Saturday, January 2, 2010

the reluctant radical

Philip Weiss in Cairo(Free Gaza March):
"Mick ran the meeting like “a dictator,” as he himself acknowledged, to get it over inside an hour. If we went any longer, people would start arguing, and he didn’t want argument, he wanted a plan of action. “If anyone wants another chair, I’ll stand down.” But we were with him. Mick’s leadership was evidence of a shift inside the top of the Gaza Freedom March. When we got to Cairo we had been led chiefly by the American antiwar group Code Pink. But after that group’s decision to accept the Egyptian government’s offer of two buses of 100 people to visit Gaza, instead of all 1400 marchers, Code Pink had been attacked and even conceded error; and the result was that Europeans who were harder-line than we Americans took over some of the organizing function. I don’t think anyone would say that this was not a good thing. In fact, Medea Benjamin, a leader of Code Pink, was jammed in the stairwell just below me, showing the grace and toughness and indefatigability she has shown throughout months of organizing. But at this point a more stubborn spirit was in the air, and we were all going along with it."
Mondoweiss

5 comments:

  1. "Some of us would probably accept a two-state solution, some of us would not. That may in fact be the line between Code Pink and the Europeans; I sense that the Europeans are mostly one-staters, while Code Pink would accept partition"
    --------
    there was a lot of drama over this when the plan was first hatched.  i dont know how they resolved it.

    but do we really want a two-stater on the blog roll?  Someone who admits to having no care about Palestinian suffering and heads off to Israel?  I'm just saying ...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Some of us would probably accept a two-state solution, some of us would not. That may in fact be the line between Code Pink and the Europeans; I sense that the Europeans are mostly one-staters, while Code Pink would accept partition. Still: we came to Cairo unified, and we left it unified, and even stronger. We had made the international press, and in the streets we sensed our power.

    What they would probably accept? What they will acccept is not important! I am sorry, but this whole passage sounds peculiar to me.

    ReplyDelete
  3. actually, that's a good point.  the word should be "advocate for" not "accept".

    ReplyDelete
  4. For once I agree with you vza,  but not because I am advocating what the,  quite frankly,  status quo march and decry of resistance camp.  I am about to drop a criticism over there that may not be liked,  just like you would not like it - of ineffective activity that just makes them feel good but changes ostensibly nothing.

    ReplyDelete
  5. <span> of ineffective activity that just makes them feel good but changes ostensibly nothing.</span>

    Well, I think I agree with you. That's why I wrote that the whole thing sounded peculiar. A little bit too much about them!

    ReplyDelete