[News] Missouri museum censors Ferguson-Mexico solidarity event for including Palestinians

[Anti-Imperialist News]

  Missouri museum censors Ferguson-Mexico solidarity event for including
  Palestinians

Submitted by Rania Khalek on Fri, 03/20/2015
*http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/missouri-museum-censors-ferguson-mexico-solidarity-event-including-palestinians*


    The Missouri History Museum in St. Louis canceled a community event
    scheduled for Thursday after organizers refused to remove
    Palestinian panelists from the platform.

The panel, titled “From Ferguson to Ayotzinapa to Palestine: Solidarity 
and Collaborative Action,” was organized by the Washington University 
student group AltaVoz to draw parallels between the struggles against 
state violence in the US, Mexico and Palestine.

AltaVoz was formed in response to the police kidnapping 
<https://news.vice.com/article/ayotzinapa-a-timeline-of-the-mass-disappearance-that-has-shaken-mexico> 
of 43 leftist student activists from the Ayotzinapa teacher’s college in 
Mexico. The students, who went missing in the city of Iguala while on 
their way to protest the state’s corrupt education policies, are 
believed to have been murdered.

Among the panelists were activists from an assortment of social justice 
organizations in St. Louis, including the Organization for the Black 
Struggle, Latinos en Axion STL, the Interfaith Committee on Latin 
America and the St. Louis Palestine Solidarity Committee.

The panel was supposed to kick off a week of solidarity events with 
Ayotzinapa, culminating in a vigil and potluck with visiting mothers of 
the missing Mexican students on Canfield Drive. That’s the street where 
unarmed black teenager Michael Brown was shot dead 
<http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/israel-trained-police-occupy-missouri-after-killing-black-youth> 
by white Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson last August.

The Missouri History Museum had an “activist-friendly” reputation for 
its willingness to host several Ferguson-related events in the recent 
past, leading organizers to believe it was an ideal place to hold their 
panel.

However, that reputation was shattered on Tuesday when AltaVoz student 
organizer Sourik Beltran received a phone call from a museum official 
giving him an ultimatum. “It was either remove Palestine from a dialogue 
about solidarity and undermine the very purpose of the event or find a 
new location,” recalled Beltran in a phone interview with The Electronic 
Intifada. “But we are not letting this event happen without all of us at 
the table,” declared Beltran.

That sentiment was reiterated in a statement of solidarity with the 
Palestine Solidarity Committee, issued by the participating organizations.

“We condemn this silencing of part of our community and this brazen 
attempt to divide communities of color,” declares the statement. 
“Instead of talking about solidarity, we find ourselves actualizing 
solidarity by rejecting the Missouri History Museum’s demands. We stand 
by our Palestinian partners and are postponing the original panel until 
an alternative location can be confirmed.”


    Singling out Palestine

In a vaguely worded statement <http://mohistory.org/node/56647> on its 
website, the museum claims that the panel organizers drastically altered 
the panel discussion from the initially approved topic, forcing the 
museum to shut down the event.

“In its current format the program no longer resembles the original 
concept the Museum agreed to co-host,” says the statement. “We were 
initially open to the changes and posted information about the program 
on our website. However, after much consideration we decided the 
complexities of this issue could not be adequately addressed in this 
format….The Missouri History Museum asked the community partner to 
fulfill the original agreement or find another location.”

While Palestine is not specifically mentioned, the Museum published a 
copy 
<http://mohistory.org/files/[field_directory-raw]/page/Mar%2019%20Event%20Proposal_Redacted.pdf> 
of Beltran’s initial event proposal, which sought to build bridges 
between Ferguson and Ayotzinapa. Palestine was added to the mix soon 
after as the panel outline evolved.

But the museum never once objected to the addition of Palestine.

According to email exchanges between Beltran and museum officials, which 
were viewed by The Electronic Intifada, museum representatives 
enthusiastically approved the event’s name and description, with 
Palestine included, as early as 23 February. By 4 March, the museum had 
posted the event title and description on it’s website.

The museum restated its excitement for the Palestine inclusive panel 
several times after. “At no point were we confronted with a single 
concern about the panel until two days ago,” said Beltran, demonstrating 
that the museum’s explanation doesn’t add up.

Given the warm reception panel organizers received from the museum staff 
throughout the planning stages, they have no doubt that the decision to 
purge the issue of Palestine was a result of outside pressure.

Even if the organizers had changed the panel’s layout, as the museum 
asserted, it is not sufficient grounds to censor the event, argued 
Beltran. “Why is it a problem to talk about Palestine in the first 
place,” he asked. “Ayotzinapa, Ferguson and Palestine are all 
politically charged controversial issues. So why single out Palestine?”

When The Electronic Intifada asked why Palestine became an unacceptable 
topic for discussion just two days before the event, a museum 
representative declined to elaborate beyond the official statement, 
except to emphasize that “There was no outside pressure” and: “The 
decision was made internally at the museum staff leadership level.”

Email exchanges between Beltran and a museum employee following the 
cancellation, obtained by The Electronic Intifada, hint at the 
institution’s reasoning.

“The conflict we are running into is the comparison between the events 
in Ferguson and the actions of the Palestinians,” wrote a museum official.

The museum official continued, “Some people see these events as 
comparing apples/oranges. I understand that you are presenting them as 
movements related to issues of social justice and how diverse 
communities can work together to achieve social justice for all people. 
There is concern that they might not be perceived that way.”

Beltran asked the official to clarify what was meant by “the actions of 
the Palestinians,” but the official dodged the question.


    “We’re scaring the hell out of them”

“The Missouri History Museum is a publicly funded research institution. 
It’s not their job to be a gatekeeper. They’re a platform, they’re a 
resource, but it’s not up to them to decide what gets discussed and how 
it gets discussed,” said Jessie Sandoval, an activist with the social 
justice organization Latinos en Axion.

“This is great example of how the white racist state comes down hard 
every time they see communities of color come together just to talk,” 
Sandoval added. “The fact that they came down hard like this and were so 
explicit in their reasons shows me that we’re scaring the hell out of 
them and pressing the right buttons,” she added.

Speaking to The Electronic Intifada from St. Louis over Skype, Sandoval, 
who was scheduled to participate on the panel, noted that supporting 
justice in Palestine remains a taboo among many progressives in the 
United States who claim to support the Ferguson uprising.

“A lot of liberals and progressives are down for the Black Lives Matter 
movement. Even if they don’t go out in the streets and protest, they at 
least publicly say, yes of course it’s moral,” said Sandoval. “And I 
know what’s going on in Mexico with the missing students, most liberal 
and progressive white people would say it’s a huge tragedy,” she added. 
“But bringing the Palestinian community into our discourse, I think that 
they feared it would give the Free Palestine cause too much of a high 
moral ground they are not ready to recognize yet.”


    The censorship trend

“The museum’s actions parallel a trend of silencing Palestine activist 
voices in the St. Louis community,” stated panel organizers in a press 
release, noting how last year, under pressure from Israel supporters, 
Washington University canceled a town hall 
<http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/activists-condemn-washington-university-censorship-bds-event-featuring> 
on boycott, sanctions and divestment against Israel.

While it is routine for the censorial forces of the Israel lobby to use 
pressure tactics to shut down critism of Israel across the country, few 
things have rattled 
<http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/white-supremacy-and-zionism-converge-deleted-times-israel-post-ferguson> 
them more than the growing solidarity between Ferguson and Palestine 
<http://electronicintifada.net/content/liberation-all-why-palestine-key-issue-streets-ferguson/14124>.

It remains to be seen whether the cancellation of the museum event was a 
result of Israel lobby pressure. But in trying to erase Palestine from 
the conversation, the Missouri History Museum—renamed the “Selective 
History Museum” by panel organizers—has only strengthened the bonds 
between the Black, Latino and Palestine solidarity communities in St. 
Louis, guaranteeing Palestine’s inclusion in the conversation.

Indeed, the cancellation drew even more attention to Palestine, with 
Panel organizers staging a large protest in front of the museum during 
the time the panel was supposed to take place on Thursday evening.

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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