Guy Davidi, the Academy Award-nominated co-director of 5 Broken Cameras, challenges us (the “global left”) to disrupt the political symbols and discourses that filter us from the truth. He writes:

Political language alone can’t advance this discussion beyond certain loops. What happens when political symbols face the test of a complex reality? Or when your relationship to a work of art, and to the world, is diminished in order to maintain a certain idealized image? The stereotypes that conservative circles cultivate are under constant criticism by the left, but who will challenge the “anti-stereotypes” the global left creates in response? We’ve been stuck in this cyclical discourse for decades, and these kind of political correct filters stifle our ability to communicate.

In this maze of constant restereotyping, everything that does not fit the political language is dismissed, so I find myself left with many questions: What is the role of the ego in political relations? What is the true function of anger and its capacity for change? Can social and political responsibility grow from guilt? How does suffering become a political currency? Can an emphasis on struggle and resistance distract us from new inventive approaches to change? 

+ here

In what is appeared to be a highly dubious singling out of the word “Palestinian” in the content filter by the social media leader, Facebook had been blocking the creation of a Page by Palestinian Refugee ResearchNet. Though the issue was resolved and PPRN was finally allowed to create their Page, it does beg the question how did “Palestinian” the word get placed in the content filter in the first place? “Afghan Refugee ResearchNet,” “DR Congo Refugee ReserachNet,” and “Israeli Refugee ResearchNet” appeared to pass muster, but not “al-Qaida Refugee ResearchNet” and “Nazi Refugee ResearchNet.” As the blog noted:

It does seem a bit odd, however, that a population of up to 12 million people, receiving more than a billion dollars in international aid each year, recognized by the UN, and enjoying a degree of formal diplomatic recognition from the United States—is placed in the same filtered category as Nazis and al-Qaida.

Read the full story here.

From the series Playing Despite War, a Palestenian girl recites Qur’an verses in a mosque at Gaza City.

Eman Mohamed, photographer

[via:findout]

A Palestinian worshiper prayed near Jerusalem’s Old City as Israeli forces stood on duty behind him. Police limited access to the city’s holy Al-Aqsa Mosque to limit unrest on the Muslim day of prayer. (Bernat Armangue/Associated Press)

[via:claudinegossett]