The Free Make Their Own Bread, Abbas

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

Mr. Mahmoud Abbas said, in the speech he delivered on 17 October 2006 concerning the Palestinian situation, that bread is more important than democracy. This is an exceedingly dangerous statement, given what it implies of self-abandonment, of severing the human being from himself, of denying his own capacities, and of crushing his personhood. It is a statement that harks back to the Middle Ages, when a piece of bread was the master’s first tool in the slave market, treating people like a dumb herd of livestock that knows nothing but the taste of clover. It is a terrifying statement that drags the Palestinian human being hundreds of years backward, to a time when a person believed that rebelling against the princes’ control over one’s livelihood was itself a rebellion against the gods, punishable by torment in this world and a raging hell in the next.

I will accept here the pairing of democracy with freedom, despite the difference between the two, and my acceptance of this pairing is tied to the popular impression that democracy is freedom. What Mr. Abbas means here is the choice of the people, as expressed through elections that led to Hamas winning a majority of seats in the Legislative Council. What he wants to say is that if obtaining bread from the states imposing a financial siege on the Palestinian people requires overriding democracy and the Palestinian people’s own decision, then he is prepared to do so — meaning he is prepared to sacrifice the free political will of the Palestinian people for the sake of the bread that others hand out.

I take it that Mr. Mahmoud Abbas holds a doctoral degree in political science, and so he must surely be aware that the being of the free and independent human being has preoccupied political philosophers, on the premise that there is no creativity without freedom, and that only the free man can navigate the various circumstances and conditions in order to remain master of himself, unenslaved in any way by any person, circumstance, or possession. Philosophers of man and of politics, throughout history and to this day, have been consumed with the search for human freedom, because it is the very ground of a person’s progress, of his contribution, and of his capacity to take part freely in the workings of society and the making of civilization. They have been consumed, too, with combating every form of exploitation that subjugates the human being and negates him, reducing him to a mere tool in the hands of others, who then act as though they are doing him a favor within his own servitude.

If Abu Mazen does not grasp this, then he certainly does not hold a doctoral degree in political science — or he holds it in form without substance, or perhaps someone else wrote the doctoral dissertation on his behalf, and all he did was go through the ceremonies of receiving the degree. If I am mistaken in this, then I must not have properly listened to Mr. Abbas, or my ability to follow his rhetorical logic has failed me.

…the owner of the bakery?

Do you feel happy, Mr. Abu Mazen, when you say that you do no good for someone in need by giving him bread or fish, but that you do him good instead by teaching him how to fish? We study, Mr. Abu Mazen, and we read books in order to rise, not in order to memorize phrases we never apply on the ground. Had you truly cared for this people, you would have snatched their daily bread out of enemy hands the moment you assumed your position. Foolish indeed is the one who relies on his enemy for his daily bread, and if he persists in that, he becomes a conspirator against himself and against everyone who depends on him. Great nations always search for the means of self-reliance; they do not go rummaging in Israel’s and America’s pockets to feed their children the milk of the base. Were you truly a leader — were you truly a doctor of political science, were you to know even the smallest thing — you would never have agreed, in the first place, to keep our daily bread in the hands of our enemies. You and others like you know that the bread that comes from the West has a price, and its price is rights, dignity, and independence; and you know that the bread wrung from the sweat of one’s brow is the bread that means pride, dignity, and liberation. The abased, Mr. President, are not capable of liberation, and they will never have a state with Jerusalem the Noble as its capital.

The President calls on those with experience, knowledge, and learning to deliberate in every matter — so what about when crises strike and calamities darken the sky? It would have been far better for you to call on Palestine’s scholars to deliberate on how to achieve self-reliance, and on friends who give without conditions in times of need. It would have been far better for us to develop our own economic system, one that ties us neither to the people of the West nor to the American financial system. It would have been far better for you to tell the people of Palestine that the money coming to them from the West is the price of their rights, and that they have no right left except impure food filling their stomachs — and that if they want this impurity to keep flowing through their insides, all they need do is offer their hearing and obedience to the Quartet, the Trio, the Duo, and every last one of these devilish transgressors.

There is no substitute for freedom, Mr. President, because the free make their own bread, while extending one’s hand to others is the making of slaves. Do not be a slave, President of Palestine, and do not drag the people into slavery. Slaves have neither honor nor conscience; they steal the food and livelihood of their brothers in servitude, while the free do not sleep while their brothers go hungry. The free grow their own food, make it with their own hands, and eat half rations, but what matters most is that they know how to share the loaf. The free seek dignity and insist on their rights, and they develop their capacities and energies so that their heads remain held high, while the bodies of slaves tremble every time they sense that freedom is creeping into their limbs.

What I have heard from you is nothing but cheap talk, palatable only to those whose souls have grown cheap and who have offered themselves as obedient servants to the masters of their own appetites. What came out of your mouth is a disgrace, and I, as a Palestinian Arab, feel ashamed of myself every time it crosses my mind that you speak in my name.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “الأحرار يصنعون الخبز يا عباس” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.