Israeli protest
stinkbomb | 09.02.2002 15:39
At 12:30 I arrived at Kensington tube station, where a few young men in black with covered faces and nervous eyes were walking into the tube station. I made a beeline for the SWP paper seller, and asked her what the situation was at the embassy; she didn't know, not having been there. She sold me a SW and asked me if I wanted to join. Politely, I declined.
Out of the station and on instinct I turned right, which turned out to be the right direction. Someone from another socialist org told me there was an unofficial gathering of around 100 people not far ahead, with the official demo further along. I hung around the unofficial gathering for a bit. There was a great deal of conversation and it seemed to me interest from passers by. One stall-holder was arguing with a woman, a passer by who sounded like she was using the Holocaust to justify Israel's war, for he was pointing out to her that you can't use historical battering of the Jews to justify battering Arabs. Oh, I don't want to batter Arabs she said. That's not what I meant at all.
I walked on to try and locate the embassy and saw someone I recognised from Genoa, and chatted with her for a bit. And then the demo arrived on the scene. The sight made an audible impression on a woman who I assumed was a passer by, who just breathed 'fu-uck' to her companion as the head of the march appeared. I guess it's a spectacle you don't see that often, and was probably given greater resonance by that week's very public discussions of 'Bloody Sunday': the way a march is a time-honoured manifestation of protest, anger and organisation, as well as the danger and chaos it can imply when you're actually there. 'Fuck' indeed.
It was a pretty angry, emotional protest. As you can imagine, the Israeli embassy doesn't exactly advertise itself to casual visitors. There's a hotel on one side, a clothes shop on the other and some gates in the middle. This is presumably the embassy entrance, and it was surrounded by cops, journos and the usual 'inconspicuous' blokes with no apparent function. We presumably weren't allowed to blockade/picket the embassy (which is a shame), so we all had to stand on the opposite side of the road and shout slogans for the duration. A coachload of squaddies passed by at one point, and some couldn't help shouting 'terrorists' at them…The squaddies themselves displayed the usual mix of indignation and facile amusement at, and thoughtful observation of, us. Time was difficult to judge, as were numbers. Anyone got an accurate estimate on numbers?
These were the slogans used, constantly shouted on a rota,:
Stop the war/Stop the crime/ ISRAEL OUT OF PALESTINE!
Victory to/ INTIFADA!
Arial Sharon/You can't hide/WE'LL GET YOU FOR GENOCIDE!
FREE/Free/PALESTINE!
'Palestine will be free/ From the river to the sea'
and a provocative 'No Justice/NO PEACE!'
but I most appreciated being able to say:
Sharon/ TERRORIST! /Bush and Blair/ TERRORISTS!
For the simple reason that, while these individuals are terror-mongers, one isn't allowed to say so in the current, bourgeois public discourse, for fear of being branded traitor or something. So it was just a blessed relief to be able to speak truth and to escape the censorship for a while.
Also we had the now-standard 'George Bush/we know you/YOUR DADDY WAS A KILLER TOO', and at one point some young men started a 'one solution/revolution' chant which gained some popularity, although some refused to say it because it was altogether too SWP.
By and large, it was a very passionate, if occasionally uncertain demo. One woman took the megaphone and outlined (articulately) the crimes of the occupation, and then said 'and what are we going to do about it?'. She was met, embarrassingly, with silence. 'Fight back!' she said, and of course the crowd immediately began to chant 'fight back! Fight back!' It was an embarrassingly inarticulate and sheep-like moment in an otherwise inspiring afternoon. One wonders if this reflects a genuine political uncertainty on our part, or rather a failure of language, particularly the semiotics of such a demo to engage with complexity…
Anyway, I believe there was also a picket of Selfridges, which sells goods made in the occupied territories marked 'Made In Israel' (!), on the same day; it was announced that some patrons had decided to withdraw credit from the well known bazaar once they were made aware. Can anyone confirm this, or give an account of the picket?
I wrote all that a few days ago, and it's struck me since that the demo could easily be interpreted as a demonstration for Palestinian nationalism, rather than the more inclusive and visionary demo it might have seemed. Where were the representatives of Israeli opposition to the occupation? It was militant, which is cool (I would have been well up for more, er, radical action had it been on the cards), but it seemed at times as pure Palestinian militancy, rather than some kind of pan-revolutionary protest.
In other words, is any radically advanced, visionary Palestine the same as the 'pure' Palestine state that some nationalists might want?
But a Free Palestine? Yeah, I'm all for it. May it be so.
Out of the station and on instinct I turned right, which turned out to be the right direction. Someone from another socialist org told me there was an unofficial gathering of around 100 people not far ahead, with the official demo further along. I hung around the unofficial gathering for a bit. There was a great deal of conversation and it seemed to me interest from passers by. One stall-holder was arguing with a woman, a passer by who sounded like she was using the Holocaust to justify Israel's war, for he was pointing out to her that you can't use historical battering of the Jews to justify battering Arabs. Oh, I don't want to batter Arabs she said. That's not what I meant at all.
I walked on to try and locate the embassy and saw someone I recognised from Genoa, and chatted with her for a bit. And then the demo arrived on the scene. The sight made an audible impression on a woman who I assumed was a passer by, who just breathed 'fu-uck' to her companion as the head of the march appeared. I guess it's a spectacle you don't see that often, and was probably given greater resonance by that week's very public discussions of 'Bloody Sunday': the way a march is a time-honoured manifestation of protest, anger and organisation, as well as the danger and chaos it can imply when you're actually there. 'Fuck' indeed.
It was a pretty angry, emotional protest. As you can imagine, the Israeli embassy doesn't exactly advertise itself to casual visitors. There's a hotel on one side, a clothes shop on the other and some gates in the middle. This is presumably the embassy entrance, and it was surrounded by cops, journos and the usual 'inconspicuous' blokes with no apparent function. We presumably weren't allowed to blockade/picket the embassy (which is a shame), so we all had to stand on the opposite side of the road and shout slogans for the duration. A coachload of squaddies passed by at one point, and some couldn't help shouting 'terrorists' at them…The squaddies themselves displayed the usual mix of indignation and facile amusement at, and thoughtful observation of, us. Time was difficult to judge, as were numbers. Anyone got an accurate estimate on numbers?
These were the slogans used, constantly shouted on a rota,:
Stop the war/Stop the crime/ ISRAEL OUT OF PALESTINE!
Victory to/ INTIFADA!
Arial Sharon/You can't hide/WE'LL GET YOU FOR GENOCIDE!
FREE/Free/PALESTINE!
'Palestine will be free/ From the river to the sea'
and a provocative 'No Justice/NO PEACE!'
but I most appreciated being able to say:
Sharon/ TERRORIST! /Bush and Blair/ TERRORISTS!
For the simple reason that, while these individuals are terror-mongers, one isn't allowed to say so in the current, bourgeois public discourse, for fear of being branded traitor or something. So it was just a blessed relief to be able to speak truth and to escape the censorship for a while.
Also we had the now-standard 'George Bush/we know you/YOUR DADDY WAS A KILLER TOO', and at one point some young men started a 'one solution/revolution' chant which gained some popularity, although some refused to say it because it was altogether too SWP.
By and large, it was a very passionate, if occasionally uncertain demo. One woman took the megaphone and outlined (articulately) the crimes of the occupation, and then said 'and what are we going to do about it?'. She was met, embarrassingly, with silence. 'Fight back!' she said, and of course the crowd immediately began to chant 'fight back! Fight back!' It was an embarrassingly inarticulate and sheep-like moment in an otherwise inspiring afternoon. One wonders if this reflects a genuine political uncertainty on our part, or rather a failure of language, particularly the semiotics of such a demo to engage with complexity…
Anyway, I believe there was also a picket of Selfridges, which sells goods made in the occupied territories marked 'Made In Israel' (!), on the same day; it was announced that some patrons had decided to withdraw credit from the well known bazaar once they were made aware. Can anyone confirm this, or give an account of the picket?
I wrote all that a few days ago, and it's struck me since that the demo could easily be interpreted as a demonstration for Palestinian nationalism, rather than the more inclusive and visionary demo it might have seemed. Where were the representatives of Israeli opposition to the occupation? It was militant, which is cool (I would have been well up for more, er, radical action had it been on the cards), but it seemed at times as pure Palestinian militancy, rather than some kind of pan-revolutionary protest.
In other words, is any radically advanced, visionary Palestine the same as the 'pure' Palestine state that some nationalists might want?
But a Free Palestine? Yeah, I'm all for it. May it be so.
stinkbomb
Comments
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Those cursed semiotic failings
09.02.2002 18:13
airfreshener
Worrying chants
09.02.2002 23:13
This kind of language really really worries me. I'm certainly no apologist for the state of Israel, but is this kind of kneejerk militancy going to solve anything? What it's actually going to do is terrify a state which is already built on a persecution complex. I'm utterly against current Israeli behaviour, and for a seperately administered Palestinian state...but I'm not and never have been for 'driving the Israelis into the sea'. They are people too, and this sort of lazy chanting gives totally the wrong impression. I'm glad I wasn't on the demo, because to be frank I would have walked off it.
Matt
Matt S
ToMatt
10.02.2002 02:08
ToMatt
air freshener
12.02.2002 19:13
lets just hope it was cfc free
stinkbomb
fresh pollutants
18.02.2002 20:02
Semiotics (noun): ' the science of signs'.
Do you not have dictionaries down your way, mr/ms freshener?
Anyway,a "semiotic" explanation is just as mundane as air freshener's implicitly semiotic but pessimistic, but also explicity psycho-political, explanation. Equally mundane, in my view.
My point is, does the NATURE of a demo (semiotic and material, social and psychological) make the sharp thinking/speaking necessary to have overcome that silence more difficult than if one was safely at home with a glass of absinthe, or in an indoor meeting without pigs eyeing your every move ; would the same people, under less fraught circumstances, have been more able to give a quick and good answer? At a demo, perhaps people need to keep their resources of mental sharpness on the *material* (rain, pigs, squaddies, etc) situation? If so, then that is a given, and can be contended with in the unusual or usual ways (lookouts, womble style defence lines etc); we know all that, hence we are left with the semiotic conditions of the demo to contend with in our present analysis.
Matt:
'free from the river to the sea'
The slogan in question does not necessarily imply 'driving the Israeli's into the sea' as you suggest. That action is not explicitly present in the words. Whether it is implicitly present or not depends on *your* definition of 'freedom'. I think then I'd like to question the impression of rational debate your comment presents, and call into question the processes that lead from 'freedom' to 'driving into the sea' that your comment implicitly assumes. AT THE RISK OF GIVING OFFENCE, i might suggest that you have more in common with palestinian militants than you think.
As I said in my report, a free palestine is a fabulous idea and I'm all for it, but what it means in practice all depends on your definition of 'palestine' 'free' and indeed 'river' and 'sea' {these are all words that I would like to call into question here, particularly the first three} : in a words, your SEMIOLOGY. .
"the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the author", allegedly.
BTW, what I think your comment also misses is that the character of a demo is (or should be) determined by its participants. By walking off, as your imaginary self did, surely you would have only strengthened the hand of the palestine militants; instead, your imaginary self should perhaps consider how you and your crew at the demo could have counter/balanced the rhetoric of the palestinian militants with inclusive representations.
Also, a walk out would have weakened the stength of the entire demo by presenting an image of disunity. I'm reminded of the groups that pulled out of the genoa saturday 'drop the debt' march owing the the violence of the previous 24 hrs.
anyway, that's quite enough from me, i'm tired and if I have to type the expression 'palestinian militants' one more time I shall die of sheer scorn at my own intellectual idleness.
stinkbomb