In The Name Of Their Differences

Israelis gather on hillsides to watch and cheer as military drops bombs on Gaza "People drink, snack and pose for selfies against a background of explosions as Palestinian death toll mounts in ongoing offensive As the sun begins to sink over the Mediterranean, groups of Israelis gather each evening on hilltops close to the Gaza border to cheer, whoop and whistle as bombs rain down on people in a warzone hell a few miles away. Old sofas, garden chairs, battered car seats and upturned crates provide seating for the spectators. On one hilltop, a swing has been attached to the branches of a pine tree, allowing its occupant to sway gently in the breeze. Some bring bottles of beer or soft drinks and snacks."

How do I feel about this display of callous disregard for human lives? Numb. 

 

I sometimes wonder what the powers-that-were were thinking when they created the state of Israel after WW2... but it can't have been to give the Jewish people a peaceful place to set up their homes, could it?

 

Rather, it seems the Allies seemed to have been looking for a convenient place to just dump a mass of people who'd become something of a knotty problem for the nations who not only hadn't gone to war over anti-Semitism, but were now caught up in dealing with the aftermath of those who'd done what many of them secretly were also not innocent of either. 

 

After all, how many Western and European nations had turned away Jewish refugees from as far back as the 1930s? "Give me your huddled masses, your poor..." Hah! Platitudes on display... window-dressing - but even the USA closed their doors to people facing death under the Nazi jackboot, and was itself rife with anti-Semitism. To think that I grew up being spoon-fed the bullshit story that the USA went to war with Germany over the way they'd treated the Jews? The whole idea makes me sick to the stomach.

 

In order to give an alien nation - a nation with no current claim to a geographic area, someone on that land - people who have settled there thousands of years since it was last a Jewish state, had to be moved aside first... to give them control of the land, someone had to be dispossessed of it first. and as we know all too well in South Africa, the rest as they say, is history.

For decades we have heard about the many wars in which Israel has become embroiled... the 6 Day War for one, not to mention the constant trickle of news about all the internal terrorist attacks: car-bombings, suicide bombers, airline hijackings and the like, the constantly shifting (usually expanding) borders of Israel, and the aggressive expansion of Jewish settlements into Palestinian settlements - and the constant, annoying, brain-numbing political rhetoric cluttering the TV and print media since I can remember. 

 

According to the USA, Israel can never do any wrong - and I'm not talking about ordinary Jewish people here, I'm talking about the radical, aggressive, violent and ideologically fascist nature of Zionism, which is firmly entrenched in Israeli government and has been since the late 1940s.

 

Always it was 'poor Israel' this, 'poor Israel' that... never a sympathetic ear for the Palestinians who are treated like prisoners in their own native homeland, no time to hear the other side of the story, no objective reporting in the media or in foreign policy, no humanitarian sympathy for the people who inhabited that land for centuries before a bunch of Zionists came along to push and shove them aside without their being consulted, or even involved in how their own lives would be affected by it.

 

It always seemed to me, being a child of the 1980's in South Africa, that the "Christian society" we lived in felt that, being Muslims, the Palestinians somehow deserved the violence and the suffering and whatever Israel did, no matter how inhuman or violent, they were always "in the right" and above criticism. Of course, Israel was a firm supporter of the Apartheid government - in fact, during the arms embargoes of the 1970s, Israel was at one time the only country willing to supply arms to prop up the NP government - as a matter of interest, the R4 and R5 assault rifles still in use by the armed forces of South Africa today were of Israeli origin, the Galil.

 

As a child though I must admit I didn't really know enough about the world to question any of what was going on. Recently in South Africa and abroad, there has been a sudden emergence of concern for the people of Gaza as well - perhaps as a result of the gradual awareness being raised because of the emergence and reach of the internet and social media. Stories of what is really going on in Palestinian experiences are finally starting to leak out beyond Israel's ability to smother them. 

 

To me though, this sudden concern with the welfare of the "other side" is, in my humble opinion, too little, if not a bit too late. But it's also better late than never.

This ongoing human rights disaster is not a new thing - it's been developing over the past six decades - and if Israel's government can't stop in its tracks and recognize that something has to change, the course it's on will result in Israel being equated to the very sort of crimes against humanity that resulted in the Holocaust. But will they? Or will they continue to foster the sort of mindset that results in people treating a nearby bombardment of neighboring civilians, including children, like a soccer match on TV with pizza and a couple of brewskis, and as something to cheer (and jeer) about?

 

People capable of doing that are, to my mind, irretrievably broken - and this too translates pretty damningly to the society they form part of.

In my view, any government whose state is perpetually at war, continues down a path that inflames more war and more strife for its citizens, persecutes people along racial or cultural lines - and remains so for as long as has Israel, is incompetent and unfit - and should resign. 

 

Frankly, I think it's already long past tine for Israel's government to face charges of crimes against humanity at the Hague. Now isn't that ironic?

______________________________________________________________

If you would like to know more about Christina Engela and her writing, please feel free to browse her website.

If you’d like to send Christina Engela a question about her life as a writer or transactivist, please send an email to christinaengela@gmail.com or use the Contact form.

All material copyright © Christina Engela, 2019.

________________________________________

The Poep's Latest Move, And Other Stories

I have a bit of a mixed bag for you all today. Happy 2013 folks!

December 2012 was quite a rough patch for me. I spent a lot of December flat on my back - that was not nearly as much fun as you might think. 

Come To The Dark Side - We Have Cookies Too

Christians - you just can't seem to win with them. 

If you're gay, you're evil. If you're not religious, you're evil. If you're an atheist, you're a "willing pawn of the devil" - or an outright "satanist". If you believe in another god or gods, or even call their god by another name, you're "evil" or "lost". If you are tolerant of other faiths, or of homosexuals - then you're "misled", "backsliding" or yep, "evil".

If you're gay and a Christian (horror of horrors), they want to cut up your membership card and deny that you are part of their club (or ever were), and when you abandon their faith or even go so far as to change religions and want nothing more to do with them, they still persecute you because you have somehow "proved them right" - and then they see you as an even bigger "threat" to their paranoiac little "worldview".

South Africa - Not So 'Liberal' After All

Not interested in politics? 

 

Not interested in how the government spends its time - and your money? Really? 

 

Think we live in a nice, quiet, safe country where all is right with the world? The government is benevolent and doing its best to deliver all the things it claims to? Think it lives up to our Constitution? Think it cares about all the people who live in South Africa? Think there is no reason to be concerned with anything to do with politics?

Who is still naive enough to think we aren't already living in a police state? Come on, don't be shy - put your hands up.

Think about it for a moment. No, really.

Reja-vu

The "Protection Of Information" Bill (or POI) is getting a white-wash from the South African government, and from figures who think it is a good idea to censor the free Press. 

 

Some say it will redress the wrongs under the still existing (yet hardly enforced) Apartheid-era secrecy law. (Of course they are hoping that by using the "A-word" the lemmings will leap to a knee-jerk decision in favor of the POI without bothering to think further than - "oh it must be better then".) 

 

Instead of just scrapping the old law, or using the original draft replacement law from three years ago, which was more in line with democratic values - they want to replace it with an "upgrade", a V2.0 - no doubt soon to be followed by an "Apartheid v2.0". 

 

The working title for this little exercise in retribution could be something on the lines of "the Formerly Oppressed Strike Back", and we all have a pretty good idea of who the main characters will be, and how it will play out. After all, we've seen it all before - just across the border in what used to be a fairly prosperous neighboring country.

Blah, Blah, Click, Click

I don't think laws in South Africa are formulated by the SA people anymore - these days laws just break the news when they are about to be passed by parliament - like the POI and Media Tribunal - and as they clearly demonstrate, these are one-sided and extremely partisan, working against democracy. This is not transparency, this is not "due process". We need more "Glasnost" in South Africa!

X Spots The Mark

On Saturday I was at a canvassing table in my voting district, asking people to sign a petition against the governments proposed new legislation which will gag the media. Surprisingly, a broad base of people of every language, race and political affiliation, signed the petition and commented freely about how bad this law would be for everyone. This was encouraging, but what still shocked me though, was the number of people who just waved me off - or laughed, as if there was something actually funny in asking people to exercise their democratic right and sign a petition against something which would strip them of their freedom to access information.

"I don't do politics" one smart looking dude told me. "But politics will do you!" I replied, while he and his girlfriend stared at me as though I were from another planet.

What Is Happening To Our Democracy?

I doodled about the matter surrounding the government's current assault on South Africa's democracy on my white board last night, and found what I'd come up with rather thought provoking, so I thought I would build it into a PowerPoint slide and share it with you.

Puppet Electorate

Something is still really badly wrong with our democracy in South Africa. 

 

The poorest of the poor are still frequently being intimidated into voting for particular parties - being threatened with their homes being burned to the ground, or that they or their families will be killed if they do not vote for the ANC - little realizing or actually believing - that their ballots are secret.

 

Though there is probably no way of knowing if those issuing these low-key threats are in any way directly tied to the ANC itself, or whether this is just a form of terrifying peer-pressure from fanatical supporters, regardless, many ordinary South Africans capitulate to these threats - and this makes the outcome of recent general elections pretty much a foregone conclusion.

Pink Elephants, Red Herrings And Gay Rights Activists

It confuses and disappoints the heck out of me when people standing in the shoes of gay activists start to argue that gay activists should be concentrating on other issues like racism or xenophobia instead of protecting or advancing gay rights. "Hello, it's the plumber - I've come to fix your TV."

I always thought that we as gay rights activists (supposedly) stand against heterosexism, homophobia, transphobia, discrimination and prejudice on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity.

Yet some prominent (presumably) gay rights advocates in SA have criticized gay rights activists who pay attention to gay rights issues instead of tackling issues like racism and xenophobia.

Right.

Pink Eyes Are Watching You

Just a few days ago, post 2009 Elections, the president of the ANC made speeches encouraging unity in South Africa. Jacob Zuma is of course South Africa's future president who has already skillfully evaded being brought to trial for nearly 800 charges of corruption and racketeering, made homophobic slurs in the media, offered talks to religious right wing parties on bothersome issues such as gay marriage and whose signature tune (which he often performs live on stage at gatherings) is "bring me my machine gun". (Nice guy - I can see why so many people voted for him.)

Now the question I and many GLBT people are asking is whether or not this "unity" also includes the same folk whose rights he seemed all to keen on selling out for a few extra votes less than a month ago? Or, are we the ones he's referring to when he sings about his machine gun - or at least, amongst them?

After his address given at the Rhema cults venue, radical fundamentalist religious (and unavoidably anti-GLBT) political parties were virtually breaking the doors down trying to invite themselves in to do some follow-up electioneering of their own. It really was quite pitiful and embarrassing for their part.

Bang, Bang - My Pastor Shot Me Down...!

I used to call myself a Christian all of my life, having being born into a loving Christian family and been "born again" when I was 12. I spent all my adult life believing in a loving god - until I saw people say and do things I could not believe came from a heart supposedly changed by the living god - especially against people like me - in the name of this same god. 

 

While I do not believe that this God feels the way they do about GLBT people, this inexcusable HATE has most certainly set me against this contradictory fundamentalist sector of Christianity - and any religion - that chooses to persecute.

God™ Created Heterosexist Marriage ©

The ongoing debate about same gender marriage is not simply about same gender marriage – it is about the right to co-exist, and to do so freely and equally. I do not see the point in forcing churches or “men of god” into presiding over wedding ceremonies of people whom they may despise. But I do feel that the church has no place in politically opposing the right of people to marry, whether it be civil or religious – or to try to “copyright” the word “marriage”.