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Killing the bill on Mayday: A Palestinian perspective
Image: Flickr
Adam Abdalla When witnessing the brutal repression of protesters in London and Bristol over the last few weeks, I have been reminded of the violence now exercised daily against the Palestinian people in their own land by Israel, now officially an Apartheid regime, and its heavily militarised police force. Israel has enjoyed unwavering support from the UK Government and constant whitewashing in the mainstream media, which has often labelled any voices dissenting against this injustice as “antisemitic.” Israel is home to companies such as Elbit Systems or Raytheon which export their lethal weapons and label them as “battle-tested” on the besieged Gazan population. Israel also provides cutting-edge surveillance technology, first trialled on Palestinians in the West Bank, then sold to Western governments such as the UK, to be used for the policing of their own populations. Indeed, it is a proven fact of history, just like Aimé Césaire has shown, that the violence exercised by imperial powers in their colonies and occupied lands is eventually imported back home, carefully tailored, to police and surveil entire communities.
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The violence exercised by imperial powers in their colonies and occupied lands is eventually imported back home, carefully tailored, to police and surveil entire communities
Anti-war activists, Muslims, people of colour, environmentalists and, as we have recently seen, women, all face violence which was first developed in the colonies. We saw this unfold in the 20th Century and we are now seeing it unfold here in the UK, in the US and in France. This form of state violence, whether it is perpetrated in Jerusalem, London, Ferguson or Paris, is an expression of further curbing
of our freedoms to protest and organise. More importantly, however, it is also an attack on the intersectionality between struggles that we have long been fighting for. Intersectionality is our only weapon against the militarised machinery that we are facing globally and which is already impacting our lives directly through the policies of austerity and increased surveillance. If left unchallenged, these forces will eventually lead to the destruction of our ecosystems through climate change. I don’t claim any false objectivity: I speak about this bill from the perspective of a Palestinian Muslim living in the UK. As someone whose expressions of identity and whose characteristics have been securitised and racialised in the UK, whose speech and political action has been delegitimised and curbed on multiple occasions by Israel lobbyists and Islamophobes, and as someone whose friends and comrades at Palestine Action and Extinction Rebellion have been unjustly imprisoned, brutalised and harassed by the UK police, I can tell you today that we cannot rely on the political class or the institutions to allow us to act against the crimes that they are complicit in and that they themselves perpetrate. So, allow me to say that while this Bill is an attack on our freedoms by a political class that cheers as protesters are brutally beaten and smiles while shaking hands with war criminals such as Benjamin Netanyahu, we should not pretend that the UK was not guilty of state surveillance and violence against dissidents, Black people, women and Muslims on an institutional level before this. We must, as the late David Graeber said, “when faced with structures of unjust authority act as if we were already free.” And indeed, here in the UK, we have the privilege to gather, to organise and to radicalise against these ongoing injustices by taking direct action on our campuses without the fear of being shot or kidnapped, like many
Palestinians have been just a few weeks ago in Jerusalem. Now is the time for all of us in the UK, and especially students, whose politics are based upon anti-militarism, anti-racism, feminism and internationalism to take direct action against war criminals such as Elbit Systems, against this government and against its institutions. Otherwise, they will lead us to a climate disaster with the right hand, while brutalising and surveilling us with the left. Now is also the time to decolonise our universities in real terms, by forcing them to divest from fossil fuels, the arms trade and companies that profit from human rights violations. It is also high time for the University to cut its ties with universities that employ oppressive policies and that are evidently part of an apartheid regime. Yes, I mean the Hebrew University of Jerusalem as the first instance. I know that we all already care for each other, we are not indifferent to the struggles that we face and that none of us stands alone. But, as a Palestinian Muslim, a radical and a student, I call on you to transform your care and compassion into radical direct action today by joining Sisters Uncut, by joining Palestine Action and by using your privilege to support these movements. On our campuses, this will mean occupations, demonstrations, sitins and putting pressure on the administrations and the students’ unions until they listen to our demands. Don’t be mistaken, radical change never came through peaceful negotiations and radical change is what we desperately need. We are the movement that will, within our lifetime, bring about real change in society and soon Kill This Bill and Shut Elbit Down for good, I do not doubt that, but we need to act now.
