Post by Salem6 on Feb 18, 2004 10:46:42 GMT
By ADAM SHAPIRO
Ayed Morar, or Abu Abu Ahmed as he is known to all, sat in jail for a week, including the day we celebrated the life of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. I wonder if he thought of King during his incarceration.
Unlike King, Abu Ahmed is unable to protest his imprisonment by exemplifying the moral injustice done to him and his people, for the world's powers have maintained a deaf ear to the plight of the Palestinian people.
Like King, however, Abu Ahmed is in jail for organizing and participating in nonviolent direct action against unjust, discriminatory and violent policies targeting his people on the basis of their ethnicity. King ultimately left his Birmingham jail cell and went on to lead this country toward racial integration and healing. But Abu Ahmed, though he is released from prison, is still locked up.
Abu Ahmed is from Budrus, a peaceful farming village in the West Bank that sits relatively near the 1967 border with Israel. Last year, the Israeli government interfered in the life of the village in an unprecedented way with preparation for the construction of a wall blocking the villagers' access to their fields, and cutting them off from any source of livelihood. This preparation has meant the uprooting of thousands of olive trees and the devastation of the land.
In December 2003, Abu Ahmed and others in the village started to organize and called on the International Solidarity Movement -- a grass-roots Palestinian and international movement promoting nonviolent, direct-action methods of resistance (in the spirit of King) -- to join them in protesting the wall.
For days, hundreds of Palestinians marched against the wall, joined by international and Israeli civilians, mirroring similar protests elsewhere along the wall. Ultimately, and not unexpectedly, the Israeli Army struck back.
On one day, dozens were injured by live and rubber-coated steel bullets. On Dec. 26, an Israeli civilian, Gil Na'amati, was shot by Israeli soldiers at another protest, and on Dec. 30, a Swedish parliamentarian was arrested with eight other foreigners. One day later, Israeli Army Jeeps rolled into the village and arrested dozens of Palestinians, including most of the organizers. Nonetheless, Abu Ahmed and his fellow villagers continued, and on the night he was arrested, Jan. 14, he was planning the next day's demonstration.
The wall will make Budrus a virtual prison, as it has many other villages and towns in the West Bank. Gaza already is a virtual open-air prison, and "unilateral steps" by Israel are well under way to do the same to the West Bank. And yet more and more Palestinians are joining in the nonviolent struggle against Israeli occupation.
Like King, the Freedom Riders, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and others in the civil rights movement, these Palestinians and their friends are standing up through action to injustice and violence. Like Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner, the lives of peace activists Rachel Corrie, Tom Hurndall, Isaac Saada and Shaden Abu Hijleh have also been taken too soon. And like those earlier activists, Abu Ahmed and others are seeking a fundamental paradigm shift in overturning decades of injustice in the name of peace.
Recently, we as Americans have reflected on the life of a man who dedicated himself to the causes of equality, freedom and justice. However, we must also consider what King would do in the current situation.
Would he sit idly by while fences and walls were constructed on 125th Street in New York City to block off Harlem from the rest of Manhattan? Would he ignore the razing of hundreds of homes in Compton, making thousands homeless?
Of course, King would act. He knew that the spirit within all men and women for freedom and justice could not be bound, lynched, segregated, isolated, imprisoned or relocated.
It was that spirit that we commemorated on King's birthday, that spirit that was unbound by the walls of the Birmingham jail and that spirit that cannot be crushed by the wall that Israel is building in the West Bank. Abu Ahmed, like King, will also one day be free at last.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Adam Shapiro is an organizer with the International Solidarity Movement in Washington.
www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/0204a/16shapiro.html
Ayed Morar, or Abu Abu Ahmed as he is known to all, sat in jail for a week, including the day we celebrated the life of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. I wonder if he thought of King during his incarceration.
Unlike King, Abu Ahmed is unable to protest his imprisonment by exemplifying the moral injustice done to him and his people, for the world's powers have maintained a deaf ear to the plight of the Palestinian people.
Like King, however, Abu Ahmed is in jail for organizing and participating in nonviolent direct action against unjust, discriminatory and violent policies targeting his people on the basis of their ethnicity. King ultimately left his Birmingham jail cell and went on to lead this country toward racial integration and healing. But Abu Ahmed, though he is released from prison, is still locked up.
Abu Ahmed is from Budrus, a peaceful farming village in the West Bank that sits relatively near the 1967 border with Israel. Last year, the Israeli government interfered in the life of the village in an unprecedented way with preparation for the construction of a wall blocking the villagers' access to their fields, and cutting them off from any source of livelihood. This preparation has meant the uprooting of thousands of olive trees and the devastation of the land.
In December 2003, Abu Ahmed and others in the village started to organize and called on the International Solidarity Movement -- a grass-roots Palestinian and international movement promoting nonviolent, direct-action methods of resistance (in the spirit of King) -- to join them in protesting the wall.
For days, hundreds of Palestinians marched against the wall, joined by international and Israeli civilians, mirroring similar protests elsewhere along the wall. Ultimately, and not unexpectedly, the Israeli Army struck back.
On one day, dozens were injured by live and rubber-coated steel bullets. On Dec. 26, an Israeli civilian, Gil Na'amati, was shot by Israeli soldiers at another protest, and on Dec. 30, a Swedish parliamentarian was arrested with eight other foreigners. One day later, Israeli Army Jeeps rolled into the village and arrested dozens of Palestinians, including most of the organizers. Nonetheless, Abu Ahmed and his fellow villagers continued, and on the night he was arrested, Jan. 14, he was planning the next day's demonstration.
The wall will make Budrus a virtual prison, as it has many other villages and towns in the West Bank. Gaza already is a virtual open-air prison, and "unilateral steps" by Israel are well under way to do the same to the West Bank. And yet more and more Palestinians are joining in the nonviolent struggle against Israeli occupation.
Like King, the Freedom Riders, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and others in the civil rights movement, these Palestinians and their friends are standing up through action to injustice and violence. Like Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner, the lives of peace activists Rachel Corrie, Tom Hurndall, Isaac Saada and Shaden Abu Hijleh have also been taken too soon. And like those earlier activists, Abu Ahmed and others are seeking a fundamental paradigm shift in overturning decades of injustice in the name of peace.
Recently, we as Americans have reflected on the life of a man who dedicated himself to the causes of equality, freedom and justice. However, we must also consider what King would do in the current situation.
Would he sit idly by while fences and walls were constructed on 125th Street in New York City to block off Harlem from the rest of Manhattan? Would he ignore the razing of hundreds of homes in Compton, making thousands homeless?
Of course, King would act. He knew that the spirit within all men and women for freedom and justice could not be bound, lynched, segregated, isolated, imprisoned or relocated.
It was that spirit that we commemorated on King's birthday, that spirit that was unbound by the walls of the Birmingham jail and that spirit that cannot be crushed by the wall that Israel is building in the West Bank. Abu Ahmed, like King, will also one day be free at last.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Adam Shapiro is an organizer with the International Solidarity Movement in Washington.
www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/0204a/16shapiro.html