the cart before the horse

i feel very good about what has happened here in cairo. i have to say that its a resounding success, although it may seem like a setback. here is why:

what this movement needed was a coherent, cogent, unified leadership with well-defined and objective politics along with a mass international initiative to carry out the campaign. the codepink organization was never able to unite groups under it as an umbrella, due to its watered-down politics focusing simply on the humanitarian crisis in gaza. for that reason, radical groups from france, italy, greece, and elsewhere came to cairo with the hope that codepink would be their vehicle into gaza, not because they supported their politics. this would ultimately prevent a unified movement to end the seige.

what we needed was an international conference, a convergence, of internationals to gather in order to develop a coherent strategy, under an accepted, respected, and well-organized leadership. but the reality was, nobody in the world wanted to spend thousands of dollars to attend a conference, we wanted to take action. the response of egypt provided our movement the incredible opportunity to organize, as an international body convening in the same physical location. this would not have happened had we gotten into gaza. we would have all been focused on our "mission" in gaza.

conflict voyeurism: this is a phrase that i believe i just made up this afternoon, but it is a concept that is not unique to this experience. on my first day in cairo i went to a demonstration and the first chant i heard was to the tune of "we will, we will rock you" but the words for her chant were "we will, we will, free you!". i was so disgusted by these words and the mentality behind this chant that i almost took the megaphone away. i decided to bite my tongue, as i had just arrived, but what i came to realize that so much of the liberal organizing around palestine, gaza, and even from my experience in latin america is around "facilitating an experience" for liberals to return with, to have in their toolbox as activists. as longs as we have people on the left who believe that it is our mission to free anyone, that this conflict voyeurism is responsible, then we will have organizations like codepink.

to my relief the majority of the participants of this march resoundingly reject that perspective, and it is from those groups of people that we rejected the watered-down vision of activism and political intersecting that codepink represents.

if it were not for the egyptian response to hold us in cairo, we may not have ever been able to develop an analysis of what this movement needs, agree upon it internationally, and move forward in a unified way. so i know it seems bizarre that i feel like we have succeeded here in cairo, but the reality is that we needed an international conference before we could have such an ambitious international action.

my hope is that now that we have a wonderful campaign that utilizes labor as a major lens to organize an end to israeli apartheid we will be able to call yet another major international action in the future and have it be successful. as it stood, codepink's authority and reputation had been so significantly damaged in this debacle that they would never have been able to organize anything of this magnitude again, much less a coherent long-term campaign.

to codepink's credit, they made very human mistakes. they should not have bargained the way they did, it was a very amateur mistake which is surprising considering their "veteran" leadership. however, i do not feel that they were malicious. i do feel like what is so beautiful from this cairo experience is that the radical political analysis of ending the occupation, ending the politics of israeli racism, the and ending the international acquiesence to israel and the unitied states in guiding the "peace process" in the region has emerged as the majority position among internationals, and it is that platform that will guide our movement from now on. THE BAR HAS BEEN RAISED! it is very exciting.

in other news, the group of, in my opinion, sell-outs, has returned from gaza and begun giving reports of what they have experienced. first of all, their participation in the gaza freedom march that was planned for the 31st is very interesting. hamas had controlled the event, causing most gazan civil society organiziations to back out, and there were only about 500 participants, rather than the planned 50,000 and 99% of whom were men. it appears that hamas has been very strict, and the political situation in gaza and on the border is more tense than it has been in a very long time. it appears that the other politics of netanyahu visiting egypt on account of obama's recommendation to reopen peace talks, the prisoner exchange between hamas and israel, and of course our delegation are creating a very, very tense situation.

also, i am not sure if you all heard that gaza was bombed yesterday morning, the tunnels were hit by tank and plane fire. leaflets are still being dropped in the north suggesting that there will be another attack, which may be pure israeli psychological terrorism or it may be a reality. we do not have any idea.

also, WE PROTESTED THE ISRAELI EMBASSY!!! apparently it is the first time in egypt's history that the israeli embassy has been a target of protests, and it appears that most egyptians are quite thrilled and very supportive of our action two days ago. i feel very good about it.

tomorrow egyptian acticists are planning a demonstration in front of the egyptian supreme court to protest the construction of the underground steel wall on the border. those internationals who are left here are planning on supporting that effort in any way we can. its really very dangerous for egyptians to demonstrate here.

as far as an update on my personal plans, this is what i know. i have submitted a request to the egyptian foreign ministry along with a handful of others to allow us into gaza. we have provided the letters from our ngo's and, for those who can, have provided letters of support from their embassies. as you all probably know, the us embassy asks us to pay them 30$ for a letter from them to say that we understand that the US govt does not recommend us going to gaza and that if anything happens to us there then they have no responsibility. thanks, but i think i will keep the 30 bucks. so, the egyptian govt has up to 20 days legally to respond to our request, which ultimately they may deny. i am trying to be hopeful. so it looks like most people are giving up, and i will be here with a very small group, confined to cairo or the surrounding areas, for up to three weeks to wait for a response. i have decided that its worth it to wait, even though it will be expensive. hopefully i can get in!!! if it doesnt work out with the egyptian govt, i may have to find other ways in... just kidding!

i think thats it for now, i will be in touch as much as possible. i am bolstered by the fact that there is a beautiful international campaign underway, and i intend on throwing myself fully into this when i return to the states, but i still very much feel like its important for me to get into gaza to do the acupuncture work that is now my trade. its weird, this is not how i imagined this trip at all. yesterday i went to visit the sphinx and the pyramids at giza. i dont know how this trip will turn out but i still feel hopeful and i will do everything i can to get to gaza. as one man once said, "by any means necessary". insha'allah.