Järgnev on minu kõne 12. juuli Palestiina protestil. Rasketel aegadel pakuvad mulle lohutust Zapatistade põlisrahvaste esindajate mõtted, sellest tulenevalt esitasin need oma vaatenurgast.
In 2009, during the so-called "First Gaza War", Subcomandante Marcos of the indigenous Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico wrote, with some paraphrasing:
"Not far from here, in a place called Gaza, in Palestine, in the Middle East, just next door, a heavily armed and trained army, from the Israeli government, continues its advance of death and destruction.
"The military manual of modern warfare, with some variations or additions, is being followed step by step by invading military forces.
"We don’t know much about this, and it is certain that there are specialists on the so called “conflict in the Middle East”, but from this corner, we have something to say:
"According to the photos from news agencies, the "neuralgic" military posts destroyed by the Airforce of the Israeli government are houses, huts, civil buildings.
"We have not seen any bunkers, barracks, military airports or cannon batteries among what has been destroyed. Then, we think, excuse our ignorance, that either the aircraft gunners have bad aim or in Gaza there are no such "neuralgic" military posts.
"We don’t have the honor of having visited Palestine, but we suppose that in those houses, huts and buildings used to live people, men, women, children and elderlies, and not soldiers.
"We have not seen resistance fortifications either, only debris.
"But wait. It now occurs to us that perhaps, for the Israeli government, these men, women, children and elderly people are enemy soldiers and, as such, the huts, houses and buildings where they live in are barracks that need to be destroyed."
"And the enemy garrison that they want to weaken with the encirclement and siege of Gaza is none other than the Palestinian population living there. And that the assault will seek to annihilate that population. And that any man, woman, child or elderly person who manages to escape, by hiding from the predictably bloody assault, will then be «hunted down» so that the cleansing can be completed, and the military chief in command of the operation can report to his superiors «we have completed the mission.»
"Excuse our ignorance again, perhaps what we are saying is, in fact, beside the point. And that instead of repudiating and condemning the crime in progress, as indigenous people and as warriors that we are, we should be discussing and taking a position on the discussion about whether it’s «Zionism» or «anti-Semitism», or that it was the Hamas bombs that started it.
"Perhaps our thoughts are very simple, and we lack the nuances and the always very necessary marginal notes in the analysis, but, for us Zapatistas, in Gaza there is a professional army assassinating a defenseless population.
--
To this, 15 years later, in October 2023, another Zapatista, Subcomandante Moises added:
"Is it useful to say something? Do our screams stop any bombs? Is our word saving the life of a Palestinian child?
"We think that it is useful, maybe we will not stop a bomb nor will our word become an armored shield that prevents that 5.56 mm or 9 mm caliber bullet, with the letters «IMI» («Israeli Military Industry») engraved on the base of the cartridge, from reaching the chest of a girl or a boy, but maybe our word will manage to join with others in Mexico and the world and maybe first it will become a murmur, then a loud voice, and then a cry that will be heard in Gaza.
--
Looking at an genocide ongoing for two, seventeen, eighty years, it's easy to fall into despair
With the humitarian blockade, with 50 000 dead and injured children, with bootlickers like Taro and Tsahkna working overtime to get an Israeli embassy, in blatant disregard for both international law and basic human morality, it is easy to fall into despair.
But we must not!
We must not give into police harassing our weakest links.
We must not give into accusations of antisemitism and let the colonisers paint us as nazis.
We must not retreat, we must not give up.
Already we see, more and more people who are coming to support our cause. More and more people disillusioned from the myths and lies fed to them.
We see liberal politicians, trying to flee from their own words, pretending they were always against this.
We see musicians, activists, entertainers, willing to risk everything to bring awareness and send the message that there will be a future for Palestinians.
No matter what, the Zionists will lose. It's a death cult of fear and hatred, not just islamophobia, let's not forget the Palestinian Christians in both Gaza and the West Bank, being attacked by terrorist settlers supported by the Israeli state. It is racism, hatred and fear of Arabic people, because the only place they see them is in games and movies where they are the villians. Because our history books only talk about them attacking us, but never about the West invading their homes. Because we are told they are all the same, and not people like us. The only place we are shown them is to make them seem like monsters.
We won't accept this narrative. We won't let our media excuse Israeli atrocities. We won't let ERR or BBC or whichever news channel talk about the murdering of Palestinians in a passive voice. We won't let our politicians parrot the talking points of fascists without critisism. We have gotten this far because we know what is right, no matter how much any institution tries to tell us were wrong for standing up against genocide.
what is the future like if the present is genocide
who let them decide
in corporate rooms, in government plans
in the skyscrapers built on settler lands
in schools, where the other is reduced to ash
in echo chambers where every desicion is rash
never noticing the water they swim in
I'd rather die than give in
either this bullshit will kill me
or I'll rip its throat out and feed it to the sea
...it will be free.
PALESTINE WILL BE FREE