Yesterday was Nakba Day, and these were taken on Keffiyeh Day, May 11, in Westlake Park, at a rally marking the 76th year of rallies just like this one.
The same chants, the same keffiyehs, the same fury in the face of the same injustice.
I took these on expired film because these images could have been taken decades ago. I pray that they won’t be taken decades from now. Free Palestine.
The rallies are the same, but the passion this year feels different. We’re at a tipping point of some kind. One of the UW student protestors spoke of the genocide with genuine tears choking her defiant voice, bringing tears to my own eyes — I hid them behind sunglasses.
I’ve been to many Nakba Day rallies over the years — in Lebanon, in Scotland (see also), in Seattle — and the passion has always been genuine, but some years, the ritual felt hollow, and my faith in liberation felt forced. But when this same student led us in a chant of “I believe that we will win,” I believed her. And I cried again.
I believe that we will win. Despite everything, I cling to this crazy belief. I believe that we will. I believe that we will win.
I have thoughts about some of the tactics this wave of protests has been adopting; they’ve been on my mind for months.
But I won’t share them today. Instead, I’ll share words from a poem @ninaboe87 reminded me of yesterday:
“My friend,
The Nile will not flow into the Volga,
Nor the Congo or the Jordan into the Euphrates.
Each river has its source, its course, its life.
My friend, our land is not barren.
Each land has its time for being born,
Each dawn a date with a rebel.”
I know I said that I wouldn’t share these thoughts today, but I changed my mind; acknowledging them has made them rattle louder in my skull.
There’s one tendency that I’ve found disturbing about today’s solidarity movement; it’s something I noticed all the way back when I went to a screening of Abby Martin’s documentary on the Great March of Return. While the film itself is very careful about insisting on the independence of that Gazan mobilization, underscoring Israel’s demonization of the protestors (Netanyahu literally called it “self-genocide”), the organizers felt the need to hand out leaflets explaining “what is Hamas.”
I understand the U.S. activist need to defend Palestinian resistance, but that does not necessarily require apologia for any particular armed group. It certainly doesn’t require shouting Islamist chants either.
I understand the instinct to center Palestinian narratives, but please believe me when I tell you that Palestine is a lot more diverse than these tropes make it seem.
Do you think a Popular Front partisan would ever chant “la ilaha illAllah?”
I support Palestinian resistance but I sure as hell don’t support any monopoly over what resistance can or should be. War is hell, yes, but liberation need not be.
I love this generation’s modes of solidarity. I love their farsightedness. I love their care bears. I love their decolonial praxis. But that last piece requires us to go further than simply championing a side. It requires us wanting the very best for and out of our shared humanity.
Youssef talked about how good it feels to see so much support for Palestine. He shared how he’d been a victim of a hate crime in Kirkland on October 8 (“Remember that viral video? I was the guy in white pants!”).
And sure enough, as we bantered about Macklemore (“I wish he put some Palestinians on that track”) and complained about Kendrick Lamar (“Drake sucks but there’s a genocide going on, man”), someone crossing the street yelled “FREE PALESTINE” at us. I raised a fist to that.