[lbo-talk] Intifada anecdote

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Sat Oct 14 10:33:12 PDT 2006


A professor here at ISU was visiting the West Bank at the time of the first Infitada, and in a talk he gave the other day he gave this anecdote to illustrate the amazing solidarity of the Palestinian people at that time.

He was standing on a street corner when there was a sudden uproar, and down the street came several Israeli soldiers dragging a young man, and being followed by a large crowd of Paletinians shouting at the soldiers. Suddenly a young woman holding a baby ran up and began to shout and curse at the young man, saying "I told you to stay out of the street, but you never listen. Now look at the trouble you've caused. I'm done with you. I'm leaving for good. Here, you take the baby." And she shoved the baby into the hands of the young man and walked off.

After several minutes of deliberations, and a radio call back to their headquarters, the Israeli soldiers released the young man. The crowd dissipated. The soldiers left. The young man was left scratching his head in bewilderment. But then when all was clear, the woman walked out of a nearby alley and said, "Give me by baby hack. You're safe now." She was not only not his wife, she was a complete stranger!

Incidentally, this is not unrelated to the recent thread on "populism." When a mass movement is strong enough, one of the signs is that members of it, on their own initiative, _act as though_ they were all receiving messages from a central committee and acting in unison.

Carrol



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