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Hi friends,
My name is Dhruv and I'm a cultural worker, filmmaker, and the newest member of The Rights Collective!
As a new member I've been thinking about what it means to be in an organisation and revisited Grace Lee Boggs' 1970s piece, Organization Means Commitment. She says:
This work and struggle, this time and patience, this continuing relationship, this expansion and enrichment, this independence and discipline, this criticism and self-criticism, can only come from a continuing commitment in theory and in practice to the conviction that at the heart of (every great revolution) is the urgent need to transform people into a new and more advanced form of human being by means of struggle.
Much of this month's newsletter explores the carceral nature of the Israeli occupation of Palestine and how similar technologies of repression are used in various parts of South Asia.
We invite you to think about ways in which we can all amplify the voices of the incarcerated and to continue to struggle for a new world.
Dhruv
🌖They Cannot Extinguish The Moon: Political Prisoners from South Asia to Palestine - Teach In
Join us for the second teach-in hosted by the South Asians for Palestine coalition, focusing on political prisoners from South Asia to Palestine, to discuss how their resistance to settler colonialism and state violence are criminalised, and how we in Britain can challenge attempts to suppress our support of their struggles.
Our speakers will draw together the role of Political Prisoners in occupied Palestine to the broader Palestinian liberation struggle, along with struggles of prisoners in present-day Kashmir, Pakistan and India.
Join us on Sunday25th February from 2pm. This is a family friendly event so please feel free to bring your children, we will have a crèche available on the day.
WATCH:Resisting Borders and Technologies of Violence aims to expose and analyse the insidious means of surveillance, control, and violence employed by states to ‘protect their borders.
LEARN: Breaking the Prison Door: Palestine, Prisons & Abolition. This online teach-out will provide a critical analysis of the intersections of prison liberation and anticolonial liberation, as well interrogate the sites of criminalisation and counter-terrorism structures. Hear from PYM, Nijjor Manush and Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association.
We recommend..
READ: Bread and Salt by Palestinian-American artist and folk herbalistAmanny Ahmad.
From the international community we demand far more than just our daily bread: we demand more than condemnation and empty gestures. We demand a full stoppage to life as usual, to refuse to set a precedent of complacency and collusion in war crimes and genocide.
Most of our spaces, workshops and events are free but if you feel called to contribute to the community and invest in sustaining our work, please donate here.
Like what you read? Share it with your friends! ❤️
Listen to an audio version of our newsletter here 🌻
Dearest community,
How is your heart? As we approach the end of January of the new year, we’re finding it difficult to write our newsletter in our usual way, where we would recap all the wonderful projects and community actions we did together as a team last year.
Whilst we continue to bear witness to the ongoing genocide in Palestine, we’re reminded of what Dr. Layli Uddin said at our South Asians for Palestine teach-in n December, she said that “we are capable of producing more love, more joy, and more friendship than our oppressors will ever produce” and stressed the importance of sustaining hope in our collective solidarity. We want to share this reminder with you to energise you in your efforts over the new year. In doing so, we wanted to share a small snippet of our residential over September along with political education materials we’ve been engaging with over the past couple of weeks.
There can be no business as usual during genocide. Don’t let Palestinians die in vain. We must continue to protest, to resist, and to organise for a liberated Palestine.
In solidarity,
The Rights Collective
🍉South Asians 4 Palestine Teach in
South Asians for Palestine is an initiative to draw on the unique strengths of our collective anti-colonial histories and connect current struggles. Ours is a rich history of solidarity, and we recognise ongoing oppressions taking place - many of them enabled by the same corporations that oppress Palestinians.
Following on from our first teach-in in December 2023, this booklet contains speaker summaries, a glossary, various resources, and a display of beautiful Third Worldist resistance artwork related to Palestine.
To get involved with South Asians for Palestine, please email us at therightscollective@gmail.com or via our instagram.
Inquilab Zindabad ✊🏽
In solidarity,
The Rights Collective & Nijjor Manush
Imagining the Collective: Where We've Been, and Where We're Going
It’s been over a year since our last intentional communication about how we are organising together, Moving with Intention as a Collective. We shared with you then that we needed to slow down, take a step back from the rush of project work and social media and all the rest. We’ve written about our experiences which explores what we’ve been up to , the questions we’ve been asking ourselves, and some of the changes we’re making. You can read it here.
‘As Within, So Without’ Residential
In September, we co-designed and held a beautiful gathering with the Anne Matthews Trust at the Braich Goch in Wales, for a four night residential re-imagining new ways of being and ways of doing in our work.
It was intended as a slow spacious space for our team and wider community members to come together in nature and explore how we can build strong coalitions.
We want to extend our thanks and gratitude to the entire team at AMT for hosting us, and to our wider community members for joining The Rights Collective team.
📚Things we’re engaging with right now…
Watch Palestinian poet and writer Mohammed El Kurd deliver a moving speech on ‘mournable victims’ at this years Palestine Literature Festival. Every single life lost in Gaza deserves our grief and we mourn each one.
“These are not random rockets. Everything is intentional. We know exactly how much collateral damage there is in every home.” - Israel is employing artificial intelligence software, called Habsora (‘the gospel’) to create targets in a mass assignation factory in the Gaza Strip.
Journalist and author Azad Essa sits down with Yousef Munayyer to discuss the evolving relationship between India and Israel. Listen to the podcast episode below.
Most of our spaces, workshops and events are free but if you feel called to contribute to the community and invest in sustaining our work, please donate here.
Did what you read resonate with you? Feel free to share it with your people. ❤️
To our dearest community,
We witness, with profound grief and sadness, the genocide unfolding in Palestine. We are united in our rage and demand an immediate ceasefire and an end to the Israeli occupation. The Ministry of Health has stated the health system has completely collapsed in Gaza, non-stop bombing continues and our leaders do nothing. There are no words. We are heartbroken and, yet, we must reaffirm our commitment to show up in solidarity. We do this together.
As we take time to ensure our commitment is sustained and oriented towards liberation, we invite you to also join us in thinking about what role you, your communities and your organisations will play beyond the performative. Decolonisation is not a metaphor.
Below, we are including some resources. Read them.
We are marching again with our comrades this Saturday. Join us.
We will be gathering the day before and day after. Come be together.
All details below.
In solidarity,
Chandrima, Habiba, Huma, Inaya, Jasmin, Nishma, Niharika, Shanika, and Sristi
✊🏽 Join us at the March for Palestine
We will be marching again with our comrades in London on Saturday 28th October, 12pm. If you’re alone and want to join us or just want some friendly faces to march with, please get in touch by dropping us a message on Instagram or email us. We will make sure we wait for you and stay together. See you there!
If you want to take on a more active role at the march, check out this Know Your Rights training happening tonight and/or reach out here to volunteer to be a steward.
If you’re unable to make it in person, consider submitting your chants for Palestine liberation here to be shared during the march.
We will also be holding a people’s circle on Sunday for those of us who march with us - to grieve, share. share and be in community together with some food. Ask one of us for the details on Saturday.
🍉 Gather at Solidarity Kitchen
We are gathering this Friday in collaboration with Solidarity Kitchen in South East London! Join us on the 27th October 2023 7:30-9:30pm at All Saints Hatcham Community Centre, 105 New Cross Road, London, SE145DJ.
💚 All welcome. Come through anytime. Bring people.
🍵 Food and tea provided - you're welcome to bring snacks and drinks for the table (no pressure at all).
🇵🇸 Demo prep - let us make banners/posters/placards for the protest for Palestine on Saturday. Bring materials for making.
🌿 Talk, listen, share, organise, be together in solidarity and rage.
🚨 Donations
Heavy bombardment by Israel has left the Gaza Strip with no fuel and limited medical supplies. There are several groups on the ground urgently responding to the humanitarian crisis. Please consider donating below and share on with your networks. This are groups we personally know or trust.
Medical Aid for Palestinians’ team are working to distribute the remaining medical supplies that they have been able to procure inside Gaza. They are still working to distribute critical supplies like mattresses, blankets, and hygiene kits.
Restless Beings permanent Gaza based team are sourcing medical kits and family kits including menstrual pads and wipes for families in Gaza.
Islamic Reliefs has an emergency Palestine Appeal which is working closely with those on the ground to supply medical kits and survival items to families.
📣 Educate! Organise! Resist!
The Palestinian cause is not a cause for Palestinians only, but a cause for every revolutionary, wherever he is, as a cause of the exploited and oppressed masses in our era.
- Ghassan Kanafani
Some resources to start…
DecolonizePalestine have put together an extensive reading list and resources for organisers wanting to know more about Palestine. Check out their myths data base debunking Israeli talking points. For supporting visuals, check this out.
The Jamhoor editorial for Palestine is a must read and crucial in situating the Palestinian struggle for justice with South Asians, due to our shared history of colonial violence and occupation.
The team at The Institute for Palestine Studies have been translating and publishing messages and letters by Palestinians from Gaza. Every message could be their last. It is our duty to read them, and to share them. Read Letters from Gaza and see the humanity buried under the rubble.
The Palestinian Youth Movement reminds us what it means to resist and how we must stand steadfastly in our solidarity, not to get caught in what Mohammed El-Kurd calls a discursive crisis.
Ahmed Harhash writes about the Afro-Palestinian community in Jerusalem. Read here.
This article by Gabriel Winant looks at how the weaponisation of grief has made it a cruelly political question.
Finally, if you prefer to audio learning, Radio Alhara is an online community radio station which has a 12 hour learning track, or for films, see the Palestine Film Institute.
Dive a little deeper…
Ahmed Ansari is holding weekly online teach-ins looking at settler colonialism and violence in the modern nation state. You can find more information and the links to join here.
As one of our team members said this week “Fanon is canon”.
Small actions for today…
You can reach out to your MP to put pressure on them and make your voice heard using these templates.
You can support the Tube driver who showed up in solidarity last week here.
“When Marcel Khalife returned from his study of classical music in Russia, he created the operatic masterpiece, 'Ahmad al 'Arabi'. His is the music, but the words were written by Mahmoud Darwish. Translation into English words printed on a page is woefully inadequate to convey the magnificent power of the operatic work, which bridges classical traditions of East and West and embodies all the passion and longing of Arab Nationalism.
I believe these words were written during the first invasion of Lebanon by the Zionists. Now, over two decades later, we still look for the face of Ahmad. So many martyrs have watered the soil with their blood, but there yet is no end to the foreign occupation of the Arab homeland.
I salute those who endure the siege, who maintain their steadfastness in the face of deprivation, torture and threat of death.” (Source)
'To those hands of zatar(thyme)
and darkened stone,
I voice this cry:
To Ahmad
Forgotten and alone.
The passing clouds have left me
Homeless and unknown,
And only mountains
Dare to hide me
In a barren home.
I emerge once more
From the ancient wounds.
I approach until I see
The details of the land.
I emerge once more
In the year the sea was breached
From the cities of ash,
When I found myself alone.
Ahmad was the sea,
Foaming among the bullets,
A camp that fiercely grew,
Raining thyme and fighters
On us.
'I am Ahmad al Arabi,'
he said:
I am bullets
And oranges
And dreams.'
'I am Ahmad al Arabi
LET THE SIEGE COME!
My body is the fortress,
LET THE SIEGE COME!'
'I am the line of fire
And I will besiege you in turn,
For my breast
Is the shelter for my people.
LET THE SIEGE COME!'
.... Oh Ahmad, born of stone and of thyme,
You say : 'NO!'
...Dying close to my blood
And rising in the wheat...
The birds have willed
Their songs to me,
And I have been gathered
To the heartbeat of the fields...
Go deep into my blood,
Go deep into the bread,
So that we will have
A simple homeland
And a dream of jasmine yet to come...
Ahmad al Arabi,
RESIST!
We will journey
In this struggle
Until we reach the shore
Of bread and waves.
We will die
For the dream of a homeland
And of jasmine yet to come.
Oh Ahmad,
Secret like forests and flame,
Make your face known to us:
Read us your last will.
We will disperse in silence
To step back
That the dead may hear your words,
That the living may know
The features of your face.
Ahmad,
My brother, Ahmad,
We await your hero's death,
When will it be?
When will it be?
When will it be?'
Most of our spaces, workshops and events are free but if you feel called to contribute to the community and invest in sustaining our work, please donate here.
Like what you read? Share it with your friends! ❤️
Listen to an audio version of our newsletter here 🌻
Hi everyone, how are you? It has been a few months since we published a newsletter from the team so we wanted to share some updates, and we also just missed you and wanted to say hello!
We’ve been away spending time imagining what we want for and from the collective and carving out what the rights collective means to us and others. It has been a period of deep reflection and intention on how we move, and the things we care about. It is an ongoing process but we’ve written about our journey so far below.
We are also very slowly started up some project work which you can also read more about below.
Thank you for staying with us in this transitional phase and we hope to you soon.
In solidarity,
Habiba
☄️Imagining the Collective
Over a year ago now; we posted an article to our blog, sharing our intention to step back from our social media presence. The Rights Collective team had reached a point of burnout; and we needed time away from visibility to rest, regroup, and refresh.
In addition to reducing our social media presence, we massively cut down our workload, as the extent of our project work had become unmanageable for us as a team of volunteers. This sudden move towards slowness really shifted our focus, and we began to realise just how many questions we had for ourselves about who we were in relation to this collective, what we wanted to contribute and how we wanted to show up. What is The Rights Collective? Who are we together? How can we move towards practising ways of being and doing that are grounded in our values?
Since then, our internal processes have shifted dramatically, and building towards creating a collective with robust practices of care, accountability and trust, as well as a sincere determination to continue working with our communities. We want to share our learnings about this time with you - how it felt to slow down in that way, what we’ve learnt and what it means for the future. We’re in the process of co-writing a blog post that encapsulates this. Until then, please know that we’ve missed you, and we can’t wait to meet you again as our whole selves, reinvigorated and ready.
🌙 🌈Crescent Moon
We’re excited to announce the launch of Crescent Moon; a London-based support program for family members of LGBT+ Muslims who want to navigate questions of faith, family, gender and sexuality together.
This 8-month series will provide a communal space of learning and reflection alongside other family members and experienced facilitators. We hope to cultivate a space where we can share our own experiences, hear from others and discuss Islamic ideas and principles as a group.
If you would like to participate or refer a family member, or you have suggestions on who can support us in delivering a session, please fill out the form below.
LISTEN: We’ve been talking a lot about love, showing up in friendships, and relationships at The Rights Collective. We’re sharing this podcast produced by the Atlantic - what do we owe our friends? in hopes you’ll also resonate with the points made.
WATCH: Palestinian poet and writer Mohammed El-Kurd chats with Lex Fridman about the ongoing Sheikh Jarrah campaign, Israeli occupation, and his poetry book; Rifqa.
MEET: Some of us will be this lab in Bristol exploring Life Affirming Organisational Practices. We’d love to meet you - feel free to connect with us over on our Instagram or email if you don’t know how to find us.
Most of our spaces, workshops and events are free but if you feel called to contribute to the community and invest in sustaining our work, please donate here.
Like what you read? Share it with your friends! ❤️
Listen to an audio version of our newsletter here 🌻
Hi everyone! Wishing you a gentle and opening start to springtime here in the UK. This is Nishma and I’m happy to be opening this newsletter because it’s going to be our last one for a couple of months.
The collective has decided to pause all existing and new project work for a few months as we are deep in imagining, planning and strategising mode. In fact, we have our first ever group retreat - reimagining the collective - this weekend. We’ll be doing some play, exploring some ongoing questions and challenges we’ve faced over the last few years, learning from some collective reading, eating together and more! As someone who’s been with The Rights Collective since it’s inception, I can’t tell you how much joy and pride fills me when I think of who and where we are today. It’s all down to the really incredible people involved in their many different capacities - people who have become my friends, my community, my fellow learners and my rocks! We’ll share more about the retreat with you all in a few months. We expect to be back around early July so watch this space!
In the mean time, this newsletter is packed with some juicy resources for you. Check out our final reading circle summary, along with the whole transformative justice series over on our website. It’s also Dalit History Month so we invite you to think about your relationship to caste - to help you, check out some of the materials linked below.
Wishing you a wonderful spring - see you in a few months!
Love, Nishma
📖 Transformative Justice Reading Circle: Disability, Race and Culture - Addressing Harm in the Community
In March, we held our last reading circle in the series, led by Sage Stephanou where we explored themes of disability and care in our communities and how that relates to our transformative justice practice. Some of the questions we discussed were:
What tensions do we hold whilst trying to move towards community care as marginalised and racialised communities who have been disabled by white supremacy, colonisation and (racial) capitalism?
How do we provide care to sick, mentally ill, disabled family and elders when they also cause harm as part of, or in the mix of disability and/or mental illness?
Check out a full summary, along with the resources, on our website!
Anti-Caste Reading Circle: Summaries
For Dalit History Month, we’re re-sharing our anti-caste reading circle summaries! All six summaries are available to view on our website, complete with reflection questions covering topics across entertainment, food and love. We invite you to explore these with friends, family and community to unpack your relationship to caste.
We wanted to re-share our anti-caste learning resources for your all this month. Following on from our anti-caste reading circle a few years ago, these further readings serve as educational learning tools for some of the key texts we discussed in the sessions.
Each reading includes a summary of the key ideas and arguments as well as reflection questions. We encourage you to use these guides as an educational tool in your communities and study circles when discussing caste.
If you want more information, have questions, or would like to let us know how you’re getting on with these resources, please drop us an email.
In Conversation with Jyotsna Siddharth
Last Dalit History Month, collective member Inaya sat down with Jyotsna Siddharth - an actor, intersectional artist, activist and founder of online platform Project Anti-Caste, Love, who is currently based in India.
“We are constantly fighting intergenerational wars on our bodies, psyche and communities, which needs authentic, critical and nuanced solidarities.”
Jyotsna shares her thoughts on Dalit History Month, her journey into activism and her hopes for the future of Dalit communities. Read now!
📖 Anti-Caste Reading Circle: Resources
This month we are sharing anti-caste resources with you along the themes of caste and entertainment.
Most of our spaces, workshops and events are free but if you feel called to contribute to the community and invest in sustaining our work, please donate here.