by Ron Saba

(Montreal, October 25, 2005) It was announced this morning by the Associated Press that "Rosa Parks, whose refusal to give up her bus seat to a white man sparked the modern civil rights movement, died Monday evening.  .Parks was 42 when she committed an act of defiance in 1955 that was to change the course of American history and earn her the title "mother of the civil rights movement."

At that time, Jim Crow laws in place since the post-Civil War Reconstruction required separation of the races in buses, restaurants and public accommodations throughout the South, while legally sanctioned racial discrimination kept blacks out of many jobs and neighbourhoods in the North."

As a young boy growing up in the sixties, I was shocked by the refusal of large numbers of the American public to recognize the civil rights of their fellow Americans, who just happened to be black.  My parents taught me that everyone on this planet is the same, no one is better, no one is worse.  How then could Americans refuse equal treatment for their fellow humans, all the while coming up with false arguments to justify such vile acts of injustice?

Despite some victories, the struggle for recognition of "we are all the same" continues across the planet.  Unfortunately there is no shortage of propagandists and apologists who spend a lifetime coming up with false justifications to deny equal human and civil rights to the "other".

One of the longest and enduring cases of such injustice continues to be the Israeli regimes' sixty year denial of the basic human and civil rights of the indigenous Palestinian people.

As pointed out by speakers Jeff Halper (Coordinating Director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions) and Amneh Daoud Badran (Director of the Jerusalem Center for Women) at the Coalition for Justice and Peace in Palestine conference held last evening at the University of Quebec at Montreal, the root of the Israeli regime's system of injustice is its view of the "exclusivity" of the rights of the Jewish people to the land of Palestine.  Israel's race based view of rights is similar to the views of nationhood which were common in early twentieth century Eastern Europe, which viewed a country as a nation of a specific race.

Suffice it to say that this race based view of nationhood is the exact opposite of the view taken by countries which have a high degree of respect for human rights and international law.  Canada is not a nation of the English or French or Italians or Whites or Blacks, nor is Canada a nation of the Protestants or Catholics or Moslems or Hindus or Atheists.  To be a Canadian, you need not belong to a specific racial, religious, social or sexual orientation group, or any other group for that matter.

It would be a fitting tribute to Rosa Parks if our elected officials, who profess to support universal human rights and international law, make clear public statements against the racist policies of the Israeli regime.  It would also be fitting if our government leads the world in a divestment and boycott campaign against the Israeli regime to force an end to its racist and Apartheid policies, as was successfully done against the Apartheid South African regime.

Clearly Canada's position and actions on this issue will indicate whether it truly believes that "we are all the same".

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Ron Saba is the editor of Montreal Planet Magazine.