Another year, another Sydney Forum. And like the Mighty Magpies proved on Saturday night — by way of a final score of 15.11 (101) to 11.10 (76) — Sydney’s full of fucking losers. Well, when it’s not full of war criminals, dictators, and other members of the transnational ruling class — as it will be in a few short weeks. (In addition to Australia, APEC’s membership is composed of delegates from the governments of Brunei, Canada, Chile, Chinese Taipei (Taiwan), “Hong Kong, China”, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, People’s Republic of China, Peru, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Republic of Korea (South Korea), Thailand, the United States and Vietnam.)
Foreign troublemakers at the Sydney Forum, on the other hand, appear to be largely of Croatian, Iraqi, Lebanese, Palestinian and Syrian origin: Dr. Tomislav Sunic; a member of the Arab Ba’ath Socialist Party in Iraq; Dr. James Saleam; Rihab Charida; and a member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (which Charida supports), respectively.
Well, that was the plan.
- Note that the Sydney Forum has a tradition of inviting speakers from authoritarian regimes in the Middle East (and would-be authoritarian regimes a la the SSNP) to address ‘Australian patriots’. In 2002, for example, at the second Sydney Forum, Dr. Saad Al Samarai, Charge d’Affaires of the Republic of Iraq (since expelled) addressed Whitey. Unfortunately for Dr. Saad, while elements of the original Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party (حزب البعث العربي الاشتراك — est.1945) maintain their rule in contemporary Syria, in Iraq the Ba’athist regime of Saddam Hussein, which commenced in 1968, ended just a short year later, in 2003, following the US-led invasion. Currently, under the US-led occupation, the Party is banned in Iraq. Finally, it should also be noted that the Syrian Ambassador to Australia, His Excellency Tamman Sulaiman, (diplomatically) cancelled his address after initially agreeing to lecture the raving-right-wing-nuts at the 2006 Forum.
Speech!
According to a ferret-loving AF member from NSW — after complimenting German neo-Nazi Welf Herfurth (New Reich) on his strict handling of the fruitbats both in the audience and on stage — the first speaker was the racist hick from rural Queensland (and ex-Confederate Action Party fuehrer) Perry Jewell, whose message, apparently, wasn’t exactly novel: drugs are bad, mmmkay?
Ho hum.
The second speaker was Rihab Charida; “…there to placate jew haters only”, apparently. Rihab immediately got off on the wrong foot, “by thanking the real owners of our land… the aboriginees” (sic). (I wonder who she thought she was addressing?) By the end of her speech, our ferret-loving bigot was able to conclude that Rihab “just reinforced [my] beliefs that we should get them [Palestinians?] out of our country now. Assimilation is not in this thing[']s vocabulary. She contradicted herself on [two occasions]. She said she was born here, but then went on to say she is palestinian. I was extremely offended by its presence [at the Forum?] and was cut off before I could ask her to explain a few things. She would [have been of] much better use as a mud flap for my car and [was] a total waste of time.”
Sheesh. Talk about a tough audience! Then again, if you’re of Palestinian descent, recognise the traditional owners of Australia, and expect anything other than racist abuse — at a meeting of psychotic racists — I guess your name isn’t Rihab Charida. As a matter of fact, Charida is a relatively well-known figure on the left in Sydney, having been a member of the ‘Democratic Socialist Perspective’ front Socialist Alliance, but also the ‘Sawiyan Coalition for Palestine’, in that capacity addressing a number of forums, rallies and workshops over the last few years on the subject of the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
To which she can now add the fascist Sydney Forum.
The next speaker was the Croatian fascist (see Anti-Semitism in Australia) Dr. Tomislav Sunic (whom the ferret lover confesses they “could listen to… for hours”), followed by convicted criminal and ex-Australian Nazi Party member Dr James Saleam. Finally, “Andrew Fraser spoke on ‘Homo Americanus… The Political Theology of Sovereignty’; a lament, presumably, for the continuing absence of vastly higher numbers of blonde-haired, blue-eyed Aryans from Australia’s wide brown land.
(Well, possibly. ‘Homo’ is actually an essay by Fraser’s fellow racist Sunic — perhaps Fraser was simply riffing.)
Also scheduled to speak at the Forum were Lachlan Black (who edits — or used to edit — Future Nation, a fascist zine available from PO Box 734, Woden, ACT, 2606; Black can also be reached via worldawakening@hotmail.com) and veteran racist/clown, former CAP member and CAP and AF electoral candidate, boxing and touch football enthusiast… Darrell Wallbridge.
- “Have you heard the one about the Arab who became a White Nationalist leader?”
Darrell has a distinguished history as a racist bigot, having stood in the 1993 Federal election as the CAP candidate for the NSW seat of Cowper and in numerous local council elections. Unfortunately, Darrell failed to dazzle the voters of Cowper, coming third last with 1,714 votes or 2.5% of the total. Eleven years later, Darrell was back, this time as a candidate for AF in local council elections to the Coffs Harbour City Council. According to Herr Doktor:
Mr. Wallbridge is 49 years. He has lived in the Coffs Harbour area for 25 years, moving to the city from nearby Macksville. Mr. Wallbridge has worked as a radio journalist and is currently an entertainer and taxi driver. In recent years he has become widely known in Coffs Harbour and surrounding areas for his MC role at many public events, his first class puppet show which has amused children and adults alike and his appearances in local television advertisements. He is married with two adult sons. Mr. Wallbridge has been an independent candidate for Council (in the 1980s), increasing his vote each time.
Darrell’s attempt to join the local council — propelled, no doubt, by his first class puppet show which has amused children and adults alike and his appearances in local television advertisements — was supplemented by a spirited campaign. Breathless with anticipation, Herr Doktor describes the content of one of his innumerable leaflets as follows: “A leaflet, Coffs First, is about to hit the streets in Coffs Harbour. This hard-hitting leaflet in support of Darrell Wallbridge has targeted the asylum-seeker cult that has do-good organisations and leading citizens falling over themselves to put Australians last for houses and other services.”
Needless to say, despite a first class puppet show, television appearances, and a hard-hitting leaflet, Darrell once again failed to capture the public’s imagination. Nevertheless, Darrell did manage to entertain the masses at the 2003 Sydney Forum, and again in 2005, where he joined Lachlan Black (a speaker at this year’s Forum) and Luke “Mate, I’m going to get brain cancer from having the mobile phone pressed to me ear all day and all night” Connors:
Luke Connors, Building A Nationalist Youth Movement
Luke Connors is a Melbourne nationalist, active in organising the Patriotic Youth League. He will discuss the ways and means of constructing a new movement amongst Australian youth.
Darryl Wallbridge, A Short Comedy Sketch
Darryl is one of Australia’s foremost professional clowns and he will break the hard sell of politics with some satirical commentary on political correctness.
He’s also written at least two letters in his life, the first to Jack Van Tongeren back in the 80s; the second piece of batshittery reproduced by the aging bigots of the League of Rights in Volume 34, Number 34 of their weekly newsletter. Thus:
The following revealing letter was offered in The Advocate, Coffs Harbour, August 22nd:
“The rise and rise of Pauline Hanson and One Nation. What has made this possible? Well perhaps I might have an answer or two. Back in the mid 70s I worked on The Australian editorial. We were given surveys and opinions on what ordinary Australians thought about immigration and multiculturalism. These surveys showed over 90 percent of Australians were against both multiculturalism and immigration. But we were not allowed to print this information. What we printed was a lot of false information on how people’s attitudes had changed. It was felt that by adopting the attitude that immigration and multiculturalism was wonderful, people would gradually change their attitudes.
Propaganda often works.
One gentleman who spoke out against immigration had a photo of his head transposed onto a photo of a man in a Nazi uniform. His credibility plummeted. Many others met similar fates. Most commonly a photo of a skinhead was shown with a transgressor.
Anybody who said anything like Pauline Hanson was immediately painted as a lunatic, Nazi or fascist.
If Hanson had been a male she would have suffered a similar fate. Her gender saves her from political obscurity.
A few years ago I spoke out against the allowing of Vietnamese refugees on national television. I was immediately visited by ASIO and information I had collected taken away. So much for democracy.
Back in 1966 when I was 12 years old I began to take an interest in immigration and its effects on recipient populations. I studied West Indian, Pakistani and Indian immigration into Britain. It appeared to be a complete mess unwanted by the local inhabitants. But of course the politicians knew best. The situation was very similar in Canada and the United States.
I then compared monocultural societies which appeared to be more stable with lower crime rates and longer life spans. Critics would say they were boring and uninteresting.
Throughout the US the safest states to live in are the most monocultural. While multicultural nations such as Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia have been dissolving before our eyes we have been promoting a policy of self-destruction.
In 1974 I predicted the breakup of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. At the time I was laughed at. If we continue this way Australia will not exist in 20 years.”
~ DARRELL WALLBRIDGE, Coffs Harbour
As I said: completely batshit. And speaking of batshit, Adelaide’s favourite Holocaust denialist Fred Töben recalls a previous, priceless performance by “Darryl” at the 2003 Forum as follows:
A completely different presentation came from comedian Darryl Wallbridge in his ‘Amused And Serious: Political Correctness In The Entertainment Industry’. Wallbridge claimed that it is totally off-limits to present Jewish jokes. He gave other such examples, in particular at children’s parties he has to be very careful that the feminists don’t take him to court for ‘offending’ a child.
As potty-mouthed comedienne Sarah Silverman might say:
Q. How do you distinguish between a joke about racism and a joke that’s racist?
A. By not being retarded?
And ah, speaking of Silverman, I just couldn’t resist including this, her stunningly accurate portrayal of Paris Hilton (among all the other crazy fucking White supremacists):
Conclusion: I hate wogs!
- I’m a dinky-di Australian guy, and my name is Bluey Schmidt
I love this sunburned country and I’m bloody proud of it
I love our simple way of life and the things we all hold dear
Like VFL and Big Ben pies and foamin’ Tooheys beer
I love our open friendliness where a man can make good mates
In fact in all Australia there’s just one thing that I hates!
Chorus:
I hate wogs, they live like dogs
Some eat bananas and some eat frogs
Some wear turbans and some wear clogs
They’re all the bloody same to me ’cause I hate wogs
The local chip shop down the street is run by a bloody Greek
He’s open 16 hours a day, 7 days a week
And every cent that you spend there on a hamburger or a dim sim
Helps to send back home to Greece for more bastards just like him
I never eat there meself, I couldn’t touch wog meat
I usually eat at the Chinese caf’ that’s just across the street!
Chorus
I was queuein’ down at the registry pickin’ up me dole
In front of me was a Yugoslav, in front of him a Pole
Behind me was a Frenchman, behind him was a Turk
Those lazy migrant bastards, do they never bloody work?
For there’s plenty of jobs goin’ round, though I’ve not worked since school
May be a filthy racist pig but I’m not a bloody fool!
Chorus
So send the bastards home to Spain, Italy and Greece
And maybe when they’ve all gone home we’ll get some bloody peace
To sit in the shade of the coolibah tree and drink beer all day long
And run amok with a fat jumbuck down by the billabong
And every night at 12 o’clock, to show that we’re not slaggards
We’ll all sing our national song. “Advance Australia — backwards!”
~ Eric Bogle
21 Responses to “Sydney Forum 2007”
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Yes. I really like being there. Little did every body know that I was secretly the General Secretary of a organization that wants a class war. HA HA HA HA HA (Laughing evily)
Andy is gay in San Francisco, black in South Africa, an Asian in Europe, a Chicano in San Ysidro, an anarchist in Spain, a Palestinian in Israel, a Mayan Indian in the streets of San Cristobal, a gang member in Neza, a rocker in the National University, a Jew in Nazi Germany, an ombudsman in the Defense Ministry, a communist in the post-Cold War era, an artist without gallery or portfolio…
Translation:
Andy is really nothing. He has no answers, or wisdom, or valid moral code. He spends his time blogging on his lonely website criticising others to make him feel better about his own condition, because he doesn’t have the courage to do anything about it.
Sorry, I don’t speak fascist twat.
Speaking about Palestine at an event organised by and for white supremacists does call for an explanation.
I was not asked to speak at this event by the organisers. Three days prior to the event, a friend who was scheduled to speak asked if I could replace him, as he had other commitments. Stupidly, I agreed without investigating who the Sydney Forum was organised by and for. Therefore, I prepared my talk as a standard presentation about Palestine and went to deliver it with no understanding of the purpose of the Forum.
Much to my surprise, the speaker before me, Tomislav Sunic, spoke about the ideal of homogenous European cities such as Budapest, Auschwitz and others, where “you look around and appreciate that these cities look and feel European”. He compared these cities to places like New York and Sydney where “as soon as you get off the plane all around you there are Pakistani, African and Arab faces”, he went on to ask, “what would an Indian taxi driver [in Australia] know about Victorian architecture, would they appreciate it?” He forgot to mention that this ‘Victorian architecture’ was built on Indigenous land and that New York and Sydney were not meant to look European. However, as I looked around the room there were enthusiastic nods all around.
His talk had my friends and myself feeling sick. We realised that we were surrounded by fascists and rednecks. Even then, I didn’t click that the entire event was held for white supremacists. I thought that maybe this was a forum attracting different people (right leaning), including rednecks. Obviously, I now realise it is a forum organised exclusively by and for white supremacists.
I had the choice to walk out of that room immediately, leaving fascists to talk amongst themselves. However, after a brief discussion with my friends, I decided to stay and speak to this audience about Palestine specifically; and colonialism generally within the context of European supremacist ideology (which most people in that room were subscribers to). Of course, this meant altering parts of my talk based on the fact that I was in a room full of anti-Jewish fascists, amongst other things.
To express the fact that we stand on Indigenous land and that genocide had taken place in order for us to even be there, and to recognise the injustice and occupation that is now 219 years old, to a room full of white supremacists was by no means an easy thing to do. Among the people in the crowd, there were skinheads donned in Australia flag t-shirts and others in army fatigues shook their heads in disgust as I spoke. People hissed, sighed and expressed their disgust in ways more than one.
I then spoke about the Arab world. Firstly about how the European colonial powers of the early twentieth century divided up the Arab world in order to control the land and natural resources. I explained that these divisions still live with us today. I spoke about the current war in Iraq and anti-terror hype as part of that same project.
When I did speak about Israel, I was sure to contextualise it as a European-supremacist colonial project. I discussed Zionist ideology as being no different from any other colonial ideology. Although mentioning that Israel was Jewish-supremacist, I was careful to parallel that with white supremacy. I explained that a white 14yr old boy from New York had more rights to that land than indigenous Palestinians, that he could gain citizenship upon arrival whilst Palestinians born and raised there were refused the right to return. I stated that this would make complete sense for people who are European-supremacists. For those who are not, this is clearly not justifiable.
I made it clear that Israel should not be seen differently to any other European colonial project. I was not trying to convince these people to support the Palestinian struggle. If anything, I was trying to explain how similar their views are to those who support Israel. Even though they profess to hating Jews, their hatred is based on bigotry and ironically, totally in line with that of Israel’s (or Israel supporters). Essentially, Israel is a colonial project that was set up by and for the European imperial powers. With the help of strong European powers, Israel was established and has grown to become an imperial power in its own right (no different and along side other destructive world powers).
I wish now to respond directly to some things you have said about me in your blog. Firstly, I think it is highly problematic that you would write these things without checking the credibility of your statements (it is obvious from your blog that you didn’t do this), especially when sourcing all of your material from the Storm Front website (a white power group).
You state:
“Talk about a tough audience! Then again, if you’re of Palestinian descent, recognise the traditional owners of Australia, and expect anything other than racist abuse — at a meeting of psychotic racists — I guess your name isn’t Rihab Charida”
Who said anything about me not expecting racist abuse? This comment implies that people should only speak in safe environments. Of course the things I said were going to spark disagreement and racist remarks. I chose to speak knowing this. I believe we should speak to challenge racism and acknowledge indigenous ownership of this land in any situation, not only in ‘safe’ leftie spaces. It would have been an act of cowardice to not speak based on the fact that their response was going to be hostile.
Who are you to assume that I didn’t know that? I did not go to this event knowing it was for fascists. Once there I had three choices: to leave; speak as I had planned to begin with; or deliver a modified speech that would challenge them and confront their fascism. I chose the latter. I felt it was my duty to confront them; to do anything else would’ve been weak given the circumstances.
With regard to your “message” for me:
Do you actually think I have been waiting for a young man such as yourself to enlighten me about how to view Nazis or about what Palestine does and does not need? It is extremely arrogant of you to assume that as a Palestinian woman, I have not already thought this through. I am opposed to racism of any nature. Unlike white supremacists and Jewish supremacists my opposition to racism is not selective. My active opposition to racism and any other form of abusive power is based on justice, not only where it serves my interests.
Do you think I need you to teach me that speaking to Nazis about anything, including Palestine, is not only a waste of time but also totally wrong? I would never have gone there knowing that. However, as I have said before, once there I felt that it was important to challenge their views.
Finally, if you read all of the comments from the Storm Front forum, you would realise that neither my presence, nor my talk was exactly their cup of tea.
You should know there is a problem when you and Storm Front members are bagging out the same person.
Rihab,
Thanks for your reply.
In response:
First, I tried to contact you directly via three different email addresses, as well as via the ‘Sawiyan Coalition for Palestine’. Unfortunately, the Coalition has no web presence or contact details (at least, none that I could find), and I assume that two of the email addresses I wrote to are defunct — both because I received a response to neither, and also because they’re different to the address you’ve used as the contact for this post. In addition, I sent an email to a Palestinian solidarity organisation in Sydney in the hope, perhaps fulfilled, that they may have passed the message on to you alerting you to the existence of this post.
Secondly, I do appreciate the fact that you’ve taken the time and effort to describe the circumstances surrounding your decision to speak at a white supremacist forum, and your experience of so doing.
Thirdly, my account of the Forum is indeed based upon that provided by a fascist on Stormfront; to be precise, an animal-loving member of the Newcastle branch of the Australia First Party. I quoted this person partly because of the unavailability of other accounts, and partly because I believe that their rank racism in response to your address was likely to be quite typical of the Forum as a whole — which I think your own account of the response to your address tends to confirm. Further, I think that this less ‘politic’ account, unmediated by the organisers’ need to retain a shred of intellectual integrity, nicely undermines the facetiousness with which one of the main organisers, Dr James Saleam, describes the ideological content and nature of the audience of his and Mr. Welf Herfurth’s Forum.
Fourthly, and in more direct response to your presence at the Forum, you ask:
“Do you actually think I have been waiting for a young man such as yourself to enlighten me about how to view Nazis or about what Palestine does and does not need?”
No, of course not. If it wasn’t obvious already, my post, aside from being an assessment of the ideological content of the Forum as a whole, was in part intended to question how and why a Palestinian activist came to be addressing a gathering of white supremacists / racists / fascists / neo-Nazis. On this matter, you write:
“I was not asked to speak at this event by the organisers. Three days prior to the event, a friend who was scheduled to speak asked if I could replace him, as he had other commitments. Stupidly, I agreed without investigating who the Sydney Forum was organised by and for. Therefore, I prepared my talk as a standard presentation about Palestine and went to deliver it with no understanding of the purpose of the Forum.”
A number of questions occur to me at this stage, which I hope you are willing to answer:
1) Who is your friend?
2) Why do you think your friend did not inform you of the nature of this event? Was this because they themselves were unaware of its political complexion?
3) Do you agree that invitations to speak at racist / fascist / white supremacist / neo-Nazi events should be refused? If not, why not? (Your question “Do you think I need you to teach me that speaking to Nazis about anything, including Palestine, is not only a waste of time but also totally wrong?” suggests that the answer to this question is an unequivocal ‘yes’, but I would like you to re-confirm this response if you do not mind.)
Finally, you write that “You should know there is a problem when you and Storm Front members are bagging out the same person”. Perhaps, but what you describe as my “bagging out” the same individual as do a number of members of a white supremacist Forum is actually an initial response to the fact that a Palestinian activist chose to accept an invitation to speak at a fascist event. On that question, as I suggested earlier, I am truly grateful that you’ve chosen to clarify your position and to relate your experience; however, in the absence of this clarification, I believe the larger problem lies with anyone who chooses to address a fascist gathering. Given your response, I now believe that ‘the problem’ may well lie with either a) the naivete of your anonymous friend or b) their own ideological and political commitments.
Cheers,
@ndy.
Andy,
In response to your questions:
My friend is Adel Alammeddine who was asked by one of the members of the Sydney Forum, Jim Salem (who was also of Middle Eastern descent).
Saleam asked Adel to speak at the forum. When Adel asked what the nature of the forum was, the reply he got was that, “it is neither Left nor Right” (and sure enough there was a banner at the front that read this), and that it was a space that attracts different people with different views. When asked what the purpose of the forum was, Saleam said that the forum was created in order to provide a platform to discuss and debate current local and global political issues from varying political view points.
Based on this information, I assumed that the forum was held by and for “mainstream Australians”. I had no qualms speaking to such a crowd (there is always the hope that with some people it’s a simple of case of not knowing).
In true fascist style, the organisers of the forum presented themselves (or at least tried to) in a way that was neutral, masking their true nature and politics. For example, the chair of the forum was sure to make comments such as “the content of people’s talks does not necessarily represent those of the Forum”. I took that at the time to mean that he was trying to distance himself from the speaker before me, Sunic, who was blatantly fascist. I know now that he was preparing the crowd for my talk.
Even when people were nodding and applauding throughout Sunic’s talk, I still thought the organisers themselves and some people in the crowd did not agree. I did not know what I know now, which is that the entire event including the SF members and organisers, intended for that event to be an orgy of fascist ideology. If I had known that even the organisers were Nazis and fascists I would have attacked them even more directly then I did.
In a nutshell, my friend claims to not have known. Yes, I do believe that it was naive of him. On both our parts, we should have done at least a simple Google search of the forum or of Saleam.
To answer your question of whether or not people should speak at Nazi events. Of course not! There is not much more to say about that.
Rihab
Rihab,
Thanks very much for the clarification, and I hope that your experience of the Forum may be of some use to yourself and others in the future, even if that consists solely of being more familiar with the fascist milieu in Sydney, especially insofar as some of its more ‘colourful’ inhabitants is concerned. Incidentally, with regards Dr. Saleam’s ancestry, this subject has been a matter of some debate among local white supremacists (as you can probably imagine; those of Arabic descent occupying one of the lower rungs on their racialised hierarchy), and especially on the SF site. Saleam, being a wily old devil, has neither confirmed nor denied this supposed fact, at least not in public, instead preferring to shift the topic of discussion to such questions as how to most effectively build a ‘nationalist’ (read: fascist) movement in Australia, of which he, as the effective leader of the ‘Australia First’ party, fancies himself as being one of — if not the — chief intellectual and organisational protagonists. Naturally enough, Saleam also denies culpability for the crime of which he was convicted and sentenced to prison in the early ’90s, claiming that he was a victim of a conspiracy hatched by the secret police. In reality, it does appear that in 1989, Saleam did in fact make arrangements for a shotgun assault on the home of Eddie Funde, then the ANC representative to Australasia, now an executive with the SABC.
(More on some of Saleam’s earlier political activities, especially as they relate to ‘National Action’, may be found in David Greason’s book, ‘I was a teenage fascist’, McPhee Gribble, 1994.)
With regards his party, AF claimed that the racist pogrom in Cronulla in December 2005 was in fact a white ‘civil uprising’, aimed at overturning a state-imposed multicultural society. To that end, they stood a candidate in the local elections (John Moffat, formerly of ‘Australians Against Further Immigration’), as well as engaged in various other forms of political activism, all of this activity a blatant attempt to reinforce and to capitalise upon racial and ethnic antagonisms in Sydney. All of which is a rather long-winded way of saying that I (and I’m sure others involved in FDB!) would very much appreciate it if the facts concerning Saleam, his party, and his Forum, were exposed to as wide an audience as possible…
Oh, and one last thing: what was the venue for the event, and how many people do you believe were in attendance?
Thanks again,
@ndy.
Andy,
The event was held in a meeting room at the Eastwood RSL and I would say there were about forty to fifty people there.
Rihab
Rihab, you’re not the first speaker at one of Salami’s hatefests to have had the nature of the event concealed from them- ask filmmaker David Bradbury about his experience last year (which @ndy and FightDemBack! actually managed to save him from)- but it seems you were set up like a bowling pin. I’d be having a small word with your mate Alammeddine about that were I you.
Rihab, if you check back here, can I ask your view of the SSNP, its current role and politics? You’ve been described as a ’supporter’ of the SSNP, so I thought I’d ask.
Note that describing Rihab as a supporter of the SSNP is based on the following comment left on the SSNP_USA guestbook on January 22, 1999:
===
RIHAB CHARIDA – 01/22/99 13:07:11
My Email: munzeremad@hotmail.com
Country of origin: [Southern] Syria “Palestine”
Country of [residence]: Australia
Do you know anything about SSNP?: Fortunately
Interests: making the social reality of [Syria] better for all Syrians
Comments:
To the writer from the Lebanese forces, first and foremost greetings to you my fellow countryman. You claim that your aim is to destroy the SSNP. The aim of the SSNP is to make the Lebanon you talk of and the rest of natural Syria a better country for you and all Syrians. Also, when you say Long Live a strong Christian Lebanon, that doesn’t include me. When I say Tahya Syria, it includes you with pleasure. Is it so bad for you to imagine people from the same nation working together to [make] OUR nation an [equal] non-discriminative and stronger one? I will leave you with a quote from Antoun Saade [founder of the SSNP] – “Knowledge that does not benefit is no better than harmless ignorance”. To my fellow [comrades] that are behind this [website], GREAT WORK! You’ve [definitely] made MY day! If you’re ever in Sydney, look me up. TAHYA SOORIYA! YAHYA SAADE! Rafica Rihab Charida.
Seems to me this Forum is run by a bunch of Jewish suckers… I am a proud European, and will never succumb to be even anywhere [near] th[e]se scum arse[holes]… they stink. I can’t believe Rihab and the likes of her got involved in this shit… they must be a bit silly as well. You guys stink… like a Zionist!!! Have you ever met one? Run like hell… smell like a rat… They are rats anyway!
I see.
It is interesting that a couple of comments up, Rihab Charida describes her “country of origin” as Syria and/or Palestine.
A recent puff piece on her in the Sydney Morning Herald reprinted here states: “Rihab Charida was born in Greenacre, in Sydney’s west, went to Bankstown Girls High”.
Of course Yasser Arafat was born in Cairo, so it would seem there’s a precedent for anyone to call themselves a Palestinian, as long as they hate the Jewish state…
It’s the usual dross about her longing to go back to her ancestral homeland. What crap. She could up and leave to set up shop in Gaza if she wanted. Except the article mentions her interview over a glass of wine. That sort of thing would see her dragged into the street and beaten, so I doubt she’s in a hurry to put her money where her mouth is.
As to Rihab’s assertion that she was duped into attending a fascist forum, I note that she is now a paid reporter for the fascist Iranian Government’s propaganda outlet, PressTV. Is she going to plead ignorance there as well? Probably. Maybe she can also call herself Iranian. It’s about as credible.
Palestine
Rihab Charida, 32
Journalist and Palestinian activist
Rihab Charida was born in Greenacre, in Sydney’s west, went to Bankstown Girls High and had a seemingly ordinary suburban upbringing – playing basketball, swimming and debating – but she has inherited a struggle. “A Palestinian poet wrote a poem once which said, ‘I want to wake up one day and complain about the weather.’ I am fighting for the day when Palestinians can do that.”
Charida is a striking-looking woman with jet-black hair and olive skin who skilfully rolls her own cigarettes. She works as a correspondent for an Iranian cable television channel and has just graduated from film school. She also heads up Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) in Australia, a global movement that aims to put pressure on Israel through trade, sporting and cultural boycotts to honour various United Nations resolutions for Palestinian human rights. The BDS campaign was inspired by the boycott of apartheid South Africa.
“Being Palestinian is not an easy thing to escape,” she tells me over a glass of wine in her flat. “I’ve tried, but it is not something you can walk away from when so many people are suffering. These people are my cousins.”
In 1948, when her father was nine, his Palestinian village, Safsaf, was attacked by “Zionist forces”. Her father witnessed a massacre where men from the village were lined up and shot. His account is backed up by the diaries of an Israeli officer, Yosef Nahmani, who wrote, “In Safsaf, after the inhabitants had raised a white flag, the [soldiers] collected and separated the men and women, tied the hands of 50-60 fellahin [peasants] and shot and killed them and buried them in a pit. Also, they
raped several women.”
Those who survived, including her father, fled to Lebanon, where they lived in tents for a number of years before moving to a refugee camp in Tripoli. Rihab’s father lived there until he migrated to Australia in 1971. He settled in Sydney, got a job in a factory making supermarket trolleys and eventually saved enough to buy a small tobacconist. He’s been here for almost 40 years but has always dreamed of returning home. He wants to die in Safsaf.
“Being Palestinian means I know the situation intimately,” Charida tells me. “There are five million Palestinians still living in squalid refugee camps that most Australians would not house their dogs in. What we are fighting for is the right for those people to return to their homeland and live there equally – this is not such a radical suggestion. “My father does not have the right to go home and to the place of his birth, a place where his family had lived for thousands of years. I too would like to have that right, to choose to live there or to choose to reject it.”
As part of her work with BDS, Charida talks to student groups, academics and unions. “The Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union recently signed up, which will mean the union will refuse to deal with Israeli companies and may join with us in action against Zionist organisations operating in this country.”
As a recent film school graduate, she is making a series of short films about the Palestinian experience. Why, I ask, has she taken up her father’s struggle when she could have chosen an easy life in Australia? “Those people still living in those refugee camps could so easily have been me,” she says. “I cannot abandon them. Being Palestinian is not something you can escape.”
In 2004 she travelled back to ‘48, as Palestinians call the lands that became Israel in 1948, to make a film. She spent a month in Gaza, then hired a car and drove to the place her family had once lived. She was the first in her extended family to return to the village.
Most of the homes had been destroyed, she said, although two or three old stone buildings remained: one was occupied. As she wandered through the building, some people came up and asked her what she was doing there. “I said, ‘What are you doing here?’ And one of them said, ‘It is mine, and I am turning it into a restaurant.’ I told him the building belonged to my father’s family. The guy, who was Moroccan, said, ‘Maybe’, and shrugged his shoulders.”
“I rang my father from my mobile phone. I said, ‘Dad, I am at Safsaf. I am standing in Safsaf.’ ” There was silence on the end of the line. At first her
father wouldn’t believe her, but she described the hills and the mountains and then he interrupted her to describe the rest of the scene as he remembered it – a memory he’s carried for 61 years.
Father and daughter cried, and then he said, “At least my voice has made it home.”
Also…
Chariba identifies herself as being “a Palestinian woman”. The post in which she refers to Syria (cited above, and taken from the SSNP_USA site [since deleted]) seems to suggest that at that point (1999) she considered Palestine as being part of a Greater Syria. This dates from when she was a supporter of and/or sympathiser with the SSNP — from what I understand, Charida no longer espouses the viewpoints of the SSNP.
Your implication that someone may legitimately be considered ‘Palestinian’ “as long as they hate the Jewish state” seems to me to be rather tendentious (at best).
“She could up and leave to set up shop in Gaza if she wanted”? Um, maybe. I dunno. It seems to me that it’s reasonable to assume that her position (and that of other persons in the Palestinian diaspora) is likely to be rather more complicated, for reasons both personal but, moreover, political. Again: a word beginning with ‘t’ and having three syllables.
As for Gaza ~versus~ wine, I imagine that she’d haveta DIY.
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The lonely, dangerous life of Gaza wine-lovers
Mai Yaghi (AFP)
October 14, 2009
GAZA CITY — Abu Mohammed goes to great lengths to enjoy his wine in Gaza. Risking the wrath of the enclave’s Islamist Hamas rulers, he sneaks to the rooftop of an abandoned house to make his own nectar of the gods.
Here in his secret hideaway, Abu Mohammed carefully turns grapes into home-made vintages he savours only in the privacy of his own home, far away from the disapproving eyes of Hamas police and Gaza’s conservative society.
“I started making my own wine after Hamas took power,” says the 40-something civil servant who, like all the other Gaza bootleggers interviewed by AFP, declined to give their real names for fear of being arrested.
“I asked friends how to do it and I did some research on the Internet,” he says.
Abu Mohammed risks much to indulge his palate.
Gaza has always adhered to traditional Islam and alcohol has never been widely available in the coastal strip.
Before Hamas swept the January 2006 parliamentary election, anyone could bring alcohol in from Israel and Egypt and a handful of restaurants and bars served spirits.
But that stopped when Hamas — the Arabic acronym for the Islamic Resistance Movement — routed loyalists of the rival secular Fatah faction from the territory in June 2007 after a week of deadly street clashes.
Since then, the sale of alcohol in Gaza has been banned altogether under a de facto law imposed by Hamas.
“No liquor is authorised,” warns a sign to visitors at the Erez border crossing checkpoint with Israel in the north, saying any alcohol found will be destroyed on the spot.
Meanwhile the smugglers doing a brisk trade in everything from cars to diapers through tunnels between southern Gaza and Egypt refuse to whisk alcohol into the territory for fear of running afoul of Hamas.
So people like Abu Mohammed must resort to their own devices.
“First I wash the grapes well, then I take off the stems, then I press them with my bare hands,” he says, demonstrating the procedure. “The seeds stay at the bottom. I filter the juice and then add a small bit of yeast to speed up the fermentation, which takes at least 40 days.”
The result, he admits, is “not as good as ‘real wine’” but under the present circumstances it is all he can get.
He knows that by indulging his palate he’s playing with fire.
“I am terrified by the idea of being discovered by Hamas police,” he says. “That’s why I make sure to do it all alone and in secret and above all not to sell it.”
Hussein knows the feeling. The 56-year-old — who has been making his wine in small wooden barrels “to add flavour” — is not only “afraid of being discovered by the Hamas police, who will have no mercy,” but also of losing face in a socially conservative society that does not look kindly on imbibers.
Ziad, 30, says he drinks alone to minimise any chances of getting caught.
Hamas spokesman Taher al-Nunu says Gaza’s Islamist rulers “act on a case by case basis in line with Palestinian law.”
“We act against commercial quantities. In cases of personal use production, we respect the law.”
There are no figures on how many people in Gaza make their own booze, but anecdotal evidence suggests they are either very few or very good at hiding.
Jamal Dahshane, who heads the Hamas police anti-drug unit and considers confiscating alcohol a “social duty”, admits he’s never run across such a case.
“Even if we discover that a person makes his own alcohol, we don’t have the means to arrest him because Palestinian law does not prohibit alcohol consumption,” he says. “Only the selling of alcohol can be considered as a criminal offence.”
But Gaza’s daring bootleggers aren’t taking any chances.
All drink the fruit of their labours in very limited circles — at home, at night and either alone or with only wives and a few close friends present.
Ziad has never gotten drunk. Abu Mohammed allows himself to get tipsy, but never tipples more than four glasses.
Hussein does get drunk, and it once led to dangerous consequences — his neighbours saw him behaving strangely and confronted him. He denied he had been drinking and has tried to be more discreet since.
But despite all the risks and the fears, no one has any intention of giving up their dangerous hobby.
“I know that I live in a traditionalist society, but I consider that drinking alcohol is a matter of individual liberty,” Abu Mohammed says.
======
Dunno about Charida ~versus~ PressTV.
Chariba identifies herself as being “a Palestinian woman”
Yes she does. However having not been born there, not grown up there, not lived there for any significant period, you’d have to question why.
Of course those who know her well, may spot the other bit of hyperbole in the above claim.
Ahem.
Your implication that someone may legitimately be considered ‘Palestinian’ “as long as they hate the Jewish state
It was a glib comment, based on Joseph Farah’s comments that a Palestinian is:
1) Anyone who Yasser Arafat, the Egyptian, says is a Palestinian.
2) Anyone who claims to be a Palestinian.
3) Any angry Arab.
The broader point has basis as any number of people call themselves a “Palestinian” having never set foot in the place. Rihab is but one example.
Another is the recent Fort Hood gunman in the USA who called himself a Palestinian too.
The so-called “refugees” who are referred to as Palestinians are used as a political weapon against Israel. Specifically, all of the descendants of any Arab in the region circa 1948, even if they’ve never lived anywhere near the place.
For example, someone born in Australia yesterday, to a Palestinian Arab who’s been running a Lakemba kebab shop for the last sixty years, would still be included as a “Palestinian Refugee” apparently entitled to the “law of return” to a future Palestinian state. There is no other refugee population on Earth, which grows exponentially, well after the cessation of hostilities.
The UN even has a dedicated (and wholly complicit) unit dedicated just to them, UNWRA whose website notes:
“The descendants of the original Palestine Refugees are also eligible for registration. When the agency became operational in 1950, it was responding to the needs of about 750,000 Palestine refugees. Today, 4.6 million Palestine refugees are eligible for UNRWA services.”
Hello? Handouts! No wonder so many are queuing up to stick their snouts in the trough.
Meanwhile, even though nearly a million Jews were forcibly driven out of Arab countries, you don’t ever hear about Jewish refugees, and there’s a good reason why. They got on with the business of making a life for their children, rather than trying to get them to blow themselves up. Nor do you hear about any other post-WWII group demanding repatriation in their original home country.
Joseph Farah of WorldNetDaily?
LOL.
The broader point has basis as any number of people call themselves a “Palestinian” having never set foot in the place. Rihab is but one example.
By that logic, Charida does, in fact, qualify:
Dispossessed all over again, PNN, October 29, 2004.
Moar later…
By that logic, Charida does, in fact, qualify:
Only if you accept the totally absurd suggestion in the paragraph before your excerpt, that anyone who wants to call themselves a Palestinian can consider themself one.
Sadly, despite being absurd the proposition is actually the case. It’s as bogus as kids who tick that they are an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander in the hope of getting a few extra marks on their exam paper. Yet it’s good enough for the UN.
Moar later, but in the meantime, while ranging over a number of subjects, in the video below, Ward Churchill makes some relevant observations on the nature of identity (from approximately 2:19):
“…anyone who wants to call themselves a Palestinian can consider themself one…”
A few things.
First, this conversation revolves around the identity of a person who is absent from the conversation. This kinda sucks — it’s also not something I’m especially interested in pursuing further.
Secondly, yes, of course: individuals are free to make whatever claims they like with regards their identity. So, yes, literally speaking, “anyone who wants to call themselves a Palestinian can consider themself one”. Equally obviously, such claims can be accepted, rejected, ignored, or responded to in any number of ways. What this points to, in my view, is the fact that ‘identity’ is not merely a matter of self-proclamation — ‘I am X’ — but also implies the notion that such identity has a communal or social dimension.
Thirdly, with regards national identity, the work of Benedict Anderson is fairly seminal. Also useful is The Nationalism Project.
Finally, the question of the Palestinian nation — in addition to more general questions of political ontology — brings up other, specific questions, situated in the history of the twentieth century and involving, crucially, the establishment of Israel: questions which, as far as I can tell, seem to animate your interest in the subject of Rihab Charida.