What we end up having [in Palestine] is the most unusual situation. The Israelis monopolize everything. They monopolize nuclear weapons, they monopolize tanks, planes, what else ... They monopolize the land, they monopolize the water ... what else ... They even monopolize moral virtue ... you know, democracy and freedom of speech, and they monopolize the capacity to write the history of our land ... But they are not only content with this; after monopolizing all this and colonizing us to the bones, they also monopolize victimhood! To my knowledge, no colonizer has ever succeeded in monopolizing even victimhood ... just our luck! We say: "Hey, you're hurting us", and they say, "Don't you know how hurt we are? Haven't you heard of the Holocaust!" They are suffocating us, and when we try to push them away a little bit so we can breathe, they say, "We're being victimized. You don't recognize we exist." How on earth can you not recognize the existence of someone as fat as Sharon sitting on top of you suffocating you, I don't know!
Palestinian man interviewed in Sydney, from Ghassan Hage's Against Paranoid Nationalism (2003), Chapter 8 - pg 133.
10 comments:
haha, great quote!
what are you majoring in i fi maay ask?
good stuff
has anyone noticed that all of the posts falling under the category of "poop" are written by quiqui?
a random un-named palestinian in australia said that? wow, deep stuff qui qui. As a little blurb I suppose its quite amusing. As a glimpse into what an average Palestinian might think, I suppose it's quite interesting. But as an an intellectual argument rooted in notions of logic and contextual completeness, it falls far short. Hopefully you can see that.
As a fat man, I'm offended.
"As an an intellectual argument rooted in notions of logic and contextual completeness, it falls far short...."
As for logic, nothing beats: "Some guy labelled God said to another guy a few thousand years ago that this land is mine... so I'm taking it".
Not much beats "insanity" for contextual completeness, either....
that is the best bloody chapter and that activist happens to be a friend of mine! :D
Damn, Rawan! You know Hage? He's my new Cultural Studies hero. Tell him I'll send him a KABOBfest t-shirt if he'll wear it to the next Crossroads conference. ha ha
Chapter 8 was TOTALLY the best chapter. I love how when he writes, he never has a problem telling the wingnuts to fuck off.
@ emily
Yes! Don't tell Will tho. He says we're not supposed to be creating shitty labels on KF, and I'm keeping that one under the radar cuz I love it.
hey qui qui! I know Ghassan quite well, he is a legend around here! I know of students who used to sit in on his lectures even though they never took his anthropology courses! its too bad he is moving down to Melbourne Uni to teach for the next couple of years!
I was actually referring to the "Palestinian man" being interviewed! Awesome activist and that is a kick ass quote, Ive used it a thousand times, hehe.
ill let him know about the kfest tshirt when I bump into him next time :)
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