February 21st General Strike in Solidarity with Khader Adnan

As posted on Electronic Intifada



Following up on a call by a Hebron-based blogger for Tuesday, February 21st to be a general strike throughout Palestine, students from Nablus’ An-Najah University have compiled the video above to assert that the strike will take place.

Translated below is most of the post:

In light of this frenzied competition [between the illegitimate Palestinian governments in the West Bank and Gaza Strip] the prisoner Khader Adnan has entered his 63rd day of hunger strike, and is at risk of dying as a martyr due to the severe deterioration of his health and the official Palestinian governments’ neglect of his case…

How long will silence be the master of this situation? Our silence is enough! Are we not able to announce a general strike for one day in solidarity with Khader Adnan and all the freedom fighters in Israeli jails?

I believe we are able to cause the Palestinian street to act and to make Tuesday 21st 2012 a day of general strike. All we have to do is pass on the message to biggest number of people and influential media stations outside the scope of social media. It is time to scream outside the walls of Facebook and Twitter, to pass on this message…it is the least we can do.

In addition to solidarity with Khader Adnan, the goal of the strike is to pressure both Fateh and Hamas, as well as the media, to intervene and save his life and the lives of thousands of other prisoners.

Ola Tamimi (no relation to the Tamimis in the village of Nabi Saleh) was fed up with the sporadic protests and lack of concrete actions that excluded the majority of ordinary Palestinians.

“I decided to call for a general strike because we need to do something effective, away from social media,” she told me. “Khader Adnan has been on hunger strike for 65 days now. We ought to be ashamed of ourselves for not undertaking more prominent actions.

Since [the youth movement] March 15th, it became clear that there is a gap between the efforts of activists on social media and the Palestinian street, which is concerned primarily with their own daily lives.

The idea behind the blog post was to break out of the Facebook and Twitter confines…for actions to translate successfully on the ground. We have to work towards making our statements, our online activities accessible to the street.

On Saturday, after I came up with the idea, I printed out flyers and gave them to the neighborhood kids to pass out. It’s a good tactic; they came back after an hour empty-handed.

I’d consider it a big achievement if the general strike takes place, even if it’s just for two hours [12-2pm]. I only care about if people are convinced with the idea behind the strike. If the store owner is convinced then what’s the point of having an official government statement? During the intifadas, people used to act as a collective whole without waiting for the government’s decision or an announcement.

The most important thing is to break the fear barrier that people have that prevents them from protesting in the streets. For example, people in Hebron are scared to protest because of the previous experiences they’ve had with the Palestinian Authority. It’s the same everywhere. People have reached a state of depression, but it’s imperative that we keep on trying.”

As Khader Adnan enters his 66th day of hunger strike, protests are expected to take place at the central squares in the cities and towns in the West Bank (and hopefully Gaza), the same day that Israeli High Court hearing for his case will be held in Jerusalem, at 3pm.

First Day of New Semester

A few things crossed our minds:

• It is too hot.
• We are now entitled to mock and laugh at the sanafer.
• We seem to be Popular Penelope, with a good number of people ecstatically greeting us and inquiring about our summer with a genuineness that would make our mothers weep.
• Fuddrucking hell, it is too hot.
• Tis the season of strikes. Not students this time, but the Registration Office.
• Our self-imposed week long ban from campus has come to an end.
• Semester countdown has already begun.
• We're melting. Body, fat, and bones.
• We like making lists.

Friday was the rapture for many people. It's the first time in Ramallah that temperatures reached 45 degrees Celsius. That is a skin-flaying 113 degrees Fahrenheit. Where are we, Riyadh? Good lord. We need to think up quick and easy solutions to survive this heat hernia. Either we pull down the rafters for the windows and succumb to total darkness spent by sleeping curled up in the refrigerator, or we put a gun to our head.

What are sanafer? No, they're not the cute little blue smurfs whose existence have no meaning.

Our own specialized urban dictionary speaks of a type of people:

Sanafer /sanaf{shwa}r/ noun, pl (esp Palestine) a group of humans undertaking their first year in an educational institution, so-called by the intimidating and older student mockers. Singular sanfoor (masculine) sanfoora (feminine). Remotely known as freshmen in other parts of the world.

How fun is it watching those poor souls tentatively walking up to a classroom and finding out that it's the wrong one and then dashing to the other building only to give up, throw their hands in the air, and wail abrasively? Very. A great source of entertainment, no matter how sick-minded we sound. Taking pleasure and thriving at their misfortunes/blank brave faces is great. Our eyes can expertly zero in on a sanfoor/a based on either their loneliness (Birzeit allows for packs only, or you're not cool..kinda like middle school!), their clothes (way too overdressed or way too under-dressed), and by that look in their eyes, not dissimilar to that of a cornered rabbit surrounded by wolves. The more annoying ones have the nerve to ask you where a classroom is, which automatically gets them a beating in some corner. Life is good for the bullies--fresh material!

So of course we're stuck and fuming about our schedules which couldn't have been more ugly, but some time before the end of the semester we'll find time not to complain and possibly eat cake with ice cream. Or something. Here's to 2010/2011!

Ramblings

Back a few days after Easter break, and we have no desire to do anything whatsoever but to sleep sleep sleep. Damn April. Our workload has increased about a tenfold, second exams are next week, yet they might be postponed because the teachers are striking, yet again, Monday through Wednesday. The week after will be an open strike meaning that our Easter break just got extended from then until the end of the month. Unless the teachers get what they want of course.

The students wouldn't like to be left out so we're pretty sure they'll be striking too. What came first the chicken or the egg?

Students: Striking because of the annual increase in tuition costs

Teachers: Striking because of their low salaries and lack of retirement benefits

Insensible outcome: a) Raising the tuition costs even more so that the teachers will receive higher salaries, or b) Lowering the tuition costs so students can afford to pay, at the expense of the teachers' salaries.

This never ending perpetual cycle should be viewed as a welcome respite to us degenerate fools but we heard SHOCK HORROR that summer classes might be cancelled as a result. Oh heeeyyyyyl no. There goes our (what we deemed to be) flawless plan to graduate in three years, not four. It's not the end of the world, but...but..an extra semester might actually make us feel fond of BZU. We might actually grow to like it. We might revert back to the happy-go-lucky gals we used to be back in the days. And we are determined to graduate with all our bitter cynical virulent and acrimonious state of mind intact. Melting at the sight of chubby babies still makes us mean. Fahmeen?

Moving on...papers were passed out by the student council calling upon all students to take part in protests and rallies in solidarity with about eight thousand Palestinians (300 of them being children) in Israel's jails, who have initiated a hunger strike to inveigh their deplorable squalid living conditions, torture and violations of human rights laws at the hands of the IOF. We're glad this has been brought up, but it goes without saying that the majority won't heed or take part in the protests..that is, if they happen. Prisoners have complained of the humiliation family members suffer when they come to visit, noting that strip searching has become almost routine. Families in Gaza are restricted from seeing their sons, fathers, brothers, uncles, on the grounds of themselves posing a 'security risk'. Our hearts are with all the prisoners, it makes us even more determined to resist the occupation. Boycott all Israeli products, skanks!

Gaza will be plunged into darkness for the next three days, as fuel for the only power plant in the Strip has run out, and all borders remain closed. We wonder how many people can stand to live just 24 hours of a normal day in Gaza today. The whole siege is despicable, yet the castrated international community watches on with explicit silence. The things we take for granted...

In other hopeful news, the first Palestinian Siamese twins were transferred from Gaza to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia where doctors are to perform the separation operation. We hope the two little week old babies make it!

We found out in a semi-entertaining class what the Hindus, whose customs are the most similar in regards to the Arab ones, do on their wedding night. We think it's awesome. Apart from requiring the bride and groom to be virgins, the groom covers his face with a sheet during the hump time. The bride gets all the seeing glory, while the groom has to find his way by grappling around. This prompted a fellow-male, we should add- student next to us to say, "Well, blind sex is the most amazing thing ever. Did you see Gabriella and Carlos {of Desperate Housewives) doing it with their blindfolds on?"