Daily Archives: May 22, 2023

When Queen Elizabeth II died, Stan Grant called her the last white Queen. For Grant, the Queen was a bastion of whiteness the suffocating whiteness that justified the invasion of his country and the genocide of his people but those enduring notions of whiteness like Cleopatra or Helen of Troy, [are] now a thing of history. [The Queen] is a relic. It is time to bury her. Not just her body, but the very idea of her. For Grant, and the thousands of First Nations people who continue to be crushed by the empire she symbolised for so many decades, the Queens death is not to be mourned.

Speaking with me, Grant described his powerful new book, The Queen is Dead, as a journey into my history, in which he explores the notion of whiteness a spell, an evil magic that apotheosises empire and genocide. Grant painfully recalls the suffocating oppression of white institutions stories of his grandfather being tied to a tree like a dog by police and left all day without food or water to swelter in the sun, stories of seeing Aboriginal men arrested for drinking alcohol and roped together and marched down the main street of his hometown, stories of family members who died as children, stories of cousins being sent to welfare, stories of aching hunger.

These experiences and stories are not unique. They belong to all of us. They are etched into the collective memory of First Nations people. It is a part of the enduring legacy of empire on this continent. The Queen was heir to that legacy a legacy which enslaved, exploited, and subjugated hundreds of millions of people over many centuries. Grant makes the case that this legacy has left in its wake a world that is politically anxious and lacking a moral core.

Grant explained this to me: My father summed it up for me once. I asked him why he taught our Wiradjuri language to people who arent Wiradjuri. He said that language does not tell you who you are, it tells you where you are. In that simple sentence, he upended everything that Western modernity rests on its all about the individual, all about who you are. The one thing in the heart of this chasm between us is that white Australians constantly ask themselves who they are and never ask themselves where they are. We cling to the Eastern seaboard. We have the flag of England in the corner of our national flag. Weve imported a system of government from another country. We hold onto these vestiges of other places, and never allow ourselves to sink into the ground here.

Grant and I spoke about Country the notion of a place which transcends something as simple as geography. It is who we are, it is everything that we are.

Grant recalled, I was back home recently, and I had this incredible feeling. There was absolutely no separation, not a sliver of light, between Baiame [Wiradjuri creation spirit], me, and the land that I stood on. Thats my relationship to Country. Its the only place that I could ever call home, and Ive found a way of carrying that sense of Country with me wherever I am in the world, and seeing the world through the eyes of a boy raised on that Country.

Grant examines the impact of whiteness and empire around the world. He quotes historian Caroline Elkins in saying that the empires velvet glove contains an all too familiar iron fist. From India to Africa to Ireland, the Pacific, the Caribbean and of course here, Australia, people from the other side of history have felt that fist.

Grant walked me through his writing process, especially the difficulty he faced in reconciling his history with a need to move forward with love the notion embodied by yindyamarra, a word from mine and Grants language of Wiradjuri.

That crown had symbolised so much suffering for our people, and I had to confront that but I had to not lose myself at the same time, said Grant. I found through the book that its a journey from anger to resentment to betrayal, through to love.

For me, writing is an expression of love I dont see any other reason to write. I dont write to slay, I dont write to convince, I dont write to speak back. I just write to find that expression of love that comes from my people to a world that often has never loved us.

I asked Grant about his inspirations those people who must have informed his writing style and the way he approaches storytelling.

James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Ralph Ellison these people are really important writers out of the black American tradition that have influenced me. But so have so many others the French philosopher and mystic Simone Weil, the Polish Nobel laureate Czesaw Miosz, James Joyce may be above all.

All of the writers I have mentioned have emerged from systems of political oppression. [Writing] is finding ourselves free and exploring the dimensions of freedom through language and through stories that allow us to break the chains of our histories, yet still carry who we are in the world. Its an interesting and very delicate balance.

And yet for First Nations writers the pen, the keyboard, the written word are all alien to us. Our culture is one of oral tradition. It is dynamic and alive. Our stories are passed down through generations by word of mouth. I asked Grant how he negotiates this contested space between our peoples traditions and the methods of communication imposed upon us.

I try to incorporate that into the writing process, to get as close to the spoken word and my voice as possible, says Grant. What often happens in the process of writing is that you lose something between our soul and the pen. The act of writing, the mechanical process of it, inevitably gets in the way.

To explore language and writing is an exploration of the soul but its also an act of translation. We try to make ourselves visible to people who cant see us, and translate our experience into a language our oppressors can understand.

Turning from the book to broader political discussions, Grant spoke about his trepidations as Australians face an era-defining referendum on the Indigenous Voice to Parliament.

For me, quite painfully, it feels like a judgement.I find politics to be a distasteful place. Im not a political person. I like to think Im a poetic person. So for me, increasingly, Im looking less at the referendum and more at the day after. Because irrespective of whether people vote yes or no, we are still going to wake up in a nation still so deeply wounded, and we are all implicated in this moment. We come to it in different ways, but we are going to wake up and well be in the same place asking who we are rather than where we are.

My conversation with Grant took place just days before the coronation of King Charles III. He expressed to me a sense of incredulity and disbelief at the absurdity of this spectacle, this antiquated ceremony of coronation, which has no place in the modern world.

I write in the book that the white Queen is the last white Queen. Yes, King Charles is a white man, but he doesnt occupy the space of whiteness that was so assured throughout the life and reign of Queen Elizabeth. I look at this all through the lens of absurdity, and I see how this speaks only to the past. It does not speak to us today, and it certainly doesnt speak to the future.

In closing, I asked Grant to tell me more about yindyamarra the essence of being at one with your place in the world and how Australians can adopt its tenets at a time where we are more politically divided than ever before.

Its a word that sits deep inside us, says Grant. Its the generosity and the love that comes from our people, even to those who have shown no love for us.

Its a fundamental way of being that allows me to walk down the street in New York or Islamabad or Jerusalem with the same spirit of yindyamarra that I find on my own Country. Its what whiteness has failed to find with all the gifts of modernity, weve become so untethered and alienated from yindyamarra. It is a beautiful and fragile gift from the Wiradjuri people to the world.

For many of us, Grants book will be uncomfortable and difficult reading. In part, because it is always a challenge to look our history in the face and hold our own. But also because we have always been complicit in, and benefited by, the dispossession and genocide of First Nations peoples. We have all, at one time in our lives, bent a knee to the Crown to that iron fist that weighs on the souls of Indigenous people across the world. Grant said to me that his goal in writing The Queen is Dead was to disappear. To become insignificant, and vanish into the world he has woven with his words. And yet, there is a need for all of us to make ourselves significant in this conversation. By asserting ourselves, particularly as First Nations people, we rail against the crushing force of whiteness and empire which was upheld by the steadfast Queen Elizabeth II, and now rests upon the head of her son.

The White Queen is dead. May she be the last White Queen.

Stan will be speaking at the Sydney Writers Festival at Carriageworks in Eveleigh. He will be in conversation at Stan Grant: The Queen is Dead, at 1pm on Friday 26 May; in panel at Coffee & Headlines with the Saturday Paper, at 8:30am on Saturday 27 May; and in conversation at Reckoning, Not Reconciliation, at 2pm on Sunday 28 May. He will also be speaking at PHIVE in Parramatta, for Stan Grant: The Queen is Dead, at 5pm on Saturday 27 May.

See the original post here:

In Conversation with Stan Grant - Honi Soit

Madison Tonight, Representative Mike Bare (D-Verona) voted against the Assembly Republicans rushed proposal to reform local government funding.

For many years, Republicans in the Legislature have taken tools and resources away from local governments that they relied on to succeed. I know from my time as a Verona City Council member and member of the Dane County Board that local governments have been pleading with the Governor and Legislature to positively transform how we fund local governments.

The Republicans plan attaches dozens of strings to the funding that step on local control, further limit crucial powers that public health officers used to keep us safe during the COVID-19 pandemic, undermine local diversity programming, and unnecessarily restrict the states primary environmental stewardship funding program.

A major goal of the Republicans proposal is to ensure the City and County of Milwaukee can succeed financially under the heavy weight of a looming unfunded pension liability. Instead, the Republicans plan perpetuates the systemic and historic oppression of the people of Milwaukee. Ive lived three years of my life in Milwaukee and it holds a special place in my heart. As a State Representative of some of the most privileged communities in this state, I cannot look the other way on that oppression no matter how much more money might be inequitably coming to communities in my district.

Democrats offered amendments that would have given local governments adequate funding without unnecessary strings attached. Assembly Republicans refused to discuss those amendments, walked away from productive negotiations with Democrats in the Legislature and Governor Evers, and rammed through their deeply flawed plan. This was an easy no vote and Im hopeful the Governor and Republicans in the State Senate negotiate a better plan.

Read more:

Rep. Bare: Assembly Republicans' local government funding plan is ... - WisPolitics.com

On November 9, 1938, my great-grandfather Hugo was beaten by Nazi paramilitaries and sent to Sachsenhausen, a concentration camp forty minutes outside of Berlin. Nearly two years earlier, at the age of sixteen, my grandfather Uli had left Germany by himself to live with family in America. Hugo had been shot in the butt while serving in World War I. He survived, the bullet ripping through his diary and denting the canteen in his back pocket, and his status as an injured World War I veteran protected our family from some of the earliest anti-Jewish laws following Adolf Hitlers ascent to power in 1933. But as conditions progressively worsened and Uli could no longer attend school, his family thought it best to get him out of the country.

Hugo was one of thirty thousand Jews arrested and sent to concentration camps between November 9 and 11, 1938. Days earlier, Herschel Grynszpan, a seventeen-year-old Polish-Jewish refugee living in Paris, assassinated a German diplomat. Germans responded by imposing collective punishment on Germanys Jewish population, staging a state-backed pogrom infamously known as Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass. German mobs set ablaze and broke the windows of Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues, blanketing the streets with shattered glass while assaulting and arresting Jews en masse.

A Christian colleague successfully secured Hugos release two weeks later, and Hugo was immediately rushed to a hospital due to internal bleeding from multiple beatings. In 1939, Hugo, my great-grandmother Lotte, and my grandfathers twin sister, Isa, escaped to England. Lotte died from cancer in England before the war was over, and Uli never saw her again.

They were some of the lucky ones. Millions of other European Jews would be arrested and sent to concentration camps, used for slave labor, and ultimately exterminated in the Nazi governments Final Solution.

Following the Nazi Holocaust, the phrase never again has been deployed to insist that the world learned its lesson during World War II and would never again let such a horrific crime happen. For the Zionist movement, this collective trauma and moral imperative provided a powerful ideological bulwark in achieving its goal of building a Jewish nation-state in historic Palestine.

In practice, this has meant a staunch defense of Israel and its apartheid state, erasing the violent settler-colonialism at the heart of its founding and continued oppression of Palestinians. The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), for instance, lists among its examples of antisemitism, denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.

Growing up as the descendent of a Holocaust survivor and in a Jewish community committed to social justice, I also regularly heard the refrain never again. But instead of being used as an ideological cover to shield from criticism of Israeli apartheid and the ongoing military occupation of Palestine, it instilled in me a duty to fight racism and oppression wherever it sprouts its head.

My father became a rabbi, leading our New York City congregation with a social justice ethos. Following my graduation from our Bar Mitzvah program, I became a teaching assistant in our synagogues Sunday school for five years, spending most of that time educating sixth graders on the history of antisemitism and the Jewish response to poverty. When Donald Trump initiated his Muslim ban, our congregation mobilized in protest, my father carrying a homemade cardboard sign that read, My father was a refugee too.

This form of never again has also pointed me to look at Israel, but not in its defense. As I grew older, it became clear that the country that claimed to represent me in the name of the horrors my family went through was founded upon and remains propped up by an ongoing ethnic cleansing. In a painful twist of historical irony, large sections of a historically displaced and oppressed group have interpreted that groups traumatic past as an imperative to repeat the same crimes it once faced. And just as never again has acted as an ideological underpinning of Israels settler-colonial project, it has been used to dismiss critics of Israel as no better than the Nazis.

But if there is any comparison to be made with the Nazis, it is not with the critics of Israel but the Israeli state itself. Not only was Israel founded upon decades of militia and state violence, and the expulsion and ghettoization of its Palestinian population, but over the past few years, the Israeli government has careened even further to the right, resembling more and more the Nazi regime from which my family fled.

Nazi comparisons should never be made lightly. But the idea that many of my people have become the same monsters from whom my grandfather fled has become harder and harder for me to stomach. If never again is to mean anything, it must require action right now in Palestine.

The colonization of Palestine began in earnest in 1897, with the founding of the World Zionist Organization (WZO). Political Zionism was rooted in two reactionary ideologies. First, an ethnonationalist pretext similar to the Nazis Blood and Soil, identifying an innate connection between a diasporic Jewish people and our biblical home. Second, it was built on, and in turn inspired, other European settler-colonial projects and collaborated with European imperial powers. From the start, Political Zionism advanced demographic and territorial maximization, seeking to establish a Jewish majority and control all the land in historic Palestine.

The world-historic tragedy of the Holocaust renewed international support for a Jewish nation-state. Following the 1947 UN partition plan, Zionist militias began campaigns of ethnic cleansing, expelling three hundred thousand Palestinians from the land designated for Israel. This mass ethnic cleansing provoked the intervention of neighboring Arab countries, and by the end of the war, seven hundred fifty thousand Palestinians had been removed from their land, hundreds of towns were destroyed, and thousands were massacred. Through this mass expulsion a historic event Palestinians term Al Nakba, the Catastrophe the modern state of Israel was born.

Following the Six-Day War, Israel came to occupy the rest of Palestine, taking military control over the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, a military occupation that continues to this day. Despite multiple decades of military rule, expanding settlements, and a Jim Crowlike apartheid regime for Palestinians, Israel has been heralded by the United States as a democratic beacon in the Middle East, and any criticism of Israel, no matter how tame, has been decried as antisemitic, citing the Shoah as proof of the Jewish states historical necessity and infallibility.

But over the past few years, the countrys liberal-democratic facade has come undone as it has lurched even further to the right. In 2018, Israel further cemented Jewish supremacy in its Nation-State Law, officially demoting Palestinians to second-class citizens. In the ensuing years, the Israeli military has escalated its bombing campaigns on the Gaza Strip, increased its assaults on Muslim worshipers in the Al Aqsa mosque, and last year even assassinated the Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. Somehow, the Israeli government inaugurated this past December is even worse, embracing an explicitly fascist politics and orienting toward the total ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

The parallels between Israels race-based occupation and the Nazi government are far too abundant to ignore, especially for those of us who grew up with a deep and painful connection with the Holocaust. Just as Germans acted in collective revenge against German Jews on Kristallnacht, in late February, Israeli settlers laid siege to the town Huwara and surrounding villages in the West Bank, punishing the Palestinian residents for the murder of two settlers earlier in the day. Jewish mobs burned down Palestinian homes, businesses, and even a school, and assaulted Palestinians, injuring hundreds and killing at least one.

The violence on display was so disturbing, even Israeli commentators compared the night to Kristallnacht. In response to the bloody events, Israels finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, called on Huwara to be wiped out, while insisting that the military should take on the job, not vigilantes.

Alongside the rise of the Israeli far right has been an immense increase in settler and state violence. In 2015, settlers set fire to two Palestinian homes, murdering an eighteen-month-old Palestinian baby, burning him alive. In many towns, Israel Defense Force soldiers have stood by as settlers have attacked Palestinians, while in other cases theyve protected settlers or joined in on the assaults. In 2022 alone, one hundred fifty Palestinians were killed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the deadliest year for Palestinians under the occupation since 2004, which is already being quickly outpaced by 2023s death toll.

The parallels between the Nazi regime and Israel dont stop at their similar embrace of state-backed race-based mob violence. Millions of Palestinians under military occupation in the West Bank and Gaza live under a system of Jim Crow, barbed wire, checkpoints, and restricted movement. These features, not bugs, of Israeli society have created a military occupation in which the residents of the Gaza Strip live in conditions eerily similar to those imposed on the Jews confined in the Nazis Warsaw Ghetto.

The comparison between Gaza and Warsaw is not new but bears repeating. In 1940, the Nazi occupation established the Warsaw Ghetto to sequester and imprison Jews within the Polish city. At its height, the ghetto, which spanned just over 1.3 square miles, was home to nearly half a million Jews confined in subhuman conditions. The Nazis established a barricade to restrict the movement of its inhabitants, and denied the Jews living there sufficient food, water, health care, energy, and supplies.

The German occupiers killed the ghettos Jewish population indiscriminately, leading to the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, a last-ditch revolt to prevent their peoples extermination. Though the uprising was brutally suppressed, the world honors the Jewish freedom fighters who fought the Nazi regime and whose martyrdom is a reminder of the fight against oppression and tyranny.

While the Israeli government does not have the same orientation toward the systematic mass execution of Palestinians as the Nazi regime established against Europes Jews, the parallels between the Warsaw Ghetto and Gaza Strip are uncanny. Just as in the German occupation of Warsaw, the Israeli occupation of Gaza restricts its Palestinian populations movement, confines them to dense living quarters, and denies them access to basic needs. These severe conditions are exacerbated by regular bombing campaigns and military assaults on the population-dense Gaza Strip, which destroy civilian infrastructure like homes, offices, pipelines, and sewage treatment and have killed thousands of civilians.

The open-air prison environment in Gaza and pogroms in the West Bank are part of an overarching system of apartheid with de jure and de facto segregation, a state commitment to Jewish supremacy, and the domination of Palestinians. Jews like myself who have no roots in Israel have the right to return and become Israeli citizens, while millions of Palestinian refugees round the world cannot return to their ancestral home. And in Israels deeply undemocratic society, Palestinians under military occupation in Gaza and the West Bank have no say in the government that controls their daily lives.

In recent years, Israel has further enshrined explicit racial hierarchy and oriented toward eliminating Palestines Arab population to ensure a permanent Jewish majority. Palestinians are harassed out of their homes to make way for Jewish settlers. Right-wing politicians like Smotrich call to wipe out Palestinian towns, while other fascists like Itamar Ben-Gvir, a leader in the illegal settler movement, have been given crucial state positions like security minister. Ben-Gvir has called for establishing a ministry to encourage the emigration [from Israel] of enemies and people who are disloyal to the state not dissimilar from the Jewish emigration encouraged by the Nazis before implementing their Final Solution.

While those of us in the United States hope to see more democratic oversight over our reactionary courts, in Israel, the Right seeks to circumvent the last checks on their genocidal program. In many ways, the Nakba has never ended, and the full goals of Zionism will never be achieved until the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the river to the sea is complete. The new Israeli government is hoping to fulfill that mission.

Ben-Gvir and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus right-wing government have provoked a series of unprecedented protests from Israels secular liberal society in defense of an independent judiciary against the governments recent attacks. Protesters have limited their dissent to opposing what they view as the erosion of liberal norms within Israeli society. Its encouraging to see Jewish revolt against the Israeli government. But the protests near-silence on Israeli apartheid is glaring, especially given the governments objectives in attacking the courts, blaming them for blocking the governments ability to demolish terrorists houses, [revoke] the rights of terrorists families, reimplement the death penalty for terrorists, and [give] soldiers immunity.

While protesters declare theyre out in defense of a democratic and Jewish state, a democratic and Jewish state in Palestine are incompatible. As Peter Beinart writes in the New York Times, Democracy means government by the people. Jewish statehood means government by Jews. In a country where Jews comprise only half of the people between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, the second imperative devours the first.

Israeli democracy is all the more an illusion when you consider the millions of Palestinian refugees who are still waiting on their right of return as Israel continues to displace more and more Palestinians. Despite what the protesters might claim, Israels latest right-wing government is not anathema to Israeli values; its the inevitable outgrowth of Zionisms Blood and Soil ideology.

Observing the protests, I couldnt help but be reminded of Martin Niemllers famous poem First They Came in which Niemller describes standing on the sidelines as the Nazis attacked one group at a time. By the end of the poem, no one is left to speak out for Niemller as the Nazis come for him. After decades of complicity in the expansion of Israeli apartheid, no one is left to speak for liberal secular Israelis as Netanyahu consolidates his power and establishes a fascist regime.

Despite the glaring similarities between the Israeli government and the Nazi regime from which my family fled, for decades, my family and peoples experience has been wielded in defense of Israels systematic racial oppression. This cynical deployment of identity politics has been used to denounce the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, blacklist pro-Palestinian academics, and smear anti-apartheid politicians like the UKs Jeremy Corbyn and Minnesotas Ilhan Omar as antisemitic. And to punish and intimidate pro-Palestine organizers, Canary Mission, a right-wing site devoted to documenting anti-Israel activism, routinely publishes the personal information of Palestinian activists, students, professors, and Jewish allies.

These defenses of apartheid and ethnic cleansing under the guise of fighting antisemitism have always deeply disgusted me as a descendent of Holocaust survivors. As a people whose history has been defined by displacement, we should, more than anyone, empathize with and stand in solidarity with those displaced by settler colonialism. Instead, too many Jews see our peoples freedom as contingent on the ongoing oppression of Palestinians.

My familys history taught me to stand up in defense of the exploited and oppressed. Yet mainstream Jewish institutions tell the world that to be a real Jew is not to be a defender of the oppressed but of apartheid. As a Jew, simply speaking out against Israels racism and brutal violence against Palestinians elicits accusations of forsaking my people and the label of self-hating Jew. My mom recently told me a story about attending a Humanistic Jewish conference during the Second Intifada where she was attacked as a traitor for simply saying if we believe in equal rights for all people, we believe in equal rights for all people.

Ironically, the Anti-Defamation League even recently denounced some of the liberal Zionist protests in Israel as antisemitic. Seeing this, I couldnt help but laugh just as in Niemllers poem, many supporting the protests had used the same denunciations against me and other Jews and non-Jews for our criticisms of Israel.

Despite the dominant narrative by Israel and its powerful lobbying institutions like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee that deploy Jewish identity in support of apartheid, Judaism has a long history of fighting oppression and exploitation. Throughout the nineteenth century, the majority of European Jews rejected Zionism and instead embraced working-class socialist internationalism. These Jews recognized their liberation as wrapped up in the liberation of all of humanity, identified class society and capitalism as the culprit for social ills and antisemitism, and fought to transform the world rather than retreat from it. I embrace their Judaism.

Rabbi Hillel asks us, If not now, when?, imploring Jewish people to fight injustice, an imperative I internalized from a young age. Our peoples centuries of oppression and struggle for freedom has only strengthened this resolve. In the face of a fascist Israeli government, we must recognize that Palestinian freedom and Jewish freedom are inextricably linked, and that freedom cannot be achieved until there exists one free and democratic state for Jews and Palestinians. The struggle to make never again a reality is far from over.

See the rest here:

Never Again Is Right Now in Palestine - Jacobin magazine

Some UF students are condemning a state bill that limits Floridas colleges and universities from spending money on diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the bill into law May 15. It denies public colleges from offering courses that distort significant historical events, teach identity politics or are based on theories that systemic racism, sexism, oppression or privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States and were created to maintain social, political, or economic inequities.

The Black Student Union and Black Student Leaders at UF released a joint statement May 20 denouncing DeSantis signing the bill.

The organizations expressed heavy concerns over the bills power to silence minority voices.

This bill works to erase the accomplishments that people of color have worked toward for centuries while harming the efforts and protections set in place to make students of color feel represented on their college campuses in the state of Florida, the UF BSU wrote.

With this year marking 55 years of the organization at UF, there is an overwhelming concern regarding the idea of freedom and expression, according to the UF BSU.

The organization urgently requested prohibiting the bill from interfering with cultural efforts.

The statement from BSU also encouraged students to contact university administration to express their concerns about the bills impact.

BSU will continue to commit itself to cultivating a community, according to its statement.

Contradictions between the DEI bill and the K-12 AAPI education bill have raised concerns over where the governments interest lies.

The contradictory approaches to DEI and the passage of the K-12 AAPI education bill speaks to the control that white supremacy has over the Model Minority Myth, said Joaquin Rafaele Marcelino, a student government senator and founder of the Pan-Asian Caucus.

While the K-12 AAPI educational bill will uplift Asian American communities, it doesn't take away from the detriment of the DEI bill nor our support for other groups impacted, they said.

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Contact Nicole at nbeltran@alligator.org. Follow her on Twitter @nicolebeltg.

The Independent Florida Alligator has been independent of the university since 1971, your donation today could help #SaveStudentNewsrooms. Please consider giving today.

Nicole Beltrn is a first -year journalism and economics major, reporting for El Caimn. When she isn't writing, she enjoys reading, journaling, and listening to musical theater.

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UF community condemns bill defunding DEI initiatives - The Independent Florida Alligator

Kabs Kanu: Sierra Leone Telegraph: 22 May 2023:

Sierra Leoneans should give President Maada Bio the boot at the ballot box on June 24, 2023. Bio is not fit to rule human beings anywhere. He should be kicked out into the dustbins of history to make way for a government that will repair the mess he has created in Sierra Leone and bring back relief to the people.

Below is a list compiled by Sierra Leoneans and circulated on social media about how prices of food and basic commodities have escalated in Sierra Leone since 2018 when Britain and some countries, in the interest of regime change, imposed Maada Bio and the SLPP on Sierra Leone to punish former President Ernest Koroma and the APC for their obsession with China, a country that had become one of Sierra Leones topmost trade, investment and development partners.

The former British High Commissioner, His Excellency Mr. Guy Warrington, vowed on his manhood that APC will never return to power in Sierra Leone. He also vowed that only over his dead body will the APC see power again, hence they have decided to establish a very tight partnership with China.

This geopolitical powerplay that never, ever benefit the poor people of any country, has cost Sierra Leoneans everything.

The President Maada Bio that they imposed on us has destroyed Sierra Leone in a manner nobody ever imagined. He has destroyed all the institutions of governance and accountability, including the judiciary, parliament, civil society, media, womens movements and the ministries, departments and agencies ( MDAs ) which he has bloated with his tribesmen and women.

Additionally, President Bio has committed egregious and horrible human rights abuses, characterized by extrajudicial and politically motivated killings, and the unnecessary harassment of opponents or people demonstrating their rights to protest against the misrule of his government.

President Bio also destroyed the Sierra Leone currency, the Leone, through a failed policy of redenomination that has caused horrendous inflation and drop in the value of the currency. The US Dollar is now equivalent to almost two million Leones, making it very difficult for industries, importers, wholesalers and other businesspeople to import foods and basic necessities.

The hopelessly inept Bank Governor appointed by Bio, who spearheaded the redenomination, has fled the country and is now seen daily on TIKTOK, dancing his shameful heart away in the Bahamas, where he has retreated with his own slice of the loot.

The exchange rate of the Leone to the dollar was Le 750, 000 to U.S. $100 in 2018 when the APC left power. Today, it is Le 2, 340,000 under President Bio.

Correspondingly, living expenses and cost of foods have gone through the roof because of the corruption and disastrous economic policies of the failed and oppressive Maada Bio government. Things have become very expensive in Sierra Leone, so expensive that you wonder how people manage to eat and survive in the country.

When Maada Bio came to power in 2018, a bag of rice cost Le 200,000 but in just five years of Bios rule, a bag of rice is now Le 870,000. With basic monthly salaries hovering around Le 250,000, how does President Bio expect the people to buy just one bag of rice to feed their families?

A bag of sugar that was Le 350,000 when President Bio was imposed on Sierra Leone is now Le1,230,000

Look at the other price variations between 2018 and 2023:

ONE LITRE OF FUEL Le6000 in 2018 now Le 22,000

ONE BOLIED EGG Le1000 in 2018 now Le5,000

ONE RUBBER BARREL OF PALM OIL Le170,000 in 2018 now Le740,000

ONE CUP OF GARRI Le500 in 2018 now Le3,000

ONE RUBBER COOKING OIL Le200,000 in 2018 now Le670,000

ONE PLASTIC SACHET OF WATER Le2000 in 2018 now Le7,000 in 2023

These are just a few of the frightening price increases people have seen in Sierra Leone since President Bio came to power in 2018.

Sierra Leoneans have become very frustrated. People are seen walking on the street talking to themselves because of the harsh and brutish economic life in the country, coupled with the oppression, suppression, human rights abuses, blatant tribalism, and the Presidents complete lack of interest in the welfare of the people.

Meanwhile, President Bio is busy politicking, mouthing shameless lies and impossible promises, buying over vulnerable members of the opposition and setting in place mechanisms to rig the forthcoming elections.

So, the question is, how does President Bio plan to win the elections on June 24? The answer indeed is through ballot rigging, but he and the Sierra Leonean people will clash if he succeeds in his nebulous plans.

Link:

Prices of basic commodities and foods have gone insane in Sierra ... - Sierra Leone Telegraph

As protesters chanted in the background, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law Monday a hotly contested bill that dismantles diversity, equity and inclusion at Floridas public universities and colleges.

The governor called DEI a distraction from the core mission of colleges during the ceremony at New College in Sarasota, a school that DeSantis wants to lead the way for a return to what he calls classical education.

DEI would be better called discrimination, exclusion and indoctrination, DeSantis said. What this bill says is that this whole experiment with DEI is coming to an end in Florida.

The law also bans courses that distort significant historical events, teach identity politics, or are based on theories that systemic racism, sexism, oppression, or privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States and were created to maintain social, political, or economic inequities.

DEI initiatives, generally designed to increase participation and promote opportunities for underrepresented groups, include academic courses focusing on women writers and LGBTQ+ history and aid for disadvantaged students.

If you want to do things like gender ideology, go to Berkeley, DeSantis said. But for us, with our tax dollars, we want to focus on the classical mission of what a university is supposed to be.

Andrew Gothard, president of the United Faculty of Florida, which represents more than 25,000 faculty members across the state, said providing students with the chance to learn about a variety of subjects and perspectives is a bedrock of democracy.

The government has no role in banning or censoring subject matter in higher education, Gothard said in April.

Democrats, who opposed the bill in the session that ended May 5, blasted DeSantis for signing it.

Indoctrination drives the DeSantis agenda not because he is worried educators are indoctrinating students, but because they arent indoctrinating them with HIS ideology, state Sen. Shevrin Jones, D-Miami Gardens, said in a statement. This is sadly the latest example of government overreach into Florida classrooms as his administration continues its authoritarian assault on ideas and information.

Earlier this year, DeSantis remade New College, a small liberal arts school of about 700 students, by appointing a majority of conservatives to its board, including Christopher Rufo, a member of the Manhattan Institute who helped devise the plan to dismantle DEI across the nation.

They quickly fired the colleges president Patricia Okker and replaced her with former House Speaker Richard Corcoran, a staunch DeSantis ally, with a compensation package of $699,000 a year.

At Mondays ceremony, Corcoran thanked the governor and Legislature for $35 million in new funding for the school this year, about $50,000 per student. He said New College had already banned DEI and changed its curriculum to focus on values and technology.

Corcoran also joked that the protesters chanting outside the ceremony were upset with him for shutting off the air conditioning in the dorms, not the changes at their school.

Noting that DeSantis is known for saying Florida is where woke comes to die, state Rep. Spencer Roach, R-North Fort Myers, added, When you hear whats going on outside, thats what it sounds like when woke dies.

See the original post:

If you want to do things like gender ideology, go to Berkeley: DeSantis bans diversity, equity and inclusion in Florida colleges - The Mercury News

Today, I am delivering a speech celebrating the life and legacy of William Gladstone at Gladstones Library in Hawarden. Why is a former president of Armenia a nation long championed by humanitarians in Britain applauding a 19th-century figure of British politics whose name was recently scrubbed from a building at the University of Liverpool for his familys links to slavery?

The answer is simple: Gladstone was the greatest prime minister of the 19th century. I do not mean this as a tribute purely to his political shrewdness but also, first and foremost, to his principled humanitarianism. Yes, his father, Sir John Gladstone, profited from the slave trade, and young William defended the rights of slaveowners early in a career that spanned almost all of the 19th century.

William Ewert Gladstone was born in the first decade of the 19th century (1808) and died in its last (1898), and as happens with human beings, his views evolved as he aged. He shed opinions he espoused in his youth, served an unprecedented four terms as prime minister without subordinating his values to politically expedient concessions, and earned the title of defender of the oppressed.

As a politician, Gladstone established himself as a staunch advocate of liberal principles and individual liberty. He believed in limited government intervention, economic freedom and the protection of civil liberties. Indeed, his commitment to liberal values formed the foundation of his political ideology and guided his policy decisions. He was fabled for his mastery of finance and his commitment to fiscal responsibility. As Chancellor of the Exchequer, he implemented rigorous budgetary discipline, reducing government spending and advocating for free trade policies. His economic reforms laid the groundwork for Britains prosperity and helped shape the global landscape of trade.

At the same time, Gladstone was a fervent supporter of electoral and parliamentary reforms. He furthered efforts to expand suffrage and build a more inclusive democratic system. His advocacy contributed to the extension of voting rights, including the Reform Acts of 1867 and 1884, which enfranchised a significant portion of the British population.

Gladstone recognised early on the importance of education in achieving social progress and individual empowerment, and prioritised education reforms.

Perhaps Gladstones most notable (and contentious) political endeavour was his pursuit of Irish Home Rule. Gladstone sought to grant Ireland a significant degree of self-governance within the British Empire in the hope of addressing the grievances of the Irish people and fostering reconciliation between Britain and Ireland. His attempts to pass Home Rule ultimately faced significant opposition but let us for a moment imagine our world had his visionary endeavour sailed through: Britons would have been spared generations of strife and trauma.

Gladstone, beginning as what I would call a conservative populist, was one of those rare politicians who became more radical as he aged. He voted to admit Jews to parliament and condemned what he called the earth-hunger of his colleagues who dreamed of expanding British imperial rule.

But the cause that really distinguished Gladstone in his later life was Armenia. His involvement in the Armenian Question, driven entirely by moral considerations, began in the late 19th century.

On his 85th birthday, in December 1894, Gladstone received an Armenian delegation at his library in Hawarden, where he was given first-hand reports of the atrocities against the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. Sultan Abdul Hamid II had set his troops loose that year on Turkeys Armenian communities.

The Hamidian massacres, as they came to be known, began with a wave of attacks against Armenians in the eastern provinces of Sasun and Zeitun. Mass slaughter was accompanied by forced conversions, looting and destruction of Armenian property. Gladstone, who had raised his voice against Ottoman violence in the Balkans, was appalled, but his advanced age imposed severe limits on the help he could offer.

The violence escalated further in 1895, spreading to other regions, including the cities of Istanbul and Izmir. Armenians were targeted in organised pogroms, often incited by state officials, religious leaders and local militias. Other minorities were also persecuted. Gladstone, though a year older by now, decided to act.

On August 6 1885, the 86-year-old former prime minister walked the 10-mile distance from his castle at Hawarden to Chester Town Hall. Thousands of people had gathered there to hear him. Gladstone denounced the Ottoman Empire as perhaps the worst in the world and rallied the crowd to stand with the Armenians, one of the most pacific, intelligent and industrious [nations] in the world.

The meeting, chaired by the Duke of Westminster, ended with a resolution in support of Armenia. And such was its effect that the Turkish censor banned every single English newspaper the following day because each carried extensive coverage of Gladstones speech.

Gladstones support for Armenia was untiring. He deployed his influence as the Grand Old Man of British politics to drum up support for the Armenian cause. He engaged in diplomatic efforts, met leaders, and leveraged his vast network to push for international intervention. His moral authority, coupled with his matchless oratory, made him a compelling advocate for justice.

Gladstones last public speech, in September 1896, was at a protest meeting against the Ottoman killings of Armenians. Though he was by then partially deaf and almost blind, Gladstones speech roused six thousand people to their feet in the Circus Building in Liverpool in support of Armenia. It was perhaps the greatest piece of oratory in his career. All human beings, Gladstone thundered, have the same claims upon our support. The ground upon which he stood, he told his audience, is not British, nor European, but it is human.

Gladstones influential pamphlet, aptly titled The Armenian Question, was published the same year. It became a catalyst for raising global awareness about the suffering endured by Armenians. In this seminal work, Gladstone passionately detailed the plight of the Armenian people, shedding light on the atrocities committed by the Ottoman Empire. His eloquent prose and powerful rhetoric struck a chord with readers worldwide, drawing attention to a horror that had been overlooked or dismissed. He warned that the massacres of Armenians would give way to something unimaginably worse if Europe remained content to listen rather than act. History tragically vindicated Gladstone.

When Gladstone died, in 1898, he was given a state funeral. His coffin, however, was draped not with the national flag but with a silk shroud of white, blue and gold the standard of the Armenian nation given to his family by the Armenian Church.

Gladstones moral imperative was clear: international action was needed to address the Armenian Question. He urged governments, politicians, and ordinary citizens to take a stand against oppression. And his advocacy, transcending political boundaries, left a lasting impression on the hearts and minds of those who heard his voice.

Gladstones support for Armenia serves as a reminder to this day of the power of international solidarity. By challenging the indifference of the global community, he demonstrated the transformative potential of collective action in the face of injustice.

Had he been alive today, Gladstone would almost certainly be raising his voice in support of the peoples of Nagorno-Karabakh, Ukraine, Syria and countless other conflicts. A hundred years after his great speech in Liverpool, there is a pressing need for a new Gladstonian approach to humanity on this planet.

Dr Armen Sarkissian served as the 5th prime minister and 4th president of Armenia. His next book, The Small States Club: How Small Smart States can Save the World, will be published later this year

Original post:

Don't cancel Gladstone. He was a true friend of freedom at home ... - The Telegraph

KARACHI: Within moments of the violent protests that broke out across the country on May 9, hours after PTI Chairman Imran Khans arrest from the premises of the Islamabad High Court (IHC), videos of people vandalising public and private properties, torching buildings, and clashing with police began circulating on social media.

Alarmed, the authorities quickly pulled the plug on mobile internet and blocked public access to Twitter, YouTube and Facebook. The rationale was to not allow the protesters and in some cases, genuine miscreants to continue mobilising using the reach of social media.

The government, clearly wary of PTIs social media prowess, seems to have been satisfied with blocking the three platforms, likely believing the move would be enough to blunt its main rivals most potent tool.

The PTI is, after all, a juggernaut on the three aforementioned platforms, with an aggregate following of over 17.6 million. However, the government left a flank unguarded: TikTok. They either did not take the platform seriously, or were totally clueless about its potential in narrative warfare.

TikTok is uncharted territory in the social media landscape of Pakistani politics. Only two parties the PTI and PML-N have official TikTok accounts. Between the two, the PTI is far ahead in the game. The traction it enjoys is overwhelming.

Its official TikTok account has three million followers and has accumulated over 167.4m likes on its video content. Meanwhile, the PML-Ns follower count stands at a measly 41,300, with just over 770,000 likes on its content.

With Twitter inaccessible, the PTI and its social media team checked the governments move by leveraging TikTok. It went full throttle on the platform. In four days from May 9, when Mr Khan was arrested, to May 12, when the Supreme Court ordered his release 164 videos were posted on PTIs official account; an average of 41 videos per day.

These videos were viewed by over 100 million people, garnered over 62 million likes and 191,000 comments. They were shared by around 260,000 people. The average engagement on each video was: over 618,000 views, 378,000 likes, 1,165 comments and 1,583 shares.

The PTI shared messages from PTI leaders and montages of Mr Khan in action. While TV screens dedicated themselves to scenes depicting violence, the PTI posted videos showing peaceful demonstrations.

It also effectively used the platform to mobilise workers with calls to gather at specific locations in various cities.

Radio silence

The numbers show that the PTI enjoyed an open field on TikTok. The only other political account the PML-Ns posted only two videos in the same period, which were viewed for a total of around 134,000 times. Their cumulative engagement was around 9,400 likes, 348 comments and 908 shares.

Videos with the hashtag #fitnaarrested including those posted by the PML-N official account and its followers got only about 2.7m views. Meanwhile, videos with the hashtag #ReleaseImranKhan, used by PTI and its followers, got a total of over 233.6m views.

The efficacy of the governments move to shut down three major social media platforms was debatable, as most people easily bypassed the gag by using a VPN.

As for the objective behind the move to curb the PTIs power to mobilise the numbers from TikTok show that it failed to achieve it. These numbers also showed the futility of attempts to curb the spread of information during a time when theres a vast range of social media platforms available.

Whether governments the incumbent and subsequent learn that lesson is yet to be seen.

PTIs TikTok juggernaut

On the face of it, TikTok and political discourse do not seem to go hand-in-hand. Fun videos is the phrase generally associated with the platform. However, it is a lot more than that. The place is populated by Gen Z those born between 1997 and 2013 who make up almost 39 per cent of its total users.

For them, TikTok has silently become a forum for serious debate on some of the most contentious issues of our times: from racial justice, climate change and politics, to gender-based violence, etc.

The social side of Pakistani politics

The PTI is credited with being the pioneer in using social media for narrative building. The book, Pakistans Political Parties: Surviving between Dictatorship and Democracy, co-authored by Niloufer Siddiqui, Mariam Mufti and Sahar Shafqat, describes PTI as an early mover on the social media front when it turned to Twitter and Facebook in order to mobilise the coveted youth vote.

A 2014 research report on PTIs use of Twitter by Saifuddin Ahmed and Marko M. Skoric found that its use of Twitter was the most distinctive as it involved greater interaction with the public, more campaign updates and greater mobilisation of citizens to vote.

Master TikTokers

It is important to try and understand how the PTI and PML-N differ in their use of TikTok and what their content tells us about their strategy, narrative and messaging. As part of our research, we analysed the content published on both accounts. We took a sample of 144 videos from PTIs account and 100 videos from PML-Ns account.

Since PTI publishes several videos every day, we restricted our sample to videos posted across five dates: March 8, March 14 to 16, and March 18. These dates were chosen as the account witnessed the most activity on these days.

On March 8, PTI workers came face to face with the police and a supporter, Ali Bilal, aka Zille Shah, died. From March 14 to 16, police laid a siege at the PTI chairmans Zaman Park residence to arrest him, leading to another face-off with police. On March 18, Mr Khan arrived in Islamabad to appear before a court, resulting in a new standoff between the police and PTI workers.

On the face of it, PTIs TikTok works like a well-oiled machine. The 144 videos were posted over a period of five days almost 29 videos per day on average.

Given that most of them needed to be pieced together and edited for music and graphics, it appeared to be the work of a dedicated team of social media specialists. The PML-Ns 100 videos spanned over 82 days from January 1 to March 25 at an average of 1.2 videos per day.

The art of narrative-building

Niloufer Siddiqui explains that in the political context, a narrative is an idea of a political partys ideology and what it stands for. Narrative-building is a buzzword in politics these days as political parties want to take the lead in setting the discourse. For Ms Siddiqui, who teaches political science at the University of Albany, PTI is clear in what its narrative is. It stands as anti-corruption, anti-status quo and anti-elite.

Our analysis showed that PTI used TikTok to effectively take the lead in setting the narrative. Across the five days, the account consistently posted videos showing how authorities targeted the partys workers. Of the 31 videos posted on March 8, 10 accused the police of torturing, tear gassing and killing a party worker.

Out of the 77 videos posted between March 14 and 16, a total of 18 were about the alleged torture of PTI workers, teargassing at Mr Khans house, polices attempt to breach the Zaman Parks door, and claims about the use of chemicals in water cannons and expired tear gas canisters. On March 18, the account posted 34 videos, of which 10 accused the government and security agencies of torturing and teargassing PTI workers and conducting an illegal search operation at Zaman Park.

The PMLN apparently failed to counter this narrative on the three dates. In fact, only two videos were posted on the partys official account between March 10 to March 24. They both featured Maryam Nawaz Sharif.

The analysis showed that the PTI used TikTok as an effective tool to mobilise its workers and demonstrate public support for its chairman. In 22 of the analysed videos, PTI leaders directly addressed the workers and urged them to reach Zaman Park.

These were in addition to the use of hashtag #ZamanParkPohancho** in the description of the analysed videos. Till April 7, the videos under the said hashtag not all of them posted by the official PTI account had over 242m views. There were also 41 videos on the apparent public support for Mr Khan, showing the crowd gathered outside Zaman Park and during his court appearance.

For Ms Siddiqui, a big reason for the clarity in PTIs messaging is Mr Khan being the partys face. The fact is that whatever Imran Khan says becomes what PTI says. So, the PTI and Imran Khan are really synonymous.

This contrasts with the PML-N, whose narrative, like the house of Sharifs, appears to be divided between Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Ms Nawaz. Of the 100 analysed videos, the narrative of 40 videos centred around PM Shehbaz. These were clips of his meeting, interviews, media talks and governance. Ms Sharif was the focus of 23 videos. Most of these videos were her addresses, rallies, and public support.

The PML-N strategy witnessed an apparent shift after January 28 the day Ms Sharif returned to Pakistan. All but one of the 23 videos featuring Ms Sharif were posted after this date. Before the PML-N leaders return, the partys narrative was focused on PM Shehbazs governance. Out of the 40, 33 videos featuring the prime minister were posted before this date.

The Imran factor

The analysis showed that the PTI is clear in its approach: centre the entire narrative around Chairman Imran Khan his popularity, supporters willingness to sacrifice their lives for him, his fight for peoples rights, and him being a one-man army against the states oppression.

Of the 144 videos analysed, the narrative in 62 centred around Mr Khan, ranging from the conspiracy to kill him, reasons for his attempted arrest, the gag on his speeches, the cases against him, etc. In 36 out of 144 videos, Mr Khan was the sole appearance. These were clips of his speeches and his messages to PTI supporters.

This Imran-centric content did yield results for PTI. Nine of the 14 videos on PTIs account that crossed over a million views featured Mr Khan. Not only for his party, but the PTI chairman also fetched eyeballs for the rival PML-N. Of the ten most-viewed videos on the PML-Ns account during the period in consideration, four were directly critical of Mr Khan.

The voter is changing

While political campaigns run on Pakistani social media leave a lot to be desired, the presence of the two biggest political parties on TikTok indicates an effort to reach out to voters where theyre concentrated. In surveys conducted by Asfandyar Mir and Niloufer Siddiqui to understand what platforms people use to access news and determine its trustworthiness, the numbers were 58pc for Facebook, 63pc WhatsApp, 47pc YouTube, 17pc Twitter and 30pc TikTok.

This change is not limited to how people consume news; it has a wider implication for Pakistans political landscape. The voter is changing, Ms Siddiqui said while explaining this trend.

While political parties with inherently weak organisational systems have relied on electables and patronage to attract votes, things have started to change. Social media and urbanisation, severing feudal and biradri ties are changing party affiliations.

And the PTI has capitalised on this.

Ms Siddiqui said the PTI also relied on electables, but it simultaneously managed to capture peoples attention with its anti-status quo and anti-corruption narrative. The PML-N and PPP, the other two major parties, failed to catch up. They are still stuck in electable maths.

This was helped by PTIs openness to exploring new platforms to amplify its message. As Mr Ahad explained, the party has always been more conducive to experimenting with social media, while their rivals fear the backlash their leaders might receive on these places.

The PTI has been dominating the narrative so much, and for so long, other parties are apprehensive in countering it, he said.

*The number of likes, shares, comments and views are approximation as TikTok rounds off the figure after it reaches five digits

**All hashtags originally in Urdu script have been rewritten in Roman Urdu.

This story has been done in collaboration with Media Matters for Democracy.

Published in Dawn, May 22nd, 2023

Excerpt from:

TikTok: The new frontier for political info-wars - DAWN.com

Seventy-five years have passed since the Palestinian people were ethnically cleansed and forcibly expelled from their homes, lands, and property in their ancestral land during the 1948 Nakba (meaning catastrophe in Arabic). Palestinian society was decimated during the Nakba, 531 Palestinian villages were destroyed, and more than 70 massacres were carried out against innocent civilians, killing more than 15 thousand Palestinians between 1947 and 1949. The legacy of the Nakba events is that about two-thirds of the Palestinian people became refugees in and around 1948 and a quarter of those who remained within historic Palestine geography were internally displaced and denied their right to return to their villages, towns, and cities of origin ever since.

Since 1948, Israel established a regime of racial domination and oppression over the Palestinian people primarily in the domains of nationality and land. In the immediate aftermath of the Nakba, Israel adopted a series of laws, policies, and practices, which sealed the dispossession of the indigenous Palestinian people, systematically denying the return of Palestinian refugees and other Palestinians who were abroad at the time of the war. At the same time, Israel imposed a system of institutionalized racial discrimination over Palestinians who remained on the land, many of whom had been internally displaced. Such Israeli laws have constituted the legal architecture of the Israeli apartheid that continue to be imposed on the Palestinian people today.

The 1950 so-called Absentee Property Law became the main legal instrument of dispossession. Israel used it to confiscate the property of Palestinian refugees and displaced persons, who were deemed absentees despite the State denying their return. Seventy-five years later, this Absentee Property Law continues to advance Israels Judaization of parts of the West Bank including the city of Jerusalem and to alter its Palestinian character, demographic composition and identity.

In turn, the 1950 Law of Return and the 1952 Citizenship Law cemented Israels institutionalized racial discrimination in law. Establishing domination, both in law and in practice, Israel granted every Jew the exclusive right to enter the State as an immigrant and to obtain citizenship. At the same time, Palestinian refugees have been categorically denied their right to return, to their homes, lands, and property from which they were illegally dispossessed.

Such Israeli laws compose the legal foundation of Israeli apartheid, perpetuating its systematic racial domination and oppression over all Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line, and refugees and exiles. Seven and a half decades on, Israel has strategically fragmented the Palestinian people into at least four separate geographic, legal, political, and administrative domains as a tool to impose and maintain apartheid. Israels strategic fragmentation of the Palestinian people ensures that they cannot meet, group, live together, or exercise any collective rights, particularly their right to self-determination and permanent sovereignty over their natural resources. Strategic fragmentation is further entrenched through the illegal closure and blockade of the Gaza Strip, the Annexation Wall, and Israels permit regime consisting of checkpoints and other physical barriers, severely impacting the freedom of movement of Palestinians.

As we commemorate 75 years since the Nakba, the Israeli government continues its de jure and de facto annexation of the West Bank, which represents the continuation of Israels land grab, pillage, and displacement of Palestinians through the maintenance of its apartheid. As reaffirmed by successive United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteurs on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, Israels continued annexation plans are a testament to Israels 21st-century apartheid, leaving in its wake the demise of the Palestinians right to self-determination.

The crimes of the Nakba, including the ethnic cleansing and expulsion of Palestinian refugees, extensive destruction of Palestinian property, mass killing, and the prolonged denial of Palestinian refugees right to return, have never been prosecuted or remedied. Just five years ago, the Israeli occupying forces, implementing its shoot-to-kill policy, mass killed some 60 unarmed Palestinian protesters in the Gaza Strip on the eve of the 70th Nakba commemoration. The injustices of the Nakba and the ongoing denial of the right of return led to the Great Return March civil demonstrations every Friday in Gaza for two years, which Israel repressed with lethal force, with impunity.

This year, as Palestinians commemorate the 75th Nakba, Israels most right-wing and racist government intensifies its oppression of the Palestinian people, including daily raids and extrajudicial killings in the West Bank including East Jerusalem. On 9 May, Israel carried out a 5-day horrific unprovoked military assault on the 16-year besieged Gaza Strip targeting residential buildings resulting in the killing of 33 Palestinian civilians, some of them in their sleep, including six children and four women. In addition, 147 others were wounded, including 48 children and 26 women.

On Nakba Day, we call on States, the UN, international organisations and civil society organisations from around the world to take effective legal and political measures to bring perpetrators of suspected war crimes and crimes against humanity to justice at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Situation in Palestine. The ICC Prosecutor Mr Karim Khan must expedite his investigation and start issuing arrest warrants, and deliver justice to Palestinian victims of mass atrocity crimes.

At this critical juncture in the Palestinian struggle for self-determination, support is also needed for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNWRA) until a durable solution to the Palestinian refugee question, based on the full realization of the Palestinian peoples inalienable human rights.

Finally, we call on all stakeholders to recognize and join the human rights movement crystalising consensus that the situation on the ground is that of Apartheid imposed on the Palestinian people. There are many possible paths to a just future, but none should be based on permanent occupation, settler colonialism, and the domination and oppression by one group of people over another. Apartheid has no place in our world and Israels apartheid must be dismantled now.

See how the Nakba has transformed Palestine since 1948 with this map by Visualizing Palestine marking the Nakba at 75: https://today.visualizingpalestine.org/?blm_aid=8507392

See the rest here:

Israeli Apartheid - The Legacy of the Ongoing Nakba at 75 [EN/AR ... - ReliefWeb

KARACHI: Top decision-making body of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) on Friday condemned the May 9 attacks and vandalism on military installations and demanded those responsible should be brought to justice and punished, accordingly.

President PPP-P Asif Ali Zardari and Chairman PPP Bilawal Bhutto Zardari co-chaired the hybrid meeting of the Central Executive Committee (CEC) of Pakistan Peoples Party in Bilawal House, Karachi.

The meeting passed a resolution condemning the events of May 9.

The PPP strongly condemns the incidents that happened in different cities of the country on May 9, the damage to the martyrs memorial in Sargodha, the burning of Jinnah House, the vandalism at FC Fort in Dir, Mardan, breaking the statue of Shaheed Colonel Sher Khan, burning the Swat Motorway Toll Plaza, burning the Rawalpindi Metro Station and the Peshawar Radio Station to ashes, destroying the Chagai Model and Edhi Ambulance in Peshawar, and burning passenger buses in Karachi, reads the resolution, a copy of which is available with daily Pakistan Today.

The resolution described the attacks on private, public and military properties and sensitive installations as defying the writ of the state of Pakistan.

The resolution further said that PPP leadership suffered political victimsation for decades but following the instructions of leadership, its leaders and workers never took the path of violence.

Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was judicially martyred, Mir Shahnawaz Bhutto and Mir Murtaza Bhutto were martyred too, Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto was martyred, but PPP raised the slogan of Pakistan Khappay, which is a bright example for the political workers of all parties, the resolution added.

Former President Asif Ali Zardari was imprisoned for over a decade during different regimes including PTIs government while Ms Faryal Talpur, the Central President of PPP Womens Wing was arrested in the midnight and transferred from hospital to prison on the eve of Eid, but despite worst political oppression, the PPP never staged a rally against the country and its institutions, the resolution reads.

The resolution demanded those responsible should be brought to justice and punished, accordingly.

See the rest here:

PPP's CEC condemns attacks on army installations, calls for ... - Pakistan Today