Governments and Peoples

Dr. Bouthania Shaaban

In a most interesting reaction to the disgraceful referendum in Switzerland (November 29, 2009), on banning building minarets in Switzerland, young people in Austria and Switzerland are using pictures of minarets as a motif in Christmas decorations. These young people, who consider the referendum itself a violation of the freedom of worship, a basic human right, have started distributing coloured posters of different sizes as Christmas cards and started making small paper mosques with minarets of different colours and shapes dangling in their rooms or meeting halls like chandeliers, and have raise the motto, “let a minaret decorate my ceiling”. Some of them have also enthused for the minaret motif not only for Christmas decorations but started to use the shape for making chocolates and cakes with oriental flavours. This is in contrast to the missile shaped minarets made by racist extremists during the Swiss referendum on depriving Muslims of a human right. How could a European government make a referendum on depriving a religious or ethnic group of one of its rights?

This referendum and other government decisions banning the head dress or banning building mosques is evidence that western governments do not realize the amount of pain and suffering they cause to Muslim minorities. These policies and measures are manifestations of tyranny not democracy, religious extremism not secularism.

Amidst the implementation of such policies, which do not express any real sense of justice, and do not fit the values of democracy deeply rooted in popular conscience in the West, we see that large sections of Western societies are gradually distancing themselves from such extremist plans and hard line policies which remind us of Apartheid to the extent that we can speak of a crisis of credibility in the relationship between the peoples and governments of the Western world.

The most recent example of the moral gap between peoples and their governments is what happened in the case of former Israeli foreign minister, Tzibi Livni, who is implicated in demolishing homes and torturing Palestinians and who still boasts of her role in killing over 1,400 civilians, women and children in the homes destroyed by Israeli warplanes over their heads while asleep in Gaza. Legal groups were able to obtain a legal injunction to arrest Livni for charges of committing war crimes against civilians.

We recall that a photo of Yitzhak Shamir, a former prime minister of Israel, was distributed carrying the word “wanted”, for his role in killing the international envoy, Count Bernadotte and other civilians. Yet, Western governments used to give him warm reception as prime minister and provide him with immunity from prosecution for the crimes he committed.

A number of British politicians have started to offer disgraceful apologies to Livni who is implicated in war crimes and assassination and assure her she is a welcome guest by the British government. We heard the news that this government intends to change the laws so that Israeli officials accused of war crimes would not be arrested, while human rights groups, legal organizations and justice support groups continue to call and launch media campaigns urging the arrest of war criminals and the killers of children.

Here we see a real gap between the governments which still suck up to Israeli war criminals, not realizing that the sense of justice fills the minds and hearts of people everywhere, particularly after the world saw the crimes of the rulers of Israel in the first massacre of Qana in Lebanon in 1996 and the second massacre of Qana in 2006 which claimed the lives of women and children, and when they destroyed schools and bridges in Lebanon in 2006. The same criminal scene was repeated in Gaza ; and no one could any longer deny that Israeli politicians and generals are committing these crimes with impunity, and that is why they repeat them.

At the same time, British groups succeeded in obtaining a decision binding shops to distinguish between Israeli goods produced in the settlements and other goods. A number of Jews who support Palestinian rights and other Christians and Muslims in British universities started a campaign to boycott Israeli goods in order to force Israel to commit itself to the requirements of peace. Israeli papers at the time considered such campaigns unprecedented and should be opposed by all means and that talking about a boycott should be a taboo.

Western governments should stop using words like “urge”, “criticise” and “encourage” which Israeli rulers do not hear and allow their peoples to bring these tyrants to account. There is no doubt that news of the crimes committed by the rulers of Israel, like Livni and Netanyahu, on a daily basis through home demolitions, killing, torture and the deadly siege they are still imposing with their allies on more than a million unarmed civilians in Gaza which, despite the media blackout, started to touch people’s conscience; that is why arrest warrants against Israeli war criminals are expected to increase in number, and even the governments complicit with these criminals will not be able to silence their peoples.

Many honourable and conscientious people in the world have been more vigorous than Arabs in their noble positions in defence of the Palestinian people’s right to freedom. The cause of Palestine has become a cause of justice for the whole world. Sooner or later, all the honourable people of the world will join it as they joined the cause of the people of South Africa after decades of racist oppression. What some of the leaders of the Western world are doing in their complicity with war criminals, despite the fact that they have been exposed, is simply lengthening the conflict, suffering and pain, and only gain the shame of being accomplices with war criminals and tyrants who pride themselves publicly, like Livni, on killing hundreds of women and children.

Let us read what former Dutch prime minister, Dries van Agt, wrote, joining former foreign ministers Hans van den Broek and Hans Mierlo in founding a group which defends the rights of the Palestinian people, "We cannot celebrate the birthday of a state founded on terrorism, massacres and the dispossession of another people from their land. We cannot celebrate the birthday of a state that even now engages in ethnic cleansing, that violates international law, that is inflicting a monstrous collective punishment on the civilian population of Gaza and that continues to deny to Palestinians their human rights and national aspirations”. Agt and other Westerners are discovering that the creation of Israel was a disaster for millions of Palestinians who have been suffering oppression, persecution and racist suppression.

The free people of the world, whether Muslims, Christians or Jews, have started to show concern for the deep human suffering in Palestine ; and the peoples of the world have started to take positions in support of this cause.

Zionist lobbies succeeded until recently, through funding Western politicians’ election campaigns and winning over the opportunists among them, and imposing a media blackout over these facts, distorting them and misleading Western public opinion about the reality of this conflict. But there is no future for these practices. All the racist walls and all the methods of brutal siege will never be able to prevent the cries of the oppressed and suppressed Palestinian children from reaching the hearts of people. Palestine is the land of Jesus Christ and witnessed His pain; and the world will see an end to the suffering of the Palestinians no matter how powerful and arrogant their oppressors and those who connive with them. Meanwhile, the world discovers a crisis of governance, a crisis of democracy, a crisis of credibility, between what is said and what is done, and between those who claim to represent people, on the one hand, and the real feelings, convictions and aspirations of these people.

Prof. Bouthaina Shaaban is Political and Media Advisor at the Syrian Presidency, and former Minister of Expatriates. She is also a writer and professor at Damascus University since 1985. She's got Ph.D. in English Literature from Warwick University , London . She was the spokesperson for Syria . She was nominated for Nobel Peace Prize in 2005.