Why the reluctance to call on President Ali to do the right thing?

Oct 23, 2023 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Peeping Tom…

Kaieteur News – The members of the bourgeois class were out in their numbers on Saturday, as they were the week before, in marching in solidarity with the Palestinian people. The local marches in support of Palestine have been striking for this fact: that it has attracted a fair share of members of the upper-classes that have traditionally shied away from public protests.

The marches, thus far, have attracted multi-racial and multi-class support. Persons of all races and from the working, middle, professional and bourgeois classes have been part of the call for an end to the conflict in Gaza. But to have seen no many rich persons in the marches has been a revealing feature of the protests

The placards that have been lofted and the chants that have rang out during the local marches have also been revealing. Placards have read: ‘Free Palestine’; ‘Palestine You Will Never Walk Alone’; ‘There are No  2 Sides to Genocide’; ‘We are Protesting to Tell the World that Bombing Children is not Okay’; ‘Stand Up for Palestine Against Israel’s War Crimes’; ‘You Will Never Erase Palestine’; ‘It is not war if only one side has an army’; ‘Save Palestine; Stop the Genocide in Gaza’;  ‘Free Palestine; We Stand with Gaza’; ‘The Oppressor may sleep but the Oppressed is Awake at Nights calling on the One who never sleeps!’; ‘None of us is free until Palestine is free’; “We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of Palestine” – Nelson Mandela; ‘Free Palestine: End the siege of Gaza’; ‘If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor’; ‘The Zionist argument to justify Israel’s present occupation of Arab Palestine  has no intelligent or legal basis in history – Malcolm X’.

The placards and chants clearly acknowledge that genocide is  being committed; there is a plan afoot to exterminate Palestinians, innocent children are being killed, and that Arab Palestine is under occupation and the occupying force has no legal or moral standing to do so.  None of the placards however have called on President Irfaan Ali to sever diplomatic relations with the State of Israel.

That call was first made in this column, echoed by former President Donald Ramotar, and repeated by a social activist. Yet, despite the ongoing atrocities committed against innocent Palestinians, including the indiscriminate bombings of their homes, hospitals and now places of worship, the local marches are not demanding that President Ali breaks off diplomatic relations with a state that is committing genocide, is an occupying force in Arab Palestine and practices apartheid against the Palestinians.

How does one reconcile the acknowledgement of atrocities by Israel, including genocide, the indiscriminate killing of children, the characterization of Palestinians as animals, and the siege of Gaza which denied people food, medicine, fuel, and water, with the failure to call for the breaking-off of diplomatic relations with Israel? It is the least which can and should be done.

But to make such a call means to direct it to President Irfaan Ali. And the bourgeois class is not predisposed towards making such a call to the President.

The bourgeois class is not alone in this regard. Red House recently hosted an event and passed a resolution in solidarity with Palestine. The resolution made several demands but fell woefully short of calling on President Ali to immediately sever relations with the State of Israel.

It should be noted that Guyana, under Burnham, did for a short period in 1974 break off diplomatic relations with Israel. Cuba, in solidarity with the Palestinians also broke off diplomatic relations with Israel. Venezuela once had diplomatic relations with Israel but have since severed those relations. At least twenty-eight members of the United Nations do not have diplomatic relations with Isarel. Indonesia has no diplomatic relations with Israel although there is some trade between the two countries.

There is no reason why President Ali should have problems in breaking-off diplomatic relations with the State of Israel. Severing relations with Israel does not imply that commercial and other relations with companies and individuals must be broken-off. A distinction can be made between a government and its citizens and companies. Guyana can maintain relations with Israeli companies while severing relations with the State of Israel.

Next week’s anticipated protests should therefore be taken to the Office of the President with a clear call for Guyana to sever relations with Israel. If the protestors, including the bourgeois elements within the protestors, do not wish to do this, then the protests in solidarity with Palestine will be reduced to nothing more than copycatting the other protests in other countries of the world.

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• Guyana, Malcolm X’, Palestinians as animals, President Donald Ramotar, President Irfaan Ali, We are Protesting to Tell the World that Bombing Children is not Okay’

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