The weekend edition of SR, normally published on Thursday, will be online on Friday. It will include an essay by Sophie Cooke on what it means to be a Scottish writer
John Milne
I would like to see some indication from the politicians, on both sides of the argument, that their intention is to encourage vigorous public debate on the subject of independence, the current lack of informed debate being astonishing.
It is as if the politicians do not believe the subjects have any role to play other than putting a cross in the box when the time comes. However the real onus lies with the SNP, the promoters of such profound constitutional change, to demonstrate that it takes the ‘sovereignty of the people seriously’. Otherwise we can only assume that the lack of such encourage-ment is based on a hope within the SNP that we will drift visionless and with nothing more than a vague sense of grievance into independence.
The response to this accusation, which I had made originally in the press, was that the SNP had published ‘Your Scotland, Your Voice’ in 2009. This seemed barely adequate.
To be more specific I am intrigued by the question as to how the lay citizens of Scotland are to know upon which of the conflicting assessments of the economics of independence can they safely base their referendum vote.
There is only one solution to that conundrum and that is for there to be an objective evaluation carried out by a team of internationally respected and independent economists. There are of course two problems with this suggestion, these being that there may well be no such being as a totally objective economist and secondly the epigram, ‘two economists, three opinions.’
If I am therefore judged to be unrealistic, or even naive, in suggesting this way forward I would point out that at the very least such an exercise would serve to identify and seek to explain those significant areas of economic risk and potential benefit about which it may be difficult, even with the best will in the world, to reach a consensus.
I would be prepared to make a modest financial contribution to the costs of such an initial economic evaluation/risk assessment/cost benefit analysis, call it what you will, and I cannot be alone in that. Scottish civil society surely has the wherewithal including I hope the will to get this project under way.
Once at least an attempt has been made to address the economic arguments for and against independence, we can then move on to the much more important non-materialistic elements of the independence debate such as the synergistic values of a ‘United Kingdom’ and furthermore the extent to which the outside world, especially the English, recognises and values them.
We, the people, must be sufficiently informed to enable us to take this important debate out of the hands of politicians and the cybernats. If we are not to be so empowered I suggest that a mass abstention in the referendum vote would not only be justifiable, it would indeed be our duty assuming that is there is not a voting option along the lines of ‘not enough information to enable me to make up my mind’.
But to finish on a more positive note, I suggest that we the citizens have been presented with an opportunity to assert our sovereignty and to play a leading role in the maturation of our democracy whether within or outwith a ‘United Kingdom’.
John Milne
Today’s banner
Photograph by
Islay McLeod
In the land
of the
broken butterfly
Makluba: Part 2
Joanne McNally
In 1988 I lived in Kreuzberg next to the Berlin Wall. I know about divided cities and countries and the impact of a wall: the endless waiting; the endless questions by border guards; the endless suspicions; and the monitoring and spying.
The Israeli wall is a barrier to peace and reconciliation, as well as being a massive eyesore in the landscape. It is a retrograde step, and one which has been condemned by the International Court of Justice which has declared that it be demolished (9 July 2004). But the Israelis notoriously take no notice of international judgments or declarations; instead they have continued to build the wall and confiscated more lands in the process. Yet, this is ultimately a strategy of self-destruction – echoed even by Mofaz, former Israeli defence minister, in 2003 – but which fell on deaf ears.
The Israelis are ghettoising themselves. This is also Kafkaesque. The word ‘Ghetto’ has even been stensiled onto the wall at intervals between Ramallah and Jericho.
But it is not just the wall which thwarts forward movement, it is also the hills. These hills used to be valuable pasture land for Palestinians over centuries. However, most hilltops – even those within the Palestinian occupied territories – have now been occupied either by Israeli settlements and settlement outposts or by military camps which prevent Palestinians from freely grazing their livestock as they did in the past or from using and enjoying the land in general. And Israeli settlements and military bases in the West Bank have now increased to 470 with over 517,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank.
The hills have become threatening places – hawks in the shape of settlers now have possession of them and circle and pick off their prey as and when it suits. And the Israeli army or border police do little to protect the Palestinians in spite of their obligations as an occupying power under the Geneva Convention.
A glance at Jerusalem from a Palestinian perspective throws much light on the makluba. Since the 1967 war, East Jerusalem along with lands of and from 28 West Bank localities have been annexed to Israel and its expansion plans of a ‘greater’ Jerusalem (and ‘Greater Israel’), thus denying almost 240,000 people their political and historical rights: they are considered residents in these Israelised lands but not citizens. They are denied even the most basic use of their own lands and houses – in east Jerusalem, zone C (areas under full security and administration of the Israelis) Palestinians are not allowed to extend or heighten a wall on their own property without threats of house demolition or high inflated fines and legal expenses.
The Israelis’ technical, administrative, military and legal measures are the only ones that count. They keep the Palestinians of Jerusalem and beyond in an ever tightening grip of siege and deny them natural and legitimate growth in their own lands. Such a grip includes the severing of services to Palestinian residential areas and the sealing of east Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank and Gaza Strip; and arbitrary denial of re-entry of residents and confiscation of ID cards – a kind of administrative deportation.
And what about the children? And the children’s children? A child’s piece of artwork in an orphanage at Gaza symbolises the real situation for the Palestinian children. It is a butterfly which is exuding natural beauty.
Yaakov Salman (deputy military governor of Jerusalem during the first days after the 1967 war) declared a few years ago that Israel annexed ‘too much, too fast, and without profound thought’. During those frantic land-grabbing days, east Jerusalem, including the Old City and Qalandiya, Shu’fat and Silwan were also annexed in total to the enlarged city, also the villages of Al Eisawiya, At Tur, Beit Haninah, Sur Baher and Um Toba.
The Master Plan has meant that much land since 1967 has either been taken for Jewish settlements or is used as reserve land for their future settlements. The 2002 ‘Jerusalem Statistical Yearbook’ stated that ‘the Arab 34% of Jerusalem live in only 18% of Jerusalem houses’. The Old City, east Jerusalem neighbourhoods and Silwan have zero room for growth; the remaining lands of the villages of Lifta and Al Malha were confiscated and declared unusable thus leaving their Palestinian landlords who live in neighbouring villages and refugee camps, with 0% of their original lands. (Abdelrazek and Tafakji, 2004). And yet east Jerusalem is to be the capital of a Palestinian state.
And what about the children? And the children’s children? A child’s piece of artwork in an orphanage at Gaza symbolises the real situation for the Palestinian children. It is a butterfly which is exuding natural beauty. It is vividly colourful with intricate patterning. But, the butterfly is made of glass, and the glass is broken. If we look, and really want to look closely at the Palestinian children and understand their situation, we perceive butterflies with broken wings on fragmented mosaics of ever-decreasing pasture.
Shortly after seeing the broken butterfly, I visited the Samouni family in an area just outside Gaza city. They are an extended family living close to each other in a residential area which was reliant upon agriculture and on small holdings, including chicken farms and factories before the recent war (people in Gaza do not speak of war but rather ‘massacre’ as it was not a war of equality of arms). In 2009, their livelihoods were flattened into the ground and have still not been rebuilt. But most shocking of all is the sight and history of a large empty piece of land.
A residential building stood on this site in January 2009 until the Israelis rounded up members of the extended Samouni family, locked them up inside and then threw bombs into the building killing 40 members. Surviving children were eager to come and meet me and talk, and within five minutes I was surrounded by about 15. We did not discuss the war, instead we talked about the songs and English words they knew, and they took great pleasure in photographing one another with my camera. Nevertheless, they were keen to point out, and have me watch, a teenager as he walked up the road. And in case I had not noticed, they gesticulated that he was also one of the walking wounded. He had lost his arm in the massacre.
And the devastation caused by the war is still visible everywhere – the gaping voids between buildings where once a residential apartment had stood; the sewage coming up into the streets because of damaged pipes; and the rubbish piling up on street corners. Nevertheless, the loveliness and generosity of the people shines through in spite of the makluba.
Since the Israeli war on Gaza, Palestinians are forbidden to fish or go into waters more than three nautical miles from their own coastline (prior to October 2006 it had been 20 nautical miles).
The Gazans have been harassed and besieged not just by checkpoints on land but also by limitations by sea. Since the Israeli war on Gaza, Palestinians are forbidden to fish or go into waters more than three nautical miles from their own coastline (prior to October 2006 it had been 20 nautical miles). This is Makluba. This is cruel collective punishment. This is deliberately denying Palestinians a relatively cheap staple diet from the sea. And with unemployment now over 45% in Gaza (Michael Jansen, UNRWA) and 25% in the West Bank, what hope is there for the youngsters?
Nearly every Palestinian I encountered had been in prison or a member of their family had, and invariably for ‘security reasons’. This can be ‘administrative detention’ from one to six months which is arbitrary imprisonment without charge, trial or conviction based on ‘secret files’ provided by the Israeli intelligence services. This is the unknown enemy of Palestinian prisoners as they or their lawyers cannot defend them because of the absence of any proof of charge. This is makluba.
Such practice also increased after 9/11. But detention can also mean isolated imprisonment in small and dark cells for long periods (with no maximum for detention) in sections of Israeli jails such as Ber Shaba, Jalboua, Askelon, Al-Ramla, Shata, Kfar Yona. And there is also the sentencing to hard labour for many years in the desert with tents as accommodation and brutal and sadistic overseers.
And ‘security reasons’ can simply be that a child or minor was in the wrong place at the wrong time. As of March 2011, 221 children under 18 years (and 45 aged 12-15) were detained in Israel ‘under appalling conditions’. In 2010, the monthly average number of Palestinian children held in Israeli detention was 304. Since 1967 Israel has detained over 750,000 Palestinians – mainly for political reasons (thus, they are not protected by the Geneva conventions). And Israel can boast to hold one of the longest serving political prisoners in the world: Nael Al-Barghouthi who has already served 33 years. And of the 600 complaints of torture or ill-treatment (filed between 2001-2006) none were properly pursued or investigated. (Passia, March 2011).
Israel appears to use arrest and detention as a political instrument: it is a system for controlling the population. Israel also applies the 2002 Illegal Combatants Act to capture Palestinians engaged in acts of hostility against Israel, which includes membership to ‘terrorist’ organisations. The Palestinians have also become collective victims of the global ‘war on terror’ declared by George W Bush and associates in 2001 and which has caused so much havoc and destruction by maligning and vilifying whole states and peoples. This 2002 act is not applied to the violent attacks by settlers and their fundamentalist groups such as Gush Emunim. This is makluba.
Click here for Part 1
Part 3 of Makluba tomorrow
Joanne McNally is a writer, poet, and independent scholar
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