GUANTANAMO - Two Sides, One Story: The Cageprisoners Tour coming to Cardiff
- Thread starter Udo Erasmus
- Start date
Udo Erasmus
Well-Known Member
There is gonna be a solidarity demonstration with Gaza tomorrow in Cardiff (Saturday at 1 pm at Nye Bevan Statue) hopefully also collecting money for the humanitarian appeal for Gaza.
Re. the proposals above, there have been several ideas mooted of possible activities that I would add to the pot - the idea of a workshop on the theme of boycott, sanctions and disinvestment - Let's bear in mind that in countries like South Africa, dockers are now refusing to load or unload cargo to and from Israel and trade unions are calling for a total boycott campaign until Palestine is free.
I think the idea of a workshop quite helpful I think as there are quite sharp debates on issues such as the academic boycott, also if you are going to seriously do a boycott campaign it needs to be focused, structured and targetted. A lot of the boycott campaigning has been very chaotic & hasn't engaged the wider public very well in my opinion. But now there is the possibility of a serious campaign.
Another idea that has been floated is some sort of 'Teach-in' with several sessions and workshops on the theme of 'Peace in the Middle East' to enable a more in-depth discussion of different issues.
Several people have also been talking about the idea of more cultural resistance events.
Finally, on the student front there have been several new anti-war groups set up (or in the process of being set up) at campuses in S.E Wales.At UWIC they are talking about a Palestine Awareness Week with a key event being a video link-up between students in Cardiff and Jenin, Occupied Palestine which I think sounds quite exciting.
Re. the proposals above, there have been several ideas mooted of possible activities that I would add to the pot - the idea of a workshop on the theme of boycott, sanctions and disinvestment - Let's bear in mind that in countries like South Africa, dockers are now refusing to load or unload cargo to and from Israel and trade unions are calling for a total boycott campaign until Palestine is free.
I think the idea of a workshop quite helpful I think as there are quite sharp debates on issues such as the academic boycott, also if you are going to seriously do a boycott campaign it needs to be focused, structured and targetted. A lot of the boycott campaigning has been very chaotic & hasn't engaged the wider public very well in my opinion. But now there is the possibility of a serious campaign.
Another idea that has been floated is some sort of 'Teach-in' with several sessions and workshops on the theme of 'Peace in the Middle East' to enable a more in-depth discussion of different issues.
Several people have also been talking about the idea of more cultural resistance events.
Finally, on the student front there have been several new anti-war groups set up (or in the process of being set up) at campuses in S.E Wales.At UWIC they are talking about a Palestine Awareness Week with a key event being a video link-up between students in Cardiff and Jenin, Occupied Palestine which I think sounds quite exciting.
ddraig
kicking against the pricks...
ok whoever it was, i just want to reiterate that i am not having a go, just constructive crit, live and learn and all that
it was unbearably loud and distorted from where i was sitting up the back and it was probably more to do with others speaking too quietly whereas that person usually speaks without a microphone at events where people need to hear what they are saying. the levels were set for the quiet people so it made it sound a lot louder when they passionately spoke and a lot of people around me couldn't understand what they were saying and had their fingers in their ears.
Udo Erasmus
Well-Known Member
Constructive criticism is always helpful. How did you find the sound levels? At the start I thought it was much too quiet for Moazzam's speech & got the technical staff to increase the volume around when Omar was speaking. But I was at the front behind the speakers, rather than up in the seats at the back, so I might have judged the sounds wrongly!
Udo Erasmus
Well-Known Member
No borders gaza
NO BORDERS GAZA, just got this message from my friend and comrade, Ewa Jasiewicz:
We call on social movements, particularly No Borders networks, and people of conscience to target Israeli and Egyptian embassies, institutions, and corporations. Particularly in the coming days of intensified border closure, we must work to pressure both governments to abide by international law and open Gaza for the free movement of aid, goods and people.
***Please forward widely!***
Open Gaza Borders!
Call from International Solidarity Movement, Gaza
4 February 2009
We reiterate the existing call from Palestinian community based organisations and the over 130 grassroots NGOs in the Palestinian NGO Network for an immediate opening of all border crossings currently controlled by Israel and Egypt.
http://www.pngo.net/english/statements.asp?i=58
Gaza is in the grip of a man-made humanitarian crisis. Thousands of tons of food, medical and emergency shelter aid including blankets and mattresses, donated by countries including the United States and aid organisations, is being denied entry through crossings by both the Israeli and Egyptian governments.
The United Nations has stated that 900,000 Gazans are now dependent on food aid following Israel's 22-day assault on the tiny coastal territory. Only 100 aid trucks are being allowed into Gaza each day - 30 less than were being brought in last year and substantially less than before Israel's operation 'Cast Lead': an attack that has left over 1,300 Palestinians dead, the vast majority of them civilians massacred in their streets and homes. With over 5,000 injured and 100,000 homeless, admittance of aid is crucial at this time.
This is a fraction of the estimated 500-600 trucks deemed necessary to sustain the population of Gaza according to the United Nations. According to UNRWA, food trucks are delivering enough food to feed just 30,000 people per day.
Hundreds of medical patients, the injured from this war and Israel's previous invasions, are being prohibited from leaving Gaza for indispensable medical treatment. Over 268 people have died of preventable and treatable conditions after being denied access to treatment since the beginning of the ongoing siege two years ago.
Israel and Egypt have designated February 5th as the final day for all foreign nationals to leave Gaza through the southern Rafah border. Egypt has said it will close the Rafah border indefinitely. Despite a statement from the Egyptian Ministry of Health that humanitarian cases will be allowed through, many patients have already been turned back, before the closing of the border. Hundreds of patients and some of those wounded from 'Cast Lead,' are still waiting for permission to exit Gaza through Rafah for medical treatment.
The Gazan community is concerned that Israel will be stepping up its' economic, political, cultural and militarised stranglehold on Gaza in the upcoming weeks.
Post Israeli elections, Gazans fear the Israeli government will conduct extra judicial killings and continue their deadly strikes on Palestinian governmental figures, targeting of social and economic infrastructure and indiscriminate killings of civilians in the process. Actions that have proven to not only end lives but successfully cripple Palestinian development including reconstruction of homes destroyed by Israeli bombings and bulldozing during and before Operation 'Cast Lead'.
Thousands of internally displaced people face an uncertain future residing in flimsy canvas tents reminiscent of the mass dispossession through the ethnic cleansing of 1948 when the state of Israel was first established on Palestinian land.
A de-facto land grab and re-colonisation of Gaza is underway, with the demolition of hundreds of homes and destruction of farms in the Israeli defined 'buffer zone' areas of Rafah, Eastern (Shijaye) and Northern (Beit Hanoun) areas of Gaza. Killings, shelling and shootings of farmers and residents in border areas are continuing.
The 'buffer zone' has been expanded to cut into Palestinian lands by one kilometre. Israeli occupation forces have shot at residents that have attempted to retrieve their belongings from the bombed and bulldozed remnants of their homes along the border of Beit Hanoun. The army also continues to fire at farmers planting their fields in village areas such as al Faraheen near Khan Younis.
The Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture says Israeli occupation forces have destroyed 60% of Gaza's agricultural land during this winter's war.
Effective international direct action and an escalation of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction campaign is necessary to resist the intensification of the collective punishment, imprisonment and ongoing war on the people of Palestine.
The situation is worsening: the stranglehold on the people of Gaza is tightening, humanitarian relief is being deliberately choked, trauma is deepening, people are being humiliated on a daily basis and development is not just blocked but in the process of being actively reversed.
We call on social movements, particularly No Borders networks, and people of conscience to target Israeli and Egyptian embassies, institutions, and corporations. Particularly in the coming days of intensified border closure, we must work to pressure both governments to abide by international law and open Gaza for the free movement of aid, goods and people.
End the collective punishment of the Gazan people, open the borders.
NO BORDERS GAZA, just got this message from my friend and comrade, Ewa Jasiewicz:
We call on social movements, particularly No Borders networks, and people of conscience to target Israeli and Egyptian embassies, institutions, and corporations. Particularly in the coming days of intensified border closure, we must work to pressure both governments to abide by international law and open Gaza for the free movement of aid, goods and people.
***Please forward widely!***
Open Gaza Borders!
Call from International Solidarity Movement, Gaza
4 February 2009
We reiterate the existing call from Palestinian community based organisations and the over 130 grassroots NGOs in the Palestinian NGO Network for an immediate opening of all border crossings currently controlled by Israel and Egypt.
http://www.pngo.net/english/statements.asp?i=58
Gaza is in the grip of a man-made humanitarian crisis. Thousands of tons of food, medical and emergency shelter aid including blankets and mattresses, donated by countries including the United States and aid organisations, is being denied entry through crossings by both the Israeli and Egyptian governments.
The United Nations has stated that 900,000 Gazans are now dependent on food aid following Israel's 22-day assault on the tiny coastal territory. Only 100 aid trucks are being allowed into Gaza each day - 30 less than were being brought in last year and substantially less than before Israel's operation 'Cast Lead': an attack that has left over 1,300 Palestinians dead, the vast majority of them civilians massacred in their streets and homes. With over 5,000 injured and 100,000 homeless, admittance of aid is crucial at this time.
This is a fraction of the estimated 500-600 trucks deemed necessary to sustain the population of Gaza according to the United Nations. According to UNRWA, food trucks are delivering enough food to feed just 30,000 people per day.
Hundreds of medical patients, the injured from this war and Israel's previous invasions, are being prohibited from leaving Gaza for indispensable medical treatment. Over 268 people have died of preventable and treatable conditions after being denied access to treatment since the beginning of the ongoing siege two years ago.
Israel and Egypt have designated February 5th as the final day for all foreign nationals to leave Gaza through the southern Rafah border. Egypt has said it will close the Rafah border indefinitely. Despite a statement from the Egyptian Ministry of Health that humanitarian cases will be allowed through, many patients have already been turned back, before the closing of the border. Hundreds of patients and some of those wounded from 'Cast Lead,' are still waiting for permission to exit Gaza through Rafah for medical treatment.
The Gazan community is concerned that Israel will be stepping up its' economic, political, cultural and militarised stranglehold on Gaza in the upcoming weeks.
Post Israeli elections, Gazans fear the Israeli government will conduct extra judicial killings and continue their deadly strikes on Palestinian governmental figures, targeting of social and economic infrastructure and indiscriminate killings of civilians in the process. Actions that have proven to not only end lives but successfully cripple Palestinian development including reconstruction of homes destroyed by Israeli bombings and bulldozing during and before Operation 'Cast Lead'.
Thousands of internally displaced people face an uncertain future residing in flimsy canvas tents reminiscent of the mass dispossession through the ethnic cleansing of 1948 when the state of Israel was first established on Palestinian land.
A de-facto land grab and re-colonisation of Gaza is underway, with the demolition of hundreds of homes and destruction of farms in the Israeli defined 'buffer zone' areas of Rafah, Eastern (Shijaye) and Northern (Beit Hanoun) areas of Gaza. Killings, shelling and shootings of farmers and residents in border areas are continuing.
The 'buffer zone' has been expanded to cut into Palestinian lands by one kilometre. Israeli occupation forces have shot at residents that have attempted to retrieve their belongings from the bombed and bulldozed remnants of their homes along the border of Beit Hanoun. The army also continues to fire at farmers planting their fields in village areas such as al Faraheen near Khan Younis.
The Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture says Israeli occupation forces have destroyed 60% of Gaza's agricultural land during this winter's war.
Effective international direct action and an escalation of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction campaign is necessary to resist the intensification of the collective punishment, imprisonment and ongoing war on the people of Palestine.
The situation is worsening: the stranglehold on the people of Gaza is tightening, humanitarian relief is being deliberately choked, trauma is deepening, people are being humiliated on a daily basis and development is not just blocked but in the process of being actively reversed.
We call on social movements, particularly No Borders networks, and people of conscience to target Israeli and Egyptian embassies, institutions, and corporations. Particularly in the coming days of intensified border closure, we must work to pressure both governments to abide by international law and open Gaza for the free movement of aid, goods and people.
End the collective punishment of the Gazan people, open the borders.
Udo Erasmus
Well-Known Member
The Betrayal of British Torture Victim Binyam Mohamed
http://www.cageprisoners.com/articles.php?id=27816
http://www.cageprisoners.com/articles.php?id=27816
Dic Penderyn
Newport Civic Pride!
There's a report on the meeting here: http://noborderswales.org.uk/2009/02/10/guantanamo-in-cardiff-and-gaza-without-borders/
Video should be online later today.
Video should be online later today.
lewislewis
Lumumba Cymru
Disagree with the point on nationalism, the bit about xenophobia. Palestinian nationalism has always been internationalist. Imperialism is what leads to xenophobia.
Dic Penderyn
Newport Civic Pride!
I agree that imperialism, among other things, does lead to xenophobia. But do you really not think that nationalism can easily overlap with xenophobic attitudes? Ethnic nationalism in particular?
I guess you agree with the bit about nationalism "being a dead end for the liberation from oppression on a global scale" though?
Here's the video: http://noborderswales.org.uk/2009/02/13/video-of-two-sides-one-story-in-cardiff/
I guess you agree with the bit about nationalism "being a dead end for the liberation from oppression on a global scale" though?
Here's the video: http://noborderswales.org.uk/2009/02/13/video-of-two-sides-one-story-in-cardiff/
penderyn2000
unapologetic socialist
I'm guessing your definition of nationalism doesn't extend to the city-state of Newport, Dic. It's a huge subject but we had a good go at it at the socialist forum - interesting to hear views from Cymru Rydd there. We talked about the issue in Gaza and also Wales, but spent a fair bit of time discussing the Lindsey strike - if anyone hasn't seen it I really recommend Gregor Gall's report which I've posted at http://radicalsocialist.org/forum. As soon as I have time I'll also post a report of our meeting which will hopefully begin to address some of the questions here. Shame that in the end there was noone from NB there - how about NB sponsoring a meeting on similar lines and thus drawing in the wider forces NB seeks to work with?
Dic Penderyn
Newport Civic Pride!
I would have made it to the forum, but sadly the forces of wage labour conspired to keep me at work until late on wednesday, and no my definition of nationalism doesn't extend to the paradise of Newport.
Shame no-one else from NB could make it, to be honest we're unlikely to organise discussion meetings of that type at any point in the near future (too much other stuff really). Look forward to the report on the blog, I've bookmarked Gregor Gall's report for when I finish work.
Shame no-one else from NB could make it, to be honest we're unlikely to organise discussion meetings of that type at any point in the near future (too much other stuff really). Look forward to the report on the blog, I've bookmarked Gregor Gall's report for when I finish work.
Udo Erasmus
Well-Known Member
I reject the two-state solution (it doesn't resolve the issue of the right of return of refugees + racial discrimination of Palestinians who live within Israel in the Jewish State, it is also profoundly injust), but the minimum basis would be 22% of historical Palestine - West Bank, Gaza & East Jerusalem + dismantling of the settlements.
We should note that ALL the mainstream Israeli political parties are rejectionist, none support occupied East Jerusalem being part of a Palestinian state, all have supported the expansion of illegal settlements on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem.
We should also note that whatever rhetoric he might make about a Palestinian state, Obama also supports bantustans. When in Israel, he made a speech that Jerusalem was the undivided capital of Israel (ie East Jerusalem wouldn't be part of a Palestinian state meaning that it would not be viable)
It is important to note that the only people who have endorsed this solution are Hamas who made that offer on election in 2006 along with a proposal for a 10 year truce for negotiations on other outstanding issues.
The West and EU responded by blockading Gaza, economic sanctions, arming Fatah to stage a military coup, attempting to destabilise the democratically elected administration etc.
lewislewis
Lumumba Cymru
I also don't support a 2-state solution, it won't solve the long-term injustices. A single secular/multi-faith state is the way to go.The most I would sway on that would be to support 2 states in the interm with a view to their unification in the future.
Udo Erasmus
Well-Known Member
A lot of my thinking tends to be similar to that of the writers on this website: www.electronicintifada.net
If you are at Glamorgan University or based in Treforest area, this is worth checking out
If you are at Glamorgan University or based in Treforest area, this is worth checking out
