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.
✊🏽 Political education through music, sound & poetry - we will listen to the Balamii radio show by Rabz Lansiquot on Palestinian resistance.
🌿 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.
This is Palestine podcast is a project of the Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) and highlights people, issues, and events around Palestine. We recommend episodes on Palestinian political prisoners, Googles anti-Palestinian surveillance project called Nimbus, and the current Gaza crisis.
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.
🎶 Listen to Ahmad al 'Arabi
“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.
🍉🇵🇸♥️