Age of madness: The Flotila attack

It appears our idiocy, apathy and complete disregard of logic has no bounds. We truly live in a dark age where conformity to the status-quo is commended while any resistance, any show of bravery in the face of injustice is condemned as extremism. The most recent incident in the Middle East with the Israeli attack on a humanitarian vessel and the media bias following the incident only serves to prove that we are living in the age of madness. An age where men in uniform are more valuable than ordinary people, an age where we twist logical and reality and serve our apathetic, middle class lifestyles.

Following the Israeli raid on the Turkish humanitarian vessel, the Mavi Marmara, a music video was released by the Israeli government press office which attempted to demonise the activists on board, creating a fictional link between Al-Qaeda and the free Gaza movement. In went on claiming there was no humanitarian crisis in Gaza: "We must go on, pretending day by day, that in Gaza there is crisis, hunger and plague". I feel there is no point even trying to make an argument against such an obscene disregard for reality. Let’s dissect the history of the situation and analyse why Gaza is under siege in the first place.

Following the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections, the Islamic party Hamas, achieved 44% of the popular vote, emerging as the largest party in the in the national authority. It subsequently renounced its calls for the destruction of Israel and replaced it with the creation of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital (the exact same position as the Fatah movement). Immediately following the results, Israel refused to recognise the election results while the United States under the direction of the former secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, planned a covert operation to remove the Hamas government. At the same time, the Quartet on the Middle East threatened to cut funds to the Palestinian authority, all for participating in a system the United States claims to fight for, resulting in the deaths of thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan; Democracy. The covert operation failed and spiralled into an armed conflict which resulted in Fatah retreating from Gaza, leaving Palestine divided into two mutually hostile camps. Following economic sanctions against the PA, Israel and Egypt commenced a merciless siege on Gaza, reducing the region to a large, open air prison.

Whatever one feels about the politics of the situation, it is clear the siege is nothing short of collective punishment, intended to starve off the 1.5 million residents of Gaza. On 7th march 2008, several international aid groups including amnesty international and Oxfam described the siege as “collective punishment”, reporting that the humanitarian situation in Gaza has reached its most acute point since the beginning of the Israeli occupation. According to the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs: “everything from wheelchairs, dry food items, and crayons, to stationary, soccer balls, and musical instruments is being stopped”. There is a blanket ban on construction materials and basic food produce, and situation reached critical levels just before the 2009 conflict where the government of Gaza could no longer provide access to adequate food supplies, clean water and medical services. The United Nations Human Rights council issued 15 separate statements in a two year period calling for the lift of the siege to allow basic humanitarian aid into Gaza. Of course this was boycotted by the United States every time. Driven to desperate measures, Palestinian militants began launching raids and rocket attacks into Israel, triggering the 2009 war on Gaza. The situation continues to deteriorate while only 20% of the needed humanitarian aid according to the UN is allowed in by Egypt and Israel.

Now that we’ve established the fact that there is, indeed a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, let’s deal with the accusations that the flotilla was not trying to deliver aid, but make a political statement. I have a problem with this view. What exactly is wrong in highlighting the complete injustice and barbarity of the situation? Aid is only limited and its effects aren’t enough to alleviate the mass suffering Gazan’s deal with on a daily basis. The true evil, in my opinion, would be to strip the movement from any political goal and have it as a purely humanitarian effort. Wouldn’t it be ridiculous if aid ships were sent to apartheid era South Africa to deliver supplies to impoverished Black communities without even acknowledging that the poverty is largely a result of the existence of a brutal, racist regime?

So we’ve established that there is a clear political issue going on is Gaza. What about the violence displayed by the extremists on board? What about the IDF videos which show Israeli commandoes being attacked with metal rods while boarding the vessel? That fact that this is an issue to so many people is simply depressing. First Israel imposes a brutal siege on Gaza intending to brutally punish a population enclosed in a small area, completely disregarding any notion of human rights. A humanitarian vessel arrives in International waters to break an illegal siege and deliver much needed supplies. It is threatened by Israeli warships, bombarded by tear gas and sound bombs, and then boarded by Israeli commandoes. So defending an aid ship against naked piracy becomes a terrorist activity?

Yet Israel continues to insist it’s compliance with international law. It made a statement calling on aid flotillas to deliver their goods to Israel and Egypt for inspection which would then be delivered to Gaza. I don’t even have to bother explaining why the aid will never reach Gaza for the reasons above. Handing the aid over to Egypt and Israel is as futile as dumping it all in the sea, all essential items will be banned and the issue will never receive international attention, exposing the reality of the situation. The tragedy of the situation is that the freedom flotilla has to be defending against the bias shown in the media which continues to portray activists as violent supports of terrorism.

The Obscentiy Of Charity

As a human rights activist, my strong condemnation of modern charity, at first, seems paradoxical and illogical. Many more would dismiss my arguments as a relic of an outdated ideological movement, totally removed from the reality of our post-modern, individualist age. I would, however, like to present my argument in full, which I believe raises serious question, not only regarding neo-liberal capitalism but also our modern ethics and values under liberal democracies.

Late capitalism has collapsed into itself. Following the Thatcher/Reagan era, even moderate social-democratic discourse within the free market framework has been discarded. Individualism has triumphed; we are now families and individual agents, free from the treachery of society and state, free to make our own economic decisions and accumulate wealth to our hearts content. The greatest irony, however, seems to be our acknowledgement of the growing divide between rich and poor, the privatisation of warfare, and the growth of Imperialism throughout the world. Even the most apathetic of us can’t be blind to the constant bombardment of images in the media of world poverty, especially in Africa. Of course, our “concern” for the lesser off in the world is completely divorced from any rationality, especially regarding the consequences of globalisation and neo-liberal capitalism. In the absence of any alternative viewpoints which (god forbid) have no relationship to anti-capitalist discourse, we have been forced to justify our own individualism.

In soft, decentralised, liberal democracies, it has become commendable to pay lip service to the idea of equality, freedom and basic human rights, without actually challenging the fundamental factors which violate the rights of millions living in poverty. In the face of this moral dilemma, the method we use to redeem ourselves, I believe, is charity. Slovenian philosopher, Slajov Zizek, uses the analogy of the “chocolate laxative” to describe our attitudes to late capitalism and charity. We essentially want capitalism with a human face, the possibility of endless accumulation of wealth without mass poverty and exploitation. This does explain why companies such as Starbucks and McDonalds spend time associating themselves with fair trade, while actively engaging in destructive, exploitative activities, as well as supporting Zionist imperialism.

When has charity, in this form, ever reversed or even halted poverty? At best it has only slowed down the inevitably. Fair-trade, upon becoming mainstream, has simply become a label which allows us to shop, guilt free while the organisation itself continues to work with mass retailers and multi-national corporations rather than use its influence to develop a fairer, autonomous trading system. Modern charity is weak and hypocritical, because it is removed from the politics of the oppression.

Rather than being a wake-up call to the reality of mass exploitation under capitalism, the world’s poor have become distant objects which we pity, throwing coins at in a desperate hope that the beggar in the street will go disappear. The truth is, however, that people don’t choose to be poor. It has nothing to do with circumstance, fate or God. Poverty is part of the system we shamelessly serve. The real horror comes at the futility of our efforts. During comic relief, crowds cheer enthusiastically while funds are raised and sent to the same communities in Africa where British and American companies as well as the World Bank demand the privatisation of services, diminishing any hopes of education and healthcare among effected communities. The war on terror, has also led to the opening of a military front in Africa, “The United States Africa military command”. Corrupt governments are armed and rearmed, new and improved ways of crushing dissent in the name of “combating terrorism” are devised, allowing such corruption to run unchallenged. As long as such a system continues to operate, we can throw as many dollars as we wish on the poor, and the situation will remain static.

Of course, the point of our charity isn’t to alleviate the suffering of our fellow man, merely to manipulate him as a tool for our own redemption. Friedrich Nietzsche identified the futility of modern charity as part of, what he called, “the ethics of pity” in which he singled out pity as a fundamental “anti-life” instinct which leads to nihilism, neither helping the object of our pity or empowering ourselves. This is not, however, egotistical individualism or a social Darwinist idea. Oscar Wilde’s famous text, “The soul of the man under socialism” expressed a desire for a system in which there would be no poor, so we could live life as a guilt free individual: “With the abolition of private property, then, we shall have true, beautiful, healthy Individualism. Nobody will waste his life in accumulating things, and the symbols for things. One will live. To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.” Oscar Wilde.

There is obviously a clear danger in de-politicising charity and human rights. Our current ethical system under liberalism needs serious revision. If simply giving to charity was enough to reverse poverty, then billionaires such as Bill Gates would be humanitarian heroes for giving millions of dollars away while actively engaging in the very system which enslaves and dooms people to poverty in the first place. We must clearly identify why poverty exists and ceaselessly fight the system if we are ever to exist as true, healthy, free individuals.