In the first chapter of his book “The Pedagogy of the Oppressed,” Paolo Freire reminds readers that folks from the oppressor class can only truly be in solidarity with folks from the oppressed class when they are willing to forfeit their privilege.
”The oppressor is solidary with the oppressed only when he stops regarding the oppressed as an abstract category and sees them as persons who have been unjustly dealt with, deprived of their voice, cheated in the sale of their labor — when he stops making pious, sentimental, and individualistic gestures and risks an act of love. True solidarity is found only in the plenitude of this act of love, in its existentiality, in its praxis. To affirm that men and women are persons and as persons should be free, and yet to do nothing tangible to make this affirmation a reality, is a farce.”
The feeling I had this morning after voting not for a party I would chosen on my own, but rather a party I was instructed to vote for by a Palestinian to whom I offered my vote as part of the Real Democracy Initiative, was not a good feeling. My friend and fellow-blogger Mairav Zonszein, with whom I’d discussed voting options at multiple stages of both of our processes (to boycott or not to boycott? To vote Da’am or not to vote Da’am?), participated in the same initiative and expressed a similar feeling in the blog she wrote about voting for a party she wouldn’t have voted for on her own this morning:
”And I don’t want or need anyone’s pat on the back or admiration for this move. The opposite. I’m not proud of it at all. In fact I’m ashamed. People should be angry and ashamed, like I am, that it has come to this. It has come to a point where I, who never thought I could or would give up my right to vote, have done so.”
I think Mairav is right. Today is not a happy day. We should not leave the voting booths feeling good about ourselves, satisfied that we have done our part, glowing either with democratic fervor for those of us who still believe that this place can be called democratic while brutally occupying millions of non-citizens for four and a half decades, or with radical fervor for those of us who ”gave up our votes.” Maybe the lesson to be learned from having voted for a party I did not want to vote for is more meaningful than the pleasant feeling I would have gotten voting for Hada”sh not for myself, but for a Palestinian! (wink wink). Maybe this is what Freire was talking about, maybe this is what giving up privilege feels like: bad. Right, perhaps even crucial, but bad.
Bibian Democracy (picture: BBC)
Obviscating the right to vote is a bad thing. It is a statement lost in the shuffle of outweighed numbers and insufficient tallies. But you did vote. You and Mairav voted with conscience therefore challenging the majority machine and making a statement. Oppressors can retaliate too, sometimes with a bad taste in their mouth, sometimes with a party that holds opposite views. Hmmm
Hoping that the cat I’m dealing with this time is too fat and chubby to joump on my keybord, I try and repost my comment here.
According to Martha Nussbaum and Agnes Heller shame is a powerful feeling, much more powerful than indignation can be. Shame is somewhat stickier than indignation is, burns longer within you, and can root much deeper. Do not underestimate the fact that you feel ashamed, maybe it will lead you to new perspectives.
I have been thinking a lot about the conversation we had on this topic and I came to the conclusion that maybe giving up one’s agency is just another way to paternalize the oppressed, because it doesn’t result in real empowerment. Providing someone who is perceived as a counter-part -rather than a real constitutive part of the population- with real empowerment is risky, because succeeding in empowering others results into a sheer surrender of the privileges that the hegemonic majority enjoys.
Volunteering in a soup kitchen taught me one thing. The people I was supposedly helping would have surely been better off without me being there reminding them who’s the (well-off white-skinned) person bestowing charity upon them, and instead how poor and humiliated they were. How mean life had been to them. They really hated me, no matter how much extra food did I serve them, or how often did I break the one-breadloaf-per-person rule. They called me names, someone almost phisically harassed me once. Until I sat with them at the end of my shift eating what was left over in the kitchen. They just didn’t want to be paternalized anymore, but instead they were eager to be treated not only as equals, but as friends, encouraged and supported in the recognition of their dignity.
Luckily, that cat’s really chubby.
Hi again, S.!
I’m going to disagree with you, this time around. I think that I am open to examining what actions are paternalistic and which manage to go beyond that dynamic, and I think that it is wrong to label this one the former. Why is it paternalistic to recognize that my voting privilege is connected to nothing I did right or earned, but rather to my nationality alone, and thus to give over my vote to someone who wants it? I think it is unfair to say that the Palestinians who chose to ”take our votes” had no agency– it was a fully developed (and not simple, esp. in light of the discourse around normalization) choice on their parts, a political act and is wholly different than someone going to a soup kitchen because they have no choice… Thoughts?
Hmm… I don’t exactly get how do those palestinians, who don’t enjoy any right to vote, had a real choice. They could have never casted any ballot if some of you did not decide to do such a thing as giving up your personal choice and allowing them to decide: nevertheless this act did not provide them with any real empowerment, since their status has not changed. Let’s say elections were to be called again in one year: what will their choice be, rather than using an opportunity which comes only on condition that someone, amongst the privileged, decides again to give up his own agency. If meant only as an Israeli act of protest against the political situation in Israel, it has it’s own political meaning, but it’s more of something performed with the help of the Palestinians, rather than for their sake.
This has nothing to do with the most noble reasons lying behind such a decision of yours. Such a recognition of the biased bases of one’s privileges can’t be other than fruitful. But still my point is not in the reasons behind your act, rather than in it’s consequences. I didn’t mean to say that you had the intention to paternalize Palestinians.
S., how do you define real empowerment?
Did this action end the Occupation? Definitely not. Did it change the results of the elections? Almost definitely not. But was it a joint act of protest, by Israelis and Palestinians (and yes, for sure, like you say, not “for” Palestinians but rather “with” them!) against a system that is unjust? I think so. And that may well be a sort of collective empowerment– not only Palestinians being empowered, but rather a sort of joint empowerment…
Of course you’re not saying that I had the intention to paternalize– no one intends to paternalize! The question is, though, did this act do it inadvertently? My vote, as it were, is still ”no” for the time being. :)
Sorry for the very very late reply. Long flight back home and then guests at home and then getting back on track so. Here.
I feel that my point on this very subject is very complex, close to entangled even, and I find myself having a rather hard time trying to state it in my native language. Actually I’m still missing the real joint empowerment thing, and maybe I just need some explanation oh where the empowerment lies.
Actually, I believe that all my doubts stem from the very issue of normalization/ antinormalization.
I’m still trying to make my mind up about that, since some inputs I got over there made me rethink about everything that I thought I was sure of. So, really, you think that this protest action falls under the antinormalization cathegory of practice? (maybe an answer would help me make my mind up about that)