together with millions of South Africans and Africans), of course, know of you. We know of you through your contribution to making this world a better place through, for example, the work of the Salif Keita Global Foundation, being one of our continent’s best ambassadors, and of course, for sharing your “golden” music with so many. It is with this admiration and affinity that we write to you.

With that, kindly receive the warm greetings of BDS South Africa, a South African Palestine solidarity and human rights organization advancing the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel campaign in South Africa. We are writing to you with much concern, concern that you are scheduled to perform in Israel. But, we also write to you with hope, hope that you will heed the call from your fellow artists, Malians who have approached you, French activists, and, most importantly, the Palestinians (with their principled and progressive Israeli allies) who have all called on you in the last few weeks to respect the boycott of Israel, cancel your trip and, in essence, not to support racism and Apartheid. We respectfully offer some background to our position:

ISRAELI RACISM AND “APARTHEID”:

“I never tire of speaking about the very deep distress in my visits to the Holy Land; they remind me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa. I have seen the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like we did when young white police officers prevented us from moving about. My heart aches…Palestinians have chosen, like we did, the nonviolent tools of boycott, divestment and sanctions.” Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Separate roads[1], separate buses[2], having a law that allows one ethnic group automatic citizenship but prevents another group (millions of whom are refugees in neighboring countries) citizenship and access to their previous homes are just some of the ways in which Israel discriminates against Palestinians [3]. We will not go through the details of the legislation, practices and acts of racism and apartheid that Israel is enforcing against the Palestinians, those are well documented by Amnesty International [4], Human Rights Watch[5] and, in fact, our own South African government, in 2009, commissioned our official state research body, the South African Human Sciences Research Council to answer the question whether Israel is guilty of practicing apartheid. The HSRC, in its subsequent 300-page report found Israel to be guilty of the crime of Apartheid as well as colonialism. That report can be found here: http://www.hsrc.ac.za/en/media-briefs/democracy-goverance-and-service-delivery/report-israel-practicing-apartheid-in-palestinian-territories

This position, that Israel practices Apartheid and racism against the indigenous Palestinians, was then confirmed by the Russell Tribunal on Palestine, which sat in Cape Town in November 2011[6]. In March 2012 the United Nations Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination made similar findings[7]. Earlier this year, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UN HRC), an official structure of the UN, released a scathing report in Geneva, Switzerland, on the state of human rights in Israel, reporting that there is “institutionalised discrimination” in the occupied Palestinian territory.

Beyond the case that is being made by human rights organisations, UN structures and other bodies, there is also a comparison that has been made by senior South Africans, former anti-apartheid activists and others that what the Palestinians are experiencing is akin to (and in some respects) far worse than what we black South Africans experienced in the 1980s under Apartheid. Hendrik Verwoerd, the architect of Apartheid (in South Africa), in 1961 already, was one of the first high-profile South Africans to have compared racial supremacy in Apartheid South Africa to that in Israel. Verwoed did not mince his words: “Israel, like South Africa, is an apartheid state”. However it was really Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu who, in 1987 and then again in 2002, began to make the serious case as to why Israel is guilty of practicing racism against the indigenous Palestinian people. Tutu, in a paper delivered at a conference of Palestinian Christians said: “I’ve been very deeply distressed in my visit to the Holy Land; it reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa. I have seen the humiliation of the Palestinians at [Israeli] checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about.”

Since then there have been several senior –and more appropriate, than Verword– South Africans, all veterans of our liberation struggle, who have compared Apartheid South Africa to current-day Israel, including: personal friend and fellow prisoner to Nelson Mandela, Ahmed Kathrada; Rivonia Trialist, Denis Goldberg; anti-apartheid icon, Kader Asmal; former South African Minister of Intelligence, Ronnie Kasrils; Current Minister of Higher Education, Blade Nzimande; and, Winnie Mandela. Most recently, the African National Congress (ANC) Chairperson, Baleka Mbete, at the ANC’s 2012 International Solidarity Conference, also shared this position. And, our own South African Deputy President, Kgalema Mothlante, has gone even further in stating that: “the current situation for Palestinians…[under Israel] is worse than conditions were for Blacks under the Apartheid regime”. The South African Government itself has on two separate occasions (statement 1[8], statement 2[9]) condemned Israeli practices that are reminiscent of “Apartheid”.

ISRAELI XENOPHOBIA AGAINST AFRICANS:

“The ANC abhors the recent Israeli state-sponsored xenophobic attacks and deportation of Africans and request that this matter should be escalated to the African Union” – African National Congress, Resolution 35 (j), Mangaung, 2012

As was widely reported, in June last year Israeli anti-African protests turned into full-fledged race riots . The Israeli racism and xenophobia against Africans[10] is shared and even encouraged by Israeli politicians including the Israeli Prime Minster, Benjamin Netanyahu, who has said: “If we don’t stop their [African immigrants’] entry, the problem that currently stands at 60,000 could grow to 600,000, and that threatens our existence…and threatens the social fabric of society, our national security and our national identity”. Israel’s Minister of Interior, Eli Yishai, has said that African immigrants “think the country doesn’t belong to us, the white man!” And the Israeli parliamentarian, Miri Regev, has publicly compared Sudanese people to “a cancer”.

Late last year, Israeli officials initially denied but then in January this year admitted that Ethiopian women immigrating to Israel are coerced into taking long-term contraceptive shots[11]. Israeli activists together with human rights activists around the world condemned the practice as another form of racism, discrimination and xenophobia that Israel practices against Africans.

BOYCOTT, DIVESTMENT AND SANCTIONS AGAINST ISRAEL (BDS):

“The abhorrent and draconian control that Israel wields over the besieged Palestinians in Gaza, and the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank coupled with its denial of the rights of refugees to return to their homes in Israel, demands that fair minded people around the world support the Palestinians in their civil, nonviolent resistance. For me it means declaring my intention to stand in solidarity, not only with the people of Palestine, but also with the many thousands of Israelis who disagree with their governments racist and colonial policies, by joining a campaign of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel, until it satisfies three basic human rights demanded in international law.” – Roger Waters, Pink Floyd

Israeli racism, toward indigenous Palestinians and Africans, is not a question, or matter of opinion, it is a fact. The question, then, is how does one respond. What is to be done? How do peace-loving peoples of the world not be complicit in Israeli racism and, for some of us, how do we contribute to supporting the oppressed (and their allies from within the oppressive society)?

In 2005, inspired by the successful boycott and isolation of Apartheid South Africa, Palestinians — after having engaged for years in mass protests, popular uprisings, the armed struggle as well as a seemingly endless negotiation process — called on the international community to play a decisive role in their struggle for self-determination and an end to Israel’s Apartheid policies. Palestinians called on global civil society, artists and multi national corporations to impose a program of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel. The Palestinians laid out three demands that Israel needs to respect for the boycott to be called-off. Firstly, an end to the illegal Israeli Occupation. Secondly, allowing Palestinian refugees to return to their homes. And, thirdly, for Israel to ensure full equality for Palestinian citizens living inside Israel. The three demands – all based in international law and numerous UN resolutions – ward off fears (or false-accusations) that the BDS campaign is a malicious, blunt and punitive one which is out to punish Israelis. Its not; the BDS campaign is a practical, non-violent, goal-orientated and focused campaign that is uncompromisingly entrenched in international law and human rights – also, one that is increasingly supported by (progressive) Israelis themselves!

Just some of the artists and intellectuals who have publicly lent their support and respected the boycott include: award-winning musician, Stevie Wonder; Jazz artist, Cassandra Wilson; Roger Waters of Pink Floyd; musician, Elvis Costello, author, Alice Walker; intellectual, Stephen Hawking and most recently, the film director, Mira Nair.

We hope that you too, will join this list of artists. We, as South Africans, expected this from the international community in the 1980s and the Palestinians now expect this from us – to support their boycott and not cross the picket line.

NOT ENTERTAINING APARTHEID:

“While human beings are being wilfully denied not just their rights but their needs for their children and grandparents and themselves, I feel deeply that I should not be sending even tacit signals [to Israel] that this is either ‘normal’ or ‘ok’. It’s neither and I cannot support it.” – Maxi Jazz of Faithless on why his band cancelled on Israel

We understand how difficult it would be for you to reject an opportunity to share your music with others. People like you are the reason other artists want to exist. Your music motivates beyond concert stages, penetrating into the intimate personal spaces of individual human lives and transforming them forever, the way only true art can. Unhappily, matters are not so simple in this context (just as how they were never simple during apartheid in South Africa). Art does not simply take place in a vacuum. The belief that cultural activities are “apolitical” (or that one is simply performing music, not getting involved in politics) is a myth. Performing in Israel will be a slap in the face of Palestinians but it will also be tacit support for the Israeli regime and its practices of apartheid.

One might wonder what purpose refusing to perform in Israel might serve? As a people whose parents and grandparents suffered under (and resisted) Apartheid in South Africa, our history is testament to the value and legitimacy that the international boycott had in bringing an end to the Apartheid regime in our country. When artists and sportspeople began refusing to perform in Apartheid South Africa, the world’s eyes turned to the injustices that were happening here. This then created a wave of pressure, which ultimately contributed to a free, democratic and non-racial South Africa. The same is not only possible for Palestine-Israel, but also inevitable. The question is: On which side of history does one want to be? Performing in Apartheid South Africa — in violation of what us oppressed black South Africans and our white allies asked for — during the 1980s was to be on the wrong side of history. Today, performing in Israel — in violation of what the oppressed Palestinians and their progress Israeli allies have asked for — is choosing to be on the wrong side of history. We hope that you will choose to be on the right side of history and not entertain Apartheid.

IN CONCLUSION:

“The issue of a principled commitment to justice lies at the heart of responses to the suffering of the Palestinian people and it is the absence of such a commitment that enables many to turn a blind eye to it…. If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” – Archbishop Desmond Tutu

We have penned this letter a mere few days before your performance. Perhaps, we should have written earlier, however, we do trust that you have read the several letters already sent to you as well as engaged with those that have tried making contact with yourself and your management.

We hope to make this letter available to media that have contacted us as well as several of your South African and international fans who made inquiries with us, particularly with your performance in Johannesburg recently for our beloved Madiba. We hope that we will receive a response before then as we would love to communicate to your fans and others here in South Africa of your decision. We look forward to hearing from you, that is, hearing the good news that you will not be entertaining (Israeli) Apartheid.

With hope,

Professor Farid Esack
Head of Religion Studies at the University of Johannesburg and Chair of BDS South Africa’s Management Board

BDS South Africa is a registered Non-Profit Organization. NPO NUMBER: 084 306 NPO
BDS South Africa is a registered Public Benefit Organisation with Section 18A status. PBO NUMBER: 930 037 446

1. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/08/12/israeli-bypass-roads-separate-but-unequal.html
2. http://mondoweiss.net/2013/03/palestinians-after-montgomery.html
3. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/24/opinion/not-all-israeli-citizens-are-equal.html?_r=1&
4. http://www.middleeastmonitor.com/articles/guest-writers/3825-the-multiple-strands-of-racism
5. http://www.hrw.org/news/2010/12/18/israelwest-bank-separate-and-unequal
6. http://www.russelltribunalonpalestine.com/en/sessions/south-africa/south-africa-session-%E2%80%94-full-findings/cape-town-session-summary-of-findings
7. http://electronicintifada.net/content/un-body-appalled-israels-racial-segregation-policies/11065
8. http://www.info.gov.za/speeches/2009/09112415151001.htm
9. http://www.dfa.gov.za/docs/2010/isra0422.html
10. http://www.davidsheen.com/racism/
11. http://mondoweiss.net/2013/01/contraceptive-injections-ethiopian.html

August 18, 2013December 11, 2020

Robin D.G. Kelley : Empire State of Mind

“half of y’all won’t make it”

–Jay-Z and Alicia Keys, “Empire State of Mind”

In the face of creeping disfranchisement, unbridled corporate power, growing poverty, an expanding police state, 2.3 million people in cages, vigilantes and cops taking our children’s lives, a presidential policy of assassination-by-drone, global environmental disaster, attacks on reproductive rights, a war on trade unions, a tidal wave of foreclosures, and entrenched racism camouflaged beneath a post-racial myth, why do we care if Harry Belafonte and Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter have “beef”? Do social movements need Mr. Carter’s money or power or influence? Is justice a matter of charity or wealth? So what if Carter believes—as he retorted in response to Belafonte’s skewering of navel-gazing black celebrities—“my presence is charity”?

Let me say at the outset that I am not interested in spats between celebrities or on expending precious energy on conflict-resolution for the Negro one-percent. Anyone familiar with the dictionary definition of “charity” will find the statement ridiculous, just as anyone familiar with Jay-Z’s philanthropic work will wonder why he would say such a thing. He has been a high-profile giver: he and his mother started the John Carter Foundation ten years ago to help fund college-bound at-risk youth; he tossed a million dollars into the Red Cross’s coffers after Hurricane Katrina; he is a partner in the Global Citizen Tickets Initiative—the brainchild of the Global Poverty Project meant to hip pop music fans to world poverty and compel them to act (via sharing on social media, writing elected officials, donating money) while dropping big bucks on concert tickets. And there was “The Diary of Jay-Z: Water For Life,” the 2006 MTV documentary that raised awareness of Africa’s water crisis. Carter met with policy makers, advocates, and poor, water-starved families in Angola and South Africa, and committed to building 1,000 clean water pumps in Africa. Two years later, the United Nations honored his work with a special humanitarian award.

Does this mean Belafonte was wrong? Or Jay misspoke? Or that we need to place ‘Hova’s’ philanthropy and activism on a ledger against Bruce Springsteen’s, the celebrity Belafonte deemed more socially responsible? What does any of this do to advance a truly progressive agenda?

Focusing on the personal obscures what is really at stake: ideas, ideology, the nature of change, the realities of power, and the evisceration of our critical faculties under the veil of corporate celebrity culture. I use corporate here not as an epithet but as an expression of the structural dimensions of how celebrity is made and its ideological function. Celebrities endorse products; like any commodity, they have become “brands.” They may say and do very nice, uplifting, philanthropic things, but rarely do celebrities stand against the policies and ideas of neoliberalism and U. S. Empire. More often than not, they embody the ideology of neoliberalism (valuing wealth, free markets, privatization over human needs) and Empire (U.S. military and economic dominance over the world).

Words and deeds of high-profile individuals do matter, but too often we pay attention to the wrong words and the wrong deeds. Returning to Mr. Carter’s reply, it is what he says immediately after his charity line that should concern us. Applying his claim—that greatness alone is in-and-of itself a magnanimous gift—to the President, he adds: “Whether [Obama] does anything, the hope that he provides for a nation, and outside of America is enough. Just being who he is. You’re the first black president. If he speaks on any issue or anything he should be left alone.”

That Mr. Carter believes this is less important than the fact that his “brand” promotes it, and I’d venture to say that most African-Americans fundamentally accept its logic. The mere fact that Obama is the first black president, so the argument goes, should grant him immunity from criticism. The relentless attacks on Cornel West, Tavis Smiley, and others for their relentless critique of the Obama administration conform to this logic. Rather than address their specific criticisms on their own terms, detractors dismiss West and Smiley by repeating the well-worn claim that they are motivated by personal slights or potential monetary gain, blame an intransigent right-wing Congress for Obama’s worst policies (foreign and domestic), respond to criticisms with a laundry list of accomplishments, or simply assert that critics of the president are “haters,” race traitors, who fail to appreciate the historic significance of a black man in the White House.

The idea that the President transcends all worldly criticism corresponds with a different sort of “Empire State of Mind.” Empires dating back to Egypt, Rome, Ancient China and Japan have depended on an “imperial cult,” the notion that an emperor is to be worshipped as a messiah or a demigod. Even modern empires, like the U.S., often fall back on hero worship, adoration of strength and might over the rule of law and justice. This is why cops and soldiers are “heroes” and dissenters and the civil disobedient are troublemakers or enemies of the state. The cult of Obama has the added dimension of being the tale of a singular black man overcoming historic obstacles, breaking the color line and achieving the highest office in the land. Such representation masks the fact that it wasn’t his achievements but our achievements, our tireless mobilization on his behalf, the work of nameless millions who elected him to office to serve the people. We have an obligation in a democracy to hold government accountable to the rule of law (that includes international law) and to protect the interests of the whole of the people.

And what about deeds? I find it remarkable that Jay-Z’s four little words could set off global outrage, but revelations that Rocawear, the Hip Hop apparel company he co-founded with producer Damon Dash, employed sweatshop labor barely registered a blip in the black blogosphere. Ten years ago, anti-sweatshop activists revealed that Rocawear, along with Sean Combs’s “Sean John” label, contracted with Southeast Textiles International S. A. (SETISA) in Choloma, Honduras, to manufacture their very expensive clothing lines. SETISA sewers earned between 75 and 98 cents an hour, worked 11 to 12 hour shifts with no overtime, and had excessive production goals (T-shirt makers, for example, had to complete a little over 18 shirts per hour, and they could not leave until they met their quota). Talking was prohibited. Permission from a supervisor was required for bathroom breaks. Drinking water (found to be contaminated with fecal matter) was rationed. All employees were subjected to body searches, and female employees were required to take pregnancy tests. Those who attempted to unionize were fired. After refuting reports, Combs was ultimately pressured into making some improvements in factory conditions, but Carter had little to say and never issued a public apology. In 2007, Carter sold the rights to Rocawear to Iconix Brand Group for the princely sum of $204 million, while retaining his stake in the company and overseeing marketing, licensing, and product development.

If we praise celebrities for wealth accumulation, then Rocawear is an unmitigated success. Jay-Z has done what most successful entrepreneurs do in the age of neoliberalism—seized upon the massively oppressive labor conditions produced by free trade policies, the creation of U.S.-backed free trade zones, deregulation, and the weakening of international labor standards.

And why not? Capitalists want to “live life colossal.” Milton Friedman Baby! Then again, who wants to tweet that their favorite celebrity made millions off of sweated labor, thereby perpetuating global poverty? Knowing fans tend to look the other way; the vast majority of acolytes are kept blissfully ignorant by the corporate image machine.

Enter MTV and the release of “The Diary of Jay-Z: Water For Life,” following on the heels of Rocawear’s sweatshop revelations. I doubt it was a cynical ploy to defuse the controversy, mainly because for the Jay-Z consumer there was no controversy. His brand escaped pretty much unscathed. And yet, while Carter’s concern for the 1.2 billion people without access to clean water is genuine, the film’s explanation of the crisis is problematic. “Water for Life” blames civil war and the disruptions of military violence, urbanization, and poverty, and suggests that philanthropy and visionary entrepreneurs can solve the problem by providing clean water pumps and digging wells. How so many Africans became “poor” in the first place, the legacy of colonialism, not to mention water privatization, don’t really figure in the story. When asked about privatization at a U.N. press conference upon the film’s release, Carter appeared oblivious: “that’s just bureaucracy, I don’t have any expertise in that.” He didn’t know if water was being privatized, but he did notice that in the houses he visited, the families “paid fifty cents a bucket for [water].” He then went on to praise his long-time sponsor Coca-Cola for providing money for play pumps in Southern Africa (small manual merry-go-rounds that pump water as children play). At the time, Coke was targeted by protestors in India and Colombia for depleting scarce local water sources for its bottling plants, and releasing toxic waste water into the ground, damaging farm land and leaving residents with a variety of skin and stomach ailments.

To be clear, I am in no way criticizing Shawn Carter for lacking a sophisticated critique of the ravages of privatization. To expect as much is unfair, unrealistic, and beside the point. Most Americans share his view; neoliberal logic normalizing Empire and its exploitative practices is today’s common sense. However, it is the use of his brand to sell this new common sense, to promote corporate interests and obscure the real sources of inequality, that matter.

Alicia Keys – Home Wrecker?

Ironically, it has been the Alicia Keys brand–the angelic half of the Empire State duo—that has shown a particularly egregious disregard for human rights. On July 4th of this year, Keys performed in Tel Aviv, Israel, in spite of urgent pleas by Palestinian and Israeli activists, human rights advocates, and nearly 16,000 petitioners from around the world, to respect the global boycott of Israel for its illegal occupation of the West Bank and apartheid policies toward Palestinians. Personal appeals from writer Alice Walker and Archbishop Desmond Tutu did nothing to dissuade Keys or her handlers from accepting the invitation. In response, she issued the following statement: “I look forward to my first visit to Israel. Music is a universal language that is meant to unify audiences in peace and love, and that is the spirit of our show.”

The statement is as ridiculous and ingenuous as “My presence is charity.” How can music unify an audience when policies of occupation and apartheid exclude the vast majority of Palestinians? What good are homilies about love and peace in a land where Palestinians in the Occupied Territories are prohibited from even entering Israel, contained by a massive concrete wall, economically starved, and living under military occupation? Where thousands of Palestinians are locked away in Israeli prisons—including hundreds of minors convicted of throwing rocks at tanks and well-armed soldiers and settlers? Where Israel continues to build Jewish settlements in the West Bank, displacing Palestinians, demolishing their homes, uprooting their olive trees—all in violation of international law. Where, on more than one occasion, Palestinian mothers were forced to give birth on the side of the road or watch their severely ill children die in their arms for want of emergency care because they were held up at an Israeli checkpoint. Where the apartheid wall has turned a fifteen-minute walk to school into a two-hour ordeal for thousands of young children. For young Palestinians living in Israel who are not incarcerated, few could afford the $62.00 ticket to hear Keys. Nearly half of all Palestinians in Israel live in poverty. Most are legally excluded from residing in non-Arab communities based on their “social unsuitability,” attend severely underfunded schools, and are denied government employment.

The point of the non-violent global boycott, of course, is to apply economic pressure on Israel to change these policies: to end the occupation, dismantle the “apartheid” wall which violates international law; recognize the fundamental rights of all Palestinian-Arab citizens of Israel and other non-Jews for full equality, and grant the right to return, as stipulated by United Nations resolution 194. The boycott is an act of tough love to achieve justice through peaceful means. Alicia Keys’ concert, on the other hand, served to legitimize and normalize Israeli policies of violence, occupation, incarceration, segregation, and settlement. Keys and her handlers knew this, as they were inundated with materials from organizations supporting the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS)–including the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, Jewish Voice for Peace, and Boycott from Within. Activists hoped that Keys’ role as lead supporter of “Keep a Child Alive,” an NGO dedicated to helping HIV-infected children in Africa and India, would make her more sensitive to the lives of Palestinian children. The organization’s Chief Executive Officer, Peter Twyman, and co-founder Leigh Blake received pages upon pages of material documenting the daily abuses of children at the hands of the Israeli military and settlers.

Rifat Kassis of Defence for Children International Palestine, and Shatha Odeh of the Health Work Committees, submitted a powerful letter appealing to Keys to cancel, outlining in devastating detail how the occupation and Israeli policies have affected Palestinian children. They reveal that since 2003, some 8,000 Palestinian children as young as 12 have been arrested, interrogated (often without access to parents and legal counsel), and detained by the Israeli army and prosecuted in military courts—some held in solitary confinement. (With a 98% conviction rate, it is no surprise that confessions obtained by coercion are rarely thrown out by military judges.) They discuss how military checkpoints and the apartheid wall have become barriers to basic and emergency medical care. And they point out that the blockade of Gaza “is the single greatest contributor to the endemic and long-lasting poverty, deterioration of health care, infant mortality, disease, chronic malnutrition and preventable deaths of children. Palestinian children in Gaza lack access to clean water, health care and are scarred by repeated Israeli military offensives and the constant fear of impending attacks.”

Keys’s decision to perform was made not out of ignorance or an abiding love for Israel or a personal mission to jump-start the peace process. It was about getting paid. The Alicia Keys brand stood to lose financially and likely feared retaliation from pro-Zionist forces. Indeed, her decision to violate the boycott earned her kudos from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and its allies, who in turn placed a flurry of publicity pieces praising her “courage” in the face of BDS “bullies.” But as with Shawn Carter, I don’t blame Keys personally, nor do I question her humanitarian commitments. Alicia Keys is a corporate entity driven by profits and propelled by shareholders (backers and fans). Just as Jay-Z lovers ignored Rocawear’s callous use of sweated labor, Keys’s followers have quietly supported her Israel foray. The sad truth is that 16,000 signatures is nothing against the Keys-AIPAC alliance, and most Americans see Palestine through the official lens of the Israeli government and U.S. policy.

Had Keys paid a visit to Atta Muhammad Atta Sabah, the 12-year-old Palestinian boy shot by an Israeli soldier in Jalazoun refugee camp in the West Bank just six weeks prior to her concert, perhaps she might have changed her mind. She would have met a small, bright-eyed boy paralyzed from the waist down with holes in his liver, lungs, pancreas and spleen, and angry parents resigned to the reality that their son will never see justice. He was shot while attempting to retrieve his school bag. What if she had driven to Southern Israel to the Naqab desert and met a few of the 40,000 Bedouin whom the government plans to forcibly remove from their ancestral homeland to make way for Jewish settlements? And what if she decided to spend a few days in the West Bank after her Tel Aviv performance, meeting and playing for kids in Ramallah, Hebron, Nablus, Bethlehem, East Jerusalem, touring the refugee camps, listening to their stories? She might have been passing through Hebron on July 9th, the day Israeli soldiers detained five-year-old Wadi’ Maswadeh for allegedly throwing a stone at a settler’s car. When Wadi’s father, Karam, complained about the arrest and treatment of his son, he was handcuffed and blindfolded and taken, along with his terrified, crying son, to the Palestinian Authority police. They were both eventually released.

Keys never met Atta Muhammad Atta Sabah or Wadi’ Maswadeh or any of the Palestinian children growing up in a world of refugee camps, home demolitions, settler and military violence, displacement, economic deprivation, and educational policies designed to literally deny their existence. The Keys brand could ill afford to expose their star to such “negativity,” lest she walk away from the machine. But here is the real tragedy: the Keys machine was never compelled to apologize or even mildly acknowledge that something is rotten in the state of Israel.

The sad truth is that Keys’s romantic involvement with producer Swizz Beatz, apparently while he was still married, was considered infinitely more scandalous than playing Tel Aviv. Twitter and Facebook and gossip columns were abuzz with accusations that Alicia Keys is a home wrecker. By contrast, neither her fan base nor the Alicia Keys “haters” had much to say about the wrecking of Palestinian homes. (This year alone, Israel announced plans to build another 2,000+ settlement houses in the West Bank.) Equally disheartening is the Black Entertainment Television (BET) poll that 59% of its on-line readers support Keys’s decision to violate the boycott. Of course, it is likely that AIPAC operatives posing as BET on-line readers skewed the results, but not by much. Most African-Americans simply don’t know a lot about Palestine, and many devout Christians among us tend to buy the argument that defending the State of Israel is tantamount to defending the Holy Land. Few vocal critics of New York’s “stop and frisk” policy, for example, know that the Israeli military version of “stop and frisk” in the West Bank means entering Palestinian homes in the middle of the night, forcing families out of bed, photographing all the boys and young men and taking their information. These routine acts are not part of ongoing investigations or require probable cause, but an official policy of surveillance and intimidation. Such outrageous policies should have generated some 1.6 million signatures rather than 16,000.

Let me repeat: I am not arguing that Jay-Z or Alicia Keys or any corporate mega-star is personally responsible for the kind of political and ethical blinders endemic to what has become a national corporate consciousness, an Empire State of Mind. Corporate celebrities, or rather their brands, are merely the messengers. The responsibility for shedding those blinders and developing an informed, global, ethical critique of materialism, militarism, exploitation and dispossession, rests with us. The absence of a broad-based, progressive black movement has not only opened the floodgates for the spread of neoliberalism as the new common sense, but it has severely hampered the ability of too many African Americans to think critically and globally about oppression and inequality—though, to be sure, this problem is not unique to the black community. Our romance with corporate celebrity culture merely fuels a persistent belief that the black one percent are our natural allies, our role models, our hope for the future. Many of us embrace black millionaires and billionaires—the P-Diddy’s, Russell Simmons’s, Jay-Z’s, and Oprah’s of the world—as embodiments of “our” wealth, without ever questioning the source of their wealth, the limits of philanthropy, or the persistence of poverty among the remaining 99%.

In the end, the difference between, say, Harry Belafonte, Danny Glover, and Alice Walker and the Jay-Zs and Alicia Keys of the world is not generational. It is not a simple-minded division between Old School Civil Rights and the Hip Hop Generation. Before Belafonte, Glover, and Walker became “celebrities,” they were activists first. They joined social movements and risked their bodies and futures before they even had careers. And in this respect, they have more in common with Hip Hop artists/activists such as Yasiin Bey, Talib Kweli, Boots Riley, Rebel Diaz, Chuck D, Rosa Clemente, Immortal Technique, Twice Thou, Lupe Fiasco, Keny Arkana, and others. Their movement work was never about achieving wealth or success, but a commitment to fighting for a world where power rests with the people, not an oligarchy; a world where oppression, exploitation, dispossession, and caging of all people—irrespective of color, gender, nationality, sexual identity—is a thing of the past; a world where such corporate-backed philanthropy is unnecessary, and one need not buy high-priced concert tickets to fight oppression.

Robin D. G. Kelley, who teaches at UCLA, is the author of Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original (2009) and most recently Africa Speaks, America Answers: Modern Jazz in Revolutionary Times (2012).

(Republished with permission)

Tag: Politics