It has been a very sad August when we allow the media to affect us. Thousands of people dying unnecessarily, in war and conflict, in protests and on the streets, from Missouri to Gaza, from Kurdistan to Damascus, from Donetsk to Santiago, armies, states, police, brutally slaughter their perceived enemies. In Syria the latest count of deaths since the uprising begun has reached 170,000 people and with the ISIS the numbers are climbing. In Gaza 2,100 is the last count in a few weeks. In Ukraine it is questionable what the numbers are but lately different sides refer to 2,000. In Africa the numbers are never so important to the western media to report, until the Ebola epidemic came and the media took an interest as far as this epidemic may cause a threat elsewhere. Yet there is one constant statistic that not many are reporting in the mass media. Over 60,000 people a day, nearly half being children, are dying from the simple cause of the lack of nutrients and clean water. Meanwhile if one is to divide the annual world production of corn (alone) by the population one will find the corn produced alone can prevent death from hunger. An enormous amount of food is produced worldwide, maybe "too much" according to economists who are waged by corporations that benefit from the rise of the price of commodities.
So the real war and its casualties are under-reported by far by the mass media. Imagine that! Why? The market for the media is not people dying of hunger, even though some of the poor watch TV they are not the ones dying of hunger. So why alarm them of the real war against humanity. Thankfully, we who can still find food for the day and access to information and the internet we will keep talking this way and it is not out of disrespect for the people dying in war and state internal conflict, but by taking physics and science seriously, no other war has claimed as many victims as hunger, or shall we say capitalist state imposed hunger.
Here we choose to reproduce an article of some sense to those that struggle and resist state oppression in Gaza and elsewhere but we reproduce this within the context of media representation of human suffering. And social media is no less media as the majority of people reproduce within social media what is fed to them by classic mass media. And hunger was nowhere as emphasized by mass media as the Gaza, Ukraine, Isis, and Ferguson conflicts. We will keep asking why contributing to an effort of counter-information.
Statement distributed by the Manchester and
Sheffield Anarchist Federation groups on the conflict in Gaza, in
solidarity with the victims of the conflict, and for internationalism.
One thing is absolutely clear about the current situation in Gaza:
the Israeli state is committing atrocities which must end immediately.
With hundreds dead and thousands wounded, it has become increasingly
clear that the aim of the military operation, which has been in the
planning stages since the signing of the original ceasefire in June, is
to break Hamas completely. The attack follows the crippling blockade
throughout the supposed ‘ceasefire’, which has destroyed the livelihoods
of Gazans, ruined the civilian infrastructure and created a
humanitarian disaster which anyone with an ounce of humanity would seek
an end to.
But that's not all there is to say about the situation. On both sides
of the conflict, the idea that opposing Israel has to mean supporting
Hamas and its ‘resistance’ movement is worryingly common. We totally
reject this argument. Just like any other set of rulers, Hamas, like all
the other major Palestinian factions, are happy and willing to
sacrifice ordinary Palestinians to increase their power. This isn’t some
vague theoretical point – for a period recently most deaths in Gaza
were a result of fighting between Hamas and Fatah. The ‘choices’
offered to ordinary Palestinian people are between Islamist gangsters
(Hamas, Islamic Jihad) or nationalist gangsters (Fatah, Al-Aqsa Martyrs
brigades). These groups have shown their willingness to attack
working-class attempts to improve their living conditions, seizing union
offices, kidnapping prominent trade unionists, and breaking strikes.
One spectacular example is the attack on Palestine Workers Radio by
Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, for “stoking internal conflicts”. Clearly, a
“free Palestine” under the control of any of these groups would be
nothing of the sort.
As anarchists, we are internationalists, opposing the idea that the
rulers and ruled within a nation have any interests in common.
Therefore, anarchists reject Palestinian nationalism just as we reject
Israeli nationalism (Zionism). Ethnicity does not grant “rights” to
lands, which require the state to enforce them. People, on the other
hand, have a right to having their human needs met, and should be able
to live where they choose, freely.
Therefore, against the divisions and false choices set up by
nationalism, we fully support the ordinary inhabitants of Gaza and
Israel against state warfare – not because of their nationality,
ethnicity, or religion, but simply because they're real living, feeling,
thinking, suffering, struggling human beings. And this support has to
mean total hostility to all those who would oppress and exploit them
–the Israeli state and the Western governments and corporations that
supply it with weapons, but also any other capitalist factions who seek
to use ordinary working-class Palestinians as pawns in their power
struggles. The only real solution is one which is collective, based on
the fact that as a class, globally, we ultimately have nothing but our
ability to work for others, and everything to gain in ending this system
– capitalism – and the states and wars it needs .
That this seems like a “difficult” solution does not stop it from
being the right one. Any “solution” that means endless cycles of
conflict, which is what nationalism represents, is no solution at all.
And if that is the case, the fact that it is “easier” is irrelevant.
There are sectors of Palestinian society which are not dominated by the
would-be rulers – protests organised by village committees in the West
Bank for instance. These deserve our support. As do those in Israel who
refuse to fight, and who resist the war. But not the groups who call on
Palestinians to be slaughtered on their behalf by one of the most
advanced armies in the world, and who wilfully attack civilians on the
other side of the border.
Neither one state nor two states, but no states
Whoever dies, Hamas and the Israeli state win
Pdf available for distribution here
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