Palestinians, like others, reflect on resistance and fate of other nations subjected to colonization. Zionist leaders wish for us a fate similar to that of the Lakota Nation in what became the United States of America. As the Polish new tough-man who received the torch from Hitler said: you have to keep beating them and killing them so hard they never rise. Most Palestinians think of decolonization ala Algeria or (mostly) like South Africa. In Algeria, after a protracted 132 year conflict, the colonizers left (many of them six or seven generations so were not really “returning to Europe”). But this was a costly conflict with some one or two million Algerians killed (a genocide). The South African model is cited more by Palestinians who are recruiting international support with boycott, divestments and sanctions and locally engaged in resistance. Like Algerian or Apache or Lakota or South African or Aztec people, resistance took both armed and non-armed forms. There were those who believed in armed resistance (Crazy horse, Sitting Bull, Geronimo, Nelson Mandela, Omar Mukhtar, Che Guevara) and others who believed in popular resistance (Desmond Tutu, Mahatma Gandhi). Individual way of death varied for each. There were movements like the African National Congress in South Africa and the National Liberation Front in Algeria or the PLO labeled as terrorist organizations by both the colonizers and the West. Most of the resistance whether it was in South Africa or Algeria or Palestine was popular resistance (see my book). That did not matter to the colonizers who wanted the land without the troublesome indigenous people. All resistance was in the cross-hairs of the colonizers past, present, and future. Genocides, pogroms, massacres continued anyway.
In all such situations, both the colonizers and the colonized understand it is a fateful and existential struggle for their narratives. Shiny city on a hill, manifest destiny, heroic resistance, terrorism, promised land, defending ourselves (circling the wagons), barbarians, white or red devils, forces of darkness and forces of light, are the language terms used over and over again depending on where you stand on colonization (see books by Franz Fanon and Edward Said). The outcomes are limited with only three possible scenarios: Australia/USA, Algeria/Vietnam, and South Africa/rest of world models. I know that I and millions push for that third model and it is the most common outcome found in 160+ countries/territories (see my other book). But for indigenous people under the boot in times of hopelessness or times of hope, survival itself is a form of victory. We Palestinians survived 76 years of horror that no one saw before and survived even in the midst of horrors of an ongoing extermination campaign in the Gaza Strip.
MSNBC highlights Shaaban (one of many tens of thousands burned or buried alive) in his own words
Are hospitals collateral damage? Assessing geospatial proximity of 2000 lb bomb detonations to hospital facilities in the Gaza Strip from October 7 to November 17, 2023
The Destructive Legacy of Mass Starvation
Israel Is Routinely Shooting Children in the Head in Gaza: U.S. Surgeon & Palestinian Nurse testify
And what is happening here in the wild West Bank is harrowing
Palestinian content is censored on social platforms owned by META
Can Israel survive Netanyahu? and Is Israel plotting its own defeat?
Who supplies Israel with weapons (to commit genocide)
The Guardian: Israel is a rogue nation. It should be removed from the United Nations
Biden administration helping genocide putting US troops at risk [will the Hannibal directive also apply to US troops like Israeli troops?] and Dr. Jill Stein on US election
Thank you for mentioning the Lakota. While some on Pine Ridge, where I lived, worked and fulfilled my Sun Dance vows, continue to teach the world about interconnectedness, courage and compassion through art, prayer, education and resistance, the statistics support Mazin's analogy. The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota has many tragic statistics, including:
ReplyDeleteLife expectancy: The average life expectancy on Pine Ridge is 66.81 years, the lowest in the United States. Women on the reservation have a life expectancy of 52 years, and men have a life expectancy of 48 years.
Poverty: Pine Ridge has poverty levels comparable to developing nations.
Substance use: Up to two-thirds of adults on the reservation live with alcoholism, and one in four children are born with fetal alcohol syndrome.
Suicide: The suicide rate on the reservation is over four times the national average.
Infant mortality: Infant mortality on the reservation is 300% higher than the national average.
Tuberculosis: Tuberculosis on the reservation is 800% higher than the national average.
Diabetes: Approximately 50% of adults over the age of 40 on the reservation have diabetes.
Unemployment: The unemployment rate on the reservation hovers around 80%.
Crime: Gun violence, drug offenses, and rapes have become increasingly common on the reservation.
Coloniality continues. One of the great Lakota voices was Vine Deloria, Jr. He wrote a chapter in my book, Unlearning the Language of Conquest, published by the University of Texas Press in 2008, entitled "Conquest Masquerading as Law" to show that anti-Indian colonization is built into the law that continues the oppression.