Hallway to Hell

Fliers surfaced today in Dwinelle Hall's hallways advertising “Gaza Solidarity Week,” to take place from January 27-29, as sponsored by a veritable Who’s Who list of the campus organizations – affiliated with the university and otherwise – identified with the Palestinian cause. The flier troubled me for reasons that go beyond the obvious jokes about the 3-day “week” (what is this, Canada?).

First, and most petty, the image printed on the background of the flier shows two Palestinian boys happily playing soccer on a grassy field next to a 25-foot-high concrete wall. Presumably, this is meant to instill pity in the heart of the viewer, suggesting how confined the lives of these children are because of the oppressive measures taken up by their neighbors. For me, though, the height and drabness of the wall fail to take away from the seemingly endless expanse of grassy land just to the right of the wall, and the wall doesn’t seem to bother the children in the picture in the slightest. Personally, it reminds me of hours spent on Ocean Beach in my hometown of San Francisco, kicking around a volleyball (admittedly, not its designed purpose, but it worked fine) with my dad near the beach’s concrete retaining wall. Though I guess I shouldn’t complain – it’s nice to see that, despite what Mr. Salahi, Senator Shah, and crew would have me believe, life in Palestine isn’t all occupation and blood libel at the hands of Zionist predators, after all.

What I find more distressing, though, is the flier’s description of the “We Are All Palestinian Vigil,” to take place on the second (and thus, penultimate) day of Gaza Solidarity Week – specifically, the part that compares the unfortunate deaths of Palestinian civilians during the recent military activity in Gaza to “violence experienced by communities of color here at home.” This is to be followed up by Thursday night’s “We Shall Remain Palestinian Cultural Night,” which invites discussion of any issue, “from Gaza to Oakland.” Methinks this smacks of disingenuousness.

Now, to be fair, is this really just “playing the ethnic card”? I mean, if you discount the fact that members of ethnic minorities living in Oakland have access to free speech, work within the confines of a functional economy, and are represented by a government that gives them access to electricity and running water and has no vested interest in having them gunned down by enemy forces, aren’t they just about the same as Palestinians in Gaza? The quote they picked to lend credence to the comparison comes from the late Berkeley poet June Jordan: “I was born and black woman, and now I am become a Palestinian.” Cosmetic surgery aside, though, I fail to see how such a transformation could ever take place – besides which, the line sounds uncomfortably similar to Steve Martin’s “I was born a poor black child” as Navin Johnson in The Jerk.

The flier really crosses the line when it follows up the “here at home” statement with the line “Remember Oscar Grant,” referring to the poor man killed by a BART policeman on New Year’s Day. Despite what the juxtaposition was meant to suggest, the Grant case and the civilians deaths in Gaza are by no means analogous: the former was an isolated killing by an individual policeman which, pending investigation, appears to have been done in cold blood, while the latter are unfortunate casualties which could have easily been prevented, either by Hamas ceasing firing its rockets at Israeli cities, or else by the same government allowing its citizens to clear an area targeted for attack by the Israeli military when that army issues warnings. Further, the only two groups listed among the sponsors that would seem in any position to comment on “violence experienced by communities of color” in Oakland and thus justify the comparison are the “Black Recruitment and Retention Center” and “Students for Hip Hop” – and the latter’s a stretch.

Unfortunately, this is just another example of Berkeley turning the dead into symbols and ideological ammunition, instead of treating them as erstwhile human beings, with the respect most others would probably agree they deserve. For those keeping track, that makes the score Berkeley 8, The Deceased 0.