Meanwhile in the Quebec news…
Wait, would this even be news in Quebec?
The fact that he is making a very big issue over this pin is, I posit, sufficient evidence that the entire purpose of the pin was to make a political statement. I completely agree that an AGM of the OMA is NOT the place to make political statements. It is a medical conference, not a political convention. It goes to the root of the entire purpose behind the Hippocratic Oath - to serve equally without malice or prejudice.
Derth, derth to the IDF.
Wear a shirt or socks with watermelons on it. Are Farber and Berman Jewish?
Now do lawyers.
Everybody shut up immediately and let watermelons be watermelons. It is NOT a symbol for anything else than watermelons. God dammit you freaks are polarizing and politisizing everything. (half serious, half fun /s)
But he is allowed to wear blue socks?
Since the 1980s, the watermelon has been an emblem of Palestinian solidarity,
I did not know that.
Is it common knowledge outside of political action circles?
I would say it’s well known among activists, and outside that community, it’s only a little known. It’s probably about on the level of sunflowers being used as a symbol for support of Ukraine. It’s nowhere near as well-known as Winnie the Pooh being used as a symbol of protest against Xi Jinping.
I’ve seen it in bios with Palestinian flags but never had it explained that the two were linked.
Seems like the Streisand Effect is at play here. I never would have noticed a watermelon as a political symbol if they hadn’t reacted this, i would just think it’s a bit of whimsy. Now tons of people are reading about it
As many said, it’s common knowledge if you’ve been generally knowledgeable about the colonialism from the 80s and/or if you’ve been informed because of the current escalation of the genocide.
Israel has had a “military rule” (administratively, judicially, and physically) over a good chunk of Palestinian lands since 1967 (other than what was colonized already). Under military rule law, even the Palestinian flag could put a child in administrative detention (prison with abuse) for an indeterminate amount of time (months to years).
To circumvent the oppressive rule, Palestinians took up the watermelon 🍉 which has the green, black, red, and white of the Palestinian flag.
the watermelon 🍉 which has the green, black, red, and white of the Palestinian flag.
I wouldn’t have made that connection either.
I doubt I could recognize the flags of hundreds of countries, theirs included.
Yeah, of course! And other countries share those same colours on their flag - it’s not about the colours, but knowing about the oppression that’s important; and it’s never too late or wrong to learn and share!
but knowing about the oppression that’s important
I have been well aware of the oppression, the bullshit that the Israeli “settlers” are doing and much more.
But I didn’t know that the watermelon had been adopted as a symbol relevant to the issue.
It’s not realistic to expect that everyone can know every single detail of every situation.
I’m sure I know some details about certain situations that you haven’t heard of, just the same as you probably know things that I have never been aware of.
None of that is any reason to threat others as hostile enemies simply due to lack of exposure to certain details (as some people in this thread seem to want to do).
I’m sorry, was I being hostile? I thought I was maintaining an informative tone.
Never heard of it before.
Where have you been for the past three years?
I’ve been following it for years, and I’ve never once seen this mentioned.
I seriously do not believe you. You literally can’t go to an event in support of Palestine without seeing these; I haven’t once this entire time. Your “following” seems to just be a passing awareness.
You can believe me or not. But based on the many comments and downvotes, that speaks volumes.
Is that how you criticize yourself? No wonder.
I’ve been personally against what Israel has been doing with Palestine since long before Oct 7th. I don’t personally know anyone that’s Palestinian or even Jewish for that matter, living in a fairly rural area. It’s possible I do have some acquaintances through professional services but simply don’t know their heritage. Whatever the case I never knew anything about the “watermelon” thing until today. TIL
You’ve been “personally against” it but like, haven’t seen any activist footage or social media posts ever? Where watermelons are plastered everywhere? Sorry dude, this is a sign for you that you should be paying more attention.
Looks like it’s a “you” thing
I’m often alone when I criticize Canadians to Canadians, they’re not a terribly self-reflective or accountable bunch.
Oh, I dunno, tuning out a tribal conflict that has been going on for 70 years and will never be resolved?
Damn, we really got the chuds out today.
No.
I’m actually kind of shocked how many people are saying they’re unaware. Not judging, just surprised people haven’t been exposed to it with everything going on over the last three years. Are you familiar with the yellow ribbon in association with Israel?
The yellow ribbon that’s literally used in dozens of countries worldwide, sometimes with more than a single meaning per country?
I didn’t ask about the yellow ribbon generally. I asked about it specifically in relation to Israel.
Not aware of that one, either.
yellow ribbon in association with Israel
Considering it’s been a symbol for dozens of causes, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone hasn’t heard of one specific one
I’m not aware until this story either. For me, this is my only social media. I imagine a lot of people on lemmy aren’t really plugged into a lot of places where you might learn that. I’ve also never heard of the yellow ribbon.
I only know of the yellow ribbon from marching cadence
Anyone with any knowledge of the middle east should be aware of it. The genocide has been going on for your entire lifetime. In fact there is no human alive today that was not alive during a period where zionists were not killing Palestinian children.
I grew up in a country that’s officially anti Israel since forever, and even I don’t know that. Just because it may be common knowledge in your circles doesn’t make it so worldwide.
Downvoted for poor sentence work. Fix that mess and I’ll give you an upvote.
I’m trying to figure out what, at minimum, is missing, other than a single comma.
Oh, it’s not the punctuation so much as the, what, triple negative there in the last sentence.
let it slide
Mmmm, no, I don’t think I will. Confusing politically-charged messages piss me off.
They haven’t always not left me unaffected as well, in spite of, and in accordance with, all of the reasons to the contrary
I certainly didn’t know that. I thought maybe they were a Saskatchewan Roughrider’s Fan
or just a big fan of watermelon, it’s refreshing.
I’ve always hated wearing ribbons & pins for this very reason. There’s no central authority and it leaves too much up to interpretation.
I heard this once a few years ago, said “really?”, and then promptly forgot about it until now, where this was briefly new news to me again. Is this like, a very regional specific thing, or am I just out of some very big loops?
Yes, as long as you have any level of political awareness. It’s on par with the kufiyeh
It’s on par with the kufiyeh
Another word I had to look up.
I recognize the object, but didn’t know it’s name.
Something being common knowledge for some people doesn’t automatically mean it is for everyone.
This entire comment section is a purity test. As if there has never been any other major event or ongoing conflict to be aware of.
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Ge asked whether wearing a Pride flag would be disallowed if it made a homophobic person uncomfortable.
“I don’t know if that’s the point of the discussion,” Farber said.
Isn’t it though?
An analogy about the discussion isn’t the point of the discussion? No shit.
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“I don’t know if that’s the point of the discussion,” Farber said.
It’s not, but it is related to a far more important one.
The current discussion is if a watermelon pin is appropriate attire for a professional. The larger, more important discussion is “What causes are appropriate for someone to publicly support?”, and further “Who gets to decide what causes are approved?”
Those are all born of the same unasked question: Why is admin so focused on continuing to undermine staff support of marginalized & vulnerable communities when that’s exactly what hospitals are for!?
Oh, right. The shareholders. 🖕🏼
The shareholders of the Ontario Medical Association? I guess those would be the taxpayers of Ontario, maybe. Or the doctors perhaps.
My bad. Was a little stoned and got a little lost. 🙏🏼😅
It is, they’re just evil.
Here is laid bare, the infiltration of Israeli misinformation into Canada.
There must be a genocidal maniac on the board.
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I have an autistic friend who loves watermelon and has watermelon socks, watermelon drinking glasses, watermelon everything. He wears his watermelon socks at work, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he had watermelon pins.
I would argue that the ban of watermelon imagery should be explained and it is definitely not clear for the general population.
I just learned about this symbolism today, and I’m usually more aware than the average person.
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Diagnosing people’s jewishness based on last names is yucky. Don’t do that. Farber’s passive aggressive behaviour is enough of an indictment.
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I agree, no political statements of any kind.
Not so hard
Politics is just politics until your own life, or the lives of your loved ones, are at grave risk
Then, it’s no longer a political statement, it’s a requirement for survival
In his case, ask yourself the question:
Is it a political statement to say you’re against genocide?
If everyone was intelligent and reasonable there would be no problem. But people turn politics and humanitarian causes into shit slinging and racism, and we don’t have the time to sift it all.
I keep hearing the Palestinian anti genocide movement is against Israel and not Jews in general, but the truth is somewhere in the middle and it’s ugly. Lots of open anti semitism in those protests where I live.
Expel those people and we can all talk reasonably.
-an indigenous person with no dog in a fight across the planet
Before y’all get mad, look at all the colonialism and genocide your people committed and continue to do so, and maybe fix your own shit in your own country
Hard disagree. Lower-p politics absolutely has its place in the AGM of a professional association. That’s why we have professional associations.
I though physicians often carried the “do no harm” mantra and were onboard with showing sides against things like genocide, or female genital mutilation, etc
The problem is that some people have wildly differing ideas on what counts as “just politics”. As an example, the doctor brings up the question “would a pride flag be banned if it make a homophobic person uncomfortable?”. To the homophobe, gender identity is “just politics”. To the gay/trans/etc person it very much is not politics.
Even suggesting certain treatment plans or choosing to provide everyone with medical care can be considered by some to be political.
The ethics of the caring professions may not have political intent in that they are not concerned with pursuit of power, but they cannot help becoming political in circumstances where politics and pursuit of power threaten people deserving of care.
I’d be uncomfortable if my physician was wearing a Star of David.
Either both are correct, or both are incorrect.
I want my dr to wear gloves.
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Israel is not Judaism, even though its fascist state claims ownership over it (did you think the Star of David is the same thing as the Israeli flag?)
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A star of David does not have the same meaning to it as the watermelon pin. One is a religious symbol, the other is a symbol of solidarity with a nation and people who have been fighting against genocide for a century that is abstracted from the Palestinian flag exactly because of how complacent our settler-colonial system is with that genocide.
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I reckon you haven’t had to deal with medical professionals as a member of a vulnerable group, because there is a very wide range of political opinions that these people will openly express with impunity when it is consistent with hegemonic values. To start actually firing these fucks when one is criticizing genocide is hardly a principled choice.
On top of all that, I’m fine with my doctors wearing fucking religious symbols because, guess what, they can simply not wear one and have their views effect their ability as physicians anyway. Restricting religious identity would be disproportionately enforced on vulnerable groups like Muslims again.
What a nice comment up until that last part. Part of what allowed Europe to go from a shithole into what it is now (with all the bumps along the road of course) was telling Christians to go fuck themselves. Making 50% of the population suffer to please a religious minority is never a good deal.
Oh, it was the “telling Christians to go fuck themselves” was it? Not the centuries of brutal imperialistic extraction, or did you mean the past century where they had a hiccup before continuing their brutal imperialistic extraction?
I don’t suffer remotely from seeing peoples’ religions, and I definitely do not benefit from letting the fucking genocidal Canadian state dictate what is and is not an appropriate religious symbol. Secularism isn’t areligious in a culturally Christian state like Canada, it’s just a rearticulation of settler-colonial notions of “objectivity” that conveniently privileges preexisting hegemonic values. Europeans worship capital the same way Canadians do.
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This isn’t about the patient-physician relationship however. It’s about a meeting of their professional association.
I wouldn’t be uncomfortable with either, you’re here to be an expert on my body and as long as you’re good at that idgaf about your opinions or beliefs… That said, I agree that consistency is better than inconsistency on these things
I definitely care if my doctor is some anti-abortion, patriarchal Christian who votes Conservative, but I hardly doubt wearing a cross or not would indicate their inability to fulfill their role as a physician because of those values.
Either way, a political criticism of genocide is not the same thing as a general religious symbol, so there’s no consistency between these cases in the first place. Everything your doctor subscribes to is rooted in their politics, and a watermelon pin that shows solidarity with a nation currently victimized by genocide is like, a pretty bad starting point for this enforcement against political expression.
Which doctor though? The one you see every now and then to discuss your health trends and medication needs, or the one that’s straddling you on a gurney giving you CPR while you’re being rushed from an ambulance to an OR?
That’d be EMS.
If the argument is meant to be, “you wouldn’t care if they were saving your life,” then you don’t seem to really understand why I wouldn’t want a bigoted doctor that wants me genocided. This mentality is fundamently incompatible with empathy as it requires the selective dehumanization of particular groups for one’s own material benefit; the suspension of empathy. Yes, I want my fucking paramedic to have a sense of empathy and I do believe that quality is crucial in order for them to perform their job effectively. Just like how I’d be endangered by a family physician neglecting my needs due to bigotry, I wouldn’t even be a statistical anomaly if my paramedic treated me differently because of bigotry and I fucking died for no good reason.
The radicals would not accept to remove their religious gear, that’s part of the point.
“Radicals” who? Hijabis? Orthodox Jewish men? They wouldn’t be radical to refuse and it’d be difficult to write a law that applies to wearing a cross that wouldn’t just overwhelmingly be enforced against groups whose religious symbols aren’t optional.
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