ships in the night....

So, this is my first experience of an international crisis as a half-committed politico. I got a text message mid-morning last Sunday, urgently calling Sheffield activists to gather at the town-hall at noon to protest against the Israeli boarding - by force - of five aid ships attempting to deliver aid to Gaza. I did have reservations about this - the protests that I've been to in the past (particularly ones pertaining to the Middle East)have proved depressingly simplistic and one-sided, and besides, I've never felt terribly comfortable shouting slogans and waving flags unless I feel that I can defend my position with an intelligent, informed and sceptical interlocuter for at least fifteen minutes afterwards. I went, in the end - even (more or less) observing the fifteen minute silence proposed - perhaps rather ill-advisedly - by the organisers*. Whether this gesture did any good to the world is something that I'd like to explore in the course of this blog.

My first reservation - after the initial shock of the evident brutality used by Israeli forces - was the creeping sense that the outrage being expressed about the course of events was somewhat misplaced. I don't pretend to know a huge amount about the situation in Gaza, but even I'm aware that had an incident such as the violence on the Mavi Marmara taken place on land and been directed at Palestinians, it would have been, if not exactly routine, then certainly not an international news story: in all honestly, probably not much more than a ripple on the back-pages of the Guardian. Even the main speaker at our impromptu protest tacitly acknowledged that when she asked us to get in touch with our local MPs: 'we need to stress that there are British civilians on those boats... of course, *we* care equally about all the suffering, but parliament will do nothing unless it's in the British interest.'** I was quite impressed that she could acknowledge the protectionist impulse, even if by attributing it only to Westminster she rather begged the question of the motivations of most of the people in the crowd. Ultimately, it's an impossible conclusion to avoid: the cause of the furore was not violence, but rather the people against whom the violence was directed.

I'm not convinced that this is a terrible thing, in itself. The organisers of the flotilla had said explicitly that the mission had been arranged to call attention to the blockade, and, at the risk of sounding cynical, it worked. My principal concern is that the focus on the international questions raised leaves issues about the nationalistic tenor of the discussions surrounding Palestine and Israel unanswered. The violence is situated in a debate about the right to national self-determination, which, as far as I can see, doesn't address the central problems that Palestinians - and Israelis - have to deal with on an everyday basis: ie, how to get through a day - a week - a whole life - without going cold or hungry or being shot at. Although a loosening of Israel's stranglehold on the people of Gaza would undoubtedly improve their lives, the discussions posit these problems as something that can be resolved through the framework of national and international politics, rather than national politics being their cause. This is disingenuous: it is hard to imagine that the same bitter disputes would be taking place if we lived in a world where the notions of 'nationality' and 'the nation state' didn't have as much purchase on our psyche as they do at the moment.

That argument, however - convincing though I find it - doesn't really give us much to *do* with the situation as it now stands. It's more of an issue that it's well to be aware of than an incitement to - erm - do nothing. It seems to me that if enough international pressure is applied, then there might be an opportunity to achieve something positive - the lifting or at least the lightening of the blockade - out of a particularly brutish set of circumstances. If this is in part facilated by a wave of popular protests, then it has a double advantage: firstly, it might - and it's a puny and tremulous 'might', because it's *never* very sensible to be optimistic about anything in politics - make the lives of some people who have been shat on from a great height a bit easier. It also might - with the same caveats - draw attention to the fact that popular protest can and will have an effect. And I am coming to the conclusion that anything that lessens the sense of popular impotence in the face of injustice is a good thing. A huge part of that, obviously, is because such an awareness would give injustice in general a slightly less easy ride. But I think I mean something more than that. I have spent most of my life feeling in one way or another weak and impotent. My own experience has taught me that in such circumstances, it's in many ways easier to ignore suffering than it is to confront your own powerlessness to change it. This leads to apathy of a particularly insidious kind: the kind of apathy that is generated by a wilful shutting down of your own powers of empathy, a semi-conscious decision to become even less conscious. Ulitmately, powerlessness and impotence make you feel - make you act - less like a human being. So I suppose, overall, that I'm glad that I did make it to that protest - although next time, I'd prefer it if we could have fifteen minutes of noise rather than fifteen minutes of silence.

*A word to the wise, protesters: A hush descending on a crowd of people can be very effective, but not when there's only about a hundred of you and you weren't being terribly noisy in the first place, in which case, the effect is more one of embarrassed silence than overwhelming moral authority.

**I'm paraphrasing here, so - whoever you are, activist lady - I'm sorry if I've misquoted. In my defence: I thought taking notes at a protest would get me some funny looks, or possibly an accusation of spooking.