In the quiet of retirement, I feel the need to demarcate myself. And share two small thoughts with my readers. These thoughts revolve around truths, half-truths and the wholesale adoption of a one-sided narrative. Sometimes, we tend to repeat truths passed on from others, and we have little time to refence back and confirm statements. I would say that narratives are like elections: if not properly balanced, they are designed to exclude.
Thought One: HAITI
This comes a propos of the oft-repeated statement in many writings that the Ethiopian army was the first African force that defeated a European army in the battle of Adwa in 1896[1]. Do not misunderstand me: I feel proud of that feat as an African. I know Ethiopia, where I worked as a junior Diplomat and helped open the Embassy of Mozambique.
But as an African who is always reading beyond the mainstream dominant media, I also wish to suggest that before Adwa, an African army defeated a European more vicious army in 1803 and became independent in 19804: that was Haiti[2]. And they paid for their independence to France[3], the same way African ex-colonies of France continue to pay to the French treasury more than half of their national income[4] and depend on a colonial currency that does not allow them to develop[5]. Haiti all over!!
And, say what you want, Haiti is an African country, the second to be independent in the American sub-Continent after the US. They have been martyrized for daring to become independent, not just from France, but also in the American backyard. Haiti has been blockaded by France and by America several times early after its independence. The USA will not cease interfering in Haiti politics.
And here a small note to say that Kenya rushing to help put order in Haiti maybe a political decision that has nothing to do with helping Haiti but with helping a neocolonial project and a narrative that portrays Haitians as always dodging gangs to survive. The Haitian African people need to just be left alone. To understand that, one needs to understand American interference with all and every election in that country.
Haiti is an African country far from the Continent made of descendants of slaves from here. Although the African Union denied it an observer status. No wonder, because the Chair of the AU has been doing the bidding of France.
Thought two: the People of PALESTINE
I am amazed but not surprised that the government of Mozambique has said nothing about the current plight of the Palestinian people. I know for sure that Samora Machel would have said it loud and clear, because he had a clear stand on the foreign policy pillars of the country. Such clarity we can find in the statements of the Foreign Minister of South Africa on the matter. I was a junior diplomat in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Maputo when Samora was President, and I could have recited the stand of my country on almost any international matter. Today I would not dare, I am not sure. Still, I identify myself with the people of Palestine. And hope that Mozambique as a country does not forget its own painful colonial history.
And Israel appropriating the bible to justify the current genocide visited on the Palestinian people is taking all of us Christians hostage to its extermination ideology. In the name of God, they punish millions of Palestinians that were already punished in an open prison called Gaza Strip. Is this the same bible I read? Is this the same God that I believe in that gives Israel, not just the right, but actually the privilege, to kill more than 10,000 Palestinians, to bomb hospitals on the self-righteous explanation that patients have been asked to evacuate before the bombing?
I will be reexamining my relation to that God. And I will be careful how I interpret the Israel of the bible and the Israel that persists in eliminating the Palestinian people. Certainly, not in my Christian name!
Now I understand why the borders of Israel remain undefined!
And did we all notice the rush of the US President, the French President, the UK Prime Minister, the President of the EU Commission, to comfort Israel and support its military plan?
We cannot ignore international protest in solidarity with the people of Palestine. We can also not ignore that Jews elsewhere were also saying: not in our name. I say, Israel does not represent Jews any more than Saudi Arabia would claim to represent either Muslims or Arabs, who live in so many countries, just because of Maka, the Holy Place. Let us not conflate Jews with Israel, which is what the Western media wants us to swallow. Because if they could, they would expel all Jews and concentrate them in Israel/Palestine. That is why they support the actions of Israel to-day. Concentration camps for the Jews started in Europe by the way!
Hamas being a terrorist organization? Well, that is a narrative designed to oil a war machine that feeds on demonizing organizations it hates, some of which were created by the same countries that to-day pretend to be “the good guys”. I am a follower of things Palestinian and remember that soon after the death of Yasser Arafat, a contested and weak leadership took over. The Palestinians in the Gaza Strip voted for Hamas, against the Palestinian Authority of Mr Abbas in the West Bank. As a voted-in organization, Hamas organized and set up social services for the Palestinian people held in that open-air collective prison. So, the narrative, I do not buy into it, and find that CNN, BBC and other western reporters wanting people to first condemn Hamas are intellectually lazy and politically dishonest.
The conflict does not start to-day. So, what happened last October date did not come out of thin air, as my ex-chief Antonio Guterres, now Secretary General of the UN said. He was fried at the stake by Israel but still he remained firm. I would condemn Hamas, not for expressing the frustration of the people, but for killing people, (not because the killed were Israeli, but just that, people). But that would not have been my priority. I would at least pretend to try and find out why. It is both the result of decades of collective punishment of the Palestinians, and of gradual unrelenting occupation of their land. Trying to extricate Hamas from the people who voted on it is an illusion, a bad military strategy and an intellectually cheap fallacy.
So, sorry, I do not take the Israel of to-day to mean the Israel mentioned more than a thousand times in the bible, the same bible where I and millions get inspiration. Please, not in my name. Entire families wiped out. The people do not even have the time to mourn their dead or give them a human burial. Oh, by the way, Israel says these are less than human. I wonder what they would say about a black person!
Jose, November 2023
[1] https://ethiopiancrown.org/the-battle-of-adwa/ [2] https://www.britannica.com/topic/Haitian-Revolution [3] https://abcnews.go.com/US/colonial-era-debt-helped-shape-haitis-poverty-political/story?id=78851735 [4] https://mg.co.za/thoughtleader/2023-08-20-former-french-colonies-are-still-paying-a-colonial-tax/ [5] https://www.cadtm.org/Africa-How-France-Continues-to-Dominate-Its-Former-Colonies-in-Africa
תגובות