How EsinIslam Writer Helped Change
Stevie Wonder's IDF Fundraiser Boycott: On the Power
of Propaganda!
18 December 2012By El-Hajj Mauri' Saalakhan
Assalaamu Alaikum (Greetings of Peace):
I am very pleased to be able to share this great news
with the members of our listserv (especially for those
who responded to the call to help generate positive
pressure around this issue). Stevie Wonder has
reportedly pulled out of his [formerly scheduled]
commitment to help raise money for one of the leading
terrorist organizations in the world. Alhamdullilah
(praise be to God), positively directed public opinion
can make a positive difference!
For this commentator the only thing that could top the
heartwarming outcome of this campaign (that lasted
less than a week), is if we have a full house this
coming Saturday (in central New Jersey) for a very
deserving Muslim sister - a political prisoner, and
prisoner of war - Dr. Aafia Siddiqui.
Please help us spread the word!
MS
Stevie Wonder Pulls Out of IDF Fundraiser Petition
Called on R&B Star To Shun Israel Army Event - By JTA
Stevie Wonder is set to pull out of a performance at a
fundraiser for the Israel Defense Forces, a source
told JTA.
Wonder's representatives will claim that he did not
know the nature of the group, the Friends of the
Israel Defense Forces, and that he believes such a
performance would be incongruent with his status as a
U.N. "Messenger of Peace," according to a source who
has read email exchanges between Wonder's
representatives and organizers of the event.
Wonder was scheduled to headline the Friends of the
Israeli Defense Forces annual gala in Los Angeles on
Dec. 6. The event raises millions of dollars annually
to support the Israeli military.
An official of Friends of the IDF, reached at its Los
Angeles office, had no comment. Wonder's agent at
Creative Artists Agency did not return a request for
comment.
The spokesman for the U.N. Secretary General also had
no comment on the matter. The United Nations does not
usually impose restrictions on its goodwill
representatives. Wonder most recently performed at a
U.N. concert commemorating its 67th anniversary.
Wonder had come under intense social media pressure to
pull out of the event. An online petition calling on
him to cancel his performance had garnered more than
3,600 signatures.
The petition was launched more than a day ago on the
change.org website.
"You were arrested in 1985 protesting South African
Apartheid, now we ask you: please remember that
apartheid is apartheid, whether it comes from White
Afrikaaner settlers of South Africa or from Jewish
Israelis in Israel," the petition reads. "Desmond Tutu
has recognized that Israel's Apartheid is worse than
South Africa's – will you stand with us against
apartheid and cancel your performance at the IDF
fundraiser."
A second petition, launched by the U.S. Campaign to
End the Israeli Occupation, calls on Wonder to
"(p)lease continue your legacy of speaking out for the
oppressed. Please be a ‘full-time lover' of justice by
standing on the right side of history and canceling
your performance for the Israeli army."
Wonder performed at a 1998 gala honoring Israel's 50th
anniversary.
---------------------------------------
FYI: Sara Flounders, of the International Action
Center (IAC), and former Congresswoman Cynthia
McKinney will be departing in a few days for Pakistan
regarding Dr. Aafia Siddiqui. We wish them a safe and
successful journey to and from our sister's turbulent
homeland. Please sign and pass on the new IAC
generated petition for Aafia below.
On the Power of Propaganda!
Assalaamu Alaikum (Greetings of Peace):
One of the most socially conscious artists on the
block, Stevie Wonder, is reportedly scheduled to
perform in support of the IDF?! Please say it ain't
so!!!
A few years back I had an opportunity to engage
another socially committed artist by the name of Danny
Glover, after he helped lead a protest demonstration
outside of the Sudanese Embassy in Washington, DC,
regarding the Darfur crisis. I have a lot of respect
for Glover as a socially committed artist, and my
feeling was that if he could hear another perspective
on that crisis, it might affect how he addressed it.
(At the time he was repeating the mantra that a
deliberate Sudanese government orchestrated "genocide"
was taking place in Darfur.)
He and I had a brief conversation on the issue, and
before it ended, I handed him a copy of our book
titled "Target Sudan: What's Really Behind the Crisis
in Darfur." The next time I heard him on the radio
speaking about the issue (if I remember correctly, it
was the NPR affiliate in DC - WAMU), not only did he
not use that unjustifiably loaded term to describe the
political crisis, but when the host of the show
introduced it, Glover gave a far more measured and
accurate response.
It shows what can happen when us common folk make an
effort to reach out to those who some might view as
untouchable :).! I don't have the ability to reach out
and touch Stevie Wonder personally, but through the
wonders of the Internet/Cyberspace it may be possible
that I can reach out and touch someone who has the
power to reach out and touch Mr. Wonder. If so, please
pass this on.
Dear Mr. Stevie Wonder:
I pray this finds you and yours well. I begin with a
heartfelt confession. You have long been one of my
favorite artists, and, in my humble opinion, one of
the most progressive and socially-conscious poetic
truth tellers of our time. It is for this reason I
felt the need to reach out to you, after learning that
you are scheduled to perform in support of one of the
most brutal and unrepentant terrorist organizations in
the world - the so-called Israeli Defense Forces!
Upon hearing this, it immediately brought to mind the
power of propaganda; because the IDF and Stevie Wonder
don't even belong in the same sentence; it's like oil
and water, the two just don't mix. I don't know how
this arrangement came about, and it's not really my
business. But I do know this: if the December 6
benefit concert in LA (for the IDF, God forbid!) does
take place, with you headlining it, this will be an
enormous public relations coup for the
Zionist-Apartheid State of Israel, and a serious blow
to the stellar image of the internationally renowned
Stevie Wonder.
A great man (a martyr for the cause of truth and
justice) who you have paid tribute to in song, the
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., once said this about
the African American experience:
"Being a Negro in America is not a comfortable
experience. It means being part of the company of the
bruised, the battered, the scarred, and the defeated.
Being a Negro in America means trying to smile when
you want to cry. It means trying to hold on to
physical life amid psychological death. It means the
pain of watching your children grow up with clouds of
inferiority in their mental skies. It means having
your legs cut off, and then being condemned for being
a cripple. It means seeing your mother and father
spiritually murdered by the slings and arrows of daily
exploitation, and then being hated for being an
orphan.
"Being a Negro in America means listening to suburban
politicians talk eloquently against public housing,
while arguing in the same breath that they are not
racists. It means being harried by day and haunted by
night by a nagging sense of nobodiness, and constantly
fighting to be saved from the poison of bitterness. It
means the ache and anguish of living in so many
situations where hopes unborn have died."
Mr. Wonder, these words are an accurate description of
the day to day existence of the Palestinian people
suffering under the yoke of Zionist-Apartheid in the
"Holy Land." I'm certain that if Dr. King were alive
today, seeing what Zionist Jews do to a people who's
existence today is much like it was for the average
African American decades ago, he would condemn it!
This is why you must re-think your decision to pay
tribute - and lend material support - to an
organization that was established for the sole purpose
of enforcing this madness!
As the central character in White South African Alan
Paton's award winning book, Cry The Beloved Country,
correctly opined:"I shall no longer ask myself if this
or that is expedient; only if it is right. I do it not
because I am noble or unselfish; but because life
slips away; and I need for the rest of my journey a
star that will not play false to me, a compass that
will not lie. I do it because I can no longer aspire
to the highest with one part of myself, yet deny it
with the other."
Finally, Mr. Wonder, I'm including a link to a video
that graphically reveals what the IDF has been
organized to defend: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
iPWi6x8HshM&sns=em
May God bless you to make the right decision.
With warm regards,
Mauri' Saalakhan
Director of Operations
The Peace Thru Justice Foundation
A final thought (to my Muslim brethren especially).
By the grace of ALLAH, we have a large network of
people that receive our releases around the world. I
know that there are a number of artists (some
prominent in the industry), in New York and on the
West Coast, who see many of our releases - either
directly, or through others. If you are someone (or
you know someone) who has direct contact with Stevie
Wonder - or indirect contact through his manager, his
publicist, or a secretary - please get this to him. I
believe he is an artist who is capable of putting
principle before profit. (Surely ALLAH know best.)
If the show goes on as planned, there should be a
MASSIVE PROTEST outside the venue on Thursday,
December 6, so that the message goes out loud and
clear that the despicable IDF will NOT come to America
and raise money in capitulatory silence!
In the struggle for peace thru justice,
MS
"In the end we will remember not the words of our
enemies, but the silence of our friends."
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
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