[Xmca-l] FW: Quds day

[Peter Smagorinsky]

I got this today, and it maps onto Paul M’s recent posts on Haiti as a colonized land, at least in part. Important qualifier: I’m an atheist, so have no vested interest in whose religion makes its people the proper residents of a geographic area. Although my father’s family is Jewish, I had no Jewish religious upbringing (he was a scientist with no interest in a spiritual universe); my mother, a Catholic who fell from the church following Vatican II’s<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Vatican_Council> changes in its rituals, took us to an Episcopalian church when I was young, but aside from that, I’ve never felt the call to an Almighty being, even in the midst of my greatest life crises.

I have a friend who’s a Palestinian Greek (Greek origins but resident of what Americans now call Israel before moving to the US) who always refers to that nation as Palestine, not Israel. Even at my ancient age, I keep learning more about how complex societies are.

I wish to be clear that I do not intend to submit this note to xmca to start a verbal war over who has what rights to what lands. If I did, I’d start with saying that I live on Cherokee land, not Georgia, USA. Rather, I’m sharing something I got that I was not aware of that reaffirms that cultures do construct geography and its resident societies quite differently as they read its contours and history into the present. p

From: usa [mailto:jessica.hall2016@yandex.com]
Sent: Thursday, July 02, 2015 2:02 AM
To: Peter Smagorinsky
Subject: Quds day

International Day of al-Quds is an annual event, supporting a just peace for Palestine, and opposing Apartheid Israel’s control of Jerusalem (al-Quds in Arabic: القـُدْس), the international city that stands as a powerful symbol to three of the world’s great religious traditions.  Pro-justice and anti-Zionist Apartheid demonstrations are held on this day in most Muslim and Arab countries and by Muslim and non-Muslim communities around the world, including the United States.  It is held each year on the last Friday of the Muslim month of Ramadhan.  The Day of al-Quds is also an opportunity to stand on the side of the oppressed worldwide, not just in the Holy Land.  Jerusalem Day is not an Islamic religious event but rather a human rights event open to both Muslims and non-Muslims alike.