So said George Herbert [17th century poet] and
who is to say he was not right? So much injustice is perpetrated by the powerful
against those with no agency that living well is their greatest challenge. Lack
of job, home, money afford little opportunity for a good life, though millions
do their best to achieve this against their circumstances. They shame those who
look down on them daily by their humanity and resilience.
I was born in the year of Nakba. Above all of the injustices
of the world, the apartheid enacted against Palestinians in their own land is
the one which has angered me most, exacerbated by the continuing support for its
perpetrators by supposedly even-handed and humanitarian governments such as our
own and that of the USA. Money and power always trump human rights, it seems, leaving
yet again those without agency to live well against the odds. That power is
increasingly today used to promote messages of self-justification and hostility
to opposition. These are often simply lies and fiction. Typically, the Israeli
government issues accusations of anti-semitism against those opposed to its
racist policies and actions, citing “holy” texts as if they were incontrovertible truth; and uses the holocaust as
justification and immunity from criticism for just about anything they choose
to do to others.
Many who support the rights of Palestinians have neither the
money nor the power though which to counter these fictions. Organisations
campaign against injustice but this does nothing to help those affected to live
well. Perhaps a more positive form of opposition to Israeli apartheid may be to
find ways for Palestinians to live well. Support for medical aid in Gaza and
the West Bank may offer well-being to some who would otherwise be ill or worse.
Small loans to and buying goods from people trying to eke a living from their own
business in those areas may offer a sense of independence as well as an income.
Such interventions contrast greatly with the lavish military support and
investments proffered so profusely by Western governments to the oppressors and
may attune to the values of those concerned with this great injustice, in its
70th anniversary year; and offer those concerned the revenge of
living well against the odds so stacked against them.
www.map.org.uk – medical aid for Palestine
www.lendwithcare.org – microfinance lending
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