Bahrain's 14 Feb Coalition Press Release: Winning the Psychological War against a Defeated Regime

[Protesters in Bahrain. Image from abna.co] [Protesters in Bahrain. Image from abna.co]

Bahrain's 14 Feb Coalition Press Release: Winning the Psychological War against a Defeated Regime

By : Jadaliyya Reports

[The following press release was issued in both English and Arabic by Bahrain`s 14 February Coalition on 24 September 2011.]

Winning the Psychological War against a Defeated Regime

The call of the 14 February Youth Coalition to the masses to participate in the ‘Friday Crawl’ to Martyrs Square (formerly Pearl Roundabout) was adhered to by thousands and proved a devastating psychological blow towards the blood thirsty Al Khalifa regime, who added to their long list of crimes against humanity by deliberately performing an act of arson by setting ablaze a house in Sanabis[1] leading to severe injuries to its inhabitants.

The brutality of the so called ‘Crown Prince’ Salman bin Hamad Al-Khalifa  did not stop there having given the green light to his mercenaries to attack peaceful unarmed citizens participating in protests in Nuaim, Sanabis, Jidhafs and City Centre Mall by throwing them to the ground, beating them and then detaining them.  Violations did not stop there with mercenaries also violently attacking women.

We call on the masses of the revolution to stand up firm against oppression on the ‘Saturday of Liberation’ by taking to the streets today in unprecedented numbers and being prepared to once again march to liberate Martyrs Square for the sake of our oppressed women and martyrs who shed their blood for the sake of our freedom.  The psychological blow inflicted on the regime yesterday was the biggest obstacle in our mission to achieve liberation.

And finally, we would like to send a tribute to those from Duraz and Nuaim, and the courageous young lady from Bilad who reached Martyrs Square yesterday in the face of tanks and armoured vehicles.

The 14 February Youth Coalition

  

[1] House ablaze in Sanabis:

 

 

 جماهير الثورة تهزم النظام نفسياً وتضيّق الخناق عليه‬

‫بعد أن نجحت جماهير الثورة في إلحاق الهزيمة النفسية والمعنوية بالنظام الخليفي الدموي في جمعة الزحف لميدان الشهداء، أوعز النظام لمرتزقته بارتكاب أفظع
الجرائم حينما أقدموا على الحرق المتعمد لمبنى مأهول بالسكان في بلدة السنابس، الأمر الـذي أدى لوقوع إصابات حروق متفرقة وبعضها خطيرة، ولم يكتفِ سلمان بن حمد بهذا الحد من الإجرام والبشاعة وإنما تمادى كثيراً حينما أعطى الضوء الأخضر لمرتزقته بالاعتداء الوحشي على حرائر الثورة في بلدات النعيم والسنابس وجدحفص، وتكبيل بعضهن في مجمع سيتي سنتر ورميهن على الأرض ثم الزجّ بهنّ في السجون، وذلك في انتهاك صارخ لحرمة النساء العفيفات‬.
‫وهنا ندعو جماهير الثورة لأكبر صمود وتحدّي في سبت التحرير، وأن يكونوا على مقدارٍ عال من الجهوزية للزحف الجديد إلى ميدان الشهداء، فما جرى بالأمس من جرائم بشعة بحق النساء يتطلبُ منا النزول إلى الشوارع بشكل أكبر وأوسع، فلا توجد أدنى قيمة للحياة حينما يُعتدى على حـرائرنـا ونـلـزم الصـمـت ونـتـوارى فـي منازلنا، فنعم للتقدم في مرحلة الدفاع المقدّس، ولا تخشوا في الله لومة لائم‬.

‫يا شعب العزّة والكرامة، دونك حريتك وكرامتك، خذها بيدك اليوم وانتصر لحرمة عرضك فكل امرأةٍ بحرينية هي عرض الجميع، وتيقن يا شعبنا الثائر بأنّ ما تمّ إنجازهُ بالأمس كان هو المقدار الأكبر للوصول إلى الميدان، ومسؤوليتنا اليوم تكمنُ في قطع المسافة المتبقية للوصول، فإلى مزيدٍ من الصمود والشجاعة والله خيرُ ناصرٍ ومعين‬.

‫وختاماً: تحيّة إجلال وإكبار لأبطال الدراز والنعيم الذين اقتحموا الميدان يوم أمس، وتحيّة اعتزاز وفخر للبطلة البلادية التي وصلت أطراف الميدان متحديةً مدرعات ومصفحات النظام، رافعةً لواء النصر عالياً، وننوه بأنّ خريطة الزحف في سبت التحرير ستُنشر بعد قليل، فكونوا على استعداد للتمركز الاستباقي قبل اغلاق الشوارع‬.


‫ائتلاف شباب ثورة 14 فبراير‬
‫السبت 24 سبتمبر / أيلول 2011م

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Past is Present: Settler Colonialism Matters!

On 5-6 March 2011, the Palestine Society at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London will hold its seventh annual conference, "Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine." This year`s conference aims to understand Zionism as a settler colonial project which has, for more than a century, subjected Palestine and Palestinians to a structural and violent form of destruction, dispossession, land appropriation and erasure in the pursuit of a new Jewish Israeli society. By organizing this conference, we hope to reclaim and revive the settler colonial paradigm and to outline its potential to inform and guide political strategy and mobilization.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is often described as unique and exceptional with little resemblance to other historical or ongoing colonial conflicts. Yet, for Zionism, like other settler colonial projects such as the British colonization of Ireland or European settlement of North America, South Africa or Australia, the imperative is to control the land and its resources -- and to displace the original inhabitants. Indeed, as conference keynote speaker Patrick Wolfe, one of the foremost scholars on settler colonialism and professor at La Trobe University in Victoria, Australia, argues, "the logic of this project, a sustained institutional tendency to eliminate the Indigenous population, informs a range of historical practices that might otherwise appear distinct--invasion is a structure not an event."[i]

Therefore, the classification of the Zionist movement as a settler colonial project, and the Israeli state as its manifestation, is not merely intended as a statement on the historical origins of Israel, nor as a rhetorical or polemical device. Rather, the aim is to highlight Zionism`s structural continuities and the ideology which informs Israeli policies and practices in Palestine and toward Palestinians everywhere. Thus, the Nakba -- whether viewed as a spontaneous, violent episode in war, or the implementation of a preconceived master plan -- should be understood as both the precondition for the creation of Israel and the logical outcome of Zionist settlement in Palestine.

Moreover, it is this same logic that sustains the continuation of the Nakba today. As remarked by Benny Morris, “had he [David Ben Gurion] carried out full expulsion--rather than partial--he would have stabilised the State of Israel for generations.”[ii] Yet, plagued by an “instability”--defined by the very existence of the Palestinian nation--Israel continues its daily state practices in its quest to fulfill Zionism’s logic to maximize the amount of land under its control with the minimum number of Palestinians on it. These practices take a painful array of manifestations: aerial and maritime bombardment, massacre and invasion, house demolitions, land theft, identity card confiscation, racist laws and loyalty tests, the wall, the siege on Gaza, cultural appropriation, and the dependence on willing (or unwilling) native collaboration and security arrangements, all with the continued support and backing of imperial power. 

Despite these enduring practices however, the settler colonial paradigm has largely fallen into disuse. As a paradigm, it once served as a primary ideological and political framework for all Palestinian political factions and trends, and informed the intellectual work of committed academics and revolutionary scholars, both Palestinians and Jews.

The conference thus asks where and why the settler colonial paradigm was lost, both in scholarship on Palestine and in politics; how do current analyses and theoretical trends that have arisen in its place address present and historical realities? While acknowledging the creativity of these new interpretations, we must nonetheless ask: when exactly did Palestinian natives find themselves in a "post-colonial" condition? When did the ongoing struggle over land become a "post-conflict" situation? When did Israel become a "post-Zionist" society? And when did the fortification of Palestinian ghettos and reservations become "state-building"?

In outlining settler colonialism as a central paradigm from which to understand Palestine, this conference re-invigorates it as a tool by which to analyze the present situation. In doing so, it contests solutions which accommodate Zionism, and more significantly, builds settler colonialism as a political analysis that can embolden and inform a strategy of active, mutual, and principled Palestinian alignment with the Arab struggle for self-determination, and indigenous struggles in the US, Latin America, Oceania, and elsewhere.

Such an alignment would expand the tools available to Palestinians and their solidarity movement, and reconnect the struggle to its own history of anti-colonial internationalism. At its core, this internationalism asserts that the Palestinian struggle against Zionist settler colonialism can only be won when it is embedded within, and empowered by, the broader Arab movement for emancipation and the indigenous, anti-racist and anti-colonial movement--from Arizona to Auckland.

SOAS Palestine Society invites everyone to join us at what promises to be a significant intervention in Palestine activism and scholarship.

For over 30 years, SOAS Palestine Society has heightened awareness and understanding of the Palestinian people, their rights, culture, and struggle for self-determination, amongst students, faculty, staff, and the broader public. SOAS Palestine society aims to continuously push the frontiers of discourse in an effort to make provocative arguments and to stimulate debate and organizing for justice in Palestine through relevant conferences, and events ranging from the intellectual and political impact of Edward Said`s life and work (2004), international law and the Palestine question (2005), the economy of Palestine and its occupation (2006), the one state (2007), 60 Years of Nakba, 60 Years of Resistance (2009), and most recently, the Left in Palestine (2010).

For more information on the SOAS Palestine Society 7th annual conference, Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine: www.soaspalsoc.org

SOAS Palestine Society Organizing Collective is a group of committed students that has undertaken to organize annual academic conferences on Palestine since 2003.

 


[i] Patrick Wolfe, Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology: The Politics and Poetics of an Ethnographic Event, Cassell, London, p. 163

[ii] Interview with Benny Morris, Survival of the Fittest, Haaretz, 9. January 2004, http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/art.php?aid=5412