Normalize This

By Remi Kanazi,

Nor·mal·i·za·tion: a "colonization of the mind" whereby the oppressed subject comes to believe that the oppressor's reality is the only "normal" reality...and that the oppression is a fact of life that must be coped with. 

Those who engage in normalization either ignore this oppression, or accept it as the status quo that can be lived with. 

In an attempt to whitewash its violations of international law and human rights, Israel attempts to re-brand itself or present itself as "normal" -- even "enlightened" -- through an intricate array of relations and activities encompassing hi-tech, cultural, legal, LGBT and other realms.

Normalization applies to relationships that convey a misleading or deceptive image of normalcy, symmetry, or parity despite a patently abnormal and asymmetric relationship of colonial oppression and apartheid.

Nothing is normal about occupation
Nothing normal about apartheid ethic cleansing
Seige, blockade, settler-only roads
Bombing water wells, schools, mosques, and UN buildings
Nothing normal about putting a civilian population on a diet
Paying non-indigenous foreigners to settle land that has already been populated
Rewriting the nakba with each stolen childhood
Trying to desensitize the puncture wounds and quall marks
Put into the bodies of ? and Rachel Corry
No, I don't want to normalize with you
I don't want to hug, have coffee, talk it out, break bread, sit around the campfire, eat s'mores and gush about how we're all the same
I don't want to share stage, ? co-write a poem, ? submit to your anthology ?
Talk about how art, instead of justice, can forge a better path
I don't want to indulge your amnesia about a glorious past
Have a therapy session, I'm two sides with equal grievances
The only thing baron is a moral capacity
? semi-colonial state with an appropriative culture
I will not fight for your privilege, nor will I seek to normalize it
Your dialogue group, it's a breathing ground for injustice
Just look at the board members in the ZOA sponsorship
Zionism is a real demographic threat
Infecting the minds of millions with racism
They were hooded in the south
Pushing darker nations and ? young men ? blocks in Northern Ireland
In case you missed the hint, I don't want to pretend that all is okay
Or that bombs dropped on Gaza don't have the manufacture
The pilot doesn't have a nationality
Or ? Perez ? Lieberman
It's not just the occupation, stupid
It's the right of return
Equality for all Palestinians
It's a transformation from a racist, exclusivist, supremecist state
To a nation for all of its citizens
You deserve nothing... more than equality
Which means more than African refugees are provided in South Tel Aviv
You are the shining light on a settlement hill
Reminding the world that racism often comes in nice packaging
We don't give the Sudan 3.1 billion dollars a year in military aid
Don't have preferential trade agreements with North Korea
Don't call Iran a democracy
You're a proxy for empire
A 1950's authocracy and 21st century clothing
Yes! You're singled out
With aid, weapons, and UN vetos in your favor
Did I hurt your feelings?
Should we hug after the show?
Do these words hurt more than bombs dropped on Gaza
White ? eating the flesh of the children
I am not a bad guy, you're defending the bad system
Your words and actions have consequences
You're either with oppression, or you're against it
I didn't write history; it didn't choose to stand on the wrong side of it
Your system of oppression is coming to an end
And whether you recognize or not yet, it'll be liberated
For you, too.

Producer: Tami Woronoff 
Cinematographer: Mike McSweeney 
Editor: Matthew C. Levy
Sound: Steve Burgess 

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PACBI (The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel): http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=1850

For more information on cultural and academic boycott in the US, please visit:http://www.usacbi.org/