Aseem, Gong Siliang
In this issue of Thought Weekly, we continue to focus on Israel's occupation, colonization and ethnic cleansing of Palestine, how ideology is consolidated through media and language, and how Palestine is denied the "right to narrate." At the same time, the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines has also become a topic of continuous heating, what is the vaccination situation of minorities and low-income groups in Western countries?
Palestinian deprivation of "right to narrate"
Decades of Israeli settler colonization have recently peaked. The Israeli-Israeli conflict heated up sharply with the violent expulsion by Israeli authorities of Palestinian residents from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem, followed by a brutal Israeli police crackdown on Palestinian protesters gathered at the Al-Aqsa mosque. As of 16 May, the armed conflict between Israel and Palestine in the Gaza Strip had entered its seventh day, and the exchange of fire between the two sides continued. On the 15th, a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip was hit by Israeli missiles, killing 10 people, including 8 children. On the same day, the Israeli army also air raided a multi-storey building in the Gaza Strip, which housed branches of the Associated Press, Al Jazeera and other news media. Palestinians say at least 150 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the armed clashes on 10 May, including 41 children, and more than 1,000 injured; On the Israeli side, at least 10 people were killed in the conflict.
As early as April 30, David Hearst, a veteran journalist and co-founder and editor-in-chief of Middle East Eye, warned the world in his article "Jerusalem Will Explode – The World Has Been Warned" that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is far from over, and that the atmosphere in Jerusalem is tense and on the verge of "exploding." With israel's daily encroachment on Palestine, the expansion of Jewish settlements, the intensification of apartheid and ethnic cleansing, Palestinian protests against settler colonization have erupted in many parts of Israel and have gradually evolved into a national movement. The protesters are not entirely religiously motivated, and most are not conservatives, they are young, have no unified leadership and are not strongly associated with Fatah or Hamas. "For the Palestinians, the reaction of Biden or the rest of the world is no longer important. Abandoned by the international community, ignored by the media, betrayed by the majority of Arab States, ignored by the Palestinian leadership, who did not care about their needs, their fate is now in their own hands. They are taking to the streets. Hirst fears that a new round of demolitions of houses built without planning permission and the eviction of Palestinian settlements by Israeli authorities could be a trigger for larger protests and conflicts.
Reality was unfortunately what he said. As originally planned, israel's Supreme Court was expected to rule on the expulsion of Palestinian residents from the Sheikh Jala community on 10 May 2021. If the Supreme Court upholds the lower court's expulsion decision, a total of 58 people from 13 families will be expelled. On May 6, Palestinians began gathering in Jerusalem to protest the upcoming expulsion decision of Israel's Supreme Court. The protests quickly escalated into violent clashes. On May 7, protesters gathered at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem and clashed with Israeli police who came to crack down, injuring hundreds of people. After Hamas fired rockets into Israel on May 10 and were returned by the Israeli side, the "fuse" completely ignited the "bomb".
In al-Jazeera's Samikh Ode's view, the expulsion of the inhabitants of the Sheikh Jala neighborhood, one of the triggers of the conflict, is a step in Israel's ongoing comprehensive plan for settler colonization to isolate Palestinians through Jewish settlements and to use partition and isolation tactics to strengthen Israeli control and dismantle Palestinian resistance. Aude cautioned that a careful study of how construction projects such as stone walls, settlements, apartheid walls, and border crossings worked would help to discern the specific working mechanisms of Israeli settler colonization. From the location of the building (how to isolate the Palestinians), to the geographical location of the building (the settlement is located on the high ground on religious grounds for easy surveillance and control), to the visual language of the building (the outer wall uses "Jerusalem stone" to evoke the collective memory of the Jews; the use of a unified "National Israel" architectural style), to the supporting infrastructure (from the gradual expansion of antennas to receive signals to the fully integrated settlement), every aspect of the building is branded with hegemony and social control, The political and military objectives of the Israeli authorities have been met. This power-morphological perspective makes Israel's decades of settler colonization more legible.
Hegemony is not only condensed in architecture, but also continuously reproduced and strengthened in the use of language. For a long time, the Western mainstream media has turned a blind eye to Israel's atrocities in its reports, using specific narrative frameworks and language to naturalize colonialism and cover up state violence, which is also particularly evident in the reporting of this incident. The relevant BBC report headlined Israel's "response" to palestinian provocations, the NBC's related news headline "Jerusalem tensions rise, Hamas fires rockets at Israel", Reuters headline "Jerusalem violence leads to rockets and air strikes", Yahoo News headlines "After being attacked by Hamas rockets, Israeli airstrikes on Gaza"... Examples abound. These popular narratives simplify and characterize the events as the "Palestinian-Israeli conflict," which in itself obscures Israel's long-standing colonial atrocities against Palestine, and the term "conflict" blurs the distinction between perpetrators and recipients and the unequal power and moral relationships, as if to imply that "both sides of the conflict are responsible" and that "the violence perpetrated by both sides is equal and equal." Both of these points are far from the facts.
In an article in Jacobin magazine, Branko Marcetic pointed out that responsible journalism tells the story of events as they are, rather than chopping them off and taking them out of context. Hamas fired rockets in the wake of a series of atrocities and provocations by the Israeli authorities in occupied East Jerusalem, including the police attack on the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest mosque in Islam, in the holiest month of Islam, which injured hundreds of people, including worshippers, and the renewed attack by Israeli forces on Palestinians gathered at the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the 11th. Moreover, there are mixed views within the Palestinians about the rocket attacks by Hamas, with some believing that, unlike the West Bank leaders who abandoned the Palestinian people, the Hamas shelling was a heroic act by the Palestinian army to protect the people; Politically, the escalation has yielded little to gain for Hamas. Moreover, all of this takes place against the backdrop of palestinian protests by the Palestinian people against Israel's advance of settler colonization – rockets fired by Hamas and stones thrown by Palestinians are desperate reactions to Israel's continued systematic evictions, cannibalization and repression (in contrast, the Israeli Foreign Ministry describes the events that took place in Sheikh Jala as a "property dispute"). It is also worth stressing that Israel's "retaliation" against Gaza is far more ferocious and deadly than the alleged rocket attacks that have provoked its retaliation. Israel is one of the most militarized countries in the world, with U.S. financial assistance and military support, so the power dynamic implied in the "conflict" narrative that "both sides have a way to inflict the same violence against the other" simply does not exist. In the words of Asia Khatun, these narrative language choices in traditional Western media have led to two sides of the same coin: on the one hand, these "conflicts" are reported in sensational ways to attract attention; on the other hand, the death of Palestinians is reduced to a regular and unsurprising mundane event under these narratives. The normalization of colonialism began with language.
Social media censorship and the encroachment on academic freedom form another part of the language problem. Writer, poet and independent scholar Omar Zahza wrote on Al Jazeera that the question raised in 1984 by prominent Palestinian intellectual Edward Sayyid — that Palestinians were denied the "right to narrate" — persists to this day and even worsens. Tech companies and social platforms have used their censorship authority to increasingly censor and silence Palestinian voices, forming an important part of apartheid – "digital segregation". For example, in April, under pressure from the Israeli government and right-wing Zionist groups, the online academic campaign "Whose Narrative?" What is freedom of expression in Palestine? "Censored and banned by Zoom, Facebook and Youtube. Zoom's reasoning was that one of the attendees, Lyra Khalid, was from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a terrorist organization recognized by the United States. Facebook deleted the promotional article for the academic event and completely deleted the page about the AMED research project, blocking the discussion. In addition, in recent days, many individual users have recorded on social platforms the atrocities of the Israeli authorities, represented by the expulsion of Palestinian residents of the Sheikh Jala neighborhood, but these users say that Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have been "systematically censoring" the content they post, trying to silence them by deleting posts and blocking accounts. In today's world, the world in particular needs to hear voices from The Palestinians, and in particular, to guarantee freedom to use social media for voice and academic discussion, which is particularly important for the world to witness Israel's structural oppression and atrocities.
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https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/05/israel-palestine-sheikh-jarrah-al-aqsa-mosque
https://jacobinmag.com/2021/05/media-press-palestine-israel-gaza-violence-hamas
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Is vaccine distribution related to wealth?
As countries continue to promote vaccination, in some countries, the gap in vaccination rates between different groups has gradually widened. For high-income groups, access to vaccination is "natural" or even "easy"; however, for people in low-income areas, the acceptance and vaccination of vaccines is still not optimistic, and low-income areas are often the most affected areas of the epidemic. Even in some areas, high-income people have "robbed" of vaccination opportunities for low-income people in various ways, or prioritized vaccinations with higher effectiveness; in such a situation, the epidemic problem in low-income communities cannot be alleviated, and it is more likely to have serious consequences for entire cities and even countries.
On May 13, 2021, in California, USA, people were vaccinated against COVID-19.
Vaccine discrimination and misallocation – will COVID-19 be a "poor man's disease"?
"CCTV" reported in the article "Racial Discrimination in Vaccination" that according to data from the Kaiser Family Foundation in the United States, as of March 29, local time, 25% of white Americans have been vaccinated with at least one dose, while the proportion of African Americans and Latinos vaccinated is 15% and 13%, respectively. The US media pointed out that in the related processes such as vaccine distribution, appointment and vaccination, minorities are at a disadvantage compared to whites, resulting in whites with resources being able to obtain vaccines as soon as possible across regions, while minorities can only wait.
First, vaccination sites, which are ubiquitous in white and wealthy neighborhoods, are scarce in minority, low-income communities. Take Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for example, where the Metcalfe Park area is a typical minority community and one of the city's highest rates of COVID-19 confirmed and fatalities, but it is not included as the government gradually expands vaccination coverage. Second, due to the general lack of network resources, most of them engaged in labor-intensive industries and the lack of transportation, it is difficult for ethnic minorities to successfully obtain vaccine appointments online. [1]
In fact, such differences in vaccination rates are directly related to the level of income of the vaccination areas. In Los Angeles County, the wealthier neighborhoods and beach communities on the West Side have the highest vaccination rates, far outpacing low-income areas in the south and east of Los Angeles, KTLA5 News reported. More than 45 percent of residents of communities such as Brentwood, Westwood, Pacific Palisades, Beverly Hills, Rancho Palos Verde, and coastal areas such as Hermosa, Manhattan and Redondo Beach have been vaccinated. In places such as Compton and Boyle Heights, less than a third of the population is vaccinated. Throughout the pandemic, the hardest-hit areas in Los Angeles County have been less affluent neighborhoods, such as Boyle Heights (the region has the lowest vaccination rates), where nearly a third of the population lives below the poverty line. [2] As of April 23, the death rate for COVID-19 patients in los Angeles' poorest areas was still more than three times higher than that in los Angeles' wealthiest neighborhoods, according to the Department of Public Health. [3]
In its report, the Los Angeles Times emphasized the need to provide vaccination and health care for people in low-income areas. With insufficient vaccine supplies over the past few months, deciding which groups can prioritize vaccine use has been a thorny "ethical issue." Officials in Los Angeles said, "We cannot safely reopen our economy until this disease has passed." Honestly, we can't do that (an open economy) unless we can address communities that are particularly vulnerable to this pandemic and its deadly impact. ”
Richard Carpiano, a medical sociologist at the University of California, Riverside, said: "It is common for a new health treatment or tool not to be equitably distributed, which leads to disparities in the population receiving the new immune protection. These trends can be caused by a number of reasons, including distrust of the healthcare community in black America and the lack of healthcare providers in some communities; LatinOs may be reluctant to trust government programs or to put their names in databases. Health research has long shown that interventions targeting different cultural groups, such as vaccinate people where they feel comfortable. ”[4]
But the reality is not so simple, according to the New York Times, in cities such as Washington, D.C., a large number of people from wealthier, predominantly white communities continue to pour into the vaccine appointment system, accounting for too much of the limited vaccine supply, and they even poured into non-profit organizations that used to specialize in serving minorities to seek vaccination.
George Jones, head of Bread for the City, which serves the poor, said: "All of a sudden, our clinic was full of white people, and we had never had this experience before. We used to serve basically only African Americans. ”
In Detroit, local residents are even more aware of the differences in vaccines distributed to different races and communities. Without access to the 95 percent effective Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, people in poorer areas were given only the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which was 72 percent effective. Rogan Patmon, a 28-year-old black lawyer from Detroit, said in an interview with CNBC: "Just because distributing the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is the simplest doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. You don't want a situation where segregated, wealthy areas get better vaccines, while poor and more minority areas are told, 'Bear with me.' As a result of these differentials, there is also a growing distrust of health authorities and vaccines among low-income communities and minorities.
Solving this problem is no easy task. Officials fear that prioritizing neighborhoods to visit could lead to lawsuits of alleged racial discrimination. To a large extent, the ability of local governments to address inequalities depends on how much they control their own vaccine allocations and whether their political leadership is aligned with that of the overseeing county or state authorities. In Predominantly Democratic Dallas County, for example, Republican governors and state health departments vetoed the county's plan to first provide vaccines to certain minority communities. [5] Attempts to prioritize vaccination of minorities in low-income areas in many regions have been met with great resistance and have been cancelled.
It has nothing to do with wealth, it has to do with epidemic prevention – another logic of vaccine distribution
Unlike the United States and Europe, where "the wealthy can be given priority vaccinations," Mexican President López Obrador has proposed a vaccine distribution plan that "prioritizes vaccination for the poor," according to the Washington Post. However, most of the priority Mexican communities have relatively low levels of viral infection, and most are rural or semi-rural towns, and experts point out that people there can do basic epidemic prevention work. Fernando Petersen Aranguren, health minister of the state of Jalisco, said: "This is not based on epidemiology. Alan Glenn wants mexico's second-largest city, Guadalajara, to distribute vaccines, where more than 71,000 people have already been infected with the coronavirus. However, the federal government, which has almost complete control over vaccine procurement and distribution, has provided him with a list of small towns and villages that need priority treatment and asked him to prioritize vaccines for these areas.
Ofrador's vaccination schedules are so harsh that they even disregard the health of healthcare workers. In the process of the government providing vaccines to the poor, many of the nurses and doctors responsible for vaccination programs have not yet been vaccinated. "It's scary here, exposed to such an environment without a vaccine, but what can we do?" Silvia Garcia, one of the nurses assigned to San Pedro, said, "We can't refuse to work. ”
"We start with the most remote communities [providing vaccines], where there's more demand and there's not enough health infrastructure there to deal with COVID-19 cases," Obrador told reporters. He dismissed his claim that he was using the vaccine for political purposes, saying "it's an offense." But during the pandemic, even as unemployment soared, the Mexican government provided little financial aid to the country's poor, and many critics have pointed out that Obrador's approach was nothing more than a political ploy to get votes. [6]
Unlike the situation in these countries and regions, according to the New York Times, in the East Side of downtown Vancouver, Canada, health authorities decided to prioritize vaccinations for the homeless and marginalized. As one of Canada's poorest and dirtiest cities, this community is rife with substance abuse, poverty, and other problems. Since the beginning of 2021, local health authorities have vaccinated the homeless in the eastern part of the city center free of charge and those living in shelters or assisted living housing. The group set up mobile vaccination tents and even offered a $5 reward to vaccinated people.
Dr Althea Hayden, a public health officer at the health authority overseeing the program, noted that providing vaccines to the most vulnerable people in cities is a public health task: local people (after COVID-19) are four times more likely to be hospitalized or die than people in other regions. Many of them have compromised immune systems and are unable to implement self-isolation, while they are at higher risk of contracting the disease and transmitting it to others. While some people complain that the taxes they pay to fund the vaccination of the homeless when they are unable to get it, many more are already aware of the need to provide vaccines to marginalized communities. [7]
Unlike Aubrador, who insists on vaccinates the poor without taking into account the actual number of infected people in the city, vaccination organized by the health authorities in the East End of downtown Vancouver not only provides health protection for groups with limited access to vaccines, but also directly contributes to public health in the city and beyond, taking into account the fairness and effectiveness of vaccine distribution, which should also be the goal of national health authorities. Perhaps, when officials say that "vaccination has nothing to do with wealth," they should be more aware of the essence of vaccination, that is, to create a safer and healthier environment for everyone.
[1]http://m.news.cctv.com/2021/04/08/ARTIWjBIVdByKd7RzIC32fdu210408.shtml
[2] https://ktla.com/news/local-news/wealthiest-los-angeles-county-neighborhoods-continue-to-see-highest-vaccination-rates/
[3]http://publichealth.lacounty.gov/media/Coronavirus/data/index.htm#graph-deathrate
[4] https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-03-05/california-is-flooding-hardest-hit-areas-with-vaccines-to-stop-covid-will-the-new-gambit-work
[5] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/02/health/white-people-covid-vaccines-minorities.html
[6] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/mexico-coronavirus-vaccine-lopez-obrador/2021/02/25/81c28c50-76ad-11eb-9537-496158cc5fd9_story.html
[7] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/23/world/canada/vancouver-covid-vaccine.html
Editor-in-Charge: Han Shaohua