by Babajide Adeniyi-Jones
For thousands of men, women and children who are no different from us, it is too late. It is true that we could not have materially influenced events over the past seventy odd years, but continued silence will be an inescapable moral stain. We are now at an inflection point, a point where our voice, though late in coming, can be loud enough to place us ‘on the right side of history’.
Last week, the British regime took the ‘bold step’ of recognising the Palestinian state. This brought it in line with the position Nigeria, and most of the world, has held since 1988. In that year, Nigeria recognised Palestine as a state and pledged support for the so called two-state solution as the best resolution of the Palestine/Israel question. The current shift in position by the colonial power is overdue and may yet even prove to be consequential.
However, it should also be a clear indication to Nigeria that it is time to re-assess her position. The hypocrisy of Britain still supplying vital components of lethal weaponry to a regime that is actively engaged in the daily murder of defenceless occupants of Palestine, while recognising it as a state, should be an untenable situation for any nation with a sense of decency. The contortion of their stiff upper lip, that recognises Palestine out of one side, while classifying their own citizens who speak up in support of Palestine as terrorists out of the other, is logic defying. Logic defying but right on colonial brand. Nigeria should think very carefully about being in alignment with this duplicitous behaviour.
Back in 1988, though morally suspect, a credible case was made to create two states along, what at that time were clearly discernible lines. However after decades of settler expansion and Israeli governmental land seizures, it is a thoroughly impractical proposition. I would go so far as to say that the two-state idea lingers as a red herring to keep the impasse simmering while the Zionist project of breaking Palestinian resolve proceeds apace.
The crux of the problem is actually our old familiar foe, apartheid.
The two-state ruse is not new. The apartheid government of South Africa tried their version of it with their ‘bantustan’ model, but international pressure and internal resistance finally brought one democratic state into being. In south Asia, the British engineered experiment with two states resulted in fratricidal war, and enmity that lasts till today.
In South Africa, the death gasps of apartheid were characterised by the government employing every permutation of separation to perpetuate their philosophy, abetted by their supporters in Washington and London. When apartheid finally ended, it was not because the government and their enablers had some sort of epiphany, it was the weight of global pressure. Economic, social, sporting isolation, plus boycotts, divestments and internal pressure, all led by the moral argument ultimately made the situation untenable for the country. In that global endeavour, Nigeria took a front line, moral position and maintained it at considerable cost to herself. I was in the civil service at the time and was proud that a percentage of my salary every month went to the South Africa Relief Fund. Those were the glory days of Nigerian foreign policy and diplomacy. This is another decisive moment and we must see and speak clearly. The history of this time will have an honour roll of nations, starting with South Africa who took Israel to the International Court of Justice charging it with genocide. Who will join them by speaking for the rights of those who survive the pogrom?
The bulwark of nations who have supported the zionist enterprise in Palestine has at last begun to crumble, and so a rear-guard call for a two-state solution is naturally getting louder. This is epitomised by Donald Trump’s ‘historic breakthrough’ 21- point proposal for peace in the Middle East. A formulation arrived at without any input from the Palestinians, a move eerily reminiscent of previous colonial contraptions, set up with agreements between parties, all who stand to gain from it, but without the voice of the people who are at the core of the matter; those with most at stake. For them, the option is simple, accept the proposal as put to them or face the threat of Israel and America ‘finishing the job’ which of course, will be the Palestinians’ fault. In other words, we are to accept as normal the president of the most powerful country in the world, standing next to a man indicted for serious war crimes as they congratulate each other on their plan concocted to menace the victims of the crimes with certainty of annihilation if they do not submit to the agreement. Bizarre. America certainly has the ability to stop the Israeli killing and the capricious Donald Trump’s shameless hankering for a Peace Prize may be just the catalyst to make this happen. It would be wonderful if it does, but the international community will then have an obligation to step up and ensure that the cease fire endures this time. Otherwise it runs the risk of ending up as a temporary vanity project, that will leave the Palestinians dispossessed by products of machinations of the self-centred Trump.
The chain of events that led to this tragic situation was set in motion by the infamous Balfour declaration which promised Palestine to the zionists as a home for persecuted Jews. Lord Balfour, who wrote the declaration when he was the Home Secretary of the UK in 1917, is the same Arthur Balfour who, as Prime Minister in 1905, had shepherded through parliament the Aliens Act. The act blocked entry to Britain of European Jews who were fleeing anti-semitic pogroms in Eastern Europe. He was the key ally of the British Brothers League who championed the Act, in their words, to “Stop Britain from becoming the dumping ground for the scum of Europe.”
It is clear that Nigeria should be morally forthright in her rejection of colonial legacies and apartheid structures regardless of what guise they show up in. It is of course not Nigeria’s position to decide on the final configuration of states in the region, but the principle is clear. Everyone living in the area between the ‘River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea’ must have equal citizenship rights, and they must be party to resolving how this is realised.
P.S. I have mentioned concepts like decency, fairness, morality and ethics. I am aware that they are scorned as indicators of naiveté by proponents of the realpolitik that guides human interaction these days. But it is precisely a world structured without these principles that has brought us to this state of amorality that empowers colonial, apartheid and zionist impunity. Where do we, as a nation stand?
I grew up under the heavy influence of an ideology, articulated in the words of the inimitable Robert Nestor Marley:
War
“ … until the basic human rights are equally
Guaranteed to all, without regard to race …
everywhere is war.
… until the ignoble and unhappy regimes
that hold our brothers in … sub-human bondage
have been toppled, utterly destroyed everywhere is war.
… but we know we shall win
as we are confident in the victory
Of good over evil.”
