`Still pictures are not still…’ Fore-seeing the effect of visual images
by Rahnuma Ahmed
`Still pictures are not still…’ said Mahasweta Devi. She was in Dhaka to inaugurate Chobi Mela V, and, fortunately for us, had expressed her wish to put up with Shahidul Alam, the director of Chobi Mela. Having Mahasweta Devi, and Joy Bhadra, a young writer and her companion, as house guests, was a `happening’. I will write about that another day.
Mahasweta Devi consistently used the words stheer chitro (exact translation is, `still images’). Still pictures, she went on, inspire us. They move us. They make us do things.
However, I thought to myself, many who are working on visual and cultural theory may not agree. Some would be likely to say, things are not as simple as that.
The effect of visual images needs to be investigated
The debate about the power of visual images has become stuck on the point of the meaning of visual images, on the truth of images. This, said David Campbell, a professor of cultural and political geography, doesn’t get us very far. He was one of the panelists at the opening night’s discussion of Chobi Mela V, held at the Goethe Institut auditorium (`Engaging with photography from outside: An informal discussion between a geographer, an editor and a curator/funder of photography’, 30 Jan 2009).
David went on, it is much better to focus on the effect of images, on the function of images, on the work that images do — and that, is how the debate should be framed. At present, attention is overly-focused on the single image, and what we expect of the single image. By doing this we have invested it with too much possibility, we place too much hope on it’s ability to bring about social change. The effect of visual images needs to be investigated, rather than assumed.
Amy Yenkin, another panelist in the programme, and head of the Documentary Photography project at the Open Society Institute asked David, Why do you think this happens? Is it because people look back at certain iconic images, let’s say images from the Vietnam war that changed the situation, that they try to put too much meaning in the power of one single image..? David replied, `In a way, I am sceptical of the power of single images, a standard 6 or 7 in the western world, that are repeated all the time. I was personally affected by the Vietnam war images, by the image of the young Vietnamese girl fleeing from a napalm bomb, but I don’t know of any argument that actually demonstrates that Nick Ut’s photograph demonstrably furthered the Vietnam anti-war movement.’ He went on, `Now, I don’t regard that as a failure of the image, but a failure of the interpretation that we’ve placed on the image. It puts too much burden on the image itself.’
The discussion was followed by Noam Chomsky and Mahasweta Devi’s video-conference discussion on Freedom (Chobi Mela V’s theme), and I became fully immersed in watching two of the foremost public intellectual/activists of today talk about the meanings and struggles of freedom, and of imperialism and nationalism’s attempts to thwart it in common peoples’ lives.
But the next day, my thoughts returned to what David had said, and to the general discussion that had followed. On David’s website, I came across how he understands photography, `a technology through which the world is visually performed,’ and a gist of his theoretical argument. I quote: `The pictures that the technology of photography produces are neither isolated nor discrete objects. They have to be understood as being part of networks of materials, technologies, institutions, markets, social spaces, emotions, cultural histories and political contexts. The meaning of photographs derives from the intersection of these multiple features rather than just the form and content of particular pictures.’ .
In other words, to understand what happens within the frame, we need to go outside the frame.
Abu Ghraib photographs: concealing more than they reveal
A good instance is provided by the Abu Ghraib prison torture and abuse photographs taken by US military prison guards with digital cameras, which came to public attention in early 2004. The pictures, says Ian Buruma, conceal more than they reveal. By telling one story, they hide a bigger story.
Images of Chuck Graner, Ivan Frederick and the others as “gloating thugs” helped single out, and fix, low-ranking reservist soldiers as the bad apples. As President Bush intoned, it was “disgraceful conduct by a few American troops who dishonoured our country and disregarded our values”. None of the officers were tried, though several received administrative punishment. As a matter of fact, the Final Report of the Independent Panel to Review Department of Defense Detention Operations specifically absolved senior U.S. military and political leadership from direct culpability. Some even received promotions (Maj. Gen. Walter Wodjakowski, Col. Marc Warren, Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast).
The gloating digital images, no doubt embarassing for the US administration, probably helped “far greater embarrassments from emerging into public view.” They made “the lawyers, bureaucrats, and politicians who made, or rather unmade, the rules—William J. Haynes, Alberto Gonzales, David S. Addington, Jay Bybee, John Yoo, Douglas J. Feith, Donald Rumsfeld, and Dick Cheney—look almost respectable.”
But there is another aspect to the story of concealing-and-revealing. Public preoccupation with Abu Ghraib pornography deflected attention from the “torturing and the killing that was never recorded on film,” and from finding out who “the actual killers” were. By singling out those visible in the pictures as the “rogues” responsible, it concealed the bigger reality. That the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, as Philip Gourevitch and Errol Morris point out, “was de facto United States policy.”
Lynndie England, who held the rank of Specialist while serving in Iraq, expressed it best I think, when she said, “I didn’t make the war. I can’t end the war. I mean, photographs can’t just make or change a war.”
True. Photographs can’t just make or change a war. But surely they do something, or else, why censor images of the recent slaughter in Gaza? To put it more precisely, surely, those who are powerful (western politicians, journalists, arms manufacturers, defence analysts, all deeply embedded in the Zionist Curtain, one that has replaced the older Iron Curtain) apprehend that the visual images of Gaza will do something? That they will, in all probability, have a social effect upon western audiences? And therefore, these must be acted upon i.e., their circulation and distribution must be prevented.
At times, their apprehension seems to move even further. Images-not-yet-taken are prevented from being taken. Probable social effects of unborn images are foreseen, and aborted.
Censoring Gaza images, for what they reveal
All of this happened in the case of Gaza. But before turning to that, I would like to add a small note on the notion of probability. I am inclined to think that it’ll help to deepen our understanding of the politics of visual images.
As the organisers of a Michigan university conference on English literature remind us (“Fictional Selves: On the (im)Probability of Character”, April 2002), the notion of probability went through a major conceptual shift with the emergence of modernity. What in the seventeenth century had meant “the capability of being proven absolutely true or false” as in the case of deductive theorem in logic, gradually altered in meaning as practitioners searched for rhetorical consensus, and the repeatability of experimental results, leading to its present-day meaning: “a likelihood of occurring.”
What might have occured if Israel had allowed journalists into Gaza? What might have occurred if the BBC instead of hiding under the pretence of “impartiality” had agreed to air the Disasters Emergency Committee’s Gaza Aid Appeal aimed at raising humanitarian aid for (occupied and beseiged) Gazans? What might have occurred if USA’s largest satellite television subscription service DIRECTV had gone ahead and aired the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation of Palestine’s `Gaza Strip TV Ad‘?
Could pictures of Israel’s 22 day carnage in Gaza, which killed more than 1,300 Palestinians, have sown doubts in western minds about the Israeli claim of targeting only Hamas, and not civilians? Could photos of bombed UN buildings, mosques, schools, a university, of hospitals in ruins, ambulances destroyed, of dismembered limbs and destroyed factories have forced BBC’s viewers to question whether both sides are to blame? Could pictures of the apartheid wall, the security zone, the checkpoints controlling entry of food, trade, medicine (for over two years) make suspect the Israeli claim that it had withdrawn from Gaza? Could photos depicting the effects of mysterious armaments that have burned their way down into people’s flesh, eaten their skin and tissue away, have given western viewers pause for thought? Could the little story of Israel acting only in self-defense, begin to unravel? Could pictures of Gaza in ruins have led American viewers to wonder whether there is a bigger story out there, and could it then lead them to ask why their taxes are being spent in footing Israel’s military bill (the fourth largest army in the world), to ask why they should continue to sponsor this parasitical state, even when its own economy is in ruins?
May be.
After all, as Mahasweta Devi had said, still pictures are not still. Still pictures (may) move us. They (may) make us do things. The powerful, know this.
—————-
First published in New Age on Monday 16th February 2009
Copyright is for losers* or What’s yours & mine is ours
By Rupert Grey
On the way over here I read the obituary of Francoise Demulder. Some of you will remember that she was the first woman to win the World Press Photo of the year Award in 1977. The photograph was topical enough – Palestinians in Beirut. She was one of the stars of the Paris – based agencies which made France the centre of world photo-journalism during the last years of the golden age of European and US photographic magazines. Like many photographers here in the sub- continent/Bangladesh she felt “compelled to document how it always was the innocent who suffered while the powerful get richer and richer”. Like a lot of photographers here she was an artist, and she bore witness to the times during which she lived.
I am glad to be back here – this is my third Chobi Mela – and most particularly to see such a rich diversity and high standard of photography over the last few days and – importantly for me – many powerful documentary images which reflect the same passion for justice which drove Demulder, to be a part of the struggle for change in lives of the oppressed.
1. The Title
The title of my talk tonight is Shahidul’s fault. He sent me an email a couple of weeks ago and asked me to give this talk tonight and said could he have the title by return. Just about to go to print, he said. I thought for a few seconds and recalled a phrase which appeared on the introductory page to one of Banksy’s books which I brought as a present for someone before Christmas: copyright is for losers. Catchy enough, but it raises a question which is central to the profession of photography. Banksy is a well known artist in London. So well known that nobody quite knows who he is: his art takes the form of graffiti in public spaces, and I should imagine that he has a very healthy disrespect for the establishment; so it was surprising, and yet not surprising, to see at the foot of the same page that Banksy invoked the protection of the law of copyright for his book.
2. The Central Issue
Banksy’s schizophrenic approach to copyright symbolises the conflict, the tension, between the desire for artists to find their way into the minds of all people, and the need for those artists (and their agents) to maintain a monopoly in order to earn a living. This question, how society produces and distributes its information, literature and art, goes to the very core of freedom. It is an international issue – who gets to say what, to whom? Who has access to it, who gets paid? The answers determine political outcomes. They determine wealth. They determine the extent to which an individual is able to play a central role in altering his or her own life. All this is governed by the law of intellectual property.
3. History of Copyright
Hogarth, the great cartoonist whose images of 17th century life in England are central to our understanding of his era, refused to permit his works to be publicly exhibited until Parliament passed an act prohibiting copying. Which is why the first Copyright Act in UK legislation is called Hogarth’s Act. The first in history, I think. The protection was narrow and the duration short. Since then there has been a great deal of legislation in which the overall trend (to put it mildly) has been to increase protection, reduce the exceptions and extend the duration. Before the 1911 Act in Britain – on which copyright law in Bangladesh is based – the protection was between 7 and 14 years. In 1911 it was increased to 50 years from creation of the work. In 1956 it was increased further to 50 years from 1st publication. Towards the end of the last century it was 70 plus life of the author. Policy makers and their advisors regarded the ownership of intellectual property as they did motor cars: you owned it exclusively, and when you lent it to somebody else – or granted a licence if it is was copyright – it was on strict terms. The thinking was that the more it was protected the more artist & writers would produce their works.
The US patent system was overhauled in the early 1980’s – protection was strengthened – the reach and scope of exclusivity was broadened; and the same thing happened to copyright and trade marks. Universities registered patents and required the payment of royalties: thus institutions dedicated to disseminating knowledge, information and understanding in the widest possible way were in fact impeding the sharing of that knowledge as if they were a commercial enterprise. The proprietary model for disseminating information was, and is, in the ascendant.
4. Internet
At the same time, reflecting perhaps the same concerns, a counter-trend has developed. As the law tightens the control given to the rights-owners and cultural producers, the consumer pushes in the opposite direction: in the networked information economy the ethic of sharing exchanging, building on the past, is the primary driver. Social networks share – with abandon and some would say a blithe disregard for their own privacy - information, knowledge and culture – so that the political and legal pressures which favour the proprietary business model runs head-on into a generation of savvy and determined consumers. There is an increasing resistance to attempts to enclose the information environment. International boundaries, indeed boundaries of all kinds, are becoming blurred, cultural values fused, sovereignty pooled authority subverted. Creative commons, the non profit organisation dedicated to granting royalty-free licenses, expands the range of creative work available to others to build on and share. There is, in short a strong movement which aims to counter the restrictions of the permission culture erected by the dominant producers of culture and the legal systems they (largely) control.
5. “One up on the Greeks”
I have selected, somewhat randomly, three cases to illustrate these conflicting trends: Perfect 10, the soft porn empire in the US, sued Google for enabling users to access Perfect 10’s thumbnail images of Perfect 10’s nude models. Google’s defence, that it was an exception to the usual rule (fair dealing, in lawyers’ jargon), failed in the lower court and won in the higher court. A significant victory for the consumer.
Last year a New Zealander called Elliot Smith uploaded a hundred videos from YouTube. No problem there, though I dare say there was an infringement or 2, but then he made the mistake of uploading Olympics footage without permission. Within 12 hours his entire account was completely deleted. The owners of the Olympic footage were savvy enough, or rich enough, to have at their disposal the necessary technology to force YouTube (now Google of course) to cut off anyone who is accused of infringing copyright. Whether or not they turn out to be guilty is no longer of interest. This is pretty outrageous. The judgment has been widely criticised as “deeply flawed”. Victory by technology, aka bullying, rather than law.
Google also feature in the third case I want to mention. It is by far the biggest and most significant. It settled just before Christmas. Four years ago Google started scanning millions of books onto the web. It asked permission of neither the publishers nor the authors, and pretty soon it got sued by both. Google’s aim was along the same lines as the chief librarian in the great library of Alexandria, burned to the ground by Caesar three centuries before Christ in one of the most destructive acts of vandalism in world history: Google wants to set up a library containing every single book, article, play or art work written or created in the history of the world. The Great Library in Alexandria housed, it is thought, between 40 and 70% of everything that had been written by that stage in world history. Google, not to be outdone by the Greeks is aiming for 100%. Furthermore, it maintains, access to its library is simple and free, neither of which was the case in Alexandria’s case.
As their archivist some what arrogantly remarked “this is our chance to get one-up on the Greeks… It will be an achievement remembered throughout time – in short, the entire works of human kind, from the beginning of recorded history, in all languages, available to all people, all the time”. Worth mentioning in this context, I suppose, is that all this information, that is to say all the information that is can currently be housed in a building about the size of a small town library. No doubt tomorrow it will all fit into your Ipod.
Battle over copyright infringement commenced in the States but the ramifications are worldwide. Eventually Google caved in, and paid out 125 million to the Association of American Publishers and the Authors Guild. Part of the damages – US$34.5 million – will be spent by Google in creating a “book rights registry”, to make sure that authors are compensated for the use of their works. It will be independent of Google, and will oversee payments to authors much as the equivalent of the music industry oversee payments to songwriters and musicians. Google also agreed to pay $60 for every book uploaded onto the web, and to charge a licence fee of which 68% will go to the authors. For reasons that are wholly unclear, photographs were not included in this agreement, and thus no doubt will be excluded from access on the web.
6. Searches
The new technology of searching renders archaic the concept of copyright; when is the process of copying an infringement, as opposed to just making it available? Enabling a connection? Is it the same as creating a copy, in the ordinary sense? There is a value in the connection created by the search, and the value of the work is increased the more it is shared. To put it another way, as no doubt Google did, the value of the created work is increased enormously by allowing a billion new connections. That in the previous generation would have been completely inconceivable. It is publishing on a scale which is incomprehensible. Is that good for the creator? Is it, in effect, free advertising which will enhance a reputation, or a massively outrageous infringement of copyright for which compensation should be justly awarded?
7. Review of Copyright Law
Against this background, it is not surprising that the law of copyright is being reviewed by Western Governments and the UK in particular. David Lammy, the Minister for Higher Education and Intellectual Property, launched the review earlier this year, pointing out that 8.3% of the UK GDP – at least as it was (down a bit since then I expect) – and is growing at twice the rate of the economy as a whole. It follows the Gower review a couple of years ago, amongst whose recommendations were to reform the copyright provisions in relation to orphan works – that is to say works to which owners cannot be identified after reasonable enquiries have been made by the prospective publisher – and secondly, a recommendation that a further copyright exception should be created for user generated content, on the basis that it is “transformative” – technical jargon for which I have so far read or heard about 6 definitions.
Implicit in these proposals is an acknowledgment that the high level of copyright protection considered to be crucial for intellectual creation and development should to an extent be tempered. The European Commission’s recent green paper on copyright and the knowledge economy points out that the balance between ensuring a reward for creation and investment and the future dissemination of knowledge has been challenged, or rendered less effective, by the evolving internet technology. Difficult to argue with that.
A great deal of debate has been generated by these prospective changes, particularly the proposed orphan works exception; and the transformative use exception has been described as artistic stealing. These are significant steps within the framework of our existing copyright law.
8. The Answer?
I have no idea. But I have three thoughts for photographers:
It is now critically important to ensure that your name is tagged to every one of your images on the web. Your paternity right is now more valuable than your copyright. It is the key to the management of your reputation as a photographer, and it is that reputation which will generate your income; by the same token, and equally important, tagging your name will prevent it becoming an orphan work.
Secondly technology. Not my field, to say the least of it, but programmes (on subscription) are now available to trace your image wherever it appears or is accessed on the web. They use advanced identification and algorithms to identify your images by the composition of its pixels, so its appearance on the internet sends an instant notification to the owner of the copyright. In theory you can then ask for a fee, but the real point is that it works the other way round: publishers can use it to identify copyright holders, and will need to if they are to take advantage of the orphan works legislation.
Thirdly new business models are arriving on the scene. On-line agencies aren’t just stock agencies; some of them commission work and actively engage with publishers. As the number of bricks & mortar agencies (and publishers) dwindle, undercut by fast-moving & shrewd on-line players with minimal overheads, the market-place is changing. In change there is opportunity. And more the point, it does not matter whether you are here in Dalhmundi Bangladesh or in London’s Covent Garden. The only thing that matters is the quality of your image and the content – and accuracy – of your text.
According to the British Journal of Photography in London there are now 3 trillion images on the web. That was last August. So there’s a bit of competition. But judging by the quality of some of the work I have seen in the last couple of days I can see no reason, particularly if you subscribe to a tracking device, why you should not be able to make a living out of photography.
Rupert Grey of Swan Turton, Solicitors
3 February 2009
Transcript of lecture by Rupert Grey @ the Goethe Institute in Dhaka on 4 February 2009. Dhaka, Bangladesh
* Acknowledgments to Banksy
(It is the third time that Rupert Grey has attended Chobi Mela)
The present as history. Life and death in Dilara Begum Jolly’s work.
by Rahnuma Ahmed
After the end of time - 3. Dilara Begum Jolly
Flowers blossom, but with bullets in place of stigma. Bullets signal the end of fertility, the end of life. They signal death and destruction (After the end of time – 3).
Before the end of time 2. Dilara Begum Jolly
A chess board. The king wears Stars and Stripes, his minister is dressed in the Union Jack. Soldiers litter the board, two have holes in their hearts. The path to a target practising board is strewn with eyes, un-seeing eyes. Dead targets. One eye, may be half-alive, stares at us unblinkingly. An eagle, hovering above, stops in its flight of extending the empire, to oversee American-style democracy take root in a faraway land (Before the end of time – 2). This is how Bangladeshi artist Dilara Begum Jolly captures the present moment on her canvas.
Before the end of time 4. Dilara Begum Jolly
Bodies fractured by wars of the present, dismembered limbs, single hands — coloured red, yellow, blue, purple — lie lifeless. Others are raised upwards, they seem to be imploring. Stop this madness, stop the war. A human body folded, her head and pair of legs buried beneath the soil, her arms too. The trunk of her body and her fingers are visible. Fingertips stretched outward, towards the sun, towards light. A flaming red petal of a bird of paradise springs forth like a knife from the navel of a human body as she lies face upwards, her hands tied in a knot. A pair of army boots remind us of how it happened (Before the end of time – 4).
Before the end of time 1. Dilara Begum Jolly
An Iraqi flag interweaves between dead bodies lying in a heap. Mother Teresa grieves silently as a furious red hand, gloved in Stars and Stripes, hangs over — and above — everything else. Once again, a Union Jack, this time in the background (Before the end of time – 1).
Other canvases, other images. Naked bodies, imprisoned bodies heaped on each other, surveilled by an eagle eye, the new owners of Abu Ghuraib. Autumn leaves falling on a white background as women, dressed in hijab, some in brown, others in purple, or blue, grey, white, stand shoulder to shoulder to the right of the canvas. They seem to be grieving. May be for a lost husband or a daughter. May be a son, a grandmother or a lover. For people, obscured by words spun by the invader — safe and secure in Pentagon, Washington, Fort Benning, and Downing Street — “collateral damage.” May be for the loss of national independence and freedom.
Other canvases, other images. Not any civilisation, but the cradle of civilisation itself destroyed. Army vehicles advancing on monuments. Statues and sculptures lying scattered as blank pages of history waft down. A Buddha head looks impassively as a shot is fired into its right eye. A broken cuneiform tablet.
And yet, in the midst of all the death, destruction and havoc, a pink lotus blooms. And that, as we who are familiar with the artist’s work know, is Dilara Begum Jolly’s signature. A flower, a sapling, a shoot springing forth in the midst of ruins. Signalling life, its force and energy. Its beauty. Signalling the will to live. The death of forces of evil.
Dilara Begum, known more by her nickname Jolly than her proper name, has always produced art that is social, and political. That is keenly critical of the prevailing order, whether at home or abroad. Or, as her exhibition Excavating Time (Bengal Gallery of Fine Arts, 4 – 17 September 2006) shows, of the new order that has not only destroyed the cradle of civilisation, but threatens to destroy all vestiges of life on the planet. An inexorable war machine, spinning lies and deceit to the heavy rounds of applause by western politicians, generals, defence analysts and journalists.
Embryo withdrawn 1 Dilara Begum Jolly
Other canvases in the exhibition drew on the womb, on foetuses, on the pain of giving birth. Or, of not giving birth, of an embryo that retreats into the womb, repelled by the patriarchal order that controls and regulates life outside (Embryo withdrawn – 1).
Jolly’s more recent work draws on the the nokshi kantha (quilt-making) tradition of Bangladeshi women, quilts that are made from worn-out saris, two to three sewn together, richly embroidered from folk tales, myths, everyday artefacts, and daily village life as seen by, and as intrepreted by, women. Always. Instead of strokes and brushes, Jolly paints short stitches that weave tales, of women as mothers, as sisters, and as friends, drawing on traditions of weaving to tell stories of the pain and wonderment of giving birth. Of creating, and re-creating, bonds of solidarity.
The Mideast’s One-State Solution
by Muammar Qaddafi
The International Herald Tribune
A Palestinian girl and her mother walk near anti-riot Israeli police in Arab East Jerusalem on January 16, 2009. The Israeli army locked down the occupied West Bank today as Hamas called for a day of "wrath" against the deadly offensive on Gaza. The West Bank will be closed off for 48 hours from midnight yesterday (2200 GMT), the army said in a statement. The announcement came after the Islamist movement Hamas called on Palestinians to observe a "day of wrath" on Friday by staging anti-Israeli protests after the weekly Muslim prayers. © PATRICK BAZ/AFP/Getty Images)
Palestinian mother and daughter walk past Israeli troops. Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi is calling for a one-state solution. (Photo: Patrick Baz / AFP / Getty Images) Tripoli, Libya – The shocking level of the last wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence, which ended with this weekend’s cease-fire, reminds us why a final resolution to the so-called Middle East crisis is so important. It is vital not just to break this cycle of destruction and injustice, but also to deny the religious extremists in the region who feed on the conflict an excuse to advance their own causes. But everywhere one looks, among the speeches and the desperate diplomacy, there is no real way forward. A just and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians is possible, but it lies in the history of the people of this conflicted land, and not in the tired rhetoric of partition and two-state solutions. Although it’s hard to realize after the horrors we’ve just witnessed, the state of war between the Jews and Palestinians has not always existed. In fact, many of the divisions between Jews and Palestinians are recent ones. The very name “Palestine” was commonly used to describe the whole area, even by the Jews who lived there, until 1948, when the name “Israel” came into use. Jews and Muslims are cousins descended from Abraham. Throughout the centuries both faced cruel persecution and often found refuge with one another. Arabs sheltered Jews and protected them after maltreatment at the hands of the Romans and their expulsion from Spain in the Middle Ages.
The history of Israel/Palestine is not remarkable by regional standards – a country inhabited by different peoples, with rule passing among many tribes, nations and ethnic groups; a country that has withstood many wars and waves of peoples from all directions. This is why it gets so complicated when members of either party claims the right to assert that it is their land. The basis for the modern State of Israel is the persecution of the Jewish people, which is undeniable. The Jews have been held captive, massacred, disadvantaged in every possible fashion by the Egyptians, the Romans, the English, the Russians, the Babylonians, the Canaanites and, most recently, the Germans under Hitler. The Jewish people want and deserve their homeland. But the Palestinians too have a history of persecution, and they view the coastal towns of Haifa, Acre, Jaffa and others as the land of their forefathers, passed from generation to generation, until only a short time ago.
Thus the Palestinians believe that what is now called Israel forms part of their nation, even were they to secure the West Bank and Gaza. And the Jews believe that the West Bank is Samaria and Judea, part of their homeland, even if a Palestinian state were established there. Now, as Gaza still smolders, calls for a two-state solution or partition persist. But neither will work. A two-state solution will create an unacceptable security threat to Israel. An armed Arab state, presumably in the West Bank, would give Israel less than 10 miles of strategic depth at its narrowest point. Further, a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip would do little to resolve the problem of refugees. Any situation that keeps the majority of Palestinians in refugee camps and does not offer a solution within the historical borders of Israel/Palestine is not a solution at all.
For the same reasons, the older idea of partition of the West Bank into Jewish and Arab areas, with buffer zones between them, won’t work. The Palestinian-held areas could not accommodate all of the refugees, and buffer zones symbolize exclusion and breed tension. Israelis and Palestinians have also become increasingly intertwined, economically and politically. In absolute terms, the two movements must remain in perpetual war or a compromise must be reached. The compromise is one state for all, an “Isratine” that would allow the people in each party to feel that they live in all of the disputed land and they are not deprived of any one part of it.
A key prerequisite for peace is the right of return for Palestinian refugees to the homes their families left behind in 1948. It is an injustice that Jews who were not originally inhabitants of Palestine, nor were their ancestors, can move in from abroad while Palestinians who were displaced only a relatively short time ago should not be so permitted. It is a fact that Palestinians inhabited the land and owned farms and homes there until recently, fleeing in fear of violence at the hands of Jews after 1948 – violence that did not occur, but rumors of which led to a mass exodus. It is important to note that the Jews did not forcibly expel Palestinians. They were never “un-welcomed.” Yet only the full territories of Isratine can accommodate all the refugees and bring about the justice that is key to’peace. Assimilation is already a fact of life in Israel. There are more than 1 million Muslim Arabs in Israel; they possess Israeli nationality and take part in political life with the Jews, forming political parties. On the other side, there are Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Israeli factories depend on Palestinian labor, and goods and services are exchanged. This successful assimilation can be a model for Isratine.
If the present interdependence and the historical fact of Jewish-Palestinian co-existence guide their leaders, and if they can see beyond the horizon of the recent violence and thirst for revenge toward a long-term solution, then these two peoples will come to realize, I hope sooner rather than later, that living under one roof is the only option for a lasting peace. ——–
Muammar Qaddafi is the leader of Libya. Thursday 22 January 2009
related links:
Home and the architecture of occupation
Iran Palestine and the Hypocrisies of Power – an interview with Noam Chomsky
Changing their destiny
Letter from Bangladesh
Intro to film “In Search of the Shade of the Banyan Tree” © Shahidul Alam
They all have numbers. Jeans tucked into their high-ankled sneakers. They strut through the airport lounge, moving en masse. We work our way up the corridors leading to the airplane, but many stop just before boarding. The cocky gait has gone. The sad faces look out longingly at the small figures silhouetted on the rooftops. They wave and they wave and they wave. The stewardess has seen it all before and rounds them up, herding them into the aircraft. One by one they disengage themselves, probably realizing for the first time just what they are leaving behind.
Abdul Malek and other migrant workers, waving goodbye to their family just before they board a plane bound for the Middle East, at Zia International airport, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Shahidul Alam
Inside the aircraft it is different. They look around at the metallic finish of the interior, try on the headphones and drink lemonade. They have seats together and whisper to each other about each new thing they see. Abdul Malek, sitting opposite me, is in his early twenties. He is from a small village not far from Goalondo. This is his second attempt. He was conned the first time round. This time his family has sold their remaining land as well as the small shop that they part-own. This time, he says, he is going to make it.
A migrant worker's family prays outside Zia International airport the night before he leaves. Dhaka, Bangladesh. 1995. Shahidul Alam
As in the case of the others, his had been no ordinary farewell. They had all come from the village to see him off. Last night, as they slept outside the exclusive passenger lounge, they had prayed together. Abdul Malek has few illusions. He realizes that on $110 a month, for 18 months, there is no way he can save enough to replace the money that his family has invested.
A woman bids farewell to her man, leaving for work in the middle east, from across the glass panels of Zia international Airport. Dhaka. Bangladesh. 1995. Shahidul Alam/Drik/Majority World
But he sees it differently. No-one from his village has ever been abroad. His sisters would get married. His mother would have her roof repaired, and he would be able to find work for others from the village. This trip is not for him alone. His whole family, even his whole village, are going to change their destiny.
Bangladeshi migrant workers works in front of the Petronas Tower. Kuala Lumpur. Malaysia. Shahidul Alam/Drik/Majority World
That single hope, to change one’s destiny, is what ties all migrants together whether they be the Bangladeshis who work in the forests of Malaysia, those like Abdul Malek, who work as unskilled labour in the Middle East, or those that go to the promised lands of the US. Not all of them are poor. Many are skilled and well educated. Still, the possibility of changing one’s destiny is the single driving force that pushes people into precarious journeys all across the globe. They see it not merely as a means for economic freedom, but also as a means for social mobility.
In the 25 years since independence the middle class in Bangladesh has prospered, and many of its members have climbed the social ladder. But except for a very few rags-to-riches stories, the poor have been well and truly entrenched in poverty. They see little hope of ever being able to claw their way out of it, except perhaps through the promise of distant lands.
Lokman Hossain works as a cleaner in Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. "There are Bangladeshi girls from well to do families who study here. We hear them talk to each other in Bangla, but when we try to talk to them, they pretend they don't know the language". Singapore. Shahidul Alam/Drik/Majority World
So it is that hundreds of workers mill around the Kuwait Embassy in Gulshan, the posh part of Dhaka where the wealthy Bangladeshis and the foreigners live. Kuwait has begun recruiting again after the hiatus caused by the Gulf War, and for the many Bangladeshis who left during the War, and those who have been waiting in the wings, the arduous struggle is beginning. False passports, employment agents, attempts to bribe immigration officials, the long uncertain wait.
Some wait outside the office of ‘Prince Musa’ in Banani. He is king of the agents. His secretary shows me the giant portraits taken with ‘coloured gels’, in an early Hollywood style. She carefully searches for the admiration in my eyes she has known to expect in others. She brings out the press cuttings: the glowing tributes paid by Forbes, the US magazine for and about the wealthy, the stories of his associations with the jet set. She talks of the culture of the man, his sense of style, his private jet, his place in the world of fashion.
Apart from the sensational eight-million-dollar donation to the British Labour Party in 1994 which Labour denies, but which the ‘Prince’ insists was accepted – there are other stories. Some of these I can verify, like the rosewater used for his bath, and the diamond pendants on his shoes (reportedly worth three million dollars). Others, like his friendship with the Sultan of Brunei, the Saudi Royals and leading Western politicians, are attested to by photographs in family albums.
The diamonds on the shoes of 'prince' Moosa Bin Shamsher is said to be worth three million dollars. Dhaka. Bangladesh. Shahidul Alam/Drik/Majority World
He was once a young man from a small town in Faridpur, not too distant from Abdul Malek’s home or economic position, who made good. Whether the wealth of the ‘Prince’ derives mainly from commissions paid by thousands of Maleks all over Bangladesh or whether, as many assume, it is from lucrative arms deals, the incongruity of it all remains: the fabulously wealthy are earning from the poorest of the poor.
Whereas the ‘Prince’ has emigrated to the city and saves most of his money abroad, Malek and his friends save every penny and send it to the local bank in their village. Malek is different from the many Bengalis who emigrated to the West after World War Two, when immigration was easier and naturalization laws allowed people to settle. Malek, like his friends, has no illusions about ‘settling’ overseas. He knows only too well his status amongst those who know him only as cheap labour. Bangladesh is clearly, irrevocably, his home. He merely wants a better life for himself than the Bangladeshi princes have reserved for him.
Complicity in slaughter. Gaza
by Rahnuma Ahmed
I feel like I’m witnessing the systematic destruction of a people’s ability to survive. It’s horrifying.
– Rachel Corrie (1979-2003), a 23 year old American member of the International Solidarity Movement, killed by an Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) bulldozer during a protest against the destruction of Palestinian homes in the Gaza strip.
The Americans, wrote Sir John Troutbeck, head of the British Middle East office in Cairo, to Ernest Bevin, the Foreign Secretary, were responsible for the creation of a gangster state headed by “an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders” (2 June 1948). America’s role in the establishment of the state of Israel in May 1948, one that involved “a monumental injustice” to the Palestinians, writes Avi Shlaim, an Iraqi-born British historian of Jewish descent, was partisanal. This was bitterly resented by British officials. This, writes Shlaim, is the historical context, and it is essential that we remember this when we try to make sense of the senseless carnage in Gaza.
It is a slaughter that is relentless. A savage barbarity, utterly modern. Just like the Nazi holocaust.
Bomb attacks on civilian targets, including homes, schools, mosques, universities. Torn limbs. Sniper fire. Bullet holes in little breasts. Severed heads. I remember seeing a little girl on al-Jazeera. Curly locks framing her face. That was all, just a small head. There are other images, of scattered limbs, of buildings destroyed, of parents wailing. No place to go. No place to hide. Ambulances are fired upon. US-supplied F-16 fighter and attack jets rain down Operation Cast Lead bombs on unarmed civilians. There are indications, say defence analysts, that white phosphorus is being used. I watch an Israeli government spokesman reply on al-Jazeera, We do not use anything not used by the US government, or NATO. Brazenness. Complicity. Silence. People pouring out in the streets worldwide, `We are all Palestinians.’ Burning the Israeli flag, the Star of David. Roles reversed. Who is David, who is Goliath in this war of unequals, of primitive rockets against Israeli military strength annually resourced by $2 million, by the US, for the last 23 years. Upped, during the Bush administration to $21 billion in US security assistance, including $19 billion in direct military aid under the Pentagon’s Foreign Military Financing (FMF) programme. As Frida Berrigan notes, Israel remains the single largest recipient of US military aid each year. Holocaust in Gaza? US media screams of anti-Semitism.
Discourses of denial are accompanied by rhetorics of reverse discrimination and reverse racism, writes Mark Lawrence McPhail, in a study on racism. Subtle forms of individual and institutional contempt for the rights of the oppressed are ever-present.
Israel has the right to defend itself and its population from years of rocket attacks by Hamas. Hamas smuggles weapons into Gaza from Egypt. Israel has the right to bomb these tunnels, to secure its national interest. Israel withdrew from Gaza. It ended its occupation. It gave up its settlements and its military bases in Gaza. Hamas has used the Israeli disengagement from Gaza to launch attacks at Israel without any provocation whatsoever. Hamas, and not Israel, broke the June 2008 ceasefire. Hamas is a terrorist organisation. Israel does not kill Palestinian civilians intentionally. Hamas, and not Israel, is responsible for the deaths of Palestinians because it uses them as human shields. Denials pour out endlessly.
As the Australian Green Left’s website points out, try as you may, the statements of Israeli and US politicians do not match the pictures of devastation in Gaza. There can be only one explanation. They must be suffering from one of those conditions, a “Visual-Carnage-Responsibility-Back-To-Front-Upside-Down-Massacre-Disorder”.
But those who can call a slaughter what it is — a slaughter — keep pointing out repeatedly, Gaza is, in reality, the world’s largest open-air prison. Four decades of Israeli control has done “incalculable damage” to the economy of the Gaza strip. Most of its 1.5 million population are 1948 refugees, looking out on to land that was earlier, rightfully theirs. Gaza, as Shlaim notes, is not simply a case of economic under-development, “but a uniquely cruel case of de-development.” Israel has turned Gaza’s people into a source of cheap labour, and a captive market for Israeli goods. Israel withdrew all 8,000 settlers from Gaza in August 2005, destroyed their houses and farms, a withdrawal that was presented by Ariel Sharon as a contribution to peace based on a two-state solution. But this withdrawal was not a “prelude to a peace deal” with the Palestinian Authority, but a prelude to further Zionist expansion on the West Bank, as evidenced by the next year’s settlement of 12,000 Israelis on the West Bank. As for Gaza, even though Israeli settlers were withdrawn, Israeli soldiers continued to control all access to Gaza. Palestinians had no control over moving in and out of Gaza. No control over either land, sea or air borders. No open access to services needed, no viable economic opportunities. Poverty rate in Gaza had reached 80%. Gaza’s people lived constantly under the threat of Israeli military incursions, shelling, targetted assassinations (remember Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, near-blind paraplegic, confined to a wheelchair, assassinated by an Israeli helicopter gunship in 2004, along with two bodyguards, and nine bystanders).
US outgoing president George W Bush kisses Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert looks on. Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion International Airport 09 January 2008. © MARCO LONGARI/AFP/Getty Images)
Those who can call a slaughter what it is — a slaughter — have also pointed out that Israel’s rocket crisis is “fabricated”. Jim Holstun and Joanna Tinker, in an Electronic Intifada article (6 January 2009) reveal that an Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs document, The Hamas Terror War against Israel shows striking evidence of Hamas’s good faith during the lull in hostilities. Two graphs, drawn up by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Israel Intelligence Heritage & Commemoration Center, show that the total number of rocket and mortar attacks went down from 245 in June to a total of 26 for July through October. A reduction of 97%. But this was not sufficient. Israel violated the truce, it imposed on Gaza a terror-famine. Hamas still did not respond by launching rockets, not until Israel cancelled the truce on the night of 4-5 November by “sending an Israeli commando squad into Gaza, killing 6 Hamas members. Hamas responded by firing 30 rockets. Since the charts help to expose the `Hamas fires rockets’ for what it is, an outright lie, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs removed these from its website on the eve of the Israeli occupation forces ground assault on Gaza, on 4 January 2008. These have been substituted by a near-illegible graph in which the “labels obscure the data,” and the caption hides the de facto end of rocket and mortar fire during the calm until 4 November.
Other Western governments are also complicit in the slaughter. As Jim Miles points out, the Canadian government’s position is no different to the US position: Israel is the victim of Hamas terrorist aggression. Peter Kent, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs said in early January 2009, Hamas rocketing was responsible for the initial development of the crisis. And then he went on to mouth words, regurgitated endlessly by the west’s leaders, `the deepening humanitarian tragedy’, `Canada is concerned about the loss of civilian life…’ The European Union president, the Czech republic, said on 3 January 2009, the Israeli ground offensive in Gaza was “defensive”, not “offensive” action. A coalition of Lebanese and Palestinian NGOs, on January 8, accused the European Union of being party to crimes against humanity by supporting Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza strip. They delivered a letter to EU’s offices in Beirut, addressed to EU’s Ambassador to Lebanon Patrick Laurent. It termed the 27-member bloc’s response to the “crimes” in Gaza, as being not only justificatory, but also, of becoming a “party to them, by providing them legitimacy.” EU officials dismissed the accusations as being based on “misinformation.”
And Ban Ki-Moon, the secretary-general of the United Nations, deliberately avoided issuing a condemnation of the Israeli army bombing of an UNRWA school in Gaza, one in which Palestinian civilians had fled to seek shelter. Fifty Palestinian citizens were killed, ten others wounded. It was “unacceptable,” he said. It should “not be repeated,” he said. No words of condemnation either, for the killing of three UN workers, gunned down by IOF bullets. No wonder that Osman Barghouti, Palestinian human rights activist and commentator writes, Ban Ki-moon will surely go down in history as “the most subservient and morally unqualified Secretary-General to ever lead the international organization.”
And compliant Middle-Eastern governments, precious American allies, like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the others? An online al-Jazeera poll shows, 94% of respondents think that some Arab governments were complicit in Israel’s attack on Gaza.
A Bangladeshi child holds a candle lin front of the central Shahid Minar to protest the killings in Gaza. The protest was called by Sommilito Sangskritik Jot a Bangladeshi cultural organisation. Dhaka, Bangladesh. January 18 2009. © Monirul Alam/http://monirul.wordpress.com/2009/01/18/no-more-genocide/
The list of political and military leaders — Israeli, American, European, and also Arab — to be tried for war crimes, is a long one. People, the world over, are compiling it.
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First published in New Age on Monday 19th January 2009
January 18, 2009
Israeli FM confronted at National Press Club
Israel, Palestine and the Hypocrisies of Power – an interview with Noam Chomsky
