“The Powerful Weapon” delegitimizes violence and strengthens civil society.
Nonviolence is the effective tactic for overcoming violence, especially when that violence is extreme.
“Nonviolence is a just and powerful weapon.” Martin Luther King Jr., 1954.
With the Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF), through nonviolent tactics, we have achieved an unquestionable victory against one of the most militarized organizations on the planet. From civil society, after the failure of state politics became evident, we confronted with our bare hands a barbarism institutionalized in rifles, machine guns, cannons, and tanks… and, by exposing its own contradiction before the world, we have begun to defeat it.
The tactic? To expose violence until it delegitimizes a political position, forcing a reconsideration of its course of action.
Because no political objective justifies the murder of 6 million Jews, 2 million Armenians, 1 million Roma people, or 100,000 Palestinians. Nor does it justify banning referendums or imposing political submission. Any political objective that requires such means cannot be considered legitimate; it is unacceptable.
“Every good tree bears good fruit, and every bad tree bears bad fruit.” (Matthew 7:16)
With the powerful weapon, we have succeeded in exposing the violence of a genocidal project based on ethnoreligious apartheid; we have witnessed the systematic violation of human rights and contempt for human dignity. We have generated a governmental crisis, provoked a diplomatic conflict… and we are forcing state politics to position themselves clearly in the face of genocide.
All of this from a civil society committed to the values of peace, transforming interculturality and multilingualism not into a problem, but into an opportunity. Peace as a goal of understanding between peoples; the freedom of one people as part of the freedom of all peoples.
Nearly 700 sailors, around 80 ships, more than 40 nationalities, dozens of committed organizations. But also thousands of anonymous people working from land, who have given everything in this effort of solidarity… Right now, this represents the social, cultural, and political future of humanity.
Through nonviolence, we are winning against the imposition of new forms of totalitarianism.
Today, a free Gaza has become the symbol of free peoples everywhere, just as Vietnam was 60 years ago. With the powerful weapon, we can build a free Catalonia, a free Europe, a free and peaceful Middle East, a freer and better world.
A free Palestine, for the freedom of all the peoples of the world.
Alleluia, we are winning. Inshallah, amen, salaam aleikum.
Jordi Gassiot (Koki), communications secretary of the IAC