Marking the 30th anniversary of The Color Purple‘s release, Alice Walker sat down with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! for a wide-ranging interview.
She talked eloquently about racism. About global violence against women. About Obama’s presidency and the contemporary America in which she lives.
However, perhaps the most striking segment of the interview was when Goodman began probing Walker’s contemporary role as a prominent Middle East peace activist, on her role in bringing Palestinian suffering to light.
This is how Walker begins:
[I]t’s just horrible to see the treatment of the people. I mean, the checkpoints are dreadful. We went through some of them. And the way the Palestinians are treated is so reminiscent of the way black people were treated in the South when I was growing up. And it’s an intolerable situation. And that our country backs this treatment by standing with Israel through thick and thin is just unbearable.
Later in the interview, Walker goes further after being pressed by Goodman on the parallels she often makes between the South and Israel’s occupation:
AMY GOODMAN:You make comparisons to the South. Talk about your growing up and about your family.
ALICE WALKER: Well, my family was a poor farming family, and we lived under absolute segregation. Although, even though, you know, all of the hotels and the motels and the restaurants and the water fountains, all those things were segregated, we didn’t have segregated roads, which you do have in the Occupied Territories, roads that only Jewish settlers can use, and the Palestinians have these little tracks, you know, these little paths, often, you know, obstructed by boulders. And that is how they’re supposed to move around, for the most part. And the unfairness of it is so much like the South. It’s so much like the South of, you know, I don’t know, 50 years ago, really, and actually more brutal, because in Palestine so many more people are wounded, shot, killed, imprisoned. You know, there are thousands of Palestinians in prison virtually for no reason.
Walker’s words are important because they are, in many respects, true. When Walker says that the checkpoints are “dreadful,” and that the way Palestinians are treated reminds her of the way blacks were treated in the Old South, she’s not being bombastic. For the daily humiliation and constriction Palestinians face are intolerable, as the documentary Hard Crossings shows fully.
And when Walker states that thousands of Palestinians are in jail for no reason, she’s close to truth, for Palestinians face life under a military system that utilizes indefinite detention on a regular basis. As Noam Sheizaf of +972 Magazine reports:
At any given moment, hundreds of Palestinians are held by Israel without trial, with no charges filed against them, and without the ability to defend themselves against non-existent charges. In short, they are simply thrown into prison for a period of up to six months, which can be renewed indefinitely.
[…]
Administrative detention exist in other countries, but is considered a unique and exceptional measure, and its implementation usually leads to a vigorous public debate. In the West Bank, it’s routine. Over the years, Israel has held thousands of Palestinians in administrative detention for periods ranging from a few months to several years. Eighty of the Palestinians held under administrative arrest – some 26 percent of the detainees – have been held for six months to one year; another 88 people (about 28.5 percent) from one to two years. Sixteen Palestinians have been in administrative detention continuously for two to four and a half years, and one man has been held for over five years.
And when Walker says that life for the Palestinians is “more brutal” than it was for blacks in the Old South, there is truth in her words, as this recent video of border police ambushing and kicking a young child demonstrates (which is tame in comparison to the many disturbing, graphic videos available).
Now, some may critique Walker for her choosing to focus on Palestinian issues. Some may create false equivalencies or attempt misdirections, noting her focus on Palestinian issues as others in the world suffer – an argument that is an implicit anti-Semitism charge.
Some will bring up the word terrorism – something I know a bit about – justifying Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians on past acts of terror from militant extremists that mainstream Palestinians and Palestinian politicians have denounced. They will bring up the word ignoring the fact that nonviolent protest has become the normative and most powerful force amongst Palestinians today.
There will be those who lob such critiques. However, they will do nothing to change the truth of her words.
One may say, “So what? Who cares what Walker has to say on this issue?”
My answer is this: when a prominent American personality exposes the realities of life for Palestinians – a reality that largely goes unnoticed in the mainstream U.S. media – it’s an important step in changing public opinion on the matter. For Israel is an integral American ally which receives billions of dollars every year, dollars that Americans shell out annually in their taxes.
It’s important for public opinion to change, for only such a shift can change the way in which politicians are forced, for political expediency, to view the issue. And only such a shift can lead to the one force which may be capable of ending Israel’s occupation: real, meaningful American pushback.
Israel’s internal mechanisms cannot stop what is happening on its own. And many progressive Jews, like myself, who still believe in a two-state solution also understand that the occupation may end up leading to Israel’s demise.
And so I celebrate Walker’s efforts. Efforts meant not to demonize, but to revolutionize. Efforts meant to change one of the most inequitable situations that has persisted for too long.
Follow the author on Twitter @David_EHG
Alce Walker also beleives Israel sold be replaced with a palestinian state. What does she really know… really?’
I don’t think the the Back experience including attempts to launch rockets into white neighborhoods. I don’t recall Backs wrapping suicide belts around their bodies and blowing up civilians on buses, in cafes, discos or holiday celebrations
Alice Walker does not realize that the Palestinian leadership does not accept a Jewish state, it only wants to replace it with a Palestinian state.
For such a good writer, she is showing a greta deal of ignorance comparing the Black experience under Jim Crow to the Palestinians experience. Next she will be accusing Israel of being genocidal.
S muhc for her credibility, write down the toilet
“Give me Liberty, or Give me Death!” – Patrick Henry
What a brilliant ruling by the United States Supreme Court on the affordable health care act (Obamacare). Stunningly brilliant in my humble opinion. I could not have ask for a better ruling on a potentially catastrophic healthcare act than We The People Of The United States received from our Supreme Court.
If the court had upheld the constitutionality of the individual mandate under the commerce clause it would have meant the catastrophic loss of the most precious thing we own. Our individual liberty. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Supreme Court.
There is no mandate to buy private for-profit health insurance. There is only a nominal tax on income eligible individuals who don’t have health insurance. This is a HUGE! difference. And I suspect that tax may be subject to constitutional challenge as it ripens.
This is a critically important distinction. Because under the commerce clause individuals would have been compelled to support the most costly, dangerous, unethical, morally repugnant, and defective type of health insurance you can have. For-profit health insurance, and the for-profit proxies called private non-profits and co-ops.
Equally impressive in the courts ruling was the majorities willingness to throw out the whole law if the court could not find a way to sever the individual mandate under the commerce clause from the rest of the act. Bravo! Supreme Court.
Thanks to the Supreme Court we now have an opportunity to fix our healthcare crisis the right way. Without the obscene delusion that Washington can get away with forcing Americans to buy a costly, dangerous and highly defective private product (for-profit health insurance).
During the passage of ACA/Obamacare some politicians said that the ACA was better than nothing. But the truth was that until the Supreme Court fixed it the ACA/Obamacare was worse than nothing at all. It would have meant the catastrophic loss of your precious liberty for the false promise and illusion of healthcare security under the deadly and costly for-profit healthcare system that dominates American healthcare.
As everyone knows now. The fix for our healthcare crisis is a single payer system (Medicare for all) like the rest of the developed world has. Or a robust Public Option choice available to everyone on day one that can quickly lead to a single payer system.
Talk of privatizing/profiteering from Medicare or social security is highly corrupt and Crazy! talk. And you should cut the political throats of any politicians giving lip service to such an asinine idea. Medicare should be expanded, not privatized or eliminated.
We still have a healthcare crisis in America. With hundreds of thousands dieing needlessly every year in America. And a for-profit medical industrial complex that threatens the security and health of the entire world. The ACA/Obamacare will not fix that.
The for-profit medical industrial complex has already attacked the world with H1N1 killing thousands, and injuring millions. And more attacks are planned for profit, and to feed their greed.
To all of you who have fought so hard to do the kind and right thing for your fellow human beings at a time of our greatest needs I applaud you. Be proud of your-self.
God Bless You my fellow human beings. I’m proud to be one of you. You did good.
See you on the battle field.
Sincerely
jacksmith – WorkingClass 🙂
There needs to be more sensitivity and awareness on this issue than either Alice Walker or her most vituperative critics allow. Allow me to recommend my own take on Walker posted here some months ago:
http://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2012/06/22/alice-walker-not-antisemitic-just-wrong/.
Israeli repression against Palestinians is harsh and excessive, but it is also provoked to a large degree by a history of violence, the threat of violence and a lack of respect for Jewish concerns and needs from the other side. I fear that Walker’s one-sided litany of denunciation may set back the cause of Palestinian rights and a workable two-state solution.
So this is like the League of Texas Huh? That’s what the League of Texas does – they started Jim Crow and all that stuff – a group of ribald Native supremacists inciting artificial hatred between Native Americans and blacks – trumping up the idea that Natives are superior to blacks. None other than a repetition looks like it! What are we to do now…?
And BTW, I’m a native – but certainly no supremacist!!!!!!
You see, us First Nations peoples whether from Israel or the Americas or from elsewhere better get our acts together and fight this supremacist thing cos it aint got no place in our traditional ways and neither should it be in our hearts – cos our hearts ought to be where our traditional ways are and that is about sharing what we have. This don’t mean by the way ceding out traditional territories but it does mean making room for others who in troubled times have nowhere else to go.
Tell us about “1st nations peoples” of Israel. When did they arrive? What its their history? Whata re their traditions. I only has because the have been gone for several millennia, since before Abraham.
Tell us arty the “1st nations people of Israel. I ask because the disappeared before ethe arrival of Abraham
How can you say that we’re no longer here?!!! If you read the Bible you will clearly see that Israel is the indigenous custodian of these areas. I don’t see what “before Abraham” has to do with any of this. Our narratives clearly tell us that the Creator designated various territories as the tribal territories of Israel just like He has done for the native nations in the US before Columbus. The issue is not “before Abraham” because you wouldn’t dare to ask what about “before the Sqamish”!
I have to correct my own citation regarding the Texas thing, I meant the “Republic of Texas” – not the “League”. Excuse my annotational error.
that’s quite a narrative. Arabs have multiple counties, Jews only have one
I don’t understand what you mean by “county”.
And actually – my memory was dodgey on the front of the Republic of Texas in another way also I might add cos the main preoccupation of my recollection on that thing was the fact it was one of those extremist groups who are a bit kookey, cultish if you like in their ideas. In fact, I have reviewed the study I did a few years back where this example about them was raised and it just so happens that – oops! – they are like Hamas – it’s the other way around, get it! It’s like Arabs thinking they’re more native than Israelis! cos it was actually blacks – Afro-Americans right, who believed they were more native than the native Americans!!!!
When it comes down to it, it’s all silly stuff really. As I said previously, everyone’s got to get over this cultish supremacist idea – doesn’t matter whether you’re a Black Panther or an AIM supporter or a Zionist. Each of these movements is rather similar and each of them does have grounds for stating their claims – but when it comes down to it, the bottom line is all we really should be about is galvanizing our rights and responsibilities through the path of inter-cultural dialogue and reconciliation, not guns, bombs and missiles!