2007-03-24
Palestine: No wars – no Walls
In the first week of June the bosses of the 8 economically most powerful nations of the world will meet for a nice cup of tea in the German resort of Heiligendamm, close to Rostock. To guarantee the security of the cosy meeting, the place will be surrounded by a security fence 2 ½ meters high, 1 meter deep into the ground, and 13 kilometers long, using 12.5 million Euros worth of barbed wire and cement.
Just like the rich in the metropolises of the world, like the exploiting North against the exploited South, like the US-occupant in Baghdad, like the Israeli occupation in Palestine – in the era of neoliberal capitalism, oppression needs walls and fences, racist laws and ethnic cleansing, discourses of exclusion and “clashes of civilizations” in order to defend itself.
To control the key resource, oil, the issue of strategic control is essential in Palestine as in the whole region. A region of puppet regimes – considered as the “moderates” – is emerging who are willing to do the dirty business of oppressing their peoples. This is what the project of a “Greater Middle East” is all about. Like any other colonial project, it considers tribal and religious identity as essential, it relies on separation, racism, and the alleged incompatibility of cultures. It builds ideological walls and walls of concrete, in Palestine a wall that separates farmers from their olive groves, students from school and university, workers from their jobs – a wall that doesn’t serve anybody’s security, but is rather designed for landgrab and making people homeless.
G8, walls, wars and exclusions go together. That is why thousands from the region, from all over Germany, Europe, Israel, and Palestine will come to Rostock to protest against the meeting of those who rule the world without being legitimized:
The participants of the summit will land in Rostock-Laage. This airport is partly used by the military, partly for civil purposes. It has become the most important miltary air base in Northern Europe and will be further enlarged as a central military base. It serves as an airfield not just for cheap tourist flights but also for Eurofighters. These are of essential significance for the German military as well as for the NATO Response Force, in other words for international military interventions. As in the case of this airport, as in the case of the summit talks and in general, when strategies of global power are being dealt with, civil matters and military matters merge and become indiscernible from each other. The political and social spheres are penetrated by and subordinated to the demands of a vague and all-encompassing idea of “security“ – the security of the few against the many. Wars are no longer being fought between armies, but they are fought – without being declared – against civil populations and stay as bloody occupations – in Palestine for the last 40 years. Civilians, sovereign states, territories, international accords and human rights are overrun and bombarded, as in Iraq, in Lebanon, in Afghanistan, in Palestine.
Zones excluded from any rule of law, torture centres, prisoners’ camps are everywhere, even in the wealthy regions of the world. Enjoying the most basic rights has become a privilege, that is being defended fiercely, just as prosperity, security and the access to resources is being defended fiercely against those “outsourced” by global neoliberal economy.
The „War against Terror“, explicitly declared as a never ending, pre-emptive global war, aims at pushing and securing the interests of global players. It is waged in many ways: as annihilation of civil rights and extension of the surveillance state, as undermining of the right of asylum and the right of residence, as fortification of the islands of prosperity, as export of democracy and human rights – actually impeding self rule and undermining human rights. If juridical, diplomatic, and political manipulations don’t work, or if those aimed at dare to resist – it is the sheer violence of war and torture that is being used against them. This happens in Palestine and in different forms and degrees in many places all over the world.
The orchestra of global imperial rule needs regular tuning — that’s what the G8 summits are all about. And that’s what our resistance is about, as part of the global resistance and protest movements
- on 2/6, against war and racist segregations
- on 5/6, against the military component of neo-liberal globalization – in Palestine and everywhere
Palästina – Solidarität gegen G-8 Palestine – Solidarity against G8
Palestine – solidarité contre G-8
Contact: nowars-nowalls@so36.net
Websites: www.g8andwar.de
www.heiligendamm2007.de
www.gipfelsoli.org
www.dissentnetwork.org
http://g8-2007.de
http://antig8.tk
www.g8-germany.info
www.attac.de/g8
v.i.S.d.P.: Rachel Corrie, Jerusalemerstr.1, 10117 Berlin
