Whether the police want to call it an arrest or not, plucking Lawyer Rama Valayden from his home at the crack of dawn for protesting in support of the Palestinian people is a clear sign of repression worthy of a police state. The strategy also unmasks a sick agenda based on division and bigotry. But, more importantly, it is based on ignorance. A lot of ignorance. 

I grew up in a Jewish neighbourhood. I don’t remember having had a single problem with my neighbours. As a student, I waved placards against Zionists at every demonstration I could attend – as I did against apartheid. I never associated the slogans I shouted at the anti-Israeli demonstrations with the Jewish neighbours I crossed on my way back home. They were just my neighbours.

One of my heroes is Yitzhak Rabin, a Jew who, like Mahatma Gandhi, was assassinated by one of his own coreligionists –Zionist Yigal Amir – as a punishment for his moderate views and his love for peace. Had we had more Yitzhak Rabins in our History, the assassination of Palestinian civilians, women and children, the destruction of their homes and their expatriation would not have happened. Unfortunately, Yitzhak Rabin’s successors lacked both empathy and common sense and refused to abide by the Oslo Accords he signed.

The Israeli/Palestinian conflict as it is euphemistically referred to by the soft-hearted – read the daily assassination of innocent people and the invasion of their homes – did not start today. It started after the holocaust when the Jews were ‘offered a home’. No one disputes the atrocities the Jews were subjected to or the necessity for them to have a place to live. The problem is that the ‘charitable’ people who offered them a home did not think of offering them something that belonged to them. You can only offer what you own! An enclave in Western Kenya, bordering Uganda, was amongst the first offerings for a nascent Jewish nation. Had they accepted, we would perhaps be talking about the Israeli/Ugandan problem today. But they refused – proof that beggars can be choosers after all – and settled for half of the Palestinian territory. Then they started nibbling at more and more Palestinian land, using extreme violence, aggression, indiscriminate killing and maiming and herding Palestinians off their homeland to other countries where they became refugees.

It saddens me today to see how much ignorance there is among those who have never opened a single history book. It pains me to see a human rights problem being reduced to a conflict between Muslims and Jews. What a great pity that we are literate but know not how to read. Not every Palestinian is a Muslim and not every Muslim is a Palestinian. There are many Christians in Palestine today suffering the same fate. And need I state the obvious: not every Jew is a Zionist and not every Zionist is a Jew. Empathy has no religion. Sadly, that empathy is lacking in those who look the other way while aggressions are taking place against civilians by a rogue state that has been flouting all international conventions.

In Mauritius, our government first remained mute with our diplomatic mission firmly in place. When all the opposition parties condemned the unspeakable Israeli acts of violence in very strong terms, it put out a tepid communiqué calling on “all parties concerned to exercise maximum restraint and to urgently put an end to the violence and civil casualties”! Worse, the moment a few people took to the streets to express their solidarity with the Palestinians, as millions of people did in capitals all over the world, the police were at their doorstep with such celerity that one wonders what the real motive is.

It is a dangerous, ignorant, oppressive stand. No one has anything to gain from division and bigotry. More than ever, enlightened people should see through the attempts at dividing a nation struggling to come together as one. What is going on today is a problem of human rights. Supporting the right of Palestinians to have a homeland and live in peace is a question of supporting what is right against what is wrong. Whatever we do, let us not reduce that to the level that some amoral and divisive politicians have been thriving on. Please! We are much better than that!