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GAZA YOUTH’S MANIFESTO FOR CHANGE

An anonymous group of young people, men and women, in Gaza have issued a manifesto what they called "Gaza Youth's Manifesto for Change" to vent their anger about the current situation in Palestine, especially the Gaza Strip. On Facebook, the group calls itself "Gaza Youth Breaks Out" (*).

One activist explained "We are supposed to be the engine of change in this society, but our voices are muted. In the press, at university, there is no room in our society to talk freely, out of the frame, without putting yourself and your family at risk," He adds: "In Gaza, you feel watched at school, in the streets, everywhere. You can be thrown into jail at any time. [Hamas] will threaten you with ruining your family reputation and that would be it."

These youngsters do not represent anybody except themselves, but their call for change has resonated strongly, not only abroad but also inside Gaza. Their Facebook page already has thousands of supporters.

Here you can read the full text of the "Manifesto":

Fuck Hamas. Fuck Israel. Fuck Fatah. Fuck the UN. Fuck the USA!

 
We, the youth in Gaza, are so fed up with Israel, Hamas, the occupation, the violations of human rights and the indifference of the international community!

 
We want to scream and break this wall of silence, injustice and indifference like the Israeli F16’s breaking the wall of sound; scream with all the power in our souls in order to release this immense frustration that consumes us because of this fucking situation we live in; we are like lice between two nails living a nightmare inside a nightmare, no room for hope, no space for freedom.

 
We are sick of being caught in this political struggle; sick of coal dark nights with airplanes circling above our homes; sick of innocent farmers getting shot in the buffer zone because they are taking care of their lands; sick of bearded guys walking around with their guns abusing their power, beating up or incarcerating young people demonstrating for what they believe in; sick of the wall of shame that separates us from the rest of our country and keeps us imprisoned in a stamp-sized piece of land; sick of being portrayed as terrorists, homemade fanatics with explosives in our pockets and evil in our eyes; sick of the indifference we meet from the international community, the so-called experts in expressing concerns and drafting resolutions but cowards in enforcing anything they agree on; we are sick and tired of living a shitty life, being kept in jail by Israel, beaten up by Hamas and completely ignored by the rest of the world.

 
There is a revolution growing inside of us, an immense dissatisfaction and frustration that will destroy us unless we find a way of canalizing this energy into something that can challenge the status quo and give us some kind of hope. The final drop that made our hearts tremble with frustration and hopelessness happened 30rd November, when Hamas’ officers came to Sharek Youth Forum, a leading youth organization with their guns, lies and aggressiveness, throwing everybody outside, incarcerating some and prohibiting Sharek from working. A few days later, demonstrators in front of Sharek were beaten and some incarcerated. We are really living a nightmare inside a nightmare. It is difficult to find words for the pressure we are under. We barely survived the Operation Cast Lead, where Israel very effectively bombed the shit out of us, destroying thousands of homes and even more lives and dreams. They did not get rid of Hamas, as they intended, but they sure scared us forever and distributed post traumatic stress syndrome to everybody, as there was nowhere to run.

 
We are youth with heavy hearts. We carry in ourselves a heaviness so immense that it makes it difficult to us to enjoy the sunset. How to enjoy it when dark clouds paint the horizon and bleak memories run past our eyes every time we close them? We smile in order to hide the pain. We laugh in order to forget the war. We hope in order not to commit suicide here and now. During the war we got the unmistakable feeling that Israel wanted to erase us from the face of the earth. During the last years Hamas has been doing all they can to control our thoughts, behaviour and aspirations. We are a generation of young people used to face missiles, carrying what seems to be a impossible mission of living a normal and healthy life, and only barely tolerated by a massive organization that has spread in our society as a malicious cancer disease, causing mayhem and effectively killing all living cells, thoughts and dreams on its way as well as paralyzing people with its terror regime. Not to mention the prison we live in, a prison sustained by a so-called democratic country.

 
History is repeating itself in its most cruel way and nobody seems to care. We are scared. Here in Gaza we are scared of being incarcerated, interrogated, hit, tortured, bombed, killed. We are afraid of living, because every single step we take has to be considered and well-thought, there are limitations everywhere, we cannot move as we want, say what we want, do what we want, sometimes we even cant think what we want because the occupation has occupied our brains and hearts so terrible that it hurts and it makes us want to shed endless tears of frustration and rage!

 
We do not want to hate, we do not want to feel all of this feelings, we do not want to be victims anymore. ENOUGH! Enough pain, enough tears, enough suffering, enough control, limitations, unjust justifications, terror, torture, excuses, bombings, sleepless nights, dead civilians, black memories, bleak future, heart aching present, disturbed politics, fanatic politicians, religious bullshit, enough incarceration! WE SAY STOP! This is not the future we want!

 
We want three things:

 
We want to be free!
We want to be able to live a normal life!
We want peace!

Is that too much to ask? We are a peace movement consistent of young people in Gaza and supporters elsewhere that will not rest until the truth about Gaza is known by everybody in this whole world and in such a degree that no more silent consent or loud indifference will be accepted.

This is the Gazan youth’s manifesto for change!

 
We will start by destroying the occupation that surrounds ourselves, we will break free from this mental incarceration and regain our dignity and self respect. We will carry our heads high even though we will face resistance. We will work day and night in order to change these miserable conditions we are living under. We will build dreams where we meet walls.

We want to be free, we want to live, we want peace.

 
FREE GAZA YOUTH!

* For more info please check out:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Gaza-Youth-Breaks-Out-GYBO/118914244840679

Related article:
☞ Gazan youth issue manifesto... (Guardian, 1.02)


 

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Last Friday (New Year's Eve) S. Korean newspapers (JoongAng and Chosun Ilbo, but also Hankyoreh etc.) favoured us with a very special feat of journalism:

"The Dear Leader Opens a Wardrobe"

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is pictured comfortably opening a closet with his left hand, despite reports that he had difficulty using his left hand after a stroke, in video footage released by the Korean Central Television, Dec. 29. On this day during a formal visit to a construction site along the Daedong River of apartments for artists in Pyongyang, Oct. 8, Kim examined their closets. (Yonhap News Agency via Hankyoreh)

Related trash"documentary":
☞ Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un are visiting families (KCTV, Nov. 2010)
Related article (actually also TRASH!!):
☞ N.Korea Releases Footage of Kim Jong-il Using Left Hand (Chosun Ilbo, 12.31)

 

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While Jews especially in Europe are still confronted with (partly increasing) anti-semitism, Arabs(i.e. Muslim, Christian & Druze Palestinians/25% of the Israeli population), migrant workers(aprox. 180,000) and refugees in Israel are confronted with a massive wave of racism.

Israel's top Reform rabbi declared y'day:

Israeli society falling into deep pit of racism

The head of Israel's Reform Judaism movement on Tuesday harshly criticized a letter by 30 rabbis' wives calling on Jewish girls not to date Arabs, work with them or perform national service in the same places where they work.

"Israeli society is falling into a deep, dark pit of racism and xenophobia," said Rabbi Gilad Kariv, who two weeks ago also vocally condemned a move by a number of leading rabbis who signed on a ruling to forbid the rental of homes to Arabs

Just weeks after several dozen state-employed rabbis ignited a major controversy by issuing a letter calling on Israeli Jews not to rent or sell their homes to non-Jews, and some days after an anti-Arab demonstrations in Bat Yam and Tel Aviv Israel sees more and more incidents in the rising tide of hatred and racism that appears to be sweeping the country...

Here just some examples ('highlights') from the past ten days:

☞ School principal prohibits students from speaking Arabic (12.29)
☞ Rabbis' wives: Don't date Arabs (12.28)
☞ Arabs flee home due to racist threats (12.23)
☞ ...racism ...take the streets against Arabs, migrant workers (12.22)
☞ Bat Yam: Death to Jewish women who date Arabs (12.21)
☞ Hundreds in Tel Aviv call for deportation of migrant workers, refugees (12.21)
☞ Bat Yam rally: 'Arabs dating our sisters' (12.19)


 

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At least the "war of words" between S. and N. Korea is continuing...

And y'day it was - once again - MB's turn to give proof that he's a "trigger-happy agitator", according to the following Yonhap(via K. Herald) news report:

Lee says S. Korea not afraid of war with North Korea

President Lee Myung-bak said Monday that South Koreans should not fear war with North Korea although his government is eager to keep peace on the peninsula.

“If (we) are afraid of war, we can never prevent war,” Lee said in his biweekly radio address, the last of this year.

His remarks represent Seoul’s firm stance to deal resolutely with the communist neighbor’s provocations down the road.

The conservative Lee administration came under harsh public criticism for being too feeble and passive in handling the North’s deadly artillery attack on the Yellow Sea border island of Yeonpyeong last month. It was the North’s second major unprovoked attack on South Korea this year following the torpedoing of a naval ship in March that killed 46 sailors.

“North Korea committed the provocations without reluctance, misjudging our patience and desire for peace,” Lee said. “We have clearly realized the fact that only strong counteractions to military provocations are able to deter war and safeguard peace.”

He said the South had tolerated the North’s belligerence in hopes of maintaining peace on the peninsula, but he stressed that his military should cope with any future attacks without mercy.

Lee also reiterated calls for the South Korean people to boost unity in dealing with the North, a longstanding source of ideological rifts.

“There can’t be ‘you’ and ‘me’ separately when it comes to national security with our life and the country’s fate at stake,”

Lee said, adding the North’s goal is to split public opinion here.

“If our people become one and show united power, North Korea can’t dare to challenge us,” he said. “We learned valuable lessons from the Yeonpyeong incident.”

Concluding his speech, the president said South Korea aspires to reunify with the North peacefully.

http://www.koreaherald.com/national/Detail.jsp?newsMLId=20101227000746

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Well, usually there're not many funny stories about/from North Korea, but the following is definitely one of them (even if it's possibly only a rumor...)!

Headline in today's (German) Spiegel (magazine):

Sabotage Against Kim Jong-un's "Birthday Train"

Reuters reported the following:

Train carrying gifts for N.Korea heir derailed

A train packed with birthday gifts for North Korea's leader-in-waiting Kim Jong-un derailed this month in a possible act of sabotage, a Seoul-based radio station which broadcasts across the border reported on Monday.

Open Radio for North Korea, a non-profit station which often cites sources in the reclusive, impoverished North, said the train laden with gifts including televisions and watches came off the rails on Dec. 11 near North Korea's border with China.

"The security service has been in an emergency situation because a train departing Sinuiju and headed for Pyongyang derailed on Dec. 11," the radio station quoted a source in the security service in North Phyongan province as saying.

The city of Sinuiju is a North Korean trading gateway.

"The tracks and rail beds are so old it is possible there was decay in the wood or nails that secured the tracks could have been dislodged but the extent of damage to the tracks and the timing of the incident points to a chance that someone intentionally damaged the tracks," the source said.

"It's highly likely that it was someone who is opposed to succession to Kim Jong-un," the source said, according to the radio station...

http://in.reuters.com/article/idINIndia-53794420101227

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"X-mass Season" in N. Korea, the "Paradise of the Working Class"

KCNA 'reported' the following about events, incl. a booze-up(*), happened Dec. 24, aka the "Christmas Eve":
  
Dancing parties of youth and students took place here and in various provinces, cities and county seats of the country on Friday. They were to celebrate the 19th anniversary of General Secretary Kim Jong Il as supreme commander of the Korean People's Army and the 93rd birth anniversary of anti-Japanese war hero Kim Jong Suk.

As song "Please Receive Our Salute" reverberated far and wide, youth and students presented merry dances, extending profound thanks to Kim Jong Il who has developed the KPA into invincible revolutionary armed forces of Mt. Paektu and brought about a great change in building a rich and powerful country.

They also presented graceful dances to the tune of songs "The Tuman River Full of Memories" and "Triumphant War Song in Forest," looking back with deep emotion on Kim Jong Suk's noble revolutionary career and undying feats.

Dancing parties held in various parts of the country successfully represented the will of the youth and students to devotedly defend Kim Jong Il and give steady continuity to the tradition of Juche.

http://175.45.179.68/eng/i_news.php?lang=eng&year=2010&kk=8036

* For more please read the following KCNA 'news reports':

☞ Banquet Given by Central Military Commission of WPK and NDC of DPRK
☞ Kim Jong Il Enjoys Art Performance

But in reality millions of 'ordinary' N. Koreans (the inhabitants of the "Paradise of the Working Class"!!^^) are struggling only for survival, as the following example describes the current situation in the 'DPR'K:

The residents of Hamheung city in South Hamgyong Province are complaining about not being able to sleep because of the bone-chilling cold temperature as cold weather continues as falling temperatures plummet below freezing point.

Although officials and the wealthy can stock up plenty of coal and firewood at home, the ordinary citizens can only obtain them as needed.

They try to get firewood when they are unable to obtain coal and collect leaves and twigs when firewood is not available. On the days when none of those are available they cannot even dream of heating, so they use fuel only for cooking rice only for a minute.

The children who are not mature enough to understand the situation whine about being cold, and old people groan in pain instead of complaining verbally.

It is so cold that frost and water droplets can be seen along the inner walls of the house, and white steam out of your breath is visible even inside a room as you wake in the morning and talk. People sleep with their clothes on because of the cold temperature.

For that reason many people keep the same clothes on throughout the day and night. They keep the outdoor clothing while living in the house during the day and then go to bed wearing the same clothes because the temperature inside and outside is not that much different.

People would be able to stand the cold weather if they can fill their stomach a little bit, but the days of cold and hunger are continuing because there is not enough food...

Source: NK Today ("Good Friends/좋은벗들")

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Holy shit!!! Synchronized to the "Christmas season" Pyongyang threatens with...

NUCLEAR JIHAD!

Yesterday's Guardian (UK) about the current situation on the Korean Peninsula:

Tensions on the Korean Pensinsula were at their most dangerous level since the 1950-53 war today when North Korea threatened to use nuclear weapons in a "holy war" (*) against its neighbour after South Korean tanks, jets and artillery carried out one of the largest live-fire drills in history close to the border...

While LMB claimed y'day "Counterattacks neccessary for peace" (But of course! What else?^^), on the same day North Korea's armed forces minister, Kim Yong-chun, also lifted the pitch of the sabre-rattling: "To counter the enemy's intentional drive to push the situation to the brink of war, our revolutionary forces are making preparations to begin a holy war at any moment necessary based on nuclear deterrent"...

Dec.22/23: KIJ and LMB on 'PEACE MISSION'(^^), resp. preparing the next showdown:

Related articles:

☞ N. Korea 'may conduct' nuclear test (Al-Jazeera, 12.24)
☞ 'North Korea capable of hitting Seoul with nukes' (K. Times, 12.24)

* N. Korea should apply for admission in the 'Global Jihad Network' (aka AL-QAIDA)!!!

Anyway, please enjoy a nice weekend/peaceful "Christmas"(^^)

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