MIDNIGHT ON THE MAVI MARMARA by Moustafa Bayoumi

Author:Moustafa Bayoumi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: The Attack on the Gaza Freedom
Publisher: OR Books
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

II.

One day in June, hundreds of students demonstrated in front of Ben-Gurion University’s administration building. About a third of the protestors were expressing their opposition to the government’s decision to attack the relief flotilla, while the remaining two-thirds came to support the government. At one point the pro-government protesters began chanting, “No citizenship without loyalty!”

While loyalty is no doubt an important form of relationship both in the private and public spheres, unpacking its precise meaning in the Israeli context reveals that a total inversion of the democratic understanding of politics has occurred.

As Israeli citizens, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman want us to prove our loyalty to the flag by supporting a policy of oppression and humiliation. We must champion the separation barrier in Bil’in and in other places throughout the West Bank. We have to defend the brutal destruction of unrecognized Bedouin villages, and the ongoing land grab both inside Israel and in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. We must support the checkpoints and the silent transfer in East Jerusalem. We are also expected to bow our heads and remain silent every time government ministers, Knesset members, and public officials make racist statements against Arabs. We must support the neoliberal policies that continuously oppress Israel’s poor, and we are obliged to give our blessing to the blockade and the imprisonment of Gaza Strip’s 1.5 million residents.

Hearing the chants at the recent demonstration at my university, I understood that I will never be able to accept this form of loyalty. I refuse, after all, to be loyal to a policy of humiliation, racism, and discrimination. I am neither loyal to the settlers nor to house demolitions. I cannot be loyal to the silencing of opposition and to the oppression of the needy and destitute. I am not loyal to the blockade on Gaza and the expulsion of Palestinian residents in Jerusalem. And certainly, I am unwilling to be loyal to the killing of children.

And yet, loyalty is an important issue that urgently needs to be discussed because ultimately there is a firm link between the state and loyalty. The pressing questions are: What is the nature of this link? What is the meaning of loyalty? And who is supposed to be loyal to whom? Perhaps surprisingly, the answer to these questions is not particularly complex. We need to demand loyalty from the state to all of its citizens, without distinction of race, color, sex, gender, language, religion, political opinions, national or social origin, property, or birth status. In other words, I agree with the loyalty requirement, but because I am a follower of the republican rather than the fascist tradition, I am obliged to resist the Duce’s logic which some of our leaders have adopted and insist, instead, that the state serve all of its citizens.

A state that is loyal to its citizens does not discriminate between Jews and Arabs, does not expropriate land from Muslims and Christians, does not humiliate and trample the lower classes, and does not brutally oppress the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories.

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