It was to citizens gathered in Jerusalem that President Obama made his appeal last week when he addressed over 1,000 students at the Jerusalem International Convention Center. One of the President’s key messages was that peace is possible – “and necessary because it is the only path to true security.” Later the President went off script and asked the audience to imagine themselves as parents of Palestinian teenagers and asked if they would also want the best for these young people to be successful in the way they would hope for their daughters and sons too.
“Put yourself in their shoes — look at the world through their eyes. It is not fair that a Palestinian child cannot grow up in a state of her own, and lives with the presence of a foreign army that controls the movements of her parents every single day. It is not just when settler violence against Palestinians goes unpunished… Neither occupation nor expulsion is the answer. Just as Israelis built a state in their homeland, Palestinians have a right to be a free people in their own land.”
The audience cheered.
And yet, the heckler in the audience who was earlier removed during the President’s speech wanted to ask the President about the role of justice in the future he envisioned. As 24 year old Palestinian, Rabbea Eid, told New York Times reporter Robert Mackie by phone afterwards,
“I believe if he’s from a real democratic party, he should support a country for all its citizens and end the occupation, not to support a Jewish country and to support the Israeli army. He didn’t talk that much about the settlements. He talked about the violence from settlers but he didn’t say very clearly that something against settlements is that they are built on occupied land … To me, I believe in one state for two people — one democratic state … We need justice, you know. I actually don’t care what the name of this state is, but what I care is for there to be justice for two peoples in the state and to end this conflict.”
The President’s speech was an appeal to individuals to use their collective advocacy to hold their leaders to account for decisions that would shape the future of their country, their region and the world. If young people could work to change the political landscape they could perhaps secure peace in their time. By speaking directly to young people and appealing to their best nature, the President shouldn’t have been surprised that some young people were appealing to his best nature as well – to an embrace of justice, and to a just peace.
The President’s speech to over a thousand young people was a continuation of an approach that has marked his Presidency, and also to that adopted by former US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. I’ve been reading a book by BBC correspondent Kim Ghattas: The Secretary: A Journey with Hillary Clinton from Beirut to the Heart of American Power.
What’s clear from Clinton’s time as Secretary of State is that she gave new weight to the role of town hall events in the hundreds of countries she visited, and she sought forums for connection with citizens to encourage them to use their own power to influence their government and to hear how they were standing up for their rights in places where these rights were being compromised or stripped away. Clinton particularly sought opportunities to connect with women in the countries where she travelled – including women-only forums in countries such as Seoul, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
During Clinton’s time as Secretary of State, an Egyptian woman, Asmaa Mahfouz, would give voice and weight to this belief that citizens and women could be the change they wished in the world. As a young, veiled activist, Mahfouz created a video encouraging other citizens in Egypt to take to the streets on January 25th if they cared for their country.
After posting the video on YouTube it went viral and thousands of young people took to the streets in the largest citizen uprising in Egypt in decades.
Last week we also saw examples of what’s been possible as a result of collective citizen action. India passed sweeping new tough laws on those committing violence against women and fifteen-year-old Malala Yousafzai went back to school – this time in Birmingham six months after being shot in the head by Taliban fighters in Pakistan. Malala described returning to school as the ‘happiest moment’, after being left in critical condition from the attack, a response to her campaign for girls’ education rights.
Within the US, in local communities people have been staging their own collective, and individual, protests. In Detroit, members of the local community planned a traffic slowdown protest to express their frustration at the Governor’s decision to stand down elected officials and appoint an emergency manager to oversee a situation where the city had a $327 million deficit and owed $14 billion. This protest took the form of cars on major highways crawling along under five miles per hour in peak hour causing traffic to back up in what he called a “freedom flash mob.” A member of the protest group, Pastor D. Alexander Bullock, said the point was to open eyes to the struggle for basic freedoms in Detroit. “Rosa Parks sat down in the wrong seat on the right bus. And she broke the law because that law violated her human dignity. We slowed down to the wrong speed on the right freeway. And we broke the law because emergency management violates our human dignity.”
The Emergency Management law gives Michigan state officials the ability to appoint one person to take over almost all of city operations, and eliminates the powers of the publicly-elected City Council. The Emergency Manager has complete authority to alter or eliminate collective bargaining agreements, cut city services, lay off public employees, privatize city services and sell off land without any oversight from publicly elected officials, as has happened in five other cities in Michigan. This means that more than half of Michigan’s African American population will be living under non-elected leadership and won’t be able to vote or have any say in decisions about their schools or local government.
Many organizations throughout Detroit have been organizing alternative ways to for Detroit residents to offer their own solutions, recognizing that many citizens are keen to contribute to dramatically reducing debt while revitalizing the city and generating new opportunities for employment and long term prosperity and sustainability. The solutions offered include: strengthen small business ventures and reduce obstacles to starting a small business, ban speculation, lower insurance rates, collect corporate taxes and other revenue, develop a master plan for the city and help train people for the jobs that Detroit needs for its future including health care and education. Reinstate residency requirements for city employees and a public education system that inspires critical thinking, entrepreneurship, technological development and commitment to community values. Most of all, give citizens within the community a chance to think and act rather than to be stripped of power and voice.
My mind needed a rest from all the reading, thinking and action and my body needed a day at the beach. So I woke up on a clear blue California morning, pulled on beach clothes and walked to the stagecoach that weaved its way from Marin city through national parks to Stinson Beach. It was a glorious one hour ride for a $2.00 fare and I’d made it my favorite early morning Saturday ritual as hippies, musicians, locals, tourists, bushwalkers and park rangers variously entered and exited the bus during the trip. After a poetic ride through morning fog — including a rarely sighted white rainbow and eagles soaring over cliff tops — I was there.
I ran from the bus to the beach. Here everything felt expansive, everything felt possible. The scene was luminous as surfers skimmed the glittering sea. Everywhere was filled with light. Two women walked in front of me. One stripped off completely and ran into the sea. Just as quickly she ran out again, her hands flapping — and seemingly everything else flapping too. An iceberg kind of cold, I thought. Dogs, though, seemed oblivious to the cold as they bolted into the waves, their eyes fixed on sticks thrown haphazardly by their owners as these dogs paddled hard and returned with their sticks, overjoyed at the prospect of it happening all over again.
Finally, after a time of walking, brunching, visiting galleries and meeting locals, it was time to go. I walked to the bus stop to find two police cars and two rangers’ vehicles parked near an elderly woman. She had four bags next to her on a bench seat, a wildly painted walking stick in one hand and a cigarette in the other. “Seems to me it’s decision-making by committee” she said to me drily as I sat down next to her. After a while the bus came and one of the officers stepped up to speak to the bus driver. “ We’ve got a situation here,” he said. I didn’t hear the rest of the conversation and soon those of us waiting for the bus hopped on board, followed by the officer and the driver helping the woman on to the bus. We literally drove around the corner and the bus driver told the woman that he was breaking all protocols by delivering her to a café on the main street. He helped her out of the bus as she held onto her stick and then he led her to a chair outside the café. She was satisfied.
What I learnt later from another passenger was that the woman had asked a driver an hour earlier to drop her at the café on the way through due to her disability and the bags she had with her. He’d told her it wasn’t possible and so he had set her down around the corner at the regular bus stop. So she asked the park rangers for help and they said they couldn’t help her as it was outside their jurisdiction.
After 40 minutes of waiting and wondering what to do the woman then just went and lay down on the road. She’d had enough. If no one was going to help her then she’d stage her own protest. According to my new friend,the park rangers came running, scrambling to get her off the road while police vehicles arrived promptly as traffic backed up. Everyone waited. And waited. “We’re not going to take you in our vehicle,” the policeman said firmly. She looked at him. Finally the bus driver arrived and the police and park rangers negotiated with him to get the woman out of their territory.
“Thanks folks, said the bus driver, when he got back on the bus after delivering the woman to the café. “ I’m sorry I had to do that but she was a major liability.” “That’s pretty sad when a woman with a disability becomes a liability to everyone just because she needs help to get across the street. That could have been any one of us if we had a disability,” I said. I stuck my head out the window, looked back at the woman outside the café and waved to her. She saw me and waved her colorful stick in the air as she was being given a drink. It had taken some time but today she had won.
Jane Sloane
San Francisco