Colonization of the Mind: Normalize This!
By Samah Sabawi | Palestine Chronicle | March 18, 2012
(Full Transcript. Excerpts from this speech were presented at the University of Sydney Australia during Israeli Apartheid Week 2012.)
I would like to talk about normalization. I found the best definition of the word normalization on the Palestinian Campaign for Cultural and Academic Boycott’s website:
“Normalization is the colonization of the mind, whereby the oppressed subject comes to believe that the oppressor’s reality is the only “normal” reality that must be subscribed to, and that the oppression is a fact of life that must be coped with.”
So projects that constitute normalization are not about freedom, justice or liberation, but about numbing our minds to the horror of the occupation, so we accept it as normal, as permanent, as an unchangeable fixed reality!
A typical normalization project brings Palestinians and Israelis together to talk about acceptance of one another to reduce the ‘hate’ that drives the conflict! But without taking action of any sort to change the environment that creates the animosity. As if Palestinian resistance is driven by emotions of hate not acts of oppression, by irrational anger and not dispossession, by senseless loathing and not acts of ethnic cleansing!
Advocates for normalization would have us believe that their so-called joint peace initiatives are the defining test, to tell the difference between a moderate and a terrorist. A moderate would engage, cooperate, reconcile and co-exist but never directly challenges the oppression. A moderate would learn to live with the status quo and cope with it. Anyone who rejects the status quo and takes action to change it is not interested in peace, is hateful, is a radical and is a terrorist. And for as long as these labels are waved around they hope that people would be intimidated into acquiescence.
An important feature of “normalization” projects is providing the illusion of symmetry, pushing the idea that Palestinians and Israelis share equal responsibility and claiming that both people have been locked into this age old struggle. They try hard to convince you that both people just have two different narratives, reducing the facts to fiction and the reality to storytelling, insisting that if we hear both narratives then we’ll come to agree that the truth lies somewhere out there, in an abstract world, perhaps in a third version that is yet to be told.
And like old people sitting around swapping tall tales over bitter Turkish coffee to pass the time in a place where no one cares about truth or consequence, we the Palestinians are encouraged to sit with Israelis and listen to their narratives while they listen to our narrative and that is the end of that! They go back to their vibrant cities that once carried Arabic names, and we go back behind the walls where nothing changes but the fact that our Bantustans keep on getting smaller with every passing day!
Subscribing to this idea of ‘narrative’ requires that we erase our collective memory and close our eyes to our present reality. It requires that we forget history, forget dates, numbers, UN documents, human rights reports, sights of destroyed villages, camps filled with the internally displaced and camps filled with the refugees from 1948. It requires that we forget all concrete evidence because it all comes down to story telling and narratives.
And while they talk of some looming existential threat we are supposed to forget that it is Palestine that has been wiped off the map and that Palestinians are the ones who are fighting everyday for their right to simply exist on their land.
I guess they hope that it would take a few sessions of narrative swapping to finally make us see the necessity of firing a gas canister into the face of an unarmed protestor. Or that it would take a few football games with house broken Palestinian players paraded in a field to finally make us appreciate why one-ton bombs must be dropped on refugees in Gaza. And maybe if we were to spend a summer camp together getting to know one another, we will finally see the light and apologize for not quietly moving out of their way when they took our homes and tore down our villages.
The message conveyed in normalization projects is consistent: We the Israelis have to do what we need to do because YOU MAKE US DO IT and the only way we might slow down (not stop) is if we feel that you like us and if you make us feel secure enough. Now if you choose to be good Palestinians, join in these initiatives and stop this resistance nonsense, maybe then, we will bring you into the house of moderates where you may not eat with us in the dining room, but at least we’ll take you in from the cold and let you sit on the kitchen floor where it is safe and warm.
So this is how they try to colonize our minds and force us to accept the inequality. Expecting us to exchange our freedom for breadcrumbs and to reduce our existence to coping with this deformed reality.
And while they live in their high towers in narrative land do they not see us marching through our fields where the olive trees that were planted by our ancestors have been ripped from the earth with their hands. Their severed roots reaching out like amputated limps, life seeping away through their tips, reeking of broken hopes and dreams. If they could just STOP the rattling of their bulldozers for just one minute they may actually finally hear that heartbreaking sound the earth makes when it weeps beneath their feet.
If they could hold their fire, turn off their tank engines and lower their guns, they may finally hear our voices. We have been chanting loud and clear! We have told them you are welcome to come and co-resist with us to bring down this ugly system of domination. We have said to them if you want to get to know us, then come and march with us against the wall. Come and stand with us against the bulldozers. Visit us in our prisons. Shelter us from the stones your Jewish settlers throw at our children.
We have said it loud and clear: We will not co-exist with you in your world of inequality. If you want to co-exist with us, you are welcome to join us in our struggle for freedom, because right now, this is the only place where we exist!
We see through their attempts to whitewash the oppression. No hasbara video they will EVER create about their supposedly gay loving and democratic state will alter the reality that every Palestinian family has experienced; arbitrary detentions, torture in their prisons and house evictions and demolitions.
And no sleek brand Israel campaign will ever explain why a woman in Jerusalem has fallen to her knees, broken on the sidewalk, with bits and pieces of her life scattered on the pavement as Jewish settlers look through the windows of what was once her home.
There is nothing normal about this! There is nothing normal about any of it!
There is nothing normal about sentencing nine year olds in military courts. There is nothing normal about forcing pregnant women to have babies at checkpoints. There is nothing normal about the imprisonment of a million and a half people in Gaza, then bombing them at will knowing they have no place to run and no place to hide. There is nothing normal about nailing shut the front doors of houses in Hebron forcing entire families to jump from rooftop to rooftop to go to their schools and work. There is nothing normal about stealing our water then forcing us to buy it back in drops. There is nothing normal about making Palestinians pay for the gasoline the Israeli bulldozers have used when they demolished their house. Above all, there is nothing normal about their expectation that with enough brutality we will give up.
So how about they normalize THIS: We will continue to resist! Their checkpoints have made us cherish our freedom. Their bombs have made us resilient to fear. Their bullets have made us embrace non-violence. Their hypocrisy has made us love the truth. Their tyranny has made us stronger. Their apartheid wall has forced us to stand so tall, so tall, we can see the whole world, and the whole world can see us. While they hide behind their piles of concrete and lies.
So let these walls they have built confine them! Let the word ‘apartheid’ define them! And when they ask you where you stand on normalization, join us and say that you stand with those who have stood their ground, shouting into the barrels of their guns, ‘you may have occupied our villages and towns, but you will never colonize our minds’.
They will never colonize our minds!
Thank you!
– Samah Sabawi is a Palestinian writer and is Public Advocate for Australians for Palestine.
Related articles
- Anti-Zionism in the 21st Century (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- A Palestinian Christian response to Michael Oren (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Jerusalem; A Cry for Support, A Cry for Justice (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Response to Scheindlin: Erasing Palestinian history (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Palestinians in Israel – Book Review (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- New Pappe book highlights plight of forgotten Palestinians (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Israeli Scholar Disputes Founding Myth (alethonews.wordpress.com)
Share this:
Related
March 19, 2012 - Posted by aletho | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | Israel, Palestine
5 Comments »
Leave a comment Cancel reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Featured Video
The Anglo-American War on Russia – Part XV (Russia Defeats NATO)
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
Barbara Marx Hubbard: Godmother of Transhumanism and Synthetic Spirituality
The late Barbara Hubbard, a Rockefeller-funded New Age guru, was critical to the development of the ideas, beliefs and technology necessary to market transhumanism as spiritual enlightenment.
BY JOHN KLYCZEK |
UNLIMITED HANGOUT| MAY 19, 2022
In 2016, the Global Future Councils of the World Economic Forum (WEF) posted a video entitled “8 Predictions for the World in 2030,” which infamously forecasted a technocratic New World Order in which “[y]ou’ll own nothing. And you’ll be happy.” It doesn’t take a stretch of the imagination to ponder how WEF oligarchs plan to roll out “sustainable development” policies which will ration consumer goods in a global “sharing economy” that employs transient “gig” workers who will be rendered into propertyless serfs under a techno-communitarian rendition of neo-feudalism. But how will the globalist technocrats of the WEF sway the virtual peasant class to be happy with their permanent state of digitally indentured servitude? … continue
Blog Roll
-
Join 2,758 other subscribers
Visits Since December 2009
- 6,718,753 hits
Looking for something?
Archives
Calendar
Categories
Aletho News Civil Liberties Corruption Deception Economics Environmentalism Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism Fake News False Flag Terrorism Full Spectrum Dominance Illegal Occupation Mainstream Media, Warmongering Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity Militarism Progressive Hypocrite Russophobia Science and Pseudo-Science Solidarity and Activism Subjugation - Torture Supremacism, Social Darwinism Timeless or most popular Video War Crimes Wars for IsraelTags
9/11 Afghanistan Africa al-Qaeda Australia BBC Benjamin Netanyahu Brazil Canada CDC Central Intelligence Agency China CIA CNN Colombia Covid-19 COVID-19 Vaccine Da’esh Donald Trump Egypt European Union Facebook FBI FDA France Gaza Germany Google Hamas Hebron Hezbollah Hillary Clinton Human rights India Iran Iraq ISIS Israel Israeli settlement Japan Jerusalem Joe Biden Korea Latin America Lebanon Libya Middle East National Security Agency NATO New York Times North Korea NSA Obama Pakistan Palestine Qatar Russia Sanctions against Iran Saudi Arabia Syria The Guardian Turkey Twitter UAE UK Ukraine United Nations United States USA Venezuela Washington Post West Bank WHO Yemen ZionismRecent Comments
roberthstiver on China calls for ‘international… roberthstiver on Hamas calls on 18 countries si… roberthstiver on Neglect, abuse, harassment: Th… papasha408 on US lawmakers want to deploy ‘a… Dennis Wilson on US lawmakers want to deploy ‘a… Victor G. on US campus crackdown: 500 pro-P… roberthstiver on American Foreign Policy Seems… peterjohnarnold on UK APPROVED ARMS FOR ISRAEL DA… peterjohnarnold on Daughter of martyr Al-Areer ma… eddieb on US created Ukraine conflict –… rediscover911com on Blinken threatens China over R… rediscover911com on Rumble Defies Global Censorshi…
Aletho News
- China calls for ‘international investigation’ into Nord Stream attack
- Neglect, abuse, harassment: The West is ignoring the fate of Palestinians stuck in Israeli jails
- Hamas calls on 18 countries signing hostage release initiative to expose Israel’s crimes
- Colombia University panel slams president for suppressing pro-Gaza protests
- US lawmakers want to deploy ‘anti-Semitism monitors’ at colleges
- Supporters of the racist ideology of Zionism operating inside the UK civil service
- French Government Agents Likely Killed in Russia’s January Strike on Kharkov – Ex-Intel Officer
- UK blocked Ukraine peace deal – Moscow
- The Anglo-American War on Russia – Part XV (Russia Defeats NATO)
- Suicidal Society
If Americans Knew
- Manipulation Politics: Israeli Gaslighting in the United States
- ‘Our Future Was Here’: Christians in Gaza
- Final count: bodies of 392 Gazan Palestinians discovered in mass graves – Day 202
- A statistic 1,000 times too small doesn’t warrant a correction in the NY Times
- Biden announces: $26B in US tax money to Israel will “make the world safer” – Day 201
- Three days under fire: Palestinians in Tulkarem describe the ‘most violent’ Israeli raid in years
- US Congress just approved billions more in military aid to Israel, as Gazans die – Day 200
- ‘Nowhere is safe’: Fear and mourning inside the West Bank villages where Israeli settlers went on the rampage
- US Senator Incites Violence Against Gaza Protesters
- Israel Is Turning Hospitals Into Mass Graves While The West Fixates On ‘Antisemitism’
Richie Allen
- The Richie Allen Show Returns Tomorrow Wednesday April 24th
- Call Richie Today Monday March 11th From 4.30pm
- Connect To The Richie Allen Show WhatsApp Today
- NHS Asks Patients To Choose From 12 Genders, 10 sexual Preferences & 159 Religions
- The Richie Allen Show Moves To A New Time Slot From Monday Nov 20th
- Starmer Will Sack Shadow Ministers Who Vote For Gaza Ceasefire
- AI Tool Can Predict Heart Attacks Years In Advance
- Nepal Bans TikTok To Preserve Social Harmony
- Bloke Appointed Boss Of Womb Health Charity
- WHO – “Gaza’s Biggest Hospital Becoming A Cemetery”
No Tricks Zone
- Nature Publication: Researchers Find Arctic Region 10,000 Years Ago Warmer Than Today
- New Study: A Warmer London Has Reduced The Winter Death Toll By 447 Per Year Since 1976
- “New Ice Age Has Begun,” Astrophysicist Warns…Due To Reduced Solar Activity
- 3 Physicists Use Experimental Evidence To Show CO2’s Capacity To Absorb Radiation Has Saturated
- Winter Weather Slams Into Large Parts Of Europe…Madrid Spain Sees Snow!
- New Study Unveils Global Warming’s 65-Year-Old ‘Evaporation Paradox’ Problem
- Rise And Fall Of The German Economy… Energy Debacle Leading To Economic Meltdown
- Antarctica Is Colder, Icier Now Than Any Time In 5000 Years. The Last Warm Period Was 1000 Years Ago.
- Comprehensive Russian Temperature Reconstruction Shows Warmer Temperatures 1000 Years Ago!
- Germany Electric Car Sales Plummet 30% As Country Floats Idea Of Weekend Driving Ban!
More Links
Contact:
atheonews (at) gmail.com
Disclaimer
This site is provided as a research and reference tool. Although we make every reasonable effort to ensure that the information and data provided at this site are useful, accurate, and current, we cannot guarantee that the information and data provided here will be error-free. By using this site, you assume all responsibility for and risk arising from your use of and reliance upon the contents of this site.
This site and the information available through it do not, and are not intended to constitute legal advice. Should you require legal advice, you should consult your own attorney.
Nothing within this site or linked to by this site constitutes investment advice or medical advice.
Materials accessible from or added to this site by third parties, such as comments posted, are strictly the responsibility of the third party who added such materials or made them accessible and we neither endorse nor undertake to control, monitor, edit or assume responsibility for any such third-party material.
The posting of stories, commentaries, reports, documents and links (embedded or otherwise) on this site does not in any way, shape or form, implied or otherwise, necessarily express or suggest endorsement or support of any of such posted material or parts therein.
The word “alleged” is deemed to occur before the word “fraud.” Since the rule of law still applies. To peasants, at least.
Fair Use
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more info go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
DMCA Contact
This is information for anyone that wishes to challenge our “fair use” of copyrighted material.
If you are a legal copyright holder or a designated agent for such and you believe that content residing on or accessible through our website infringes a copyright and falls outside the boundaries of “Fair Use”, please send a notice of infringement by contacting atheonews@gmail.com.
We will respond and take necessary action immediately.
If notice is given of an alleged copyright violation we will act expeditiously to remove or disable access to the material(s) in question.
All 3rd party material posted on this website is copyright the respective owners / authors. Aletho News makes no claim of copyright on such material.
[…] Samah Sabawi, Colonization of the Mind: Normalize This! (2) Interfaith Peace Initiative. (3) Mark Dreyfus Speech to Zionist Council of […]
LikeLike
Pingback by Stamping Impunity on Israel’s War Crimes | Palestine Chronicle | June 25, 2013 |
[…] 1. Samah Sabawi, Colonization of the Mind: Normalize This! https://alethonews.wordpress.com/2012/03/19/colonization-of-the-mind-normalize-this/ […]
LikeLike
Pingback by Stamping Impunity On Israel’s War Crimes | aguidetostamps.com | June 25, 2013 |
[…] 1. Samah Sabawi, Colonization of the Mind: Normalize This! https://alethonews.wordpress.com/2012/03/19/colonization-of-the-mind-normalize-this/ […]
LikeLike
Pingback by Stamping Impunity On Israel’s War Crimes | Ramy Abdeljabbar's Palestine and World News | June 25, 2013 |
[…] Samah Sabawi, Colonization of the Mind: Normalize This! (2) Interfaith Peace Initiative. (3) Mark Dreyfus Speech to Zionist Council of […]
LikeLike
Pingback by Stamping Impunity on Israel’s War Crimes | Palestine Chronicle | Ramy Abdeljabbar's Palestine and World News | June 26, 2013 |
[…] “So projects that constitute normalization are not about freedom, justice or liberation, but about numbing our minds to the horror of the occupation, so we accept it as normal, as permanent, as an unchangeable fixed reality”! (From https://alethonews.wordpress.com/2012/03/19/colonization-of-the-mind-normalize-this/) […]
LikeLike
Pingback by VLAZNA: Stamping impunity on Israel’s war crimes 27Jun13 | Australians for Palestine | June 26, 2013 |