BERKELEY, The Jewish Voice for Peace slammed candidates representing their countries in the 2021 Miss Universe pageant in Israel for “glamorizing” the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.
The organization, which works for a just and lasting peace according to principles of human rights, equality, and international law, decried the contestants for appropriating Palestinian culture after cooking Palestinian food in Palestinian traditional dresses.
“Miss Universe contestants are influencers glamorizing the ethnic cleansing and erasure of Palestinians and their culture on the global stage,” JVP said in a press statement.
“Through social media posts sponsored by the Israeli Ministry of Tourism, the contestants have advertised their engagement with Palestinian food, clothing, and dance traditions — but they have called this Palestinian culture, and the Palestinian land and people from which it originated, “Israeli.” And, while they said they were living “the life of a Bedoiun,” they neglected to illustrate the actual conditions of Bedouin life, which include home demolitions, forced expulsions, and Israeli police violence,” it added.
“Like many other settler-colonies, Israeli society has a long legacy of co-opting native culture and downplaying or disavowing foreign — in this case, diaspora Jewish — culture. This simultaneous cultural theft and disavowal is an attempt to “self-indigenize.” In other words, settlers want to make themselves (and the rest of the world) believe they belong on the land that birthed the indigenous culture, even as they ethnically cleanse the actual indigenous people from it.”
JVP called for the boycott of Israel and resisting participation in events that “camouflage” the oppression of the Palestinian people.
“Viral social media posts like these clearly demonstrate the importance of a cultural boycott of Israel, including but not limited to the Miss Universe pageant. The Israeli government blatantly uses culture as a tool to glamorize or camouflage its oppression of Palestinians, so we must collectively resist participating in it or giving it our attention.”
JVP thanked Miss Malaysia and Miss Indonesia for withdrawing from the pageant, and the grandson of former South African President Nelson Mandela, Inkosi Zwelivelile Mandla Mandela, for calling on all former Miss South Africa winners to boycott the event as well.
“There is nothing beautiful about occupation, brutality and institutionalized discrimination against the Palestinian people,” JVP quoted Inkosi as saying.
Miss Philippines, Beatrice Luigi Gomez, posted on Instagram photos of herself and her competitors cooking Palestinian food in traditional Palestinian dresses, sparking an outcry on social media, with some social media users calling for a boycott of the event and accusing some contestants of promoting tourism in a colonial state and supporting the gross appropriation of Palestinian culture.
Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency