Sacred monsters : a footnote to the genocide in Gaza
by toni solo
One can only hope Israel's genocide in Gaza makes it impossible in future for hypocritical, sadistic governments and their
leaders, especially Israel's allies in
North America and Europe, to defend Israel's occupation of Palestine. Those governments' sham efforts for a
ceasefire have shown a clear willingness to allow Israel's leaders to murder as many Palestinians as
they like.
The corporate media, for once, have had little choice but to acknowledge the horror Israel has perpetrated.
That horror overwhelms the relevance
of questions about the
nature and structure of protest and denunciation. But they are still
worth
bearing in mind. People in
Europe or North America have the luxury of picking their allegiances á
la carte. Despite occasional terrorist attacks there is no systematic
imposition of violence on them as there has been on the
Palestinians for 60 years now.
For
the moment, the general progressive consensus seems to be that
Hamas is entitled to fight in self-defence against Israel's genocidal
violence. Before, the consensus was otherwise. What has changed over
the last month is the scale of things. Even the corporate media can no
longer conceal Israel's crimes against the Palestinians.
If
it is all right now for Hamas to act in self-defence, why was it not
all right before? Most people now outraged
at the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians were quiescent at Israel's
low level genocide of the previous months, of the last few years, of the last
decades. The destruction of the Palestinians was slower in the past but just as deliberate.
What
has happened in
the last couple of weeks means people can no longer
continue life-as-usual without becoming accomplices to the
genocide. But the current massacres will end
eventually. People will drop the protests and go back to their normal
routine. Unless they continue to urge justice for the Palestinians they
will indeed
become accomplices to the genocide that has been supported for
many years now by Israel's
allies, the governments of the European Union and of North
America.
The current outrage will probably subside quickly. The
international betrayal by Western Bloc governments of the Palestinians
will
almost certainly continue. People in North America and Europe may
protest and lobby from time to time. But their protests,
campaigns and lobbying will be futile because their
anti-democratic, anti-humanitarian governments are determined
to deny for ever any use for the UN
Universal Declaration of Human Rights except as a wall adornment. The
Palestinians will fight on
for self-determination and justice to the bitter end, for all practical
purposes more or less alone.
That
reality makes it important for other peoples, faced for the time
being with
less extreme forms of imperialist extortion from the governments of
North America and Europe, to take stock. They are up against the total
hypocrisy and absolute sadism of Western Bloc governments
and leaders along with the deep complicity of the Western Bloc
corporate media. And they are faced also with the complete
whimsicality of international
solidarity. The case of Nicaragua is categorical in this regard.
A majority of Palestinians supported Hamas since before the
elections in 2006. But progressive opinion still tended to reject the
right of the Palestinians led by Hamas to armed self-defence. In
Nicaragua, nationally a majority of people voted for the FSLN in the
recent municipal elections. But progressive opinion still gave
credence to claims of fraud by the imperialist aligned opposition.
Le Monde Diplomatique published an article by Monica Baltodano, one
of the Nicaraguan opposition's token leftists, attacking the FSLN and
claiming that the elections were indeeed fraudulent. Baltodano, a
consummately hypocritical opportunist, has worked consistently with the
right wing opposition in Nicaragua's National Assembly to destroy the
FSLN's progressive programme of government. Earlier in 2008, Ignacio
Ramonet, director of Le Monde Diplomatique, wrote forcefully in defence
of another vicious, hypocritical opponent of the FSLN government, the
poet Ernesto Cardenal.
In June of 2008, leading figures like Noam Chomsky, Mario Benedetti,
Ariel Dorfman, Eduardo Galeano and Tom Hayden issued an ill-informed
statement in support of Dora Maria Tellez, former revolutionary
turned social democrat. Tellez was protesting that the FSLN
government was persecuting her political party. But the government had
nothing to do with it. The problem affecting her political
party was the result of a legal-administrative action initiated by
the
right-wing Nicaraguan opposition PLC party.
Within months, Dora Maria Tellez
and her social democrat colleagues openly aligned with the PLC, just before the
municipal elections of 2008. Her Juen 2008 protest was a complete sham. Still,
Noam Chomsky and others supported Tellez, just as Ignacio Ramonet and others
have supported Cardenal and Baltodano.
Eminent progressive intellectuals end up becoming sacred
monsters. Among certain sectors criticising them is virtually taboo.
Their disproportionate influence makes for a certain reluctance to
challenge
their foolish mistakes and disingenuous evasions. On
Nicaragua, individuals like Noam Chomsky and Ignacio Ramonet
have chosen to side with imperialist fellow travellers like Dora Maria
Tellez, dishonest opportunists like Monica Baltodano and
embittered narcissists like Ernesto Cardenal.
There is a deep sense in which they are all irrelevant, just
as those people are who avow support for the Palestinians
but look askance at Hamas. At grass roots, people
support organizations that meet their needs and represent
their aspirations. In Gaza, the North American and European governments
support Israel because they want to destroy Palestinian support for
Hamas. In Nicaragua, those governments act purposefully to destroy
support for the FSLN.
Via
their ally Israel, the North American and European governments
seek to destroy the
Palestinians as a people. In Colombia, they support the
narco-terror regime of Alvaro Uribe. Against Cuba, they collude
with the criminal US government blockade. In Bolivia and Venezuela,
they support their local allies against the profoundly democratic
and humanitarian revolutionary processes led by Evo Morales and Hugo
Chavez.
People's responses to this reality depend on their class loyalties and
the courage of their convictions. In Palestine or Lebanon people refuse
to submit to the imperialist regional project the North American
and European governments seek to impose though their ally Israel.
Likewise, in Nicaragua, people who have worked against
imperialism for decades at grass roots will continue doing so,
regardless of foolish, disingenuous interventions from sacred
monsters on behalf of the local allies of the North American and
European governments.