Friday, November 25, 2016

Ya Yassmin...

As I've wondered before, what other Australian embassy carries on like our embassy in Israel? (For the backstory on this, just click on the Dave Sharma label below.) Anyhow, here's the latest:

"Australia's embassy in Israel has hosted Yassmin Abdel Magied a prominent young Australian voice on gender equality, overcoming unconscious bias, and women's empowerment... Her flying visit included a morning spent at Tel Aviv's Bialik Rogozin School for... students from underprivileged backgrounds... Yassmin lectured to a packed auditorium at the Tel Aviv University on overcoming bias in the workplace..." (Australia embassy hosts prominent young activist, jwire.com.au, 23/11/16)

Yassmin, 25, is described by jwire as being born in Sudan and migrating to Australia at the age of two; "a qualified mechanical engineer with years of working on an oilrig"; a "founder of Youth Without Borders"; "Young Australian Muslim of the Year"; and an "amateur boxer, racing car designer, footballer and motorsport enthusiast."

I'll try to be as charitable as I can here, OK?

Obviously, Yassmin's 25 years on planet earth have been so frenetic that she simply hasn't had the time to put 2+2 together on the subject of Israel. Otherwise, the enormous irony inherent in the prospect of lecturing the beneficiaries of an apartheid regime on the subject of workplace (or any other kind of) bias would have dissuaded her from agreeing to play the useful fool for Israel.

***

Now since writing the above, I notice from Yassmin's tweets that Tel Aviv was just one stop (18/11) on 'Yassmin's Middle East Speaking Tour, and followed an appearance in Ramallah (14-15/11). She's also tweeted (22/11) that she's got a copy of Joe Sacco's wonderful graphic history, Palestine. Perhaps this was presented to her in Ramallah. Let's hope she's now engrossed in reading it, cover to cover, that the proverbial light bulb is growing ever brighter in her head, and that it's the beginning of an intellectual journey.

Cross fingers...

1 comment:

Vacy said...

As you point out re the irony of of lecturing to apartheid israel on workplace bias.. which of course exists against Arab/Palestinian employees including the scarcity of work visas.. Did Yassmin bring the zionist to task on this serious matter or was the visit just a stamp of normalisation on zionist violence?