Boycott Cultural Activities with Israel Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit source - "Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory" International Call Issued by The Network of Palestinian Art Centers Boycott Cultural Activities with Israel To the international community of artists, intellectuals and academics We address you from the devastated heart of Palestine where the Israeli army has laid waste to our towns, villages and refugee camps. Claiming that it invaded our land in order to root out terrorism, General Sharon's army in effect systematically tried to destroy everything about our society that made it function. This was no ordinary colonial raid: it was an attempt, using the ultimate in freely supplied American offensive technology, to reduce Palestinian life to zero, the life of a dispossessed and stateless people equipped neither with an army nor defenses against tanks, attack helicopters, F-16 jets. In this offensive thousands of homes were destroyed, as were the electrical, water and telephone systems. Every major office and civil installation was summarily entered, ransacked, pillaged, and records removed, including the ministries of Education, Culture, Health, and Civil Affairs. Archeological and cultural heritage sites were callously destroyed. Cultural and art centers barbarically vandalized, musical instruments broken, paintings damaged, and artists detained; the aim was to set back Palestinian life by at least a generation, to make it unviable, to render Palestinian national and cultural existence on Palestinian land untenable. Hundreds were brutally killed; thousands led off to uncertain futures in secret tribunals, torture and detention centers. Palestinians were treated like dehumanized, lesser creatures. Refugees were made refugees for the 2nd or 3rd time. Ambulances, and aid workers were either shot at or prevented from reaching the wounded. Dozens bled to death, corpses callously left to rot in the ruins created by bulldozers and tanks. And yet the Palestinian people have not been broken, our struggle continues and our resolve is strengthened. We call on members of the international community of artists, academics and performers to show their moral disapproval for Israeli violation of the laws of war and the Geneva Convention by not coming to perform, attend conferences, or give lectures. Israel can no longer claim to be an enlightened state when its armies rampage across the land of a colonized and occupied people. To pretend that business as usual is possible while Israel is still actively involved in terrible aggression and destruction is to give it support where only condemnation is warranted. Boycott Israel so long as it violently denies Palestinian self-determination and occupies Palestinian lands. Express your disapproval as a constituency of conscience by refusing to lend your name and presence in support of colonial practices and inhuman behavior. The cause of justice and humanity requires your support: Do not look the other way while evil is being done. The Network of Palestinian Art Centers source: ashtar ********************************************************************* "The first duty of a revolutionary is to be educated." --José Martí ********************************************************************* The Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory http://www.toplab.org ********************************************************************* ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytmid-05.23.02-15:56:38-1028