Human rights, by Combat and other means

What if the prescription of “equality” and “human rights” was wrong for a situation? What if the prejudices and idiosyncrasies of the place disallowed it?

 

But of course, the question is never simply “human rights or not”, but human rights for who. Who will be included, and who excluded, from the equality of the privileged? The same problem confronts us in many circumstances – in the context of the no-borders movement, the prescription of equality and freedom of movement is applied to all, against any form of exclusionary citizenship. In the Palestinian context it applies to the who of return, who is to be allotted the right to live on his or her homeland in equality and peace with those already living there? It is said that you can’t negotiate over human rights, but notice the implication: if you can’t negotiate over it, then you must fight over it. And this is exactly the way rights are thought of since the French revolution – as revolutionary prescriptions, prescriptions which must be applied to a situation, and which therefore need to motivate combat in order to force their application.

 

The trouble, of course, is that those who fight often lose, there is no guarantee when you take up arms against an immoral law. Both because the ability of states to combat those who use violence against them is strong, but also because the use of combat by groups opens the possibilities of various social pathologies, racism, tribalism, belief that one is the chosen – various ideologies that might motivate a group to fight for the cause, for the prescription, but which undermine that prescription’s universality. The human right for which you fight can pervert the prescription itself. What’s revealed here is that prescriptions only have thin-content, it is not that they don’t motivate social desires at all, but rather that the way they are instituted can vary wildly depending on the political, national and economic forces that condition their emergence. For instance, you might be fighting for human rights, but if in the context of the struggle you change to a rhetoric of vilanizing your enemy, we might say that the struggle itself was a source of your own counter revolutionary education. On the other hand, struggle can sometimes have a liberating effect, it can help a partisan to see the other side, to see the humanity and resolve in the enemy.

 

So if combat is to be questioned, and a political solution must exist, what kind of compromises can be made? First, we must make a distinction between demands which will be thought of as legal, versus demands which will be thought of as political. Impossible demands, no matter how legally based must be dealt with politically if the context of the trial clearly favours one party over another. The impossible demands must not disappear, however, they must be reconstituted as political struggles, there must be a reasonable alternative, a way that the struggle could still be achieved by way of rather than by continuing the war.

Nationalism and Reactionary Left Sectarianism

There is a tendency on the left towards purity. It is not a purity of the soul or a purity of blood, or even a purity of arms. No, the purity towards which the left tends is a purity of doctrine and praxis – a desire for the process of liberation to always already be liberated from the oppressions against which it struggles. We are told our struggles must be inclusive, they must not repeat the biases and particularities of our day which oppress us, which are social restrictions on our freedom to flourish as individuals and communities. And yet, we must construct our social movements within real existent society, within the societies which have biases, which are bound up in the mass thinking and feeling of the day. The result of this need for purity is a tendency for leftist movements to split on doctrinal or practical issues – rather than sustain a dilemma within a camp which recognizes its higher unity in a larger cause, movements tend to divide into multiple camps. This is damaging to movements because it means that the divisions are not worked out within an atmosphere of solidarity and mutual engagement, but as a conflict between pseudo enemies.

My bro’s excellent food blog

If you’re serious about food, and if you aren’t a vegetarian like me, you will love my brother’s food blog. He does things properly!

http://oreganotrail.com/

Victory for the Hunger Strikers!

Thaer and Bilal have accepted a deal to end their hunger strikes in which they will be shortly released!

Michael Ignatieff on the British Nationalism of Ulster Protestants

Last night I watched Michael Ignatieff’s documentary on the nationalism of the Protestant community in Northern Ireland. It’s a bit strange seeing Ignatieff at such a young age, compared to how I’m used to seeing him, he looks almost kid-like. Especially as he mulls about with kids, asking wonderfully innocent questions. He’s able to get away with it, possibly because of his accent, despite asking questions which sound a bit offensive, or at least culturally insensitive from a position of knowledge about the community identities, and a sense of the gravity of the situation. 

The documentary is refreshingly not focussed on the dynamics of “the troubles”, or “the conflict” in Northern Ireland. Of course the conflict is an interesting topic, but as Micheal says, there have been enough documentaries made on that already. It’s quite a different thing to explore the nationalism of one community, especially the community which isn’t traditionally termed as “nationalistic” (that term is usually reserved for pro all-Ireland Catholics). Ignatieff claims interest in Ulster British Nationalism partly on the basis of it being a frame which reflects British nationalism back to Britain in forms which the mainland British themselves are uncomfortable with. This discomfort is manifested explicitly in the film when he expresses his desire to interview a protestant paramilitary, but the BBC won’t allow it. This refusal to look protestant nationalism in the face, in its most extreme manifestation, is a kind of bad faith carried out by mainland Britain – a refusal to acknowledge its own nightmarish possibilities of being just another violent blood nationalism. This is certainly something the mainland British have a reason to avoid acknowledging. 

I’m sorry to keep harping on about the paramilitaries, but it’s actually Ignatieff’s recognition of their importance that I think is the best thing about this documentary. He recognizes that the role of the paramilitaries stretches like a red thread through everything he sees – everyone defines themselves in terms of their relation to paramilitaries, paramilitaries are the effective police in the sectarian areas, and although nearly everyone will denounce violence if asked, they will all nevertheless show up to a paramilitary funeral. The bind of the community to its men of violence is a mirror of its inertia and recalcitrance against a future it is already inside of. It celebrates rituals in the same way as they have been celebrated for hundreds of years, it speaks constantly of battles that the British have long been silent on, and it enacts British pageantry with more care and precision than Buckingham palace – Ulster protestants are like so many nationalists cut off from the homeland – more nationalistic than the homeland, more British than Britain itself. 

And there is a kind of sadness here, Ignatieff says, because if one day Britain does decide to leave the Island of Ireland it won’t be because the Ulster protestants were not loyal enough, it will instead be because they were too loyal, because they become a character of themselves and did not move on with modern Britain. 

 

Outside the Hunger Strike

The role of hunger strikes in the Palestinian resistance and the role of international support in that resistance is a topic I’ve been trying to understand since last September, when I wrote about the thousands of Palestinians who went on hunger strike to oppose unjust and illegitimate conditions in the Israeli jails. I continued to write about the hunger strikes when Khader Adnan’s struggle became for some time a globally recognized name, and when Hana Shalabi’s hunger strike added a feminist dimension to the resistance, as well as a sign that Adnan’s extraordinary event of personal conviction and sacrifice would not go alone. Upset with the lack of organization around supporting the Palestinian hunger strikers, I went on personal day long fasts multiple times in solidarity with the strikers (four times, I think).

This said, I feel that I don’t understand what is happening, and I think that’s part of what is happening – despite many bloggers attempts, there is a lack of a simple story about the significance of the hunger strikes, about what they mean for Palestinian society, and how they can be taken up as an opportunity to politicize support for the Palestinian cause outside.

There have been many signs of support from around the world for the Hunger strikers. Particularly in Ireland, where there have been messages of support for Khadr Adnan from former IRA hunger striker Raymond McCartney, Tommy McKearney, from the family of Francis Hughes, from  Sinn Fein councillors, and by MP Michelle Gildernew of west belfast. However I get the sense that after Khadr Adnan the world dropped the ball a little bit, there feels to have been less support from mainstream figures for Hana Shalabi, although at the same time the organization for support from within the Palestinian activist communities has improved. It is therefore significant that today former IRA hunger striker Laurence McKeown has posted a message of solidarity with the current Karama movement in which more than 1600 Palestinians are on hunger strike, including several over 70 days.

Two days ago the higher committee of the Leadership of the Strike published their fourth statement since the beginning of the Karama hunger strike, stressing the importance of unity in the strike and not using it to “achieve the personal or partisan interests of to this or that prisoner, regardless of their position in the parties”, and denouncing the claims that some demands have been met in some places. It is surely very difficult for the Karama hunger strike to be and to stay organized because the Palestinian prisoners are divided in many different prisons across the Israeli state.

As the history of the republican struggle in Ireland attests, hunger strikes are a means to politicize a struggle, to emphasize the political nature of a conflict and oppose criminalization. And because it is a tactic of non-violence, it can be a strategy of unity between all those who agree with the demands both of the strike and even of the strikers themselves, even if they disagree on other tactics used by some of the strikers. And I think this can be seen in the reports of this week’s protest in Ramallah, where supporters of different Palestinian factions are marching together in support of the prisoners.

The best place to get information as the hunger strikes continue is Samidoun – the Palestinian prisoner solidarity network.

EDIT: Good post today by Stephen Lendmen does a much better job than I at grasping the complexity of the current situation.

Festival of the Fires

Saturday Tina and I attended what must be the Irish version of Burning Man, something called “Festival of the Fires”. Based on what might be a pre-celtic ritual of jumping over fires to welcome the summer season, it’s a festival of music, arts and culture, and general revelry on a hill which has particular significance in Ireland because it is an ancient seat of Kings, even more ancient than Tara.

 

It was difficult to find – there was some misinformation about whether it would be possible to get tickets, but out of a sense of adventure Tina and I decided to set off anyway. Driving there wasn’t straightforward, we had a general sense of where it was but the festival website, although looking pretty and modern, was missing a lot of essential information such as can you bring your dog, and where is it (no map provided!). There were signs along the roads, but sometimes not making it clear which road to take. We met another traveller along the way who was lost in the same way as we, and eventually we found our way.

 

The festival was completely brilliant. The people were so friendly that we struck up multiple conversations with strangers over the night. Most were from the local area around the festival, rather than having travelled from a major city. And the conviviality they extended wasn’t forced or thin, I think everyone we met we ended up hanging around with for an hour at least.

 

What struck me most about the experience was the wildness of the place. When I see footage of festivals back in the 1960s or 70s I get the sense that things were a little freer then, that there wasn’t as much security, that things were let slide and the dominance of modern industrial efficiency was not so totalizing. I thought I might have been imagining it, but now I know that I wasn’t because it’s exactly what this event felt like. There were not strict boundaries of the festival grounds, just the end of a field crossing over into another at an old stone fence. And there was always someone over in the next field, and usually some flags associating the space with the festival. And while the festival was apparently sold out, it was not busy – I’ve heard 4000 people, and they were selling tickets at the gate with no sign that they were counting, and since they gave Tina and I different change, even the festival entry charge was a bit arbitrary (they charged me ten euro less, the only reason I can think of is that they may have ran out of ten euro notes to give as change). Because there were relatively few people the festival didn’t have an overcrowded atmosphere (the vastness of the grounds and spread between the tents and stages helped as well). Even at the end of the night when you’d suspect everyone to be gathered at the main stage, it wasn’t uncomfortably crowded, it wasn’t a proper north american crowd. And while, as Tina said, there is a time at events when things get a bit messy (as nearly everyone has been drinking all day), there wasn’t a violent feeling at all, just a sense that bodies became slightly sloppy in their movements. What a world of change from “Arts County Fair”, a festival which might have some superficial similarities, but which was largely captured (during the years I attended at least) in the North American ethos of profit, excess, and violent temper.

 

The food was fantastic, many of the carts served very original, healthy and locally sourced food. It wasn’t terribly cheap, but there was a sense of pride in the people working, and a sense that the goal was something other than the extraction of profit. It reminds me of a pizza restaurant I ate at on Quadra island back in 2003 – a feeling of being a bit outside capital, a feeling that the principle value in the place was care.

 

As for drink, worth mentioning is that the guineas on tap was excellent and the cans of Bulmers cider, which I’d never drank before, make a lot of sense in a festival context. If we’d have known that they wouldn’t search our bags, we could have brought in our own beer and saved a good number of euro, but I didn’t feel short changed by the prices either, which were really just the same as a pub. Cider is a good festival drink, not as heavy as Guinness (although I’d wager it has more calories), and I think the simple sugars (it just tastes of mild apple juice) help keep you awake.

 

Rather than try to cab home or stop drinking early so as to drive we opted (in advance) to sleep in the car. This worked out great actually, the festival actually ends at a reasonable hour (I didn’t have a clock but sometimes around midnight), which makes sense given it starts before noon and people have been drinking all day. But again, unlike Arts County Fair, the drinking is a moderate thing, so the crash of tiredness at the end of the night isn’t extreme, and there was very little violent sentiment as people dispersed.

 

As I’ll be back in Ireland next year for TAPSS, I will try to be here again for the Festival of the Fires.

 

Travelling is departure without arrival

I’m travelling. 

 

My feeling towards this can be expressed by way of a story: last night I was hanging out with my friend Jo and among other things I had to decide when I should arrive at the airport. Jo pointed out that there is a certain logic to arriving earlier – even earlier than you think is necessary, and not for practical or precautionary purposes. Rather, because as soon as you arrive at the airport you are travelling – your trip begins the moment you walk through the doors of the terminal. I can confirm this in my experience – that while the long and overcrowded bus ride seems to have nothing to do with the trip (although it reminds me of other uncomfortable early morning TTC trips where I squeeze onto a crowded bus with far too much luggage), arriving at the airport grants a sense not of having arrived, but of having departed. And trips are about departures, not arrivals – there is in truth no arrival when travelling; arrival occurs when one returns home. 

 

That said, I don’t particularly like travelling. Many things can go wrong – and this provokes anxiety. You have to carry all these things with you wherever you go (although I must say this time I’ve done a much better job of packing lightly than in the past), you often don’t have luxuries/neccesities like a cellular phone, you know relatively few people in the place where you are, everything is strange, and you have to deal with foreign border agents who will be upset when they realize I plan to sleep in their airport rather than spend hundreds of dollars for a few hours in a hotel. 

 

But this dislike, this is actually something I should overcome. And it’s not that I don’t like anything about travelling – I love the people you meet, the getting use to new forms of life, and exercise in counter-factual analysis which being in a new place permits – precisely because of the discomfort, a hermeneutic becomes possible. If I accomplish something on this trip, aside from the specific tasks of teaching and research I have planned (or in some cases, have still to plan), it should be to become a traveller – which means to become accepting of the kind of time, the kind of moment the traveller lives in. Which is, as much as I don’t like to focus on this, a time of transience, of between, of interstitiality – a time when being’s fold onto itself is explicitly thematized in a set of everyday experiences, and when how things are can always be recognized in the dialectic of necessity and contingency, universality and particularity. The practical implications of this are a blurring of rules for the traveller, a mixing of expectations because the traveller cannot be asked to perfectly already comprehend the way things are going on in the place where they are a traveller. The traveller is therefore the one who is not in the least autonomous, nor socially reliant in an established and well understood way. 

 

Of course, the traveller can always fall back into a fixed, inertial form of being – the moneyed traveller (who solves all his or her problems with cash), the cantiki traveller (who makes friendships only with other travellers and blurs his or her experience of the new local through a hedge of booze), or the family of tourists who are concerned with their own experience only, and move through the world as if it were their private museum. But these kinds of travel are lame – the one you want to be in is the wild traveller, the one who bends to the contours of the situation, the one who is not him or herself so much that s/he misses what is going on. 

 

Everything an adventure, every moment a test in flux. No waiting for the arrival – I have departed; the trip is begun. 

The Fake Neutrality of Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions

A key problem with North American palestinian activism is a presumption of neutrality with respect to Palestinian politics which fails to acknowledge that activism is, whether it likes to think so or not, taking sides on complex internal Palestinian issues. While the three demands can be arrived at by consensus, there are two key problems that remain: how should these demands be pursued, and what is the legitimacy of armed struggle in pursuit of these demands? In a sense Finkelstein is more honest about his support for the Palestinians than BDS because he takes a side on internal Palestinian issues – he sides with the Palestinian Authority in its statehood bid (even though he at the same time calls them crooks), and he does so with eyes open – with a proper understanding of what this means for the refugees and what this means for Israel. In other words, he is honest about who he disagrees with. On the other hand, the BDS movement does not acknowledge that it very much disagrees with the PA in its presumption that it has the right to negotiate away the rights of the refugees and the rights of the Palestinians to sovereignty over the entire West Bank and Gaza. If you think that the statehood bid is the best way to bring peace, then you shouldn’t support BDS because the basic idea of the statehood bid is to give up the right of return. No matter what the Palestinian government says, this is the way that set of priorities leads. And it is not neutral to disagree with the Palestinian government, even if you can claim that you are still neutral because even the PA will say on TV that the right of return is not negotiable.

However, a big problem that appears once you realize this is that it is not simple to know what side, what direction in Palestinian politics you should support – as non-Palestinian one is perhaps not in the moral position to decide, and if one does not speak Arabic one is almost certainly not in the epistemic position to decide what direction is best. If Palestinians themselves can’t decide, why should we think that Western activists can decide?

But this leaves us with an aporia – on the one hand we can’t decide, but on the other we can’t not decide because any involvement takes a side in its activity even if not in thought, in consequence. So we either have to decide because we can’t avoid it, or we have to avoid deciding even though we can’t. This is a choice not really between deciding and not deciding, however, but between honesty and dishonesty. Honesty is not perfect comprehension, but willingness to engage and pursue with an openness to the possibility of being on the wrong path. However, in order to pursue at all, one must be on a path, on a line, which one can never answer for. But this is a false demand – one can’t be asked to answer for that which one couldn’t have known. Answerability only applies to what could have been done – english common law contains the idea of responsibility for what you could have known, but not what you couldn’t have known.

So the answer to the aporia is that there isn’t really an aporia, there is only a failure to desire to know and pursue that desire to the fruition of its requirement from the responsibility accrued by the action of participating in solidarity work. However, the answer to the aporia is that the answer is your own work, you have to work to try to understand what it is that you are doing, otherwise you can legitimately be accused of willed ignorance.

So it is not enough to support BDS, it is not enough to read Omar Bhargouti and put up posters about the “Global March to Jerusalem” and complain that the Israelis shot his cousin Mustafa in the head with a tear gas canister. Because they didn’t. And by the way, it’s called Land Day.

 

EDIT: As I realize is not clear from above, I support BDS. But I don’t use BDS as an excuse to lend uncritical support to those Palestinian politiciens who embrace the BDS movement or claim to speak as its representatives. I think BDS is a key tactic to aid the Palestinians in their struggle against Zionism, but it should be focussed on de-legitimizing the Zionist project amongst the citizens of Israel’s major supporters (i.e. Canada and USA). I do think it is a real problem that the BDS list of civil society organizations doesn’t seem to have been updated since 2007.  I think BDS should take its lead from the actual mass political movements which are emerging in the Occupied Territories and in the Palestinian diaspora, not only a few intellectuals like Ali Abunimah and Omar Bhargouhti. In otherwords, BDS should make more contacts with Palestinian political society, not only a very thin declaration endorsed by a million civil society organizations. And, as for those organizations, the fact is any Palestinian pretty much would endorse these three demands and this is why the BDS demands are good, not because of the “civil society” support which may be made up or real, I don’t think it matters either way.

Behind the Cottage