Red Flag to Bull-Like Bullies
On Censorship, Snitches and the Silenced.
The 73 year long Palestinian struggle is in its essence, a repeat performance of the actions of white people, wherever they have landed, invaded, ‘settled’, and massacred Brown and Black people all around the globe, across the entire period of the previous 400 years. These crimes against humanity have been covered up in recent decades by the unceasing repetition across all media, and complicit international charities who show the kind and friendly face of Western democracy and its love of human rights… freedom of expression… freedom of conscience … yadda … yadda … yadda.
The courageous Edward Snowden is only one of a long line of dissenters whose treatment exposes the two-faced trickery that we living in the Western Empire, are subjected to, from birth to death.
While there are plenty of commentators based in the Western democracies who put up multitudes of wailing analyses and articles about censorship Russian or Chinese style, yet about Western ‘democracies’ they remain silent. They might bang on about ‘mistakes’ being made and ‘lessons learnt’. But beneath the posturing, what characterises the West’s mode of censorship and its treatment of dissenters? It is a softly softly, quietly disapproving kind of censorship that slowly suffocates within the racket of the West’s self-promoting, multi-party charade.
Even on Medium, where so many of the readers and editors are themselves, also writers, it’s disappointing to see sincerely analytical work, buried beneath the mountain of articles along the theme of, ‘How I made X Dollars from a Post I Wrote in 15 Minutes’. Wading through the sheer volume of this sort of shit, promoting a greed-based mindset as self-evidently good, is quite exhausting. In the meantime, it’s easy to be the distracted, delusional frog, unaware that you are being slowly boiled to death.
Over the weekend, I was still processing the fact that 2 publications would not print a short poem I wrote with the title, ‘Boycott Mecca and Medina — Become a Hajji in Your Heart’. You would have thought that a poem giving a mention to the honourable Jamal Khassoggi, who surely tried to fulfil the noblest purpose of journalism, would be given some degree of respect, two years after his horrific murder? Hell no… not one bit!
I thought it was revealing that one publication referred me to their policy on hate speech — though there is nothing insulting that could be seen as hate speechish about the poem. It really does seem that the moment one says the word, ‘Palestinian’, it’s like a red flag to the proverbial bull. The other publication retreated into complete silence. So I got the message that they too, were rejecting this simple poem. Niether set of editors had the guts to stand up and say anything by way of an explanation. It really is the equivalent of being blanked for the crime of speaking one’s mind.
There are multiple venues in which the door of the much-vaunted ‘free speech’ of the West, is slammed in your face and you are sent to the gulag of gaslighting. Beset by self doubt, the powers that be know you will likely, go away and decide that your effort at self-expression is not worthy of anyone’s attention.
Most people in the ‘free West ‘ are fully absorbed in the struggle for ‘survival’, within the capitalist framework whereby your self-worth rests on the price of your possessions. Your home decor must be changed to the latest fashionable colour, not to mention, lighting, flooring and furniture! Your teenagers will hardly respect you , if you can’t buy them the latest £1000 phone/Ipad/sporty footwear etc. Your partner’s sense of security in the relationship depends on giving an expensive gift. Buy them something cheap and they’ll think you don’ t value them. So on top of the full-time job, the family breadwinners must have a side hustle, join the gig economy, be a ‘content creator’ and make every minute of downtime, count. Time is Money, after all is said and done!
Whose got time to think about what’s happenening to Indigenous people? Who has the energy to self-reflect and consider their contribution to climate change? And has anyone got the presence of mind to look behind the scenes of the latest Hollywood blockbuster, the addictive Netflix series, and video game adventure, to see the continuing robbery of land and resources continuing unabated by the white invaders/immigrants who always call themselves, ‘settlers’?
Such self-reflective people of conscience and clarity are few and far between, regardless of the colour of their skin. Basically, the opportunists of all complexions, ‘greedy to the bone’ (as Tom Ritchford says in his article, below) join in full-heartedly with the only game in town. That would include you, my Brown brother, who buys the Financial Times and profits off the backs of Chinese workers paid a pittance, so that your profit margin is ‘healthy’. No law against seeking to ‘make a killing’, from the labour of people who don’t really count, as people. In the capitalist accounting system, they are listed within the ‘cost to price ratio’.
So, pay your taxes, grow your business, and you too, could be in line for an OBE! Brown man, in the worldwide ring tring tring of capitalism, your parents might have been the hard-done-by immigrants but look, you can get benefits from proximity to whiteness! Marry that white woman, even if you feel in your heart of hearts, that she is not ‘marriage material’ as you told her once! But, she gives you free rein, and you get to play the perfect gentleman, with foreigners to boot. What’s not to like?
Anyone can invest — it’s a free for all, don’t you know? (Unless you are stupid, and on the side of those being looted, having their houses taken over, their olive trees uprooted, their lands ‘settled’?)
Come on, man, if you know what’s good for you, you’ll change sides, ignore the suppressed voice of your bleeding, truth-seeking, inner child. Now, red pill, or blue?
