INTERFAITH PEACE PILGRIMAGE AND SOLIDARITY VISIT TO PALESTINE-ISRAEL

International Conference on Justice for Palestine

2007 November 10-12 | Hotel Toledo, Amman, Jordan

KEYNOTE PRESENTATION

Breaking the Yoke of Empire and Occupation:
People of Faith with Palestine in Struggle

By REV. EUNICE SANTANA

2007 November 11

What an incredible, enriching, mind-blowing experience this has been so far! We are thankful to be here in this part of the world, for the privilege of visiting The Holy Land and to be meeting in such a meaningful setting in this time of history. We are fortunate to learn from the people here about their present situation, their struggles, aspirations and vision for the future and to be able to commit ourselves open and fully to solidarity.

Regardless of our cultures, religions, places of origin, gender, language, race or color, we are united and bound together by our understanding of justice and our thirst and hunger for justice in Palestine and at home. We are bound together by our willingness to listen, to have our ears and eyes opened and to uncover creative, imaginative, new ways through which to express and practice efficacious solidarity. Our pilgrimage to these lands is in itself an act of solidarity, a way of saying we care, a means through which to convey our concern for what occurs here, to proclaim our interconnectedness and to pledge our accompaniment, to the extent of our possibilities, in the tasks ahead.

We are definitely privileged to be in this region of the world that houses the holy sites of three monotheistic religions of the world; a region that has been part of the known history of humanity for thousands of years; a region that has been blessed with resources: 70% of the world’s oil reserves and abundant water sources, two of the world’s most important liquids; a region that has rich cultural heritages and that has practiced generosity in sharing its spirituality, knowledge and other resources with the rest of the world. This is a region that has been an inspiration for all. Unfortunately, in Palestine, what were meant to be blessings have been turned into items of strife by the greed of the various empires that have emerged throughout the ages and the imperialistic ambitions of others, unilateral decisions, lack of respect for basic human rights, sovereignty and the right to life. What was meant to be an open territory in which people could move freely has been turned into a divided and controlled site, through military aggression, occupation and seizure of the land, now with even a shamefully visible wall that is an affront to the sensibility and decency of humanity, where people have been turned into foreigners in their own land of origin and many are forced to emigrate due to the scarcity of means for survival, because quite conveniently 19 of the 21 wells of water are “on the other side”, as well as plantations, hospitals and other life-producing and protecting assets. Children are denied even their most basic God-given, inalienable, human rights and treated as the enemy, forced to endure imprisonment and even torture and death. People rot in jail. Women suffer as their dignity and safety are constantly being challenged. Medical services are on the other side of the wall. Indispensable infrastructure has been systematically destroyed. Life itself has been devalued. In the eyes of the powerful, many are deemed dispensable. Now that they have been impoverished, made to be poor, their worth is not much in a world that’s market oriented and controlled, that’s discriminatory and that functions only for the benefit of a few and forces to the margins or excludes completely vast majorities.

To the Palestinian people we say that although we are very much mindful of the uniqueness of this reality, to a large extent many of us understand it even from afar, because many of us experience similar situations at home and can identify with your situation. We are fully aware of the arrogance with which those who proclaim ownership of the land and resources plan and execute their plans of aggression and genocide against the people. We are knowledgeable of some, if not all, of the companies that are part of the corporate imperialism and share profits from the occupation and military aggressions that have provided financial assistance for the construction of the wall, the invasion of Palestine and the ongoing military offensive in your land. We know who attempts to deny you your right to exist as a nation because they are the same ones who, for example, hold us in captivity as a colony in Puerto Rico, my homeland, as a territory that even to this day they claim they can use and dispose of in any manner pleasing to or convenient, for them. They are the same ones who pretend to control the world, through, among other things, the use of their military strength, the appropriation for themselves of vital resources, the ideological control through the media, the facilitation of genocides, the promotion of their “superiority”, a variety of impositions upon others including so called free-trade agreements, by determining the areas of production and by the construction of walls in accordance to their desires for domination and the production of wealth for the few. They are the same ones who like all previous empires deny freedom of expression and existence to everyone but themselves or their “allies” and pretend to enforce, by any means necessary, their rule of the world. They are the ones who twist the meaning of words, concepts, identifying, for example, peace as silence caused by fear to speak out, move or protest while injustice prevails and life as overabundance for some and mere subsistence for others. They are the same ones who call their brutal invasions defensive actions and employ racist maneuvers to classify everyone else, especially “people of color”, as terrorists. They are the ones who destroy entire communities in other countries through the use of their bombs and other armaments in order to make huge profits in the reconstruction. While the empire spends billions and billions of dollars in wars of aggression, protecting the interests of big corporations and enabling their expansion while killing hundreds of thousands of people, 2.8 billion people, almost half of the world’s population, subsist on less than $2.00 dollars a day and more than 1 billion, the great majority of which are women and children, live in unacceptable conditions of poverty. At the same time, according to CorpWatch, 51 of the 100 largest economies in the world are not countries but corporations and the top 500 multinational corporations account for nearly 70% of the worldwide trade.

The situation in Palestine is reminiscent of the atrocities committed in the past during periods of colonization that ought to be abhorred by modern men and women. The actions of Israel against Palestine: invasions and annexation with the aim of assuming total control; the expulsion of millions of Palestine from their lands; the assassinations of the political leadership and of civilians; the offensive, destructive, war activities, and; the systematic efforts to kill of starvation millions of people are reproductions of the savage treatment afforded to the native populations of America, Asia and Africa by the colonizers, empires, of the past and should be only facts to be condemned and lessons of a shameful past and not realities of the lives of people today. Of course, it is well known that without the support of the United States, these atrocities would not have been carried out with success. It is the actions of the powerful enabling their chosen ally that has made possible this barbaric stage that plays a key role in the advancement of the empire in the region. As such, the expectation would be that these colonizing policies would be expanded and that with the passage of time it will be more difficult for the Palestinian exiles to return home. To accept these realities and this possible outcome without acting is to allow our own dehumanization and to become accomplices of the aspirations for domination and negation of rights of people anywhere and everywhere in the planet.

We are living in a divided world in which injustices like this one reign without much intervention or opposition from the international sphere. Negative cultural stereotyping and racism exert a strong influence in people’s way of thinking, keeping them in silence depending on who is being oppressed. While people are being fed lies and feelings of insecurity the logic of competition, individualism and egotism, the “other” and enemy mentality has come to prevail. Indifference to the plight of others, conformity with ones own plight and acceptance of oppression as natural dangerously creep in. It is a world ruled by the logic of the market in which efficiency and competitiveness are presented as absolutes and the need for the maximization of profits predominate. Although it is possible to produce enough for everyone, not enough is produced in order to maintain profit making at a high level, making everyone to be in competition with everyone else for the acquisition of essential goods. It is a world so illogically conceived that disadvantaged countries find themselves competing against each other for the opportunity to be exploited—their resources plundered and their work force captured—in order not to be excluded and people, perceiving themselves as inferior, become imitators who aspire to be like the oppressors, adopting their culture, values, world view, mode of living and idolatry of the market. In this world, designed and operated by the empire, human life and nature are merely means to be utilized for economic advancement of some at the service of technology and military investigations and production. The well being of the masses is considered of little importance, especially in relation to the importance of the accumulation of wealth. Never before in the history of humanity had the gap between those who labor and those who accumulate wealth without labouring been so great. Production for the promotion of human life is increasingly diminishing. Life itself is neither protected nor nourished. Violence, hunger and misery abound. Hope is silenced, which constitutes an act of violence. Community building is discouraged, obstructed and even treated as subversive. The ruling maximum of the system is “everyone for himself/herself”. The prevailing logic being enforced is anti-solidarity, therefore, anti-life. This means that the practice of solidarity, the promotion of life, the work for justice and the search for authentic peace—peace that cannot be imposed by the use of arms but rather built on the foundation of respect and equality among all, on justice, truth, solidarity and love—are challenges that cannot be ignored by people like us: people of faith. Instead, we need to face them with courage, concerted actions, assuming risks, respecting diversity, acting together, mobilizing faith communities all of our resources, developing actions at the local, national and international levels. We must construct a different reality, defying the empire and its various expressions wherever we may be.

In such a setting of colonizing policies and practice, injustice, domination and aspirations to achieve total control for the benefit of a chosen few, the practice of solidarity is the antithesis of the system and must be lived as resistance to it, as rejection of its logic, as a purposeful force against it. Solidarity in this sense, therefore, is cultural, spiritual, ethical, organized opposition to the prevailing disorder that pretends to present itself as order and that is based on violence, falseness and injustices and breeds suffering, bloodshed, misery and death. The practice of solidarity for us today acquires important and urgent responses in the pursuit of life and abundance of life for all; so that the death of so many may not be tolerated, forgotten nor continued; so that no one may claim non involvement due to lack of knowledge; so that we may breakdown the walls of indifference, conformity and acceptance of oppression and exclusion as “natural”; so that no one who is oppressed may come to accept their plight as being mere objects of oppression, forsaking their role as subjects of liberation. In this, we are encouraged by the organized efforts of resistance throughout the world, for example, in community building, cooperative economic ventures, sharing of resources, practices of unity in diversity, alternative models of interfaith relations and conscious organizing of resistance at all levels to maintain and empower cultural, spiritual and ethical values, rejecting the logic and power of the empire. As people of faith, we are also encouraged and sustained by the knowledge that in our work for justice, in our identification with the needy and the oppressed in our choice for the values and practice of solidarity, we are not alone. Furthermore, we are strengthened by our experiences that have taught us that through organized struggle situations, structures and systems of injustice can be transformed.

In solidarity, we must act, spreading the truth that we have seen and heard here in opposition to the many lies that are projected and spoken as truth. We must raise our voices denouncing and rejecting the use of military might to humiliate, subjugate, and control. We must repudiate those who display their power through abusive means and the abuse of power. We must condemn this apartheid created by Israel and its military assault against the people of Palestine. We must unite to claim the end of the illegal occupation of Palestine. We must join other people who are advocating respect for territorial integrity, a peaceful resolution of the conflict, the right to self-determination, the right to return of all Palestinian refugees and the cessation of all discriminatory practices against Palestine. Along with other organizations we can plan and develop an international boycott to one or some of the corporations that are participating in this unjust situation through their support of Israel and of the wall. We can launch an anti wall campaign, bringing this situation to the forefront and stimulating the development of activities around the issue. In all this we must seek and build unity.

Today any injustice committed in any part of the world is a far-reaching problem that acquires enormous dimensions and relevance for all. It affects all of humanity. It affects all of us in our distinctive settings and makes us more conscious of our interrelatedness and need for unity. It must also set us in motion recognizing that there is not such thing as the “cause of another”. In solidarity, there’s no suffering, no pain, no lack of, no thirst or hunger, no threat to the life, no imprisonment, no impoverishment, no exclusion that can be called or perceived as being foreign. What happens to one happens to all. The teachings of our respective faiths guide us in this. Buddhism insists on the respect of the right to life of all living things and calls us to see others suffering as one’s own. Judaism instructs us in the Torah lo love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Christianity and Islam contribute, besides the love of neighbor, the image of the body in which we are likened to parts of the body, which are connected to each other, and when one part hurts, the entire body is in pain and when one part receives special attention and rejoices the entire body feels good. Furthermore, El Che, the revolutionary hero of all young people even today, said that beyond everything else we must have the capacity to feel deeply any injustice committed against anyone anywhere in the world, for this is the best quality of a revolutionary.

As people of faith, may we never give up the goal of forging a different world where solidarity and justice may reign, where life in abundance may be enjoyed by all, where peace may be experienced as noise created by the laughter of children happily and safely enjoying themselves and of people who live in communities, engaged in production, play, lovemaking, exchange of ideas, debate, worship, singing, eating, dancing, learning…and where quietness may represent long nights of deep, refreshing sleep; where justice may run like rivers of water. In the meantime let us work, so that where justice is overcome by injustice, people may rise to defend their rights. Where hope is crucified, faith in the struggle and solidarity may survive. Where the truth is mistreated and crushed, the passion for exposure and struggling may be strengthened. Where fear that paralyzes tries to assume control, courage may prevail. Where death seeks to impose its presence, life may be preserved so as to continue resisting and struggling.

AMEN.