From Bono to Al Gore, there can be no doubt that white saviours are great.
Posts Tagged ‘raising awareness’
Breaking the Silence, Straw Widow invasion of homes…
From Naomi Wolf on FB
From the Waldman article.
“My guides were a couple of Jewish Israelis, raised in religious homes, who had served as soldiers in the West Bank.
As a result of what they saw and what they did, they now devote their lives to raising awareness about the injustices of the Occupation.
My guides described in painful detail the structural inequality of a land where one ethnic group lives under oppressive military rule, and another under democratic, civilian authority.
They described receiving explicit instruction to make Palestinians feel as if they were constantly under surveillance, constantly pursued, constantly harassed.
They said their role, as described by Moshe Ya’alon, the current defense minister and former army chief of staff, was to “sear the hearts and minds of the Palestinians.”
My guides told me of instances in which they were involved in “Straw Widow” actions, where they invaded a Palestinian home, shut the family into a single room, and then made free use of the house.
Ostensibly these home invasions were conducted for security reasons, but just as often they were simple training exercises.
Sometimes the homes were chosen because they had a satellite dish, and an important soccer match was on TV.
“What hope is there?” I asked them, in response.
They replied that they named their organization Breaking the Silence because they fervently believe that once people know what is happening in Hebron and the rest of the Palestinian territories, change is inevitable.”
A historic omission? Global South Launches ‘Best White Saviour’ Award
Posted by: adonis49 on: October 10, 2014
Global South Launches ‘Best White Saviour’ Award
From white governments that prevent brown people from immigrating in order to preserve their connection with their homelands and protect them from being corrupted by Western lifestyle, to white environmentalists who want to shield brown people from the inconveniences of electricity, sanitation and cars, to white celebrities who will bravely talk with very little understanding about complex political questions, to white charities and NGOs that will speak on behalf of millions of brown people so they don’t have to go through the excruciating process of forming opinions… these and many more are huge contributions that white saviours continue to provide consistently yet the Global South has failed to recognise or reward them properly.
The ‘Best White Saviour’ is a timely attempt at putting things right.
The criteria for the award are diverse and extensive, focusing primarily on white saviours who are not afraid or reluctant to celebrate their own achievements, sometimes pre-emptively.
Ordinary white people who work as nurses and teachers and who might contribute to charity or volunteer to help others will be ineligible for the award, seeing as they go about this anonymously and without creating the much-needed buzz that is a cornerstone of the philosophy of ‘raising awareness’ which is quite important to white saviour culture for reasons we don’t quite understand, but who are we to judge.
Instead, the award will aim to celebrate big names in the white saviour community and reward their passion for self-glorification and making sure the media is aware of every little thing they do to help others, particularly photo-genically-destitute Global Southerners.
The award will also aim to consolidate the waves of spontaneous grovelling among a minority of trailblazers in the South towards white celebrities that ‘speak on their behalf’.
The feeling here is this has been done in a piecemeal way so far and it needs to be properly organised with a trophy and everything.
Some of the candidates being considered for the award in its crucial first year are Al Gore for his tireless campaigning for his own place in history, the European Union for its dedication to celebrating its benign and inoffensive values, Naomi Klein for being so right on all the time albeit in a patronizing manner, Jeffrey Sachs for his heroic attempt at disproving the theory that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and Russell Brand for being so sexy and compassionate.
Bono is being considered for a Lifetime Achievement Award for services to White Savioureness.