24 July 2018
Week 398 of AFOPA activism
Counting down to 400 weeks of Australian activism...
At our recent actions in Rundle Mall we have been heartened by the responses we received from the public. Almost 100% of the people who stop and take a leaflet are appalled by Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. Most want to make a positive contribution to change the situation by boycotting Israeli products. They have told us they are immensely proud that our group has continued to fly the Palestinian flag high in Adelaide for nearly 400 weeks. And they are grateful that we are providing them with an opportunity to join the global boycott, divestment, sanctions (BDS) movement for change.
Every day we can see BDS is expanding its reach and numbers as more people are drawing a line in the sand and committing to actions that are principled even though they will suffer financially. Just this week I read the BDS story of popular and respected English author, Kamila Shamsie. All of her earlier books have been published in Hebrew by Israeli publishers. However Shamsie has now decided to respect the Palestinian BDS picket line and has refused to allow her last two books to be published by Israelis. As she said:
“I would be very happy to be published in Hebrew, but I don’t know of any (fiction) publisher of Hebrew who is not Israeli, and I understand that there is no Israeli publisher who is completely unentangled from the state. I do not want to cross the picket line formed by Palestinian civil society, which has asked everyone who wants to change the situation to not cooperate with organizations that are in any way complicit with the Israeli state.”
Many more authors are making this same decision, including famed Swedish author Henning Mankel.
We look forward to hearing that other authors are taking this principled stand.
Margaret Cassar, 21 July 2018
Photos from Week 398 of Adelaide activism...
