Resistance in the Service of Palestine By Gilad Atzmon

Resistance in the Service of Palestine

By Gilad Atzmon

ccun.org, May 21, 2008

The commemoration events of 60 years of the Nakba have brought a very different type of Palestinian solidarity activism to my attention: it is young, vibrant, dynamic and creative solidarity campaigning. It’s a new form of struggle that goes far beyond the old dogmatic clichés, a fierce battle that aims at the exposure of the Jewish state for what it is: a racist, chauvinist apartheid state. Last Monday I saw it happen in Exeter University while watching and listening to the astonishingly eloquent Palestinian ambassador to Britain Dr Manuel Hassassian . Last Friday I met the French resistance at a Euro Palestine event at the Parisian Librairie-Resistances bookshop.

Librairie Résistances is one of those bookshops that makes you feel young again, those very exotic shops you hardly see anymore. A unique cultural thought-provoking fountain that makes resistance look like a valid praxis, as if liberation is awaiting just around the corner. At the back of the bookshop some space had been allocated for a cozy theatre which is used for concerts and performances promoting the Palestinian cause.

Last Friday, it was me who appeared there. I spoke about the “Primacy of the Ear” To a very crowded room, I described my own journey from Zionism to Ethics via music. At the end of my talk, I was joined by a legendary musician, one of my mentors, Dhafer Youssef.

As the event was about to take place, quite a few people of all ages and ethnic origins started to gather. It took me a very short time to realize that they were not united by class, ethnicity or nationality, neither by their religious or non-religious belief. They weren’t united by any particular political affiliation either. Instead, they were united by their support of the Palestinian struggle and the Palestinian people. And to be honest, it is about time we all acknowledge that this is the one thing we should care about, unite or aim for.

But this is far from being the end of the story. The astonishing couple who stand behind the very active Euro-Palestine and Librairie Résistances deserve all possible support and attention. In fact this short piece is about them and their total dedication to the most important struggle of our time. I am referring here to Olivia Zemor and Nicholas Shahshahani and their campaign for Palestine.

Olivia and Nicolas are a Parisian couple who were very successful journalists as well as radical revolutionary left veterans. Though they have very many years of socialist activity behind them, I learned from Nicolas that it was at the beginning of the Second Intifada when they both realized that Palestine was the fight to go for. They formed Euro-Palestine and invested their own money and resources in promoting the Palestinian cause and Palestinian rights. In fact, I first met Olivia and Nicholas four years ago at a massive Euro-Palestine rally concert for Palestine that they organised. That concert was by far the biggest event for Palestine I have ever come across or heard of.

Seemingly their enthusiasm has never faded away. Courageously, they do manage to bring the Palestinian cause to the streets of Paris. They take political activism far beyond the ordinary theoretical left discourse. They reshape leftist thinking into activism and remind us what dialectic should mean in practice. They have gathered a bunch of extremely enthusiastic, vibrant, talented young people around them who together with them perform theatrical scenes of Israeli oppression in the boulevards, streets and shopping centers of Paris. They, for instance, create a theatrical simulation of an IDF Roadblock, where Parisians can see for themselves the type of barbarism performed by Israeli soldiers in Palestine. In another scene they would take the Zionists’ role, dressed as IDF soldiers loaded with military arsenal as they ridicule the dubious Western support of Zionist evil. With such revolutionary street theatre, Nicolas and Olivia do manage to bring news of Palestinian suffering to the French people. Beyond doubt they manage to liberate the discourse and let it expand into public awareness.

On Saturday, on my way back to London, I managed to catch the very beginning of a demonstration where Olivia and a group of young students where capturing the attention of the weekend shoppers in front of the crowded Tati, Barbès-Rochechouart. Once again it was a street performance of an IDF roadblock. They simply managed to bring the Occupied West Bank to the streets of Paris, allowing French people to see for themselves what Israeli viciousness is all about.

Let’s face it. In a world in which media outlets are momentarily seized by the enemy, in a world in which every form of criticism of Israel is silenced or tagged as anti-Semitism, we better be as creative as possible. We shouldn’t wait for Fox News, CNN, NBC, BBC or Sky to bring the story of Palestine because they won’t. However, we can do it ourselves with some very limited resources: we have music, theatre, prose, poetry, films, photography, independent journalism, blogging and cyber circulation at our disposal. The talent, passion and conviction is there. All we need is belief and as far as I can see, there is plenty of that around.

http://palestinethinktank.com/2008/05/19/the-french-resistance-in-the-service-of-palestine/