Hello Gentle Reader
Alice Walker the author of the novel “The Colour Purple,” which had won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in nineteen-eighty three, has refused a Israeli edition of her award winning novel on political grounds. The author herself is part of the Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions movement, which takes a political stance against the Israeli government, and is in favour of a two state solution between what is known as the Gaza Bank and Modern Israel. Alice Walker has written a letter to Yediot Books the hopefully publisher of her translated novel, on her stance of the matter. In a latter posted on the website of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, Alice Walker went on to say:
“As you may know, last Fall in South Africa the Russell Tribunal on Palestine met and determined that Israel is guilty of apartheid and persecution of the Palestinian people, both inside Israel and also in the Occupied Territories. The testimony we heard, both from Israelis and Palestinians (I was a jurist) was devastating. I grew up under American apartheid and this was far worse. Indeed, many South Africans who attended, including Desmond Tutu, felt the Israeli version of these crimes is worse even than what they suffered under the white supremacist regimes that dominated South Africa for so long.”
It is with this political stance, that Alice Walker believes that by withholding the novel, that she will ensure that the people of both Israel and the Occupied Territories to come to a reasonable solution that will benefit both states.
While some have praised Alice Walker’s integrity, others have been less warm in their reception of her choice. Claiming her desire of collective punishment, of all of Israel is uncalled for – based on the historical problems that the Jewish population themselves, have had to face.
On my own personal note, I think it’s difficult to judge this particular stance from either perspective. The conflict between Israel and the Palestine people is a complicated issue in which I know little of. First and foremost, I have never been to Israel. Second, what I receive about information between the conflict between Israel and the Occupied Territories, is by media alone, and therefore certainly biased, and shaded in with its own political affiliations. However to boycott something in which I know little about, is ridiculous to me. The conflict and dispute itself is long and complicated and goes back many years and if one wants to get right down to it, down to the very beginning of Israel’s formation in ancient times. Alice Walker herself uses and names the Russell Tribunal on Palestine and the verdict that Israel is guilt of apartheid, much worst then even South Africa’s supremacy, for me looked more like an ideological naïve attempt that a bunch of human rights activists would stand up and say such a thing. In the end the tribunal will/has done nothing. Alice Walker’s boycott will do nothing either. It may even further seal the concrete views of Israel towards toward Occupied Territories, as right, and may have to prove the Jewish residence against pressure, on their own stands.
However to call Alice Walker, self-absorbed is not entirely right. To call her ideologically naïve is perhaps a better way of stating the matter.
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
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M. Mary
