I had to check yesterday whether the end of the world was at hand when I read an opinion piece by Naomi Klien in the Globe and Mail and I found that I was standing on the same side as her on this issue though I did not get there by the same route. Of course, the piece was co-authored with Aaron Mate, so maybe that makes the difference or what could even be more frightening - is that there are two hard core leftists and I standing on the same side. If that doesn’t qualify as mind apocalyptic, what is? For those of you without a subscription, do the google thingy.
This opinion piece centers around 5 pictures taken by deceased Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi (who was brutally raped, tortured and murdered by the Iranian state) that were recently exhibited at a Montreal community library. They were part of an exhibit of Kazemi’s work that drew the wrath of the local Jewish community. The library administration decided to remove the pictures from the exhibit after receiving a number of complaints. The Globe and Mail, to their credit, ran reproductions of the five pictures in their dead tree edition.
Briefly, theses five pictures show the following: Palestinian Children standing in rubble at a checkpoint in Ramallah, (West Bank) holding bullet casings, Israeli security forces at a check point in Jerusalem and Nablus, a road in ruins in Jenin after a battle and the ground after a clash in Ramallah.
I am not unsympathic to the Jewish community’s concerns. I can think of no people that have been under siege longer than the Jews, nor can I think of another country that has been more demonized than Israel but these pictures are not the problem. I see Israeli soldiers at a check point standing in body armor, their guns at ready and I am saddened. It did not have to be this way. This is the consequence of those who hold a political agenda of pushing the Jews in the sea. Note to all concerned: the times have changed after two thousand years - Jews do not go docilely into the sea and they rage against that dark night you offer as an alternative to the sea.
I see Palestinian children standing in the rubble of a check point holding bullet casing and pieces of shrapnel after a battle and I am outraged on their behalf that their elders so carelessly threw away their opportunities for statehood, freedom, peace and prosperity in 1948 or the failure of Palestinian leadership in not choosing to build the infrastructure of a civil society during the Oslo years which cumulated in a rejection of the offer of statehood again in 2000, and unleashed the senseless violence of the Intifada instead.
If a picture tells the tale of a thousand words do not be afraid of reading the tale to the end. These images are the consequences for those who chose genocide as a political mandate and should offer a cautionary tale for all those who are contemplating making their life’s work the death of the world’s only Jewish state. I find the act of censoring these pictures offensive. These pictures should serve as a catalyst for all those who seek to censor or silence the whole tale these pictures tell.
5 comments:
Deep down, you are a libertarian, Kate :)
"Offensiveness" is always in the eye of the beholder. No matter what the subject is.
The sooner we understand the basic inherent rights that most of us believe to be true, the better for us all.
Even when someone else "offends" us. Regardless of our religous, political, or whatever, beliefs, emotional attachments, etc.
I should have known that someone would call me out as a closet libertarian - This is what comes when I write a post agreeing with Klein -
Okay, okay, just because I always score extreme libertarian on those silly quizzes and in my ideal world no one would actually notice the government because the government would not be imposing restraints on a citizen's rights to life, liberty and their own personal pursuit of happiness nor try to limit a citizen's freedom of thought, speech, conscience or association. And just because I believe that a "man" should govern his life according to his own reason and not another's does that really make me a libertarian?
The whole Israel/Palestinian question is a mess. There is no right answer.
The Jews, in return for helping to fund the overthrow of the Third Reich, were given a homeland that they felt was theirs by right.
The Palestinians happened to be living there at the time, and sided with the losing side in WWII so lost their land.
How does anybody win?
Ever?
Kate -- your comment above is interesting enough to be a post of its own. I've read a lot about Israel, but your concise history is an excellent refresher.
As for the photos, I agree they shouldn't be censored, but I understand the concerns.
Most people know the history of Israel from the Palestinian side and really aren't interested in hearing the other. Pictures, without the proper understanding of their context, can be incendiary.
That said, I still don't think they should be censored.
Cheers.
As a Montrealer who has lived among and befriended Jews and Arabs both with and without Zionist/anti-Zionist baggage, I tend to be torn between fits of rage and total apathy where either party is concerned. But, in this case, figuring out what the "right thing to do" doesn't require a refreshed course in Middle Eastern geo-politics—if you find the pictures offensive, don't look at them. You can debate their merits until you're blue in the face. You can tell people about how biased and one-sided they are.
Whatever.
But how a group of "concerned citizens" (no doubt the same group that raised a stink when "their" right to free speech—i.e., the Concordia-Netanyahu riot—was violated a couple years back) can have a photo exhibition taken out of "their" library without any pangs of guilt or irony is beyond me.
Alas, that's why I try to steer clear of this subject as much as possible (the unfortunate side-effect of writing for one of Dis-cordia University's student papers, I suppose).
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