#swana solidarity | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

anarchotahdigism · 2 months

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I know i say "wear a mask and riot" and "fuck a peaceful protest" but I'd had a nice long post about how digital work and advocacy is praxis (or can be) on my old account. Right now, COVID is spreading and killing thousands of people in the US alone and nearly all """radicals""""" and """""leftists"""" are philosophically no different than the fascists they claim to oppose because they are so thoroughly wedded to eugenics that they refuse to wear and enforce masking. COVID causes long COVID in 10-30% of cases so the so-called US alone may well be a majority disabled nation now due to rampant eugenics forcing the spread of COVID. Long COVID is a rotting death and makes everything an order of magnitude more difficult if you still are able to do the things you were prior. Repeated COVID infections means you're guaranteed to be immunocompromised permanently and disabled in other ways you'll likely find out the hard way. With 40% of cases being asymptomatic and most only showing severe symptoms after 2-3 infections, and many starting to drop dead after 3 to 5 infections, many people accrue damage from and spread COVID without realizing it until it is far, far too late. As a result, it's guaranteed that the ableists have disabled and killed people. They've kept disabled people like me who are high risk out of radical spaces & communities. They've abandoned solidarity for everyone but the abled, ableist middle class while focusing most of their efforts on electoralism, despite the clear and constant failures of such actions. The BLM Rebellion of 2020-2021 had significant---albeit broadly temporary--impacts on electoral politics, society, and communities because it was a constant and ongoing rebellion that was also much more disability inclusive than prior leftist movement moments. For the first time, people recognized the need for remote actions & support because while masking was at the high water mark, more abled people understood that a lot of us disabled could not and would not risk COVID but we had had skills vital to the project. Things disabled people were absolutely critical for during the BLM Rebellion: police scanner observation and transcription, evacuation coordination, event & route planning, translation services, postering, graphics art & design, self defense seminars, radio nets, mutual aid fundraising, mutual aid distribution, bail fund coordination, zine writing, mask & test distributions, contact tracing (remember this??!??!), car brigades, organizing medical supplies, teaching first aid skills, and countless other roles often organized & performed remotely. For every fighter, there are at least a dozen support roles and with some thought and effort, those roles can be aided or done digitally. Posting on its own can be praxis in that it shares information, knowledge, tactics, demonstrates that there are other radicals out there willing to do what they can, normalizes radicalism, and in some cases, regimes pay close attention to internet support.

During the height of the Jina Amini rebellion in 2022, the Iranian regime tried to cut the internet repeatedly to stifle information out of and into Iran to hinder protest coordination and outrage. It also paid extremely close attention to when the rebellion was trending and refrained from reprisals until the mass attention of the internet citizenry turned away. Posting literally helped save lives by forcing the regime to wait, buying people time to organize, prepare, and act accordingly in Iran and internationally. Personally, I will always remember and be grateful for the Palestinians who turned out across the world, but especially in occupied Palestine, for Iranians. Iran is not the only regime that will wait until posts slacken and attention wanes before massacring people. If you are disabled, if you have arrest risks, if for any reasons you don't want to be involved in a radical riot, but you want to support those who can and do, there is so much you can do year round but especially things kick off!! Any skills, resources, knowledge, or support you can organize or contribute is valuable! eSims for Gaza right now are monumental in ensuring Gazans can coordinate information, requests, record Israeli occupation war crimes & apartheid cruelty, and many disabled graphics designers are offering their services in exchange for esim donations. It's been incredible to see.

The people who are against digital activism are ableist and racist and ignorant as hell beyond that. You can make an impact and even save and change lives while homebound. Begging genociders to stop profitable genocides has never and will never work. Riots & boycotts work because they directly confront and attack power and if those actions are supported by communities, they can continue for quite some time, as we saw with the BLM uprising. Regimes do not fall because people ask regime leaders to please stop committing atrocities; they fall when the people are able to bring to bear the sum of their hopes and wrath and bring the fight to those who have been oppressing them. That requires inclusive community & an outright rejection of the regime and its systems of cooptation & recuperation.

If a revolution or movement isn't inclusive, if it excludes the disabled, the poor, the marginalized, the oppressed, it's not a revolution or movement, it's just another genocidal regime change.

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zestingbloodorange · 3 months

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some arabs and some muslims from the swana region continue being shocked at their governments for not doing anything and worse having a hand in the genocides that are being committed right now in both palestine and sudan or the massacres in yemen show how much they have never cared about the indigenous issues or the ethnic groups and religious minorities around them and what these governments commit every single day on and off their soil and how long they have ignored the zionist occupation and how they normalized it through the years and how some of them even supply it with oil, gas and fruits and vegetables even. and how these governments have for decades and still to this moment pick and choose what genocide they want to acknowledge.

It's hard to keep seeing people that are flabbergasted by this or genuinely thinking that turkey,egypt,iran,saudi arabia,jordan,uae,syria governments...etc are for justice and for freedom or they're not capable of doing much for Palestine right now and they're doing their best. or thinking a dictator like saddam hussein that has committed uncountable massacres actually would stop this if he was alive right now I keep seeing videos of the ba'athist iraq flag raised and people praising him in some protests ignoring the fact that he's genocidal himself or because those people he killed aren't human enough and deserved it so it doesn't make him genocidal in their eyes. or saying we coexisted under the ottoman empire and it was so much better than now which completely erases my people's genocide and so much more.

half of these conversations is lesser evil bs and palestinian struggle and liberation being used for this and for spreading disgusting ideologies about another group of people is absolutely evil.

#and this is not me trying to divide or ask for transactional solidarity just incase you read this and still thought that.#this is a short post for very long conversations and history so hopefully it comes out well #swana #arab #muslim #indigenous #zionism #palestine #sudan #yemen #iraq #فلسطين #اليمن #العراق #السودان #religion #genocide

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wodnes--coyotl · 5 months

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had a nightmare abt the israeli air strikes and jet fighters after watching motaz azaiza's stories. so did some of my friends. collectively nightmaring about something we feel powerless about but still fight from afar anyways.

#all my jewish homies hate zionism and genocide #all my jewish and swana and muslim homies are on one team #we are interfaith queer solidarity #israel is now bombing lebanon too

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akuasucc · 9 days

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i was considering columbia for grad school but the way they are treating their students is disgusting

#and whats wrose #is that their president is from egypt #like out of all ppl #i would expect ppl from the swana or mena region #idk which one yall pefer #but anyways i would expect u to be in solidarity #but u cant trust ppl in high powers #they will never help or save us #they will just continue the systems of oppression

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reasonsforhope · 3 months

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Where can I find Free Palestine protests and Ceasefire protests?

A super international and continually updated list of actions can be found at Samidoun: Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network's:

Calendar of Resistance for Palestine 2024

They list events by date, then alphabetically by country, then by city - and it's common for them to have dozens of actions listed for a single date, especially on the weekends.

The United States especially often has 40+ events on a single day, especially on the weekends.

Events are posted with links to the event info posted by whoever's hosting the vast majority of the time.

Look blow the read-more for a list of many of the countries that have been on this protest calendar, in alphabetical order, since I know so many websites/lists of actions are country-specific

*Obviously this isn't the only good source of listings for protest events - there are many others. This is by far the biggest/most international roundup I've found, though, so I started with this. If you know another good place for finding ceasefire protests/events, please feel free to add it in the notes, bc I'm planning to put a bigger roundup together once I find enough other sites

Countries that Samidoun has listed/does list protests for include (in alphabetical order):

North America:

United States

Canada

Mexico

Puerto Rico (listed separately in anti-colonial solidarity)

Hawai'i (listed separately in anti-colonial solidarity)

Europe:

Austria

Belgium

Bulgaria

Denmark

England

Finland

France

Germany

Greece

Hungary

Iceland

Ireland

Italy

Netherlands

Norway

Portugal

Romania

Scotland

Serbia

Spain

Sweden

Switzerland

Wales

SWANA Region (Southwest Asia/North Africa)*:

Bahrain

Iraq

Jordan

Kuwait

Lebanon

Palestine

Tunisia

Turkiye (Turkey)

*Samidoun notes that "We know that these events are mainly international and that the Arab people are marching everywhere for Palestine – we will be honored to add more Arab events whenever we are informed!"

Asia:

Bangladesh

India

Indonesia

Japan

Malaysia

Maldives

Pakistan

South Korea

Africa:

Kenya

Mauritius

Nigeria

South Africa

Tanzania

Tunisia

*Duplicating North African countries (well, Tunisia) here from the SWANA list btw

South America:

Brazil

Colombia

Chile

Peru

Venezuela

Australia and Oceania:

Aotearoa (New Zealand)

Australia

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fiercynn · 6 months

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poetry outlets that support a free palestine

after finding out that the poetry foundation/POETRY magazine pulled a piece that discussed anti-zionism because they "don't want to pick a side" during the current genocide, i decided to put together a list of online outlets who are explicitly in solidarity with palestine where you can read (english-language) poetry, including, except where otherwise stated, by palestinian poets!

my criteria for this is not simply that they have published palestinian poets or pro-palestine statements in the past; i only chose outlets that, since october 7, 2023, have done one of the following:

published a solidarity statement against israeli occupation & genocide

signed onto the open letter for writers against the war on gaza and/or the open letter boycotting the poetry foundation

published content that is explicitly pro-palestine or anti-zionist, including poetry that explicitly deals with israeli occupation & genocide

shared posts that are pro-palestine on their social media accounts

fyi this is undoubtedly a very small sample. also some of these sites primarily feature nonfiction or short stories, but they do all publish poetry.

outlets that focus entirely on palestinian or SWANA (southwest asia and north africa) literature

we are not numbers, a palestinian youth-led project to write about palestinian lives

arab lit, a magazine for arabic literature in translation that is run by a crowd-funded collective

sumuo, an arab magazine, platform, and community (they appear to have a forthcoming palestine special print issue edited by leena aboutaleb and zaina alsous)

mizna, a platform for contemporary SWANA (southwest asian & north africa) lit, film, and art

the markaz review, a literary arts publication and cultural institution that curates content and programs on the greater middle east and communities in diaspora

online magazines who have published special issues of all palestinian writers (and all of them publish palestinian poets in their regular issues too)

fiyah literary magazine in december 2021, edited by nadia shammas and summer farah (if you have $6 usd to spare, proceeds from the e-book go to medical aid for palestinians)

strange horizons in march 2021, edited by rasha abdulhadi

the baffler in june 2021, curated by poet/translators fady joudah & lena khalaf tuffaha

the markaz review has two palestine-specific issues, on gaza and on palestinians in israel, currently free to download

literary hub featured palestinian poets in 2018 for the anniversary of the 1948 nakba

adi magazine, who have shifted their current (october 2023) issue to be all palestinian writers

outlets that generally seem to be pro-palestine/publish pro-palestine pieces and palestinian poetry

protean magazine (here's their solidarity statement)

poetry online (offering no-fee submissions to palestinian writers)

sundog lit (offering no-fee submissions to palestinian writers through december 1, 2023)

guernica magazine (here's a twitter thread of palestinian poetry they've published) guernica ended up publishing a zionist piece so fuck them too

split this rock (here's their solidarity statement)

the margins by the asian-american writers' workshop

the offing magazine

rusted radishes

voicemail poems

jewish currents

the drift magazine

asymptote

the poetry project

ctrl + v journal

the funambulist magazine

n+1 magazine (signed onto the open letter and they have many pro-palestine articles, but i'm not sure if they have published palestinian poets specifically)

hammer & hope (signed onto the letter but they are a new magazine only on their second issue and don't appear to have published any palestinian poets yet)

if you know others, please add them on!

#poetry #free palestine #fuck you poetry foundation #palestinian poets series

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sayruq · 1 month

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These protests are threatening the stability of the pro American governments of Jordan, Egypt, and Morocco. Not to be optimistic but this is a huge deal for the SWANA region.

#yemen #jerusalem #tel aviv #current events #palestine #free palestine #gaza #free gaza #news on gaza #palestine news #news update #war news #war on gaza #egypt #morocco #jordan #genocide #gaza genocide

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irhabiya · 3 months

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i'm not gonna pretend at all to be as educated as i would like to be about swana geopolitics, but pan arabism is such a weird ideology i can't for the life of me figure out my opinion on. cause i can definitely see the value of swana countries presenting a united front against western imperialism (something we very much are Not Fucking Doing and it's driving me insane), but the way so many ppl talk about it is very much giving white liberal vibes. like "just forget the shit my country has done and is currently doing to yours so we don't have to confront our own issues, thx <3" which is like..... buddy i hate to break it to you, that's not how solidarity works. i don't get why there's such a huge proportion of arabs that spout all this shit about unity but are incapable of recognizing the role their countries played in it. it's behavior i've gotten used to from white moderates in america when we talk about shit like reparations and abolition, so i'm just baffled to be seeing the same arguments play out here. is there an arab-equivalent to white fragility?

idfk, i'm rambling here. i'm arab myself but i only recently started trying to make sense of the web of swana politics and i feel like that scene from community where donald glover walks into a room to find the whole place on fire. which let's be real, i expected, but i'm still confused as shit.

well imo that's the thing, any version of pan-arabism that existed for national liberation or anti western imperialism in the middle east died decades ago. whole arab states act as arms of western imperialism in the region now

and even then it's not unreasonable to scrutinize it back when you could make an argument that it was anti-imperialist. in egypt copts, siwi amazigh, nubians and jews have been marginalized on the basis that they're not arab. coptic was banned and neglected in favor of arabic. it's very silly to act like people aren't marginalized by how "arab" they are, i say this as a muslim non-black egyptian who will always be racialized as part of the arab majority in the country. others who are marginalized can speak on this from experience why better than i can.

pan-arabists rn from what i see are not serious anti-imperialists, it really seems to me that they use that "we're all just brothers and sisters please no infighting" to comfort themselves and deflect whenever anyone brings up their country's shitty foreign policies and alignment with western imperialism

#it very much feels like white fragility yeah #inbox

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feluka · 2 months

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how has the coptic community in general in Egypt responded to the gaza crisis compared to the muslim majority? are there any substantial differences in opinion or motivations for support? please dont feel pressured to answer this, im just asking out of my own curiosity! as a muslim myself non-muslim arab communities are something i so rarely hear about, in fact it's only recently i learnt more about the christian communities in swana. many people i know (including my own community) support palestine as a show of muslim solidarity, which rubs me the wrong way. is it similar in arab countries or does it lean more towards arab solidarity?

I made a post about this before, but I'm too tired to find it right now so if the post comes anybody's way, if you'd be so kind as to link it here for anon, I would appreciate it.

In a nutshell the Coptic church has historically been vehemently pro-Palestine. Pope Shenouda straight up banned Coptic people from supporting Israel monetarily, and he protested the president at the time for his normalization of relations with Israel. The current pope, Tawadros, has issued a statement condemning the Israeli occupation on behalf of the church. (Issuing a statement is... not very useful as far as dissident action goes, but it is a true reflection of the stance of the church, at the very least.)

I'm not active in any Coptic communities at the moment, but my brother attests that they all frequently discuss Palestine and what they can do to help, and participate in every boycott.

Worth mentioning that there's multiple Coptic churches in Palestine and that our churches have a huge overlap in culture and customs - It's not the reason for our support and I would sure hope everyone supports Palestine even if they have no personal connection to it, but I mention it because it might help you understand why "supporting Palestine is a purely Muslim cause" is not really much of an argument or cause for discourse within the Coptic community.

#asks

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never-noor · 26 days

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Queer, Palestinian-Syrian American (me, lol) at the November 4th, 2023 March on Washington for Gaza ❤️‍🔥🇵🇸

‼️Queer SWANA people exist‼️

‼️Queer Palestinians exist‼️

‼️Liberation for all means liberation for ALL‼️

🗣️ FREE FREE PALESTINE 🗣️

Linktree contains dozens of resources I’ve compiled in advocacy, action, education, mutual aid, and more regarding Palestine, Sudan, the DRC, Tigray, & Yemen. Hope to add more with time as well ❤️‍🔥✊🏼 love and solidarity folks 🇵🇸

#free palestine #free gaza #falasteen #falasteenhora #lgbt #queer arab #queerswana #mena #palestine #washington dc

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anarchotahdigism · 2 months

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every day I think about how Palestinians are surviving an Israeli-induced famine during a western-backed genocide and yet they still are sharing what little they have with the surviving cats and dogs and other domesticated animals left in Gaza I can only imagine how Palestine would flourish once the occupation is finally lifted. The care Palestinians have shown one another has been humbling.

I am forever thinking about an exchange during Al-Aqsa Flood in which one resistance fighter told another to take care of captives as the IOF was attempting to massacre them--captives, included-- because "[the occupation's] humanity is not ours." Even in the face of imminent death, which could have been more readily escaped by sacrificing captives, fighters chose a better and more thorough understanding of humanity because their intent was to force the colonial regime to end its occupation, to halt the genocide, not to simply kill or terrorize. The occupation has made atrocities routine, crimes against humanity a celebrated event, enshrining them in popular culture but Palestinians have taken enormous pain--and human losses-- to ensure that the humanity of Palestinian resistance is remembered and centered. May every resistance effort look to Palestinian solidarity for inspiration. May every radical be moved to show more militant kindness and a steadfast resolve in the face of cruelty to remember one's humanity, even the humanity of one's oppressors. Their humanity is not our humanity. From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free None of us is free til all of us are free Jin, jiyan, azadi

#free palestine #indigenous resistance #palestinian resistance #anticapitalism #antifascism #anarchism #anarchotahdigism #genocide #free turtle island #swana #swana solidarity #death to the west #settler colonialism

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zestingbloodorange · 5 months

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The ignorance that the queers of the world have about swana/mena queers and them only bringing us up when talking about how they're illegal there and they would get raped and killed there speaks volumes in so many ways.

and one of them is that it's because it's about them. It's about them wanting to come to our countries and have vacations and adventures and wear our cultural attires for aesthetic and getting free / cheap stuff and rides and even places to stay. I've seen so many tourists take advantage of our hospitality thinking their posts won't reach bilingual arabic speakers. film us whilst laughing as if we are circus animals. and fetishizing us and making content out of us...etc.

it was never about our safety and lives it's about their safety if they wanted to come visit countries that they will never be forced to go to or live in.

The western celebrities that come to the middle east and wear rainbow things have done absolutely nothing for us and actually it has backfired on us so many times while they get to leave. because it was not thought out and it was not about us from the beginning just for them to look good and for their non swana/mena queer fans.and their silence and neutrality at this critical moment tells me enough.

I'm not surprised because when we actually need solidarity we get ignored we only exist when it fits an agenda, for jokes, fetish or for selfish reasons.

And we have queer swana/mena famous artists and activities by the way (I know that's crazy) and they did are doing so much for the community than any westerner queer activities have done and is doing.

#swana #middle east #southwest asia #north africa #queer #lgbtq+#lgbtq community

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opencommunion · 2 years

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recognizing orientalism in progressive christianity

fetishizing or tokenizing the historical jesus are you saying "jesus was a brown palestinian jew who hung out with sex workers and homeless people" because you're actually in active material solidarity with people of color, palestinians, jews, sex workers, and homeless people, or just because you want to stick it to your white republican parents? other sus behaviors include insisting that yeshua was jesus' "real name" (ergo that his names in modern languages are inferior) or that localized depictions of him are "inaccurate" ethnic stereotyping in religious art you know that picture of "what jesus looked like" based on the "average middle eastern man"? yeah, don't do that shit. and watch out for depictions of biblical scenes that mimic orientalist archetypes like the harem (example, example) or odalisque (example, example, example) or fellah (example, example) or sexualized youth (example, example) or warlord (example). note that there's a lot of overlap with antisemitism equating christianity with europe/"the west" european culture and christian culture are not one and the same. when you forget this, the white supremacists win

othering/mystifying/exoticizing SWANA christianities your local eastern catholic church isn't any more mystical and foreign than your local lutheran church othering/mystifying/exoticizing SWANA cultures e.g. using aramaic or hebrew in your art/on your blog/etc without knowledge of those languages and the contemporary cultures that use them; "aramaic is the ancient and forgotten language of jesus"; tokenization of muslims; fascination with ancient SWANA art but no awareness of modern & contemporary SWANA art collapsing SWANA history e.g. equating 1st century palestinian culture with palestinian culture in other historical periods; portraying biblical figures in anachronistic cultural clothing; uncritically using contemporary language to describe the subject positions of biblical figures; ignoring the nearly 2000 years of christian SWANA history after christ

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magnetothemagnificent · 1 year

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do you have any feelings or opinions about modern diasporism or doikayt?

i wish i could wrap my mind around it, but i just have this strong strong gut feeling that (especially due to christian hegemony in the west, but also other things) we can't expect some harmonious relationship with our neighbors to form, or for them to accept us when we are non-assimilated. this isn't a "and this is why we need israel!" statement by omission, but a genuine confusion with the diasporist argument. id love to hear your or anyone else's opinions or thoughts.

Personally, I don't like it. I think the diasporist movement is very Ashke-centric and relies on the romanticized ideal of the Shtetl. There was never ever a time in history when Jews were fully safe and accepted in the diaspora. Jews in the Shtetl faced pogroms and exiles and legal restrictions. Jews around the world faced various oppressive laws and massacres in all the many different empires and regions through time. I've been researching my family's genealogy for a few years now. My ancestors never stayed in one place for more than a generation or two because they were constantly chased across Europe and the SWANA region. There is no one village or region my family is from. It also relies on the fact that there is a universal diasporic experience, which there isn't. It also plays into really harmful tropes of respectibility politics, like, "oh if we just act a certain way, the rest of the world will accept us", when it's just not the case. Time and time again we see that antisemites don't care what kind of a Jew you are: Zionist and anti-Zionist, assimilated and non-assimilated, religious and atheist, practicing and non-practicing; we're all the same to antisemites. Instead of trying to get the world to accept us, we need to build better solidarity between our own communities. There is so much lateral animosity between different Jewish communities, and it's horrible. We need to better practice Ahavat Yisrael instead of trying to please the goyish world which will never be fully pleased. We need to instead stand united with our Jewish family, even if we disagree with them, because we are stronger together and we can't rely on the goyim to help us. And another thing the diasporist movement reminds me of is how during the rise of Nazism, it was the Eastern European Jewish immigrants in Germany who first sounded the alarm, but the German Jews who had been established there for a long time who at first doubted how bad it could be, because they fought for Germany in WWI and because they were such model citizens. But the fact is....it doesn't matter how much of a model citizen you are, antisemites don't care. And honestly trying to change ourselves to get the world to accept us is ultimately fruitless- they won't accept us unless they change. We don't have to and shouldn't have to change ourselves for them.

#if jew know jew know #goyim don't touch #honestly I don't want to have a debate about this with anyone in the notes or whatever cause I'm tired #jumblr

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felucians · 1 year

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I need people to start adding nuance into their discussion of unconscious bias regarding racism.

Any group of PoC can hold colorist views.

Any non-Black PoC can be antiblack.

Any non-Asian PoC can be sinophobic.

Any non-native PoC can be anti-indigenous.

Any non-MENA PoC can be SWANA-phobic.

Any non-Muslim can be islamophobic.

Any non-Jewish person can be antisemitic.

Any non-Rroma can be anti-Romani.

Any non-Latine can be hispanophobic.

This doesn't even consider how many within our own communities have internalised racism towards themselves.

It's also important when having these discussions and calling out racism from other groups of PoC that we check our unconscious bias towards that group, or we can feed into societies racist views on our peers.

This is also why PoC groups can be racist or bigoted towards each other.

Until we collectively unpack our biases in our collective communities, widespread PoC solidarity will not exist.

Other PoC are free to add to this post. white people (excluding Rroma & Jewish white peoples) please don't comment/add replies to this post as this is a community discussion for PoC & other ethnic/religious minorities mentioned.

This post is not to say that the discussions concerned with the topic that focus on white people shouldn't be discussed less or are invalid. This is just a side of the topic that I haven't seen many people speak about.

#PoC #people of color #poc solidarity #racism #tw racism #tw islamophobia #islamophobia #anti semitism #tw anti semitism #colorism #tw colorism #unconscious bias #meta #nuance

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fiercynn · 7 months

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black & palestinian solidarities

if you support black liberation but are unsure of your stance on palestinian resistance, here’s a reminder that they are deeply intertwined. after the 1917 balfour declaration by the british government announcing the first support for a zionist state in palestine, zionism and israeli occupation of palestine have followed similar ideologies and practices to white supremacist settler colonial projects, so solidarity between black and palestinian communities has grown over time, seeing each other as fellow anti-imperialist and anti-racist struggles. (if you get a paywall for any of the sources below, try searching them in google scholar.)

palestinians have been inspired by and shown support for black liberationist struggles as early as the 1930s, when arabic-language newspapers in palestine wrote about the struggle by black folks in the united states and framed it as anti-colonial, as well as opposing the 1935 invasion by fascist italy of ethiopia, the only independent black african state at the time. palestinian support for black struggles grew in the 1960s with the emergence of newly-independent african states, the development of black and third world internationalisms, and the civil rights movement in the united states. palestinian writers have expressed this solidarity too: palestinian activist samih al-qasim showed his admiration for congolese independence leader patrice lumumba in a poem about him, while palestinian poet mahmoud darwish’s “letters to a negro” essays spoke directly to black folks in the united states about shared struggles.

afro-palestinians have a rich history of freedom fighting against israeli apartheid, where they face oppression at the intersections of their black and palestinian identities. some families trace their roots back hundreds of years, while others came to jerusalem in the nineteenth century from chad, sudan, nigeria, and senegal after performing the hajj (the islamic pilgrimage to mecca) and settled down. still others came to palestine in the 1940s specifically to join the arab liberation army, where they fought against israel’s ethnic cleansing of palestinians during the 1948 nakba (“catastrophe”). afro-palestinian freedom fighter fatima bernawi, who was of nigerian, palestinian, and jordanian descent, became, in 1967, the first palestinian woman to be organize an operation against israel, and subsequently the first palestinian woman to be imprisoned by israel. the history of afro-palestinian resistance continues today: even as the small afro-palestinian community in jerusalem is highly-surveilled, over-policed, disproportionately incarcerated, and subjected to racist violence, they continue to organize and fight for palestinian liberation.

black revolutionaries and leaders in the united states have supported the palestinian struggle for decades, with a ramp-up since the 1960s. malcolm x became a huge opponent of zionism after traveling to southwest asia and north africa (SWANA), publishing “zionist logic” in 1964, and becoming one of the first black leaders from the united states to meet with the newly formed palestine liberation organization. the black panther party and the third world women’s alliance, a revolutionary socialist organization for women of color, also supported palestinian resistance in the 1970s. writers like maya angelou, june jordan, and james baldwin have long spoken out for palestinians. dr. angela davis (who received support from palestinian political prisoners when she was incarcerated) has made black and palestinian solidarity a key piece of her work. and many, many more black leaders and revolutionaries in the united states have supported palestinian freedom.

while israel has long courted relationships with the african union and its members, there has been ongoing tension between them since at least the 1970s, when all but four african states (malawi, lesotho, swaziland, and mauritius) cut off diplomatic ties with israel after the 1973 october war. while many of those diplomatic relationships were reestablished in subsequent decades, they remain rocky, and earlier this year, the african union booted an israeli diplomat from their annual summit in addis ababa, ethiopia, and issued a draft declaration on the situation in palestine and the middle east that expressed “full support for the palestinian people in their legitimate struggle against the israeli occupation”, naming israeli settlements as illegal and calling for boycotts and sanctions with israel. grassroots organizations like africa 4 palestine have also been key in the BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) movement.

in south africa, comparisons between israel and south african apartheid have been prevalent since the 1990s and early 2000s. israel historically allied with apartheid-era south africa, while palestinians opposed south african apartheid, leading nelson mandela to support the palestinian liberation organization as "fighting for the right of self-determination"; over the years his statements have been joined by fellow black african freedom fighters like nozizwe madlala-routledge and desmond tutu. post-apartheid south africa has continued to be a strong ally to palestine, calling for israel to be declared “apartheid state”.

black and palestinian solidarities have continued into the 21st century. palestinian people raised money to send to survivors of hurricane katrina in the united states in 2005 (which disproportionately harmed black communities in new orleans and the gulf of mexico) and the devastating earthquake in haiti in 2010. in the past decade, the global black lives matter struggle has brought new emphasis to shared struggles. prison and police abolitionists have long noted the deadly exchange which brings together police, ICE, border patrol, and FBI agents from the united states to train with soldiers, police, and border agents from israel. palestinian freedom fighters supported the 2014 uprising in ferguson in the united states, and shared strategies for resisting state violence. over a thousand black leaders signed onto the 2015 black solidarity statement with palestine. the murder of george floyd by american cops in 2020 has sparked further allyship, including black lives matter protests in palestine, with organizations like the dream defenders making connections between palestinian and black activists.

this is just a short summary that i came up because i've been researching black and asian solidarities recently so i had some sources on hand; there's obviously so much more that i haven't covered, so please feel free to reblog with further additions to this history!

#free palestine #black liberation #black and palestinian solidarity #black and asian solidarity #original

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