What good does a demonstration do?

[Che -Guevara]

They cut of the traffic everywhere we went in downtown Boston. We chanted and yelled, but it mounted to nothing at the end of the day. It is good to live in country where you could express your sentiments..Whole the way through, people were yelling "Down with Israel, Israel is terrorist state". But again nothing would come out of it as the powerful Jewish lobbyist has every US politician in palms.

 

They weren't too many us, few hundreds at best, hopefully it will be bigger next time. Please write to your congressman and woman. Check if they are divestment movements in your towns.

[Sir-Qalbi-Adeyg]

I think demonstrations are for the most part, for people to make themselves feel better and to make it look like they are doing 'something' instead of nothing.

 

It can't hurt to demonstrate i suppose.

[Blessed]

I guess, it's a way of venting and standing up for them but that's not enough.

 

They don't do demos here (think they're illegal) but Masha Allah the whole city is collecting for the Gazans. Gaal iyo Muslimba, it's good to see that there's still some humanity in us..

[NGONGE]

If nobody demonstrated or marched how would you know that there are some who oppose a particular issue, saaxib?

 

Demos usually don't do much to change anything. But, on the rare occasions when they do, they turn into an angry inferno of rage that sweeps everything in its way.

[Ibtisam]

Although demos do largely make people feel "better" for at least doing something, Demonstrations should really only be used to bring something to the forth front of the public agenda or provide a issue with media coverage. However you can only achieve that if the demonstrations is large enough, and well planned, i.e. the reasons you are demonstrating are well know.

 

For the most part on their own, all the do is register your disapproval on a public level.

 

With regards to Palestine, the demos are being used in the west to bridge the gap between the reporting of the west biased media and the daily on goings. The speeches in the UK were used to highlight the disparities and disproportion nature of the Israeli response and highlight the deliberate disregard for civilian life.

 

The demonstration in London was large enough to attack both news coverage and public/ political attention. It has been used as a systematic tool following political lobby through out the week on ALL levels MEP, MP, Party level.

 

Places like Manchester and Bham did not get much covering because the attendance was said to only reach about 2,000- 5,000 people.

 

HEre are some pictures for the Manchester one www.thinkingoutoftheblog.blogspot.com

 

London was said to be as high as 20,000, although the police estimate is 10, 000. Che the pictures are loaded on Facebook. I will try and load some here Inshallah.

[Che -Guevara]

We are pushing for bigger crowd next time, contacting many groups including mosques, synagogues, and churches. There are many students group, trade unionists, and average people. And hopefully, others movements like Darfur,and Tibet would join.

 

I think directly supporting the resistance would be the way to go.

[LayZie G.]

Che, sorry to parade on your feel good, do good thread but do you mind if I ask what you are doing for dadkaaga? (not tolka or close relatives but the quarter of million refugees going hungry in the Kenyan/Somali border)

 

Where you out in the cold marching in hopes of getting axmaaro out when they invaded your country?. How about when your people were killing each other for close to 2 decades? I'm loving the unity under the "Arab" umbrella, it’s a new SOL movement alright and it is fast spreading.

 

I can't help but share this piece of reality check by our esteemed member "ME":

^Count on Somalis to get their noses into business that is not theirs. Maxaa naga galay carab? Let's deal with out business first. Charity starts at home. Danteena aanka fakarno marka hore, markaas un kadib ayaan dad kale caawin karnaa.

 

It is just sad the hypocrisy that you see in the forum. One minute they are rejoicing and celebrating the injustices in Somalia, and the next minute they are shedding tears for Palestinians.

[Che -Guevara]

^I was out when Somalia was invaded, when people were being bombarded, and when Somalis are on brink on starvation. I tried to bring groups, so we could do something for our people. All I get from my fellow Somalis was contempt. And this is only pro Palestinian demo I have been to.

[Paragon]

^Worn the blue T-shirt yet? Held the placcard high, shouting down with everything yet? Met with ministers concerned in their offices, wrote them, and even shouted at them yet?

 

And yet have you... oh i'll stop there.

 

After so many efforts, it seems all is in vain BUT don't let up Che'. March on sxb. Demos actually help in some remote way.

[Geel_jire]

^ I dont think it is in vain sxb.

 

there is a hadeth (meaning) that if you witness something which is wrong .. change it with your hands if you can .. if not change it with your voice ... if not hate it in your heart .. that is the lowest level of eman.

 

we are not at the first stage yet .. but we sure as hell are at stage 2 ... demonstrations are to express our hatred for what is going on & is better than keeping silent.

 

I just came back myself .. we were ~ 1000 .. including atleast 100 non-mulims.

[Che -Guevara]

And there lie the bodies

 

By Gideon Levy

 

 

The legend, lest it be a true story, tells of how the late mathematician, Professor Haim Hanani, asked his students at the Technion to draw up a plan for constructing a pipe to transport blood from Haifa to Eilat. The obedient students did as they were told. Using logarithmic rulers, they sketched the design for a sophisticated pipeline. They meticulously planned its route, taking into account the landscape's topography, the possibility of corrosion, the pipe's diameter and the flow calibration. When they presented their final product, the professor rendered his judgment: You failed. None of you asked why we need such a pipe, whose blood will fill it, and why it is flowing in the first place.

 

Regardless of whether this story is legend or true, Israel is now failing its own blood pipeline test. As Israel has been preoccupied with Gaza throughout the entire week, nobody has asked whose blood is being spilled and why. Everything is permitted, legitimate and just. The moral voice of restraint, if it ever existed, has been left behind. Even if Israel wiped Gaza off the face of the earth, killing tens of thousands in the process, as a Chechnyan laborer working in Sderot proposed to me, one can assume that there would be no protest.

 

They liquidated Nizar Ghayan? Nobody counts the 20 women and children who lost their lives in the same attack. There was a massacre of dozens of officers during their graduation ceremony from the police academy? Acceptable. Five little sisters? Allowed. Palestinians are dying in hospitals that lack medical equipment? Peanuts. Whatever happened to the not-so-good old days of Salah Shahadeh? When we liquidated him in July 2002, we also killed 15 women and children. At least back then, moral qualms were raised for a moment.

 

Here lie their bodies, row upon row, some of them tiny. Our hearts have turned hard and our eyes have become dull. All of Israel has worn military fatigues, uniforms that are opaque and stained with blood and which enable us to carry out any crime. Even our leading intellectuals fail to speak out on what havoc we have wreaked. Amos Oz urges: "Cease-fire now." David Grossman writes: "Hold your fire. Stop." Meir Shalev wants "a punitive operation." And not one word about our moral image, which has been horribly distorted.

 

The suffering in the south renders everything kosher, as if the horrible suffering in Gaza pales in comparison. Everyone is hungry for revenge, and that hunger is excused by the need for "deterrence," after it was already proved that the killing and the destruction in Lebanon did not achieve it.

 

Yes, I know, war is war. After all, they brought this on themselves. They are a terrorist organization and we are not. They want to destroy us and we seek peace. Still, is there nothing here that will stop this blood pipeline? Even those whose hearts are hardened by "moral righteousness" will have to momentarily halt the bombing machine and ask: Which Israel do we have before us? What will become of its standing in the world, which is now watching the events in Gaza? What are we inflicting on the moderate Arab regimes? And what of the simmering popular hatred we are sowing throughout the world? What good will emerge from this killing and destruction?

 

It is doubtful whether Hamas will be cut down to size as a result of this wretched war. Yet, the face of the state has been cut down to size, as have civilian elites who are apathetic and scared. The "peace camp," if it ever existed, has been cut down to size. Attorney General Menachem Mazuz authorized the Ghayan killing, regardless of the cost. Haim Oron, the leader of the "new left-wing movement," supported the launch of this foolish war.

 

Nobody is coming to the rescue - of Gaza or even of the remnants of humanity and Israeli democracy. The statesmen, the jurists, the poets, the authors, academe, and the news media - pitch black over the abyss. When the time comes for reckoning, we will need to remember the damage this war did to Israel: The blood pipeline it laid has been completed.

[Haneefah]

"Laa Taxzan, Inalllaha Macanaa"

 

Do your best part against any injustice, and leave the rest for Allah to decide.

[Buuxo]

We should also wake up at 2/3rds of the night,pray two rakats and make dua for our brothers and sisters.The Almight can make the aggressors perish.

[Khayr]

Dammmm it maaan,

 

All this money collecting,

 

war ummada me lacaag uuroreeso oo aan diyaarada lagaa iibisto m reer indaa yeer, amaa ruuuska.

 

Demo's are absolutely useless and they show how disunited folks are except in the Arab world, to put fears in this those fat bellied, oil rich muwatanees. :mad:

[dhulQarnayn]

^^^ The deeper irony of this whole attack on Gaza is that most of the jet fuel used to bomb those palestinians is supplied by arab oil fields in the Middle east.

 

dhulQarnayn :confused:

Republic Of California