Divestment, Disengagement, and London Bombings

Divestment
The activist community here in Palestine tends to be very much a part of the secular left. Unfortunately, this means that the AUT Teacher’s Boycott has stirred up a lot more talk than the Divestment issue. I can tell you, however, that many Palestinians see the church’s divestment as well as the failed boycott as indications that crucial populations (U.S. and U.K.) are finally starting to act more boldly towards peace and justice.

Divestment

The activist community here in Palestine tends to be very much a part of the secular left. Unfortunately, this means that the AUT Teacher’s Boycott has stirred up a lot more talk than the Divestment issue. I can tell you, however, that many Palestinians see the church’s divestment as well as the failed boycott as indications that crucial populations (U.S. and U.K.) are finally starting to act more boldly towards peace and justice.

The signs are certainly encouraging, and I believe the divestment campaign holds a lot of value to our work. I wrote an article, “Investing in Peace: Churches and Divestment”, for the upcoming issue of the Joint Advocacy Initiative magazine, put out by our office. It gives a little bit of background about the divestment campaign, tackles a few criticisms of the campaign and offers reasons for supporting it. I’d be happy to email it to anyone interested, but it was written prior to the UCC and Anglican decisions.

“Disengagement” / Redeployment

Israel’s plan to remove the settlements in Gaza appears to be going ahead. I’ve tried to get an accurate assessment about the state of Israel, but I have heard completely divergent opinions. Some believe that the settlers will cause a civil war, or a “third Intifada”. Others feel that Israel is not so volatile as it seems.

Certainly, the chaos will help Sharon convince Bush and the rest of the world that removing the settlements around Jerusalem is politically unviable. There are lots of things to be discussed around the removal of settlements in Gaza, but I only want to make two brief points:

1. The Gaza “disengagement” is actually more of redeployment. While settlements are being evacuated, the Israeli military will continue to maintain a 1km buffer zone on Gaza. While this may seem negligible, Gaza is less than 8km wide in many parts, so a 1km buffer zone is a
considerable chunk of land.

Also, it has been suggested that Israel may build a giant sea wall to prevent Gazans from having any control over their coastal boarders. How or when they plan to achieve this I don’t know. On the issue of border control, Gazans will continue to have no control over their access to Egypt. Though there is the possibility that there will be some coordination between Egypt and Israel, Palestine is still being left out of any deal.

2. Though the international community keeps referring to the Gaza redeployment as a first step towards peace, no one in the Sharon government has given any indication that this is any sort of first step. The indication is in fact quite the opposite.

Sharon has pushed to complete the Wall in the West Bank more quickly, sealing off several communities and further finalizing Israeli control over the West Bank. Settlement expansion is continuing and there is absolutely no talk or even hints of talk about how or when to remove
settlements from the West Bank.

The London Bombings

I saw Blair’s first speech after the bombings, in which he was standing alone and appeared to have a difficult time speaking. In this speech he used the term “barbaric” to characterize the attacks. My concern here is not with the attacks specifically, but with the use of the “barbaric” trope as a distancing and dehumanizing distinction.

In his book, “Civilization and Barbarism”, Mark B. Salter tracks the use of the concept of barbarism in colonial practice. It was used in heavily racist ways to literally dehumanize – or sub humanize – the populations colonialist states ruled. Indeed, the distinction between
“civilized” and “barbaric” peoples were used heavily during colonization.

Perhaps the most relevant aspect for us today is how it was used to legitimize actions of the “civilized”. Across the range of moral behavior, from violence to sex to rule of law, colonialist peoples claimed an inherit moral superiority that allowed them to justify deplorable behavior towards indigenous populations. “Civilized” people were allowed to treat “barbarians” without respect for any sense of their humanity.

Another particularly relevant use of the barbarian trope was to justify military responses that would be unacceptable between “civilized” nations. The concept being: “Barbarians only understand barbaric acts. So we must deal with them as barbarians and with each other as civilized peoples.”

We must be very careful how we use the term “barbaric”. In the self-declared “War on Terror”, we have subjugated a people in the occupation of Iraq and caused unknown levels of civilian casualties. To what extent has the use of the Civilization/Barbarian dichotomy helped us justify violence we would not accept internally and deny Arabs their humanity?

I believe the London bombings, as indicated by Blair’s speech, offer an exceptional challenge to humanists and universalists. This challenge must be taken up with all determination, to demonstrate that humanism rejects dehumanizing dichotomies and that we can lead the
world towards effective conflict resolution based on peacemaking.

Nathan Wright

Nathan Wright served as a short-term volunteer from September 1, 2004 through February 28, 2005, with the East Jerusalem YMCA in Jerusalem.  He worked with the YMCA’s computers and technology office as well as youth and advocacy programs.