African Americans, Peace and the Plight of Palestinians![McKinneyPIX McKinneyPIX](images/stories/112/McKinneyPIX.jpg)
by Cynthia McKinney
Former Georgia congresswoman and recent Green Party
presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney was scheduled to give the following
address in Damascus, Syria at a Conference to commemorate the 60th Anniversary
of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. She notes that this year also
marks "the 60th year that the Palestinian people have been denied their Right
of Return, enshrined in that Universal Declaration." However, Delta Airlines
personnel prevented Ms. McKinney from boarding her flight. She describes the
incident as "a dispute over my paperwork." - The editors
A funny thing happened to me while at the Atlanta airport on
my way to the Conference: I was not allowed to exit the country.
I do believe that it was just a misunderstanding. But the insecurity
experienced on a daily basis by innocent Palestinians is not. Innocent
Palestinians are trapped in a violent, stateless twilight zone imposed on them
by an international order that favors a country reported to have completed its
nuclear triad as many as eight years ago, although Israel has remained
ambiguous on the subject. President Jimmy Carter informed us that Israel
had as many as 150 nuclear weapons, and Israel's allies are among the most
militarily sophisticated on the planet. Military engagement, then, is
untenable. Therefore the exigency of diplomacy and international
law.
"Is the subject of
Palestinian human rights taboo inside the United States Government and its
government-to-be?"
The Palestinians should at least be able to count on the protections of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights. What is happening to Palestinians
in Gaza right now, subjected to an Israeli-imposed blockade, has drawn the
attention of the United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, who noted that
over half of the civilians in Gaza are children. Even The Los Angeles
Times criticized Israel's lockdown of Gaza that is keeping food, fuel, and
medicine from civilians. Even so, Israel stood fast by its decision to
seal Gaza's openings. But where are the voices of concern coming from the
corridors of power inside the United States? Is the subject of
Palestinian human rights taboo inside the United States Government and its
government-to-be? I hope not.
McKinney's Planned Remarks to the
Right of Return Congregation, Damascus, Syria:
Thank you to our hosts for inviting me to participate in this most important
and timely First Arab-International Congregation for the Right of Return.
Words are an insufficient expression of my appreciation for being remembered as
one willing to stand for justice in Washington, D.C., even in the face of
tremendously difficult pressures.
Former Prime Minister Tun Mahathir, thank you for including me in the Malaysian
Peace Organization's monumental effort to criminalize war, to show the horrors
of the treatment of innocent individuals during the war against and occupation
of Iraq by the militaries and their corporate contractors of Britain, Israel, and
the United States. Thank you for standing up to huge international
economic forces trying to dominate your country and showing an impressionable
woman like me that it is possible to stand up to "the big boys" and
win. And thank you for your efforts to bring war criminal, torturer,
decimator of the United States Constitution, the George W. Bush Administration,
to justice in international litigation.
Delegates and participants, I must declare that at a time when scientists agree
that the climate of the earth is changing in unpredictable and possibly
calamitous ways, such that the future of humankind hangs in the balance, it is
unconscionable that we have to dedicate this time to and focus our energies on
policies that represent a blatant and utter disregard for human rights and
self-determination and that represent in many respects, a denial of human life,
itself.
"Palestine is the place
that the Universal Declaration forgot."
In the same year as Palestinians endured a series of massacres and expulsions, the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights became international law. And while
the United Nations is proud that the Declaration was flown into Outer Space
just a few days ago on the Space Shuttle, if one were to read it and then land
in the Middle East, I think it would be clear that Palestine is the place that
the Universal Declaration forgot.
Sadly, both the spirit of the Universal Declaration for Human Rights and the
noblest ideals of the United Nations are broken. This has occurred in
large measure due to policies that emanate from Washington, D.C. If we
want to change those policies, and I do believe that we can, then we have to
change the underlying values of those who become Washington's policy
makers. In other words, we must launch the necessary movement that puts
people in office who share our values.
We need to do this now more than ever because, sadly, Palestine is not
Washington's only victim. Enshrined in the Universal Declaration is the
dignity of humankind and the responsibility of states to protect that
dignity. Yet, the underlying contradictions between its words and what
has become standard international practice lay exposed to the world this year
when then-United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour
proclaimed:
"In the course of this year, unprecedented efforts must be made to ensure
that every person in the world can rely on just laws for his or her protection.
In advancing all human rights for all, we will move towards the greatest
fulfillment of human potential, a promise which is at the heart of the
Universal Declaration."
How insulting it was to hear those words coming from her, for those of us who
know, because it was she who, as Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal
Tribunal for Rwanda, willfully participated in the cover-up of an act of terror
that resulted in the assassination of two democratically-elected Presidents and
that unleashed a torrent of murder and bloodletting in which one million souls
were vanquished. That sad episode in human history has become known as
the Rwanda Genocide. And shockingly, after the cover-up, Louise Arbour
was rewarded with the highest position on the planet, in charge of Human
Rights.
"Palestine is not
Washington's only victim."
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said that justice delayed is justice
denied. And 60 years is too long to wait for justice.
The Palestinian people deserve respected self-determination,
protected human rights, justice, and above all, peace.
On the night before his murder, Dr. King announced that he was happy to be
living at the end of the 20th Century where, all over the world, men and women
were struggling to be free.
Today, we can touch and feel the results of those cries, on the African
Continent where apartheid no longer exists as a fact of law. A concerted,
uncompromising domestic and international effort led to its demise.
And in Latin America, the shackles of U.S. domination have been broken.
In a series of unprecedented peaceful, people-powered revolutions, voters in
Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and most
recently Paraguay used the power of the political process to materially change
their countries' leadership and policy orientation toward the United
States. Americans, accustomed to the Monroe Doctrine which proclaimed
U.S. suzerainty over all politics in the Western Hemisphere, must now think the
unthinkable given what has occurred in the last decade.
Voters in Cote d'Ivoire, Haiti, Spain, and India also took matters clearly in
their hands to make "a clean break" from policies that were an
affront to the interests of the majority of the people in those countries.
In country after country, against tremendous odds, people stood up and took
their fates in their hands. They did what Mario Savio, in the 1960s,
asked people in the United States to do. These people-powered, peaceful
revolutions saw individuals put their bodies against the levers and the gears
and the wheels of the U.S. imperial machine and they said to the owners if you
don't stop it, we will. And I know that people of conscience inside my
country can do it, too: especially now that the engines of imperial
oppression are running out of gas.
Even though the Democratic Party, at the Convention that nominated Barack
Obama, denied its microphone to Former President Jimmy Carter because of his
views on Palestine, let me make it clear that Former President Carter is not
the only person inside the United States who believes that peace with justice
is possible in Palestine.
Inside the United States, millions who are not of Arab descent, disagree
vehemently with the policy of our government to provide the military and
civilian hardware that snuffs out innocent human life that is also Arab.
"The Convention that
nominated Barack Obama denied its microphone to Former President Jimmy Carter
because of his views on Palestine."
Millions of Americans do not pray to Allah, but recognize that it is an
inalienable right of those who do to live and pray in peace wherever they
are--including inside the United States.
Even though their opportunities are severely limited, there are millions of
people inside the United States struggling to express themselves on all of
these issues, but whose efforts are stymied by a political process that robs
them of any opportunity to be heard.
And then there are the former elected officials who spoke out for what was
right, for universal application of the Universal Declaration, and who were
roundly condemned and put out of office as a result. My father is one
such politician, punished-kicked out of office--because of the views of his
daughter.
In my case, I dared to raise my voice in support of the World Conference
Against Racism and against the sieges of Ramallah, Jenin, and the Church of the
Nativity. I raised my voice against the religious profiling in my country
that targets innocent Muslims and Arabs for harassment, imprisonment, financial
ruin, or worse. Yes, I have felt the sting of the special interests since
my entry onto the national stage when, in my very first Congressional campaign,
I refused to sign a pledge committing that I would vote to maintain the
military superiority of Israel over its neighbors, and that Jerusalem should be
its capital city.
Other commitments were on that pledge as well, like
continued financial assistance to Israel at agreed upon levels.
As a result of my refusal to make such a commitment, and just like the old
slave woman, Sojourner Truth, who bared her back and showed the scars from the
lashes meted out to her by her slave master, I too, bear scars from the lashes
of public humiliation meted out to me by the special interests in Washington,
D.C. because of my refusal to tow the line on Israel policy. This
"line" is the policy accepted by both the Democratic and Republican
Party leadership and why they could cooperate so well to coordinate my ouster
from Congress. But I have survived because I come from the strongest
stock of Africans, stolen then enslaved, and yet my people survived. I
know how to never give up, give in, or give out. And I also know how to
learn a good political lesson. And one lesson I've learned is that the
treatment accorded to me pales in comparison to what Palestinian victims still
living in refugee camps face every day of their lives.
The treatment accorded to me pales in comparison to the fact that human life is
at stake if the just-released International Atomic Energy Agency report is true
when it writes that "The only explanation for the presence of these
modified uranium particles is that they were contained in the missiles dropped
from the Israeli planes." What are the health effects of these
weapons, what role did the U.S. military play in providing them or the
technology that underlies them, why is there such silence on this, and most
fundamentally, what is going on in this part of the world that international
law has forgotten?
"It is possible for us to
do more than vote for a slogan of change, we can actually have it."
Clearly, not only the faces of U.S. politicians must change; we must change
their values, too. We, in the United States, must utilize our votes to
effect the same kind of people-powered change in the United States as has been
done in all those other countries. And now, with more people than ever inside
the United States actually paying attention to politics, this is our moment; we
must seize this time. We must become the leaders we are looking for and
get people who share our values elected to Congress and the White House.
Now, I hope you believe me when I say to you that this is not rocket
science. I have learned politics from its best players. And I say
to you that even with the fallibilities of the U.S. system, it is possible for
us to do more than vote for a slogan of change, we can actually have it. But
if we fail to seize this moment, we will continue to get what we've always been
given: handpicked leaders who don't truly represent us.
With the kind of U.S. weapons that are being used in this part of the world,
from white phosphorus to depleted uranium, from cluster bombs to bunker busting
bombs, nothing less than the soul of my country is at stake. But for the
world, it is the fate of humankind that is at stake.
The people in my country just invested their hopes for a better world and a
better government in their votes for President-elect Obama. However,
during an unprecedented two year Presidential campaign, the exact kind of
change we are to get was never fully defined. Therefore, we the people of
the United States must act now with boldness and confidence. We can set
the stage for the kind of change that reflects our values.
"What I am recommending is the creation of a political
movement inside my country that will constitute a surgical strike for global
justice."
Now is not the time for timidity. The U.S. economy is in shambles,
unemployment and health insecurity are soaring, half of our young people do not
even graduate from high school; college is unaffordable. The middle class
that was invested in the stock market is seeing their life savings stripped
from them by the hour. What we are witnessing is the pauperization of a
country, in much the same way that Russia was pauperized after the fall of the
Soviet Union. There are clear winners and the losers all know who they are.
The attentive public in the United States is growing because of these
conditions. Now is the time for our values to rise because people in the
United States are now willing to listen.