I was greatly disappointed to learn that Vieux Farka Touré performed last week at the Tel Aviv Opera House on November 26, 2010. The son of the late, world-renowned Malian guitarist and singer Ali Farka Touré, Vieux Farka Touré has gained prominence in the international music world in recent years as one of Africa’s leading musicians. His eponymous debut album was released in 2006, and he has since released three albums and performed at the 2010 World Cup in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Vieux Farka Touré’s performing in Tel Aviv is a clear breach of the international movement for boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israeli apartheid in Palestine—whose inception was in Occupied Palestine by Palestinian civil society. As an artist hailing from post-colonial Mali—a country well familiar with the ravages of colonialism and western imperialism—I had hoped and expected that Touré would have the moral courage to stand against participating in the normalization and legitimization of Israel’s colonization of Palestine.
France colonized Mali in 1892 and retained control until 1960. During these 68 years of colonization France used its own economic interests (e.g. paying for its colonial empires) to determine the economic future of Mali—turning its agricultural production to that of solely cotton. This single-market focus came at the expense of other cash crops, which were more beneficial to Malians, such as peanut farms. This economic control over Mali has directly contributed to much of the poverty Mali now faces (in 2009, Mali’s GDP per capita stood at approximately $1,200, while France’s was $32,800—the discrepancy a lingering ghost of the cost of colonization to indigenous populations, even four decades after gained independence).
Likewise, Israeli colonization of Palestine and its system of apartheid has had extremely negative economic ramifications for Palestinians. Israel, established on 78% of historic Palestine, has, since 1967, further appropriated 40% of the Occupied Territories—making it off limits to Palestinians. Israeli settlers routinely uproot olive groves and violently threaten Palestinian farmers during olive harvest season—whose products are a vital source to the Palestinian economy. Israeli imposed trade restrictions have resulted in a West Bank economy flooded with products made by illegal Israeli settlements, and a limit on Palestinian exports from the West Bank. Israel continuously exploits Palestinian natural resources for its own economic benefit—one example being the production of Ahava beauty products made from mud from the Dead Sea. This multi-million dollar Israeli company is situated in an illegal Israeli settlement in the West Bank, collecting mud and other resources from a site on the Dead Sea which borders the West Bank. In doing so, it is stealing resources that rightfully belong to, and should benefit, Palestinians. A recently passed law that will prohibit Palestinians from accessing fresh water sources is another example. Israeli imposed checkpoints, roadblocks, and road closures have also had a negative effect on internal Palestinian trade within the West Bank. Perhaps most devastating, if one can tier devastation when speaking of colonization, is Israel’s illegal, lethal blockade of the Gaza Strip. By almost hermetically sealing the Gaza strip for four years, the Israeli imposed siege has impoverished 1.5 million Palestinians, strangling an already feeble economy, and further fracturing Palestinian society between the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Much as France’s colonization of Mali, whose residual effects are still visible and present today, deleteriously affected indigenous African populations, Israel’s colonization of Palestine is oppressing Palestinians’ rights to freedom, self-determination, and growth as a people. Whether European colonization of Africa, Asia, and South America of decades ago, or Israeli colonization of Palestine at present, colonization is a suffocating, destructive, unjust, and unacceptable force. Presumably, Vieux Farka Touré would agree that French colonization was a violent, racist institution that caused great harm to the people of West Africa. If Vieux Farka Touré believes that Malians deserved (during French colonization, and deserve today) the right to self-determination and freedom, he should extend those same beliefs to Palestinians today under Israeli colonization.
By performing in Tel Aviv, Vieux Farka Touré is siding with and normalizing colonization and apartheid. Cancelling his performance would have sent a clear message that he neither accepts nor supports colonial projects. Many prominent musicians have recently cancelled scheduled performances in Israel—including Snoop Dogg, Gil Scott Heron, Sting, the Tindersticks, Devendra Banhart, the Klaxons and Gorillaz Sound System, Elvis Costello, and the Pixies. The fight against apartheid in South Africa showed us that cultural boycott and isolation is an effective, strategic move to pressure an apartheid government to capitulate its oppressive system against an indigenous population. Indeed, Nelson Mandela believes “our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.” The Palestinian BDS movement is growing in victories, but needs continuous support to send a clear message: the world will not accept Israeli colonization and apartheid.
Many people today look down on European colonialism as a dark era in world history. I hope that Vieux Farka Touré will realize that colonialism is colonialism, whether it happens in West Africa or in Palestine, the next time he is asked to perform in Israel. By performing in Tel Aviv, Vieux Farka Touré has directly supported a racist and oppressive system. As the adage goes—‘silence is compliance’, however in Touré’s case it was not silence, but his music that was compliance in the unjust, violent, and illegal institution of Israeli apartheid.
Shireen Tawil is a public health professional specializing in mental and reproductive health based in Beirut.
