Monday, June 07, 2010

Reflection on yesterday’s rally: satirical contradictions for obvious reasons!

While yesterday’s rally was called to protest against horrendous crimes against international activists outside Gaza waters, it witnessed very “funny” (mostly satirical) contradictions.

The first extremely satirical thing to the point of collapsing on the floor of the Sydney Town Hall is the content of the Greens MLC speech. Ms Sylvia Hale and her Greens party had just discovered yesterday that Gaza strip is under blockade. And only yesterday, Ms Hale promised to speak up against this blockade. One would, rightly, ask where these party politicians live. Are they living on the same planet as all of us? Do not they watch TV (any TV station, even the regressive Murdoch press) to discover that Gaza is under complete blockade since early 2007?

And to be fair to Ms Hale and her party, we should mention that they promised (after they woke up recently) to come to rallies and make verbal undocumented promises to speak up against this blockade. All this despite the fact that they did not issue so far any written media release about this issue.

The second contradiction was more satirical. The far left socialists and communists were marching hand in hand with the far right Fateh movement (supporters of the traitors in Ramallah). Both were happily walking side by side, shoulder by shoulder, flag by flag and voice by voice condemning Israeli aggression. And both were exchanging words of complementary praisings.

The crowd was also incredibly satirical. The Turkish nationalists were mixing with Turkish socialists. The Hamas supporters were enforced to hear Fateh representative, and they clapped their hands. The circumstances needed such “unity”. The religious crowd were enforced to hear socialists’ rhetoric. And the clever people were enforced to hear stupid ones.

The speakers were the funniest contradictions. From the far left to the far right. From the far opportunist through the far ignorant. And in this chaos, we heard one only good speaker: Andrew Ferguson, CFMEU secretary.

All these contradictions were permitted at this rally, each for own reasons.

For politicians, it is election time. The Greens would not mind to declare joining Al Qaeda if this will give them some more votes. At the end of the day, the rally and all what happens at it is no more than a deceptive phonetical phenomena. Politicians can always claim that the media misinterpreted their speeches, if they need to get more votes from Anti-Palestinians.

For the expired community “leaders”, it is an important event to declare that they are still alive and able to say few words that the crowd wants to hear.

For the imagined ideologies that died long time ago, it is an opportunity to jump and celebrate their imagined “resurrection”.

For the dominant oppressing ethnicity (in this case the White Anglo-Saxon), it is an extra opportunity to prove that they are democratic and are feeling with the oppressed feelings of sadness and anger.

And for the oppressed communities, it is a chance to feel “equal”, even if the equality is just to be equal listener, but not equal actor.

The worst satirical contradiction is the complaint by oppressing ethnicity that some sections of oppressed communities behaved outside the red lines drawn by them (by oppressing ethnicity), when large section of Muslim community started to go their own way and chant their own chanting when they started to feel that the rally was hijacked. At this time and because the oppressed communities dared to be bored, the oppressing ethnicity declared that the oppressed communities in fact have hijacked the rally by not listening carefully with full silence to the messages of verbal condemnations and solidarity.

Thank you for being so patients with our boredom and please forgive us to hijack your election bazaar. But remember that we are still grieving for the last century, and we need some space and respect. We love your solidarity, but when it is invited and welcomed. Not when it is “despite our noses”.

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