Mohsen Mahdawi was released from detention on April 30.
Photo: Joey Palumbo / Vermont Public
On the last day of April, a federal judge ordered the release of Mohsen MahdawiA senior from Columbia University, from the police custody of the Vermont. Mahdawi, a legal permanent resident for ten years, had been arrested during an interview of citizenship on April 14 and spent more than two weeks in the Correctional Center of the North West State in St. Albans. Born in a Cisjordan refugee camp, Mahdawi participated in demonstrations against the brutal war of Israel in Gaza last year; As with his colleague student Columbia Mahmoud KhalilThe government seeks to deport it on the grounds that it represents a national security threat. Apart from the courthouse, the Mahdawi, which seemed ready with impeccable hair, glasses with a metal mount and a Keffiyeh, addressed a gathered crowd: “I say clear and noisy to President Trump and his office: I am not afraid of you.”
I admit, looking at the videoMy heart jumped. Mahdawi, one of the main targets of Trump’s remuneration campaign and the ostentatious use of executive power, could have been forgiven to savor his security and leave the scene. Instead, he had resisted the seductions of self-preservation with an open challenge.
The same cannot be said of the most powerful people and institutions in the country, who responded to Trump’s attacks on civil liberties with cowardice and conformity. In The first 100 days of TrumpElite universities rushed to meet the wishes of the White House, investigating and disciplinary Student demonstratorsrejecting the faculty, and the return of Dei’s initiatives. Business companies, on the other hand, have done good humiliating deals with the White House to avoid reprisals and preserve access. And Paramount, the parent company of CBS News, is preparing to go to a direct attack on the free press by adjusting Trump’s parasion against 60 minutes, Apparently to win the favor of a pending merger agreement.
Meanwhile, in the official Washington official, a fog similar to Vichy has settled. Capitulation is the norm and paranoid self -censorship a daily rite. Most Republicans reacted to the Trump’s assault with stupid and smiling satisfaction. The members of the Congress of the GOP proposed to put Trump’s face on the $ 100 ticket and Mount Rushmore; The Darrell Issa of California appointed it for a Nobel Prize. On social networks, Republican officials circulate smooth pro-administration propaganda videos such as pornography. Some contain images of Cecot Mortel d’El Salvador (Terrorism confinement center), where undocumented immigrants were sent without regular procedure. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem Posted one of these videos at the end of March, writing: “If you do not leave, we will track you down, stop you and you could end up in this Salvadoran prison.”
The less sycophanic of the party less openly, those who could expect to enhance democratic standards, were silent. Senator Lisa Murkowski From Alaska, a Trump critic, seemed recently to ask, implicitly, for sympathy. Discussing the administration in front of an audience of voters, she said: “We are all afraid … I will tell you, I am often very anxious at the idea of using my voice, because the reprisals are real.” Fairly fair. Any republican who opposes Trump is likely to face a primary funded by Elon Musk, at best.
On the other side of the aisle, after months of dead play, some DEMS found their voice. In April, Senator of Maryland Chris Van Hollen went to Salvador to inquire about the well-being of Kilmar Abrego Garciaa constituent Wrongly deported to Cecot; Several Democrats have followed suit.
But cowardice is a habit that is difficult to break. While the members of the Caucus locate their thorns, the party leaders seem to work against them. Governor of California Gavin NewsomFor example, expressed anxiety that too much concentration on immigration distributed the best question of Democrats: Trump’s disastrous trade war. At the end of April, The rampart reported this chief of the house minority Hakeem Jeffries Actively discouraging Democrats from making other trips in Salvador. (Jeffries has since denied this.) In the Senate, Chuck Schumer Also seems to drag his feet. Last week, he described the Caucus’s response to the Shakedown during Trump, saying: “We sent him a very strong letter The other day by asking eight very strong questions. »»
What explains this state of affairs? In January, the legitimacy of Trump’s electoral victory led many powerful actors to assume that the public would not tolerate too much obstruction; Some imagined Trump, having won purely and simple, would govern more magnanimous, would win adversaries and consolidate a popular majority. Instead, Trump took his bearings from the Florentin secretary: it is safer to be feared than loved.
In a sense, the response of elected officials is not complicated. Republicans want to keep their jobs and Trump’s affection; Democrats are excessive to keep the moderates inside the tent, taking the advice of bloggers and centrist.
At the same time, the White House has raised awareness of the issues of dissent: Expel the green card holders is just the opening salvo. At the end of April, the FBI arrested a Wisconsin judgeAffirming that she had hampered the detention of a migrant in her courtroom. “Some of these judges think they are going beyond and above the law,” said Prosecutor General Pam Bondi. “And they are not.” Regarding deportations to El Salvador, Trump said “local criminals” were the next time. Since he took office, at least Three American citizens were swept away in the deportations. All were under 8 years old. The message is clear: it could be you.
We assume that we know what courage looks like; Likewise cowardice. But the type of courage that Mahdawi and other young people have recently shown have been received as recklessness. Last year, students of the pro-Palestine movement were castigated for their lack of prudence, tarmac of anti-Semites, disciplined by their own universities, and even blamed for the failure of Democrats to defeat Trump. To which they opposed was called genocide by Amnesty International, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the United Nations Special Rapporteur in the occupied territories. However, they were made to pay to mark the clear moral complaint. It is not difficult to see why: their courage increases the tempo, inspiring a volatile mixture of emergency and shame. Courage accuses the coward and many of us are cowards.
Pope Francis, who died the day after Easter, said one day: “Opening to God makes us open to the marginalized of this world, and gives us the courage to leave the limits of our own security and our comfort to become bruised, injuring and dirty while we joyfully approach the other suffering in a spirit of solidarity.” To be courageous for the good of the others, we have to face what is fragile and vulnerable in ourselves.
All this may seem a little dramatic. We talked a lot about courage, tyranny, barbarism and fascism in the first term Trump, and it was then tempting, as it is now, to smile. But fear of excessive reaction, to take Trump too seriously or to appear on disaster in our dissent, is its own type of trap. It takes courage to see the world as it is, despite the efforts of others to shed light on their own cruelty. We cannot give in to cowardice that prevails for the fact of knowing.
It is not a simple thing to take a stand. It is clear that Trump’s white house aspires to shoot anyone who moves against them. However, students of the pro-Palestine movement still appear: at the UCLA, Dartmouth, in Columbia and elsewhere. At Vermont, Mahdawi’s speech was welcomed with songs of “no fear!” No fear! ” When the crowd calmed down, he replied: “And if there is no fear, with which it is replaced. Love. Love is our path. “
It is often the privileged people, the safest of the earth, who are the least capable of courage. They fear, as Brecht said, that “moving owners means becoming one of the dispossessed”. We can be honest about this concern: we all have something to lose. Solidarity is always a risk, but the alternative suffers alone.