Just Like In the Movies
The Holocaust took place less than 70 years ago.
Fucking unreal. I was reading a magazine last night and it made my blood run cold at the realization that something that so devastating, so completely against all that is good and pure in humanity took place within the same century I was born in.
When I was a college freshman, I did my main Communications 1 paper on the Holocaust and the impact of the establishment of Israel. It was terrible how six millions Jewish people were killed in various concentration camps, the most notorious being the ones in Auschwitz, Sibibor and Treblinka; and then after Germany fell, the Jewish leaders turned around, joined forces with the US, and went ahead to launch war against Palestine.
I began learning about these things from my father who was a sociology teacher, history buff and political analyst (sure, it was for the department of national defense; but it’s a long story how he ended up there from being a student leader in UST); and all those things were so far removed from my own experience that it all seemed and felt like fiction to me, so deeply shocking and almost unimaginable, the idea of killing people because their religion was different from your. Killing babies by throwing them fromthe third floor and skewering them with a bayonet.
Now, things are more like the movies, and they’re not particarly happy films, either. In the Philippines, the government runs the country like that killer doll Chucky; and it has so many victims. The number continues to mount every day: political activists, progressive members of the clergy, journalists, human rights advocates, civilians.
It’s a horror movie like those made by George Romero. Predictable, but still upsetting.
The Macapagal-Arroyo government is coming out with a rogues gallery of its enemies. (Make note of the difference: Macapagal-Arroyo’s enemies, and not the Filipino people’s. No one with half a brain believes that when she speaks and acts, she does so for the Filipino people and in defense of their welfare. Strictly speaking, Arroyo’s main objective is to remain in power by hook or by crook, nevermind that she’s so unpopular. What’s her point in staying is waaaaay beyond me. She’s getting uglier and nastier by the minute, and she must be popping Advils by the bucketfuls. Who needs the headaches of being a despised president?! ).
Talk about utilizing the most underhanded means to demonize and crucify your political enemies: declare them immediately guilty and have the AFP and the PNP arrest them on sight. Oh well, we should expect such tricks from Macapagal-Arroyo and her henchmen.
(Pero sandali, they’e guilty of what? Denouncing a president who has continually lied, stolen and cheated? Fighting a government that relentlessly undermines the economic welfare of its constituents, violates laws on political and territorial sovereignty by selling off national assets to foreign monopolies and approving laws such as the Mining Act of 1995? Demanding immediate political reforms and an end to corruption, bureaucrat capitalism, and state fascism? Ngak, guilty nga sina Ka Bel, Ka Satur, et al)
The lawyers of the Public Interest Law Center (PILC) headed by reknowed human rights lawyer Romeo capulong have swiftly issued a statement denouncing the said ‘rogues gallery.’
According to the PILC, the said gallery violates the most fundamental rights, among them the rights against deprivation of life and liberty without due process and the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty of the crime charged in a court of law (Article III Sections 1 and 14, respectively, Philippine Constitution; Articles 6, 9, & 14 (a) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights).
The Opposition and all anti-Arroyo forces should also come out with a gallery of rogues themselves, and the biggest picture would be of Macapagal-Arroyo. Who else is the biggest rogue in the country but the head resident of Malacanang who cheated, lied and stole her way to office; and who is now using increasingly authoritarian and fascistic means to remain in power?
Hollywood churns out so many brainless movies every year, with hackneyed scripts and plots so transparent it’s like watching reruns of Blue’s Clues. Malacanang is doing the same now, operating with a script the Marcos regime used before (along with other dictatorial regimes in other countries) and employing formulaic devices to heighten the tension and conflict: illegal arrests, a media crackdown, communist witchhunts; and it seems that Macapagal-Arroyo is enjoying her kontrabida role the the hilt.
Wala na bang subtlety?!
Wala. Hindi na kasi talaga maitatago ang desperasyon ng gobyernong ito. It has shed all pretenses of being a democracy and believer in civil rights. The yada-yada on tv and the the statements to the international media mean nothing, and fool no one.
The Philippines is in a state of war, and this is obvious to everyone. Arroyo’s attempts to appear strong, calm and collected convince no one, because even as she speaks, more and more Filipinos become convinced that she has no right to remain in office and that the longer she stays in power, the worse things will get.
Wala bang hanggangan ang gulong ito sa Pilipinas?
Sa ngayon, matagal pa ang lalakbayin bago magkaroon ng tunay at makabuluhang pagbabago. But we’re getting there. Gat Andres Bonifacio made hiscall to arms against Spanish colonialism in 1896. Heck, that’s only a little over a century ago. Now, within the span of two decades, Filipinos ousted two corrupt presidencies and are now demanding the removal of another. The Filipino people have become more politically mature and are now comtemplating replacing the presidential system with a coalition transition government. That’s new, that’s radical.
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The following is a statement by the National Council of Arab Americans about last week’s assault in Jericho. The NCA was a principal partner with the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition and other organizations in organizing the September 24, 2005 massive march in Washington against the US war against Iraq.
Israeli repression of the Palestinian people intensifies
The ongoing U.S.-backed Israeli war against the Palestinian people took a new criminal turn yesterday with the military assault against the Palestinian detention center in Jericho. This blatant act of state-sponsored terrorism included at least three deaths, scores of injuries and the confinement of an estimated 800 children in their school for many hours while the Israelis laid siege. The Israeli assault was aimed at the seizure and kidnapping of the Secretary General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Ahmed Saadat, along with four of his colleagues and many others.
The Bush administration and Israeli regime arrogate to themselves the right to carry out systematic assassinations, killings and kidnappings. Given the circumstances of this assault, it is inconceivable that it was undertaken without the explicit approval of the Bush administration. Saadat became the leader of the PFLP after the Israeli Air Force carried out an extrajudicial execution of PFLP Secretary General Abu Ali Mustafa on August 27, 2001. Mustafa, the father of five, was killed by two rockets fired from an Israeli helicopter as he sat at his desk in his office in the West Bank town of Ramallah.
The A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition is organizing around the country for locally and regionally coordinated demonstrations on March 18-20, the 3rd anniversary of the start of the U.S. "shock and awe" assault against Iraq. Since the beginning, our Coalition has insisted on making the connections between the U.S. war in Iraq and the decades long effort to destroy the Palestinian people. The U.S.-Israeli assault is part and parcel of the same project to impose a colonial-type domination on the Arab people and other peoples of the Middle East.
Israeli occupation forces stormed the Palestinian detention compound in Jericho, Palestine, where Saadat and his comrades were being held, with complicity by the governments of the United States and Britain. Minutes before the assault, U.S. and British personnel vacated the compound allowing the attacks to take place. The detainees were all unarmed and under the presumed oversight of U.S. and British "observers." The assault resulted in at least 3 deaths, scores of injuries, and the confinement of about 800 children in their school for many hours.
In 2002, the Palestinian Authority (PA) entered into a treaty with the U.S. and Britain and committed to placing Saadat, four of his comrades, and Fouad Shobaki, then special military assistant to Yasser Arafat, under the supervision of a joint U.S.-British force that would oversee the Jericho compound. Ever since then, the PA under both Arafat and Abbas has defied the Palestinian High Court ruling to release Saadat and his comrades. It claimed that Saadat’s detention is aimed at protecting him and his comrades from Israeli assassination if they were to be released.
In addition to the clearly complicit U.S.-British role and responsibility, we also condemn the role of the PA for allowing this assault to take place repudiating expressed calls to provide protection. The PA, as has been revealed, had been notified earlier that U.S. and British personnel were planning to vacate the compound, hence setting the stage for the attack. Yet no action was taken.
The NCA supports the Palestinian people’s call for holding the entire PA apparatus, particularly Mahmoud Abbbas, responsible and echoes the demand for full accountability.
Over many decades, the Palestinian people have been at the receiving end of a vicious Israeli colonial onslaught with support by successive Western policies, particularly that of the US. This latest attack is but a continuation of these murderous policies designed to deprive the Palestinians of their leaders. In August 2001, Israel murdered the Palestinian leader Abu Ali Mustafa, then-Secretary General of the PFLP, in his Ramallah office. Over the years, it has assassinated great many Palestinian leaders, writers, journalists, clergy, unionists, and popular activists from all political orientations, such as Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.
This assault to break the Palestinian people, coupled with the brutal occupation of Iraq and the evolving plans to destabilize Syria and Lebanon, are fundamental anchors of the US-Israeli policy towards full control of the region. We view this new development as a clear first step by the Israeli- American- British axis with complicity from PA circles to create new conditions on the ground to reverse the outcome of the latest Palestinian election and promote an internal Palestinian conflict.
The NCA once again reaffirms the link between the struggle against the war in Iraq and the struggle for Palestinian liberation and return. As the Palestinian and Iraqi people march forward against oppression and occupation, the anti-war movement in the US must, at the very least, stand in their support.
We call on our community and all to turn out in the largest possible numbers in the upcoming anti-war protests this weekend, March 18, to declare to the world that despite all odds the Arab people are destined to be free.
