Mazin Qumsiyeh on Popular Resistance in Palestine
US Media Overlooks Peaceful Palestinian Protest Movement amid so-called Arab Spring
Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh teaches at Bethlehem and Birzeit Universities in Palestine. This week's show is a recording of his talk delivered at the University of Connecticut March 23rd at UCONN, Storrs, CT COOP, bookstore. TRT: 29:13
Produced by, Dori Smith, Storrs, CT
Download at Pacifica's Audioport here or at Radio4all.net and Archive.org
Professor Mazin B. Qumsiyeh visited his Alma mater, the University of Connecticut, in Storrs, CT, as one stop on his US book tour with his latest work, Popular Resistance in Palestine, A History of Hope and Empowerment. (Available here)He studied as an undergraduate at the UCONN campus and was well received there. There is also a tape with audience questions available for interested broadcast outlets.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
Professor Mazin B. Qumsiyeh serves as chairman of the board of the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement Between People and coordinator of the Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements in Beit Sahour. He described his personal history of activism and also that of his ancestors in Palestine. Dr. Qumsiyeh is also author of, Sharing the Land of Canaan: Human rights and the Israeli/Palestinian Struggle. (Still available here) He was arrested in March of 2011 for protesting the Israeli occupation, the separation wall, new illegal settlement building by Israel, and ongoing repression of Palestinians. He described his commitment to non-violence as founded in the principles of Mahatma Gandhi.
Despite the so called Arab Spring in the Middle East and North Africa, Palestinian activists working non violently for their democratic rights have gotten little or no media coverage in American corporate press outlets.
Palestinians have in fact a very long history of non-violent protest, and had Professor Qumsiyeh been an activist working for peace and democratic rights in Tripoli, Libya, rather than Jerusalem, Palestine, his name might be more widely recognized in America. Had he been active in working to fight repression in Egypt, Yemen, Syria, or even China, Prof. Qumsiyeh's work might be under discussion at major US universities. He nevertheless continues to tell the history of Israel, Palestine, the US and UK, to all who are willing to listen.
