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Operation Small Axe draws parallels between racism in the US and the Palestinian struggle. |
Operation Small Axe, a low budget documentary about police terrorism and occupation in Oakland, California, premiered at the Palestinian Film Festival in Cape Town this year.
The film tells the story of Oscar Grant who was killed by police in front of a number of people at a subway station in Oakland. Three months later, another member of the community, Lovelle Mixon was murdered after allegedly killing four policemen. What follows is extreme police brutality in the community which results in two other murders and a case of government sponsored terrorism.
The film makers unequivocally showcase the unjustified terror experienced in low income Black communities in the United States and they attempt to draw parallels between occupation brutality in Palestine, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
Former US Presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney has been outspoken on the Israeli occupation in Palestine. IslamOnline.net's correspondent spoke briefly to Cynthia about the film and about drawing parallels between different types of oppression around the globe.
IslamOnline.net (IOL): How does Operation Small Axe about African-American rights in the US fit into a Palestinian Film festival?
McKinney: The film is about a group of young people who basically have adopted me, and I (adopted) them. They are engaged in US version of an Intifada. And it went on for three days! And the elected officials in that part of the US, in Oakland California were too afraid to say anything.
No elected officials said anything for seven days! And the video image of the police murdering this young man was captured on people’s cell phones and was broadcast over the internet immediately after it happened.
We all watched the first and, the second Intifada, we watched Palestinian resistance, and this now extends to the young people who were in the streets after the murder of Oscar Grant in Oakland, California. And they learned, they responded, and now they resist.
IOL: We all know that media representation of the Palestinian conflict is a serious problem. Are you saying that this extends to the continued misrepresentation of African American reality?
McKinney: People shouldn’t be fooled about Barack Obama’s Presidency. The plight of black people and indigenous people and the Latino community, which is our Spanish speaking people in the United States, is dire. The Obama administration has transferred the wealth of our country to private bankers. So the Obama administration has not dealt with (Hurricane) Katrina survivors.
The world watched and saw the blatant racism and poverty of the Black community with Katrina. This still hasn’t been dealt with. Segregated living patterns, as are common here, even in the new South Africa where communities exist together because at one time they were forced to live together, exists in the US as well.
Very little has changed. But for the average black or brown Native American living in the US, their situation has gotten worse.
IOL: Is this parallel fair, considering how different these struggles are?
McKinney: These young people have to deal with infiltration and betrayal; they are in the early stages of something that of course the Palestinians have had to deal with for a very long time.
These include false friends, betrayal from inside and outside; silence on the part of the people who are supposed to honor and respect Palestinian rights.
As Dr. Martin Luther King Junior said “justice is indivisible; Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”. If you understand the power of the individual to join with other individuals to make public policy changes, and at the same time, understand that the objective is the protection of human rights then it doesn’t matter what humans you are talking about.
Yesterday it was Black People in the United States, today it is the Palestinians. I will always be in the struggle for the protection and recognition for human rights.
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