unlikely bedfellows
[update: jinx]
The below is an extended/updated version of something I started writing as one of the parallel-blog posts added below, and didn't finish until now.
A couple Saturdays ago, some 10,000 or so people--it was hard to gauge numbers--marched in London against the war in Lebanon and Gaza. I joined the procession at Whitehall, and moved back and forth through it looking for F. and thariel, who'd joined it earlier at Embankment. As a result, I got a good glimpse of the diverse constituency assembled: lots of Lebanese people (from middle-aged family folk to angry young Hizbullah supporters to teenage girls with cedar flags painted on their cheeks) and other members of London's large Arab community, anti-war activists of all colours and political stripes, many South Asian Muslims, a few rebellious Labour party branch reps, a small number of Hasidic Jews, and even the resistance-samba band (conducted by a woman in a wheelchair, being wheeled by our old OSAW/OSAN friend J...so many friends/acquaintances/comrades in these streets.)
The pro-Hizbullah element was minimal in terms of numbers, but rather vocal. When I found my friends they were helping some people from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign carry a big flag. I joined them, but soon became aware that the group of men immediately behind us were occasionally chanting slogans that I found offensive or disturbing, and that a few had posters with Nasrallah's image. I found myself profoundly and viscerally uncomfortable standing next to them (as it were)--while I absolutely support their right to march and demonstrate peacefully as part of the coalition, I did not want to be seen marching shoulder-to-shoulder with them. Many of the slogans they were chanting were unobjectionable--"Peace for Lebanon, Long Live Lebanon, Peace for Palestine." But about 30 percent of the time it was "Down down Israel, Down down USA,"and/or Islamist slogans (including one in support of Nasrallah), and I thought: I won't say these things, so why am I marching inside a group of people that I can only chant along with half the time, and feeling voiceless the rest? So I removed myself and strayed back and forth through other sections of the long column, and found some people I was happier to walk beside.
The whole thing gave rise to a rather intense discussion afterwards, the gist of which focused around the kinds of problematic compromises entailed by mass protests and big anti-something coalitions in general (the one no, many yeses problem), and the question of how, as a foreigner, to be in solidarity with people whose are fighting for their freedom, when you do not necessarily sympathize with the choices (some of) those people make in the context of resistance. I was asked, at one point, does supporting the Palestinian cause mean supporting Hamas, given that it has been elected as the representative of the Palestinian people? And I said of course the fuck not. It means I support their right to elect Hamas, and acknowledge it as the current legitimate government, but I don't have to fall into lockstep agreement with that choice. There has to be space to maintain support for a liberation movement that does not entail adherence to the supposed monopoly of a particular ideology or organization over said cause. Or this is where I get off: because "if you're not with us, you're against us" politics sounds the same to me, no matter who I'm hearing it from.
Hamas actually raises more problematic questions, given its status as an elected leadership, but I think Hizbullah is a clearer case--Hizbullah is a part of the Lebanese government, but no nationwide Lebanese majority ever voted for them. And although they are a multifaceted organization (political party, social welfare network, armed force) neither their political goals (aside from the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanon) nor their tactics (firing rockets at civilians is a war crime, and "they did it first" isn't much of a justification for committing one) are anything I can support. Added to that is the fact that most of my Lebanese friends dislike Hizbullah intensely and fear that an increased political role for its leadership will be bad for their country. Before going to yesterday's vigil at Penn Station, I spent some time sitting with H., the friend whose room in the East Village I lived in all of June--while she was home visiting her family in Beirut. She's back here and safe, but out of her mind with worry about her family, and anger over the situation. Her family are hiding in a town an hour south of the city. "Where else can they go?" she asked me, when I asked if they were going to stay there. She said she wants to hit something everytime she sees Nasrallah on TV or reads one of his statements, because she believes Hizbullah is acting in its own political interests, regardless of the cost to Lebanese civilians. "They keep going on about how they bombed this Israeli ship," she said. "I don't care about this ship! I care about my people. I care about my country." H., incidentally, is a deeply devout (Sunni) Muslim. She's furious about Israel's actions in Palestine and in Lebanon, and believes that Lebanon has every right to resist. But she does not support Hizbullah, and in fact said she was "scared" by the fact that they seemed to be gaining more support in Lebanon because of this war. God knows the freewheeling mongrel Beirut I remember is not the kind of future Hizbullah envisions for Lebanon.
Hizbullah certainly thinks it represents Lebanon, and these last few weeks seem to have left more people (Lebanese and otherwise) thinking so, too. But after the march in London, we went to Beirut Express in Edgware Road, to eat shwarma (a lame & self-interested gesture of solidarity.) There was a sign up urging people to attend the "March for Lebanon" that had just occurred, and at the bottom a notice sating "Please carry only Lebanese flags." I don't think they meant don't bring Palestinian flags, or British flags for that matter. I think they meant, don't bring Hizbullah flags--don't be complicit in Hizbullah's attempt to hijack this cause as its own. We saw a few yellow-and-green Hizbullah flags that day, but they were dwarfed by the ocean of red-white-and-cedars filling the streets.
The below is an extended/updated version of something I started writing as one of the parallel-blog posts added below, and didn't finish until now.
A couple Saturdays ago, some 10,000 or so people--it was hard to gauge numbers--marched in London against the war in Lebanon and Gaza. I joined the procession at Whitehall, and moved back and forth through it looking for F. and thariel, who'd joined it earlier at Embankment. As a result, I got a good glimpse of the diverse constituency assembled: lots of Lebanese people (from middle-aged family folk to angry young Hizbullah supporters to teenage girls with cedar flags painted on their cheeks) and other members of London's large Arab community, anti-war activists of all colours and political stripes, many South Asian Muslims, a few rebellious Labour party branch reps, a small number of Hasidic Jews, and even the resistance-samba band (conducted by a woman in a wheelchair, being wheeled by our old OSAW/OSAN friend J...so many friends/acquaintances/comrades in these streets.)
The pro-Hizbullah element was minimal in terms of numbers, but rather vocal. When I found my friends they were helping some people from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign carry a big flag. I joined them, but soon became aware that the group of men immediately behind us were occasionally chanting slogans that I found offensive or disturbing, and that a few had posters with Nasrallah's image. I found myself profoundly and viscerally uncomfortable standing next to them (as it were)--while I absolutely support their right to march and demonstrate peacefully as part of the coalition, I did not want to be seen marching shoulder-to-shoulder with them. Many of the slogans they were chanting were unobjectionable--"Peace for Lebanon, Long Live Lebanon, Peace for Palestine." But about 30 percent of the time it was "Down down Israel, Down down USA,"and/or Islamist slogans (including one in support of Nasrallah), and I thought: I won't say these things, so why am I marching inside a group of people that I can only chant along with half the time, and feeling voiceless the rest? So I removed myself and strayed back and forth through other sections of the long column, and found some people I was happier to walk beside.
The whole thing gave rise to a rather intense discussion afterwards, the gist of which focused around the kinds of problematic compromises entailed by mass protests and big anti-something coalitions in general (the one no, many yeses problem), and the question of how, as a foreigner, to be in solidarity with people whose are fighting for their freedom, when you do not necessarily sympathize with the choices (some of) those people make in the context of resistance. I was asked, at one point, does supporting the Palestinian cause mean supporting Hamas, given that it has been elected as the representative of the Palestinian people? And I said of course the fuck not. It means I support their right to elect Hamas, and acknowledge it as the current legitimate government, but I don't have to fall into lockstep agreement with that choice. There has to be space to maintain support for a liberation movement that does not entail adherence to the supposed monopoly of a particular ideology or organization over said cause. Or this is where I get off: because "if you're not with us, you're against us" politics sounds the same to me, no matter who I'm hearing it from.
Hamas actually raises more problematic questions, given its status as an elected leadership, but I think Hizbullah is a clearer case--Hizbullah is a part of the Lebanese government, but no nationwide Lebanese majority ever voted for them. And although they are a multifaceted organization (political party, social welfare network, armed force) neither their political goals (aside from the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanon) nor their tactics (firing rockets at civilians is a war crime, and "they did it first" isn't much of a justification for committing one) are anything I can support. Added to that is the fact that most of my Lebanese friends dislike Hizbullah intensely and fear that an increased political role for its leadership will be bad for their country. Before going to yesterday's vigil at Penn Station, I spent some time sitting with H., the friend whose room in the East Village I lived in all of June--while she was home visiting her family in Beirut. She's back here and safe, but out of her mind with worry about her family, and anger over the situation. Her family are hiding in a town an hour south of the city. "Where else can they go?" she asked me, when I asked if they were going to stay there. She said she wants to hit something everytime she sees Nasrallah on TV or reads one of his statements, because she believes Hizbullah is acting in its own political interests, regardless of the cost to Lebanese civilians. "They keep going on about how they bombed this Israeli ship," she said. "I don't care about this ship! I care about my people. I care about my country." H., incidentally, is a deeply devout (Sunni) Muslim. She's furious about Israel's actions in Palestine and in Lebanon, and believes that Lebanon has every right to resist. But she does not support Hizbullah, and in fact said she was "scared" by the fact that they seemed to be gaining more support in Lebanon because of this war. God knows the freewheeling mongrel Beirut I remember is not the kind of future Hizbullah envisions for Lebanon.
Hizbullah certainly thinks it represents Lebanon, and these last few weeks seem to have left more people (Lebanese and otherwise) thinking so, too. But after the march in London, we went to Beirut Express in Edgware Road, to eat shwarma (a lame & self-interested gesture of solidarity.) There was a sign up urging people to attend the "March for Lebanon" that had just occurred, and at the bottom a notice sating "Please carry only Lebanese flags." I don't think they meant don't bring Palestinian flags, or British flags for that matter. I think they meant, don't bring Hizbullah flags--don't be complicit in Hizbullah's attempt to hijack this cause as its own. We saw a few yellow-and-green Hizbullah flags that day, but they were dwarfed by the ocean of red-white-and-cedars filling the streets.
posted by kitabet at 10:48 AM
1 Comments:
I'd acknowledge my frustration with NYTimes coverage, as well, but this long article in it by Michael Young (who's an editor for the Lebanese paper, Daily Star) is a good one for explicating the political games played by Hezbollah (and other parties) in recent years - all at the cost of Lebanon and Lebanese people, it seems.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/04/magazine/04lebanon.html
All this can be acknowledged without detracting from a call for immediate ceasefire, for the sake of what Lebanon is and what it represents - as both you and contrapuntal argue so well.
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