he says, “that kind of postmodern politics that does not take into consideration the perspective of the other. It talks about the other; it claims to be recognizing the other, in order to assimilate the other. When the other comes up with something that is completely different from what the Western self is defending, the other becomes terrorist. The other becomes unacceptable.” In other words, if you do not want what we are offering, there must be something wrong with you.
Another manifestation of the “othering” that Eid critiques is that even progressives from the United States often judge the resistance of other cultures through their own lens. For example, they are hesitant to see anticolonial movements as allies if they are “too Muslim.” Eid is critical of Hamas but also sees them as the legitimate elected representative of the Palestinian people and deserving of praise for their principled resistance against Israeli occupation. Many progressives in the United States cannot see this complexity. Postcolonial theorist Edward Said used the term “orientalism” to describe the patronizing attitude that sees Eastern cultures as fundamentally uncivilized and unchanging.
Eid says that aid has been tethered to an endless wait for a frozen peace process to deliver. This “peace industry” taints the entire Palestinian liberation movement, especially the political parties. “Billions of dollars have been poured into the discourse of the two-state solution. The formation of the Palestinian Authority. The Palestine Satellite Channel. TV stations, radio stations, newspapers, telling people ‘two-state, two-state.’”
Eid sees the two-state solution as fundamentally racist and impractical. Racist because it shapes borders based on “exclusive ethno-religious identities.” Impractical because, like the tribal Bantustan system of the apartheid South African government, it does not offer true independence to the Palestinian people. Eid told me that the Palestinian revolutionary parties, like the Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine, initially resisted this accommodation for just this reason, but were later bought out by international aid, especially through the Oslo peace process, which Eid (quoting Edward Said) says birthed a new “peace industry.”
“From 1993 up until now, what [has] happened is that their revolutionary consciousness has been pacified,” says Eid.
Eid says that Palestinians do not need aid; they need allies to stand in principled solidarity with the Palestinian struggle. He sees hope in the international grassroots movement, following the lead of Palestinian civil society, which has called for boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel. Eid, who earned his PhD studying in South Africa, sees the movement that led to the end of apartheid in South Africa as key for ending colonial occupation in Palestine. “In the mid eighties, more than 75 percent of white South Africans voted for the apartheid system,” he explains.
And everyone was saying it is impossible for Blacks and whites to live together in South Africa, and that the overwhelming majority of whites do not want to live with Blacks. But the same percentage, more than 75 percent of white South Africans, voted for the end of apartheid in 1994. Now doesn’t that raise a question? What was the reason behind that type of change? I would go back to the BDS campaign. When every single white South African felt ostracized whenever visiting a foreign country. Nobody wanted to buy South African products. Nobody wanted to shake hands with white South Africans. And that is why, in 1994, they understood that there has got to be an end to this. When Israelis start feeling the same thing, Israelis will be forced to look at the world and say, “What do you exactly want?”
Even human rights NGOs sometimes fall into the trap of not listening to the needs of those they claim to support. Activists with Al Qaws (“The Rainbow”), an LGBTQ organization based in Palestine, are critical of international LGBT human rights organizations, saying they do not see the larger issue of occupation. “‘Gay rights’ has become the new global measure of whether different nation states and peoples are progressive or not,” says Haneen Maikey of Al Qaws. “It’s a colonized/colonizer dynamic, this savior complex where LGBTQ activists go to ‘save’ people in other places. In order for me to convince you to be saved, I need to convince you to hate your community. This disconnects people from their own communities and societies.”
Rights as an approach is not something I personally and al Qaws as a collective relate to. . . . And what does it even mean to demand gay rights—from whom? From the occupier? Or the occupier arm in the West Bank? What does that mean, to get your gay rights without getting your human rights, or dignity, or basic food, work, basic conditions of being a human being? We think in Palestinian society, and without a broader critique, “gay rights” is an unethical approach. . . . The focus on a single issue (homophobia) is tempting, because it is easier than thinking about the complexity of our experiences and how our bodies and sexualities are used and abused by different layers of power.29
For members of Al Qaws, the idea of separating homophobia from other systems of oppression is part of the colonial project, and furthers pinkwashing, the use of LGBTQ rights to “cleanse” from discussion other forms of oppression. “You cannot have queer liberation while apartheid, patriarchy, capitalism and other oppressions exist,” writes Al Qaws member Ghaith Hilal. “It’s important to target the connections of these oppressive forces. Furthermore, pinkwashing is a strategy used by the Brand Israel campaign to garner the support of queers in other parts of the world. It is simply an attempt to make the Zionist project more appealing to queer people. This is another iteration of a familiar and toxic colonial fantasy—that the colonizer can provide something important and necessary that the colonized cannot possibly provide for themselves.”30
What leads people to give up on change? Is it the slow pace required by asking questions and listening to communities most affected? Or are people driven out of social movements because they are fundamentally disempowered by the inevitable failures of shortsighted campaigns?
If the energy that went into KONY 2012 went toward pressuring a government that the United States has more influence with, like the Israeli state, this could have incredible influence. Through the international BDS movement, the Israeli government would be forced into real negotiations that could bring lasting peace. By focusing on an individual rather than a state or systemic change, Invisible Children set their goals far too low, yet still out of reach.
Whether it’s aid for rebuilding in Haiti, human rights advocacy in Palestine, or hunting warlords in Africa, there is ample reason to be suspicious of gifts from wealthier nations. If the aid does not address the structural issues that create injustice, then it only creates a more stable status quo, locking injustice into place.
The U.S. position in the world—in fact, the very existence of the United States—comes from a history of colonial domination. If we want to make amends for that history, kindness is not enough. We need to stop thinking we can “rescue” the world from problems we helped create. Haiti has no money because the United States, France, and other colonial powers stole it. When we buy a twenty-dollar shirt that a Haitian was paid pennies to make, we are continuing to steal from them. When a U.S. aid worker in Haiti is paid a salary equivalent to that of fifty Haitians, we are continuing to steal from them. This is not aid. Aid is reparations. Relief is overthrowing the system of colonial domination, and eliminating debt. Support is standing in solidarity with Haitians and Palestinians and the Diné, all of whom are organizing and fighting and leading their own struggles for an end to colonialism.
Through her struggles around decolonization with Black Mesa Indigenous Support, Berkley Carnine sees many examples of both principled solidarity and the savior mentality, which she defines as “an internalized superiority added to a history of settler colonialism and genocide.”
Carnine often sees a pattern among non-Indigenous volunteers. They are confronted with the deep injustice of Native American genocide and don’t know how to deal with those feelings. That produces guilt and shame, which then trigger another set of emotions. “I’m feeling bad, and I want to be able to take some action and alleviate that bad feeling. So then the goal becomes not alleviating
