Mad women

Posted by Joe on: 01.08.2008 /

But the truth is that their activities are becoming harder every day. In a state in which the gods of death and money rule, in a state where the economy is flourishing while the children are hungry, where the mythological heroes are fearless murderers, where the leaders openly and publicly admit that human life is not worth a fig in their eyes, in a state that sends its sons to be killed without even bothering to invent a reason for it, in a state that imprisons millions of human beings in ghettoes and enclosures and kills them slowly, the persistent quiet voice of the Women in Black is the strongest conscientious voice of refusal.

Dr Nurit Peled-Elhanan an Israeli peace activist and professor at Hebrew University. She was a founder of the Parents Circle�Families Forum. Following the death of her 13-year-old daughter, Smadar, in a suicide bomb attack in Jerusalem in September 1997, she became an outspoken critic of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza speaking at a conference of the Women in Black movement last weekend.

Allowing for a little hyperbole, Dr Nurit could have been speaking about us. Our communities where young men go off to die and politicians play dice with people’s lives.

In the midst of the electioneering of 2008 (oh God can it really be that long?) please cut through the fancy words of your politicians and their greed for power. Listen out for your fiercest critics. Challenge those who seek power to explain how their agenda will help the weakest, the lowest, the most ignored, the ones whose votes count for least in the corridors in Washingon, Toyko and London.

And in time, we may even get the politicians we deserve.

2 Responses to "Mad women"

Comment by: Benjamin
1 01/9/08 3:03 PM | Comment Link |
Joe,

Wow. Thank you for sharing this. From the Occupation magazine article:

Few are the parents in Israel who admit to themselves that the murderers of children, destroyers of houses, uprooters of olives and poisoners of wells are none other than their own beautiful sons and daughters, their children who have been educated in this place over the years in the school of hatred and racism. The children who have learned for 18 years to fear and despise the stranger, to always fear the neighbours, the gentiles, children who were brought up in the fear of Islam - a fear that prepares them to be brutal soldiers and disciples of mass murderers. And not only do those boys and girls kill and torment; they do so with the full support of Mom, with the full appreciation of Dad, encouraged by this entire nation, which does not so much as raise an eyebrow at the deaths of children, of old and of disabled people. A nation that rallies around pilots who do not feel a thing except a bump on the wing** when they drop bombs on entire families and crush them to death.

Thank you for keeping Palestine before our eyes.
Comment by: Rachel
2 01/9/08 7:41 PM | Comment Link |
Challenge those who seek power to explain how their agenda will help the weakest, the lowest, the most ignored, the ones whose votes count for least in the corridors in Washingon, Toyko and London.

Well said, Joe! Here in the US, the ONE Vote ‘08 Campaign has been asking candidates to outline their plans to combat extreme poverty and global disease. The candidates’ video statements are here: On The Record