Wonderful party last night at Columbia U. Totally packed. Lots of young people dancing the night away to Palestinian music, many of the women in embroidered Palestinian dresses. These young diaspora Palestinians all knew their folk dances very well, as well as their food and art. And they seem to fully recognize the importance of keeping these memories.
This was performed by Remi Kanazi …
Nor·mal·i·za·tion: a “colonization of the mind” whereby the oppressed subject comes to believe that the oppressor’s reality is the only “normal” reality…and that the oppression is a fact of life that must be coped with.
Those who engage in normalization either ignore this oppression, or accept it as the status quo that can be lived with.
In an attempt to whitewash its violations of international law and human rights, Israel attempts to re-brand itself or present itself as “normal” — even “enlightened” — through an intricate array of relations and activities encompassing hi-tech, cultural, legal, LGBT and other realms.
Normalization applies to relationships that convey a misleading or deceptive image of normalcy, symmetry, or parity despite a patently abnormal and asymmetric relationship of colonial oppression and apartheid.
Filed under: Activism, Anti Apartheid Week, DesertPeace Exclusive, Israel, Occupation, Palestine, Poetry
