A powerful Op-Ed written by Shula Mola, Ethiopian Israeli activist and past Chair and past Director of the Association of Ethiopian Jews, was published in the weekend edition of Haaretz on Friday, October 18, 2019. Shula has been demonstrating for justice for Solomon Tekkah – and others – since he was killed by policeman in Israel this summer. The article was printed in the Hebrew edition and can be read in Hebrew here. Here is a translation into English that we received from Shula:
Opinions
That’s where I knew, and my heart understood, that we were in danger
by Shula Mola
Shai called and I hesitated to answer. On one hand he’s twelve years-old and needs his mother. On the other hand I was standing outside of the Zvulun police station in Kiryat Haim, where the officer who took Solomon Tekah’s life came from, and things were heating up — literally. Tires had been lit on fire and the angry masses demanded justice from the police.
“Mom, mom! Where are you?” While I considered how to answer him he went on, “Did you hear?”
“What?” I asked, trying not to let my voice reveal my fear of the police who were waiting nearby on motorcycles and who could charge into us at any moment. There was almost a sense of déjà vu, bringing us back to the demonstration against police brutality sparked by the violent harassment of Damas Pakada in 2015.
“The police killed an Ethiopian boy. Why didn’t you tell me that they are killing us?” he asked with his characteristic assertiveness.
“Sweetheart! My dear child,” I assured him, “There are stupid policemen — hotheads who kill people. They’ll pay for what they did.” I then added, “Don’t worry. He was apparently a bad and stupid policeman.”
I did not want to tell him that the police are bad and racist and that they are trained to use disproportionate force against us. I did not tell him because I did not want to break his spirit. I did not want him, already at his age, to harbor an existential fear in his heart. It took me a few months to formulate an appropriate response for my son. Police violence is based on four things: profiling, blind support for the police, injustice in the execution of law and bias in the media. The police policy of profiling — regarding people as dangerous based solely on their ethnic belonging without any concrete grounds for suspicion — is fertile soil for racism at every stage of law enforcement, from arrest and investigation to trial. We all remember the words of former police commissioner Roni Alsheich: “It’s natural that they’ll be suspected.”
The killing of Yehuda Biadga was for me a watershed moment. There I knew, and I knew it in my heart, that we are in danger. A family calls the police for help because of their son’s psychotic outburst and the police arrive after 51 minutes! This is how the police respond to calls in distress from citizens with an Ethiopian accent. After 51 minutes a policeman arrives on a motorcycle and kills the youth with two gunshots to his chest. This is how they treat the mentally ill when they’re black. The word “profiling” sounds professional, cold and technical and its significance can be easily missed. It means: waiting longer for a response to a call of distress, greater suspicion of guilt for a crime and a quicker decision to use violence to solve a problem.
The world is complex. The police recruit personnel who lack opportunity for higher education. As someone who had to struggle for opportunity, I think twice before criticizing the oppressed and others in a similar situation. The problem is in the system that turns them into cruel oppressors. The system gives a police officer blind support to act in the field “as he sees fit.” When that police officer’s racism leads him to take someone’s life, as was the case with Tekah, he continues to receive support by automatically claiming that “he felt that his life was threatened.” How can it be that every time a police officer kills someone it is enough for him to claim that he felt threatened in order to receive a “get out of jail free” card? I feel threatened by the police. Imagine what would happen if I were to open fire on them each time I felt threatened. How can the police receive unlimited credit when many of them so clearly lack discretion or the ability to control their emotions?
For three months I have been protesting in shifts near the house of state attorney Shai Nitzan, while spending a lot of time with many irritated, hot-headed and condescending policemen. When policemen like these beat or kill people, the response of those in charge of them is guided by the rationale that a few dead black people are preferable to taking action that would hinder the policemen’s motivation to watch over and restrain unwanted population groups. The policemen are then conditioned to understand that they can do anything to particular groups of people without being held accountable.
It is not enough that we have to fight racist policemen and an unjust system. We must also face an army of journalists and media consultants who are acting against us. What am I referring to? The media for the most part frame our protest as violent and frame us as barbarians because we disrupt the lives of a few privileged people for a couple of hours. They choose not to frame the protest as an expression of opposition to on-going institutional racism and as a demand for justice. The media also ignored the fact that the office of the State Attorney and the police investigation unit, in an exceptional move following the advice of media consultants, chose the evening of the Israeli Memorial Day to publicize the report on the investigation of the death of Yehuda Biagda. The timing was carefully orchestrated to place us in a position in which our solidarity with the ethos of national loss and bereavement would be tested by the public. It was aimed at undermining the legitimacy of our pain and of our struggle against their racism. The police and the system backing them are equipped with skilled and experienced PR agents pushing items into the newspapers and explaining to journalists how to write about Blacks. On our side we have only justice.
A few days ago the police publicized an item aimed at preparing the ground for the decision regarding the case of the police officer who killed Tekah. It was reported that the police investigation unit completed its work and that the police officer who killed Tekah will apparently be accused of “careless manslaughter” or “recklessly causing death” according to a new reform in the penal code regarding ways to cause death. I already heard people around me saying that this is an achievement, considering that until today no policeman who killed a youth from the Ethiopian community has been investigated or tried. These people attribute this minor accomplishment to the determined struggle of activists with senior officials responsible for the investigative bodies and court system and to the demonstrations of “Mothers on Guard” in front of the Zvulun police station from where the officer who killed Tekah was stationed. However for many others the conviction was a slap in the face for the community and an expression of its abandonment. A policeman takes the life of a youth and the police, the investigation unit and the State Attorney’s office unite to present a picture that turns the killer into the victim. According to the 2018 report of the Public Defence, the investigation unit closes 90% of the cases opened against policemen without looking into them. Of the 10% of the cases that they do examine, only 2% lead to an indictment. The public defence does not publicize the identities of those harmed in the cases under investigation, but is safe to assume that they are not Ethiopian, Arab, ultra-Orthodox or others among the poor. Take the case of Jejau Bimru, a young man beaten by the police because of profiling. After seven years of legal struggle the court acquitted him and fined the police investigation unit for its conduct.
Since the second week after the death of Solomon Tekah, I have been sitting each evening with friends — youth and adults with a few Whites among them — in front of the house of Shai Nitzan, the state attorney. We are demanding that the law be carried out with the man responsible for killing Tekah and that a State investigative committee be established to investigate the deaths of thirteen of our youths and men shot by the police or found dead after encounters with the police.
Almost every evening the police try to prevent us from exercising our right to demonstrate. They push us away, detain us, arrest us, handcuff, harass and lately fine us. Every evening we deliver the message that despite all of this, we will return to demonstrate until our demands are met.
Support Shula and the Association for Ethiopian Jews (AEJ), HERE