[lbo-talk] Co-opting Solidarity: Privilege in the Palestine Solidarity Movement

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

At 2:23 PM -0700 7/15/03, Michael Pugliese wrote:
>>(Did anyone notice that few Arab and/or Muslim delegates, much less 
>>Palestinian delegates, attended the UFPJ conference in Chicago? 
>>Are there any Palestinian activists on this listserv?...
>
>Something that was mentioned in, "Co-opting Solidarity: Privilege in the
>Palestine Solidarity Movement, " by Nicole Solomon
>http://www.onwardnewspaper.org/archives/2-2002/solomon.html
>  > ...Not every U.S. activist involved in Palestinian solidarity 
>efforts is acting in ways accountable to Palestinians and others 
>involved in the movement. These activists often occupy privileged 
>locations of identity whiteness and, more often than not, WASPiness 
>and class privilege. Such activists may plan actions supposedly on 
>behalf of Palestinians yet structured around agendas other than what 
>might actually be useful to Palestinian people. For example, 
>activists may initiate (or attempt to initiate, the more common 
>occurrence in April in DC) illegal, potentially high risk activities 
>that could endanger Muslims, Arabs and South Asians in the area, 
>generally  at a much higher risk than, for example, white goy 
>anarchists.

I realize that the above article really caught your fancy, but 
attending the conference isn't an illegal high-risk activity, so it 
is not relevant in this context.  The dearth of Arab and/or Muslim 
delegates (to say nothing of Palestinian delegates) at the UFPJ 
conference in Chicago simply means, in my opinion, that UFPJ has work 
harder to increase their participation (as well as participation of 
Black activists, another underrepresented but crucial constituency).

BTW, you may not have noticed, but I'm not white -- you are.
-- 
Yoshie

* Calendars of Events in Columbus: 
<http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html>, 
<http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/>
* Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/>
* Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/>
* Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio>
* Solidarity: <http://solidarity.igc.org/>