Only direct elections can rejuvenate the Palestinian liberation movement by taking power from the few back to the many
Karma Nabulsi
The Guardian, Tuesday 29 March 2011
"After another week of breathtaking demonstrations from Jordan to Yemen heralding dramatic revolutionary change, in occupied Palestine things appear much the same. The repetitions of bombing, air attacks on civilians, muted international protests, and dubious gestures towards a bankrupted peace process: all lend an air of futility and hopelessness to the trajectory of Palestinian freedom. Palestinians urgently need their voice to be represented at this historical moment in which unrepresentative rulers are being toppled by popular movements, and citizens are reclaiming their public squares and political institutions on the age-old principle of popular sovereignty. Since January Palestinians in the refugee camps and under military occupation have all been asking the same question: is this not our moment too? Yet how are we to overcome the entrenched system of external colonial control and co-optation, the repression, the internal divisions and the geographical fragmentation that have until now kept us divided and unable to unify?.....
This crumbling hollowed-out mausoleum once housed a vibrant and well directed Palestinian struggle for freedom, full of dynamism and debate. Now only the mobilising power of direct elections can make it the representative institution Palestinians demand.....
It is also by now very clear that nothing else will work: democratic representation cannot be achieved by new presidential elections to the Palestinian Authority; nor can it be secured through fresh legislative council elections held only in the West Bank and Gaza, which excludes the voice of the majority of Palestinians.....
Indeed, many such measures are designed to keep power out of the hands of the Palestinian people themselves, and they continue to disenfranchise millions of young Palestinians(most of whom don't belong to either party), ....."
Karma Nabulsi
The Guardian, Tuesday 29 March 2011
"After another week of breathtaking demonstrations from Jordan to Yemen heralding dramatic revolutionary change, in occupied Palestine things appear much the same. The repetitions of bombing, air attacks on civilians, muted international protests, and dubious gestures towards a bankrupted peace process: all lend an air of futility and hopelessness to the trajectory of Palestinian freedom. Palestinians urgently need their voice to be represented at this historical moment in which unrepresentative rulers are being toppled by popular movements, and citizens are reclaiming their public squares and political institutions on the age-old principle of popular sovereignty. Since January Palestinians in the refugee camps and under military occupation have all been asking the same question: is this not our moment too? Yet how are we to overcome the entrenched system of external colonial control and co-optation, the repression, the internal divisions and the geographical fragmentation that have until now kept us divided and unable to unify?.....
This crumbling hollowed-out mausoleum once housed a vibrant and well directed Palestinian struggle for freedom, full of dynamism and debate. Now only the mobilising power of direct elections can make it the representative institution Palestinians demand.....
It is also by now very clear that nothing else will work: democratic representation cannot be achieved by new presidential elections to the Palestinian Authority; nor can it be secured through fresh legislative council elections held only in the West Bank and Gaza, which excludes the voice of the majority of Palestinians.....
Indeed, many such measures are designed to keep power out of the hands of the Palestinian people themselves, and they continue to disenfranchise millions of young Palestinians(most of whom don't belong to either party), ....."
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