On Communities and Intersectional Solidarity
This piece is getting published after the news of the attack on Al Ahli Arab Hospital in northern Gaza and loss of hundreds of Palestinian lives who were patients, doctors, caregivers, medical staff there. Speak up, speak up, speak up. Do not be a bystander.
Over the past few days, those who have been using the popular social media platform, Instagram to support online campaigns for Palestinian cause and calls to end the genocide, find themselves in the midst of receiving dwindling online engagement. Many people have said, it could be because social media platforms want to limit engagements of accounts supporting Palestinian relief and solidarity efforts. Perhaps, there are ways that people can bypass such mechanisms by tipping the algorithm scales in their favour through sunshine pictures and selfies.
While, I and many on my feed have adopted such methods and worked to improve the views, it has has meant doubling down on the time and energies needed to spread the word and build better engagement. Requests to like, comment, engage better with posts have circulated publicly, and I’ve found that in these efforts, chances at building new communities and expanding circles of like-minded people have begun developing.
Beyond the social media engagement, for everyone impacted by the unfolding horrors, we all need a space to release emotions that arise. We need listeners, lovers, friends, colleagues who will hold our anguish, as we hold theirs. The community is where we one can cry, vent, express the triggers that come about as this crisis worsens, and go back to doing our bit.
Making and nurturing a community, I’m learning, is an act of devotion. A place where one can exchange their feelings, emotions and thoughts, without having to justify. A place where our different experiences are grounded in similar realities, where we can reflect upon each other’s experiences of being othered, and find a common space to connect.
The past week, through social media, I have found poets, students, healers, scholars, psychologists, and many others who are spending large part of their days in putting out links for donations, book recommendations, fact-checked information and other updates. Beyond the current crisis, this community is working towards freedoms for anyone oppressed by the imperialistic systems, and are devoted to extend their freedoms to others. They choose to speak out, open their hearts and souls so others can so too. They are inevitably creating bigger communities built on the values of dignity, love and freedoms.
American activist, Angela Davis in a 2014 interview said, “…in many ways I think we have to engage in an exercise of intersectionality. Of always foregrounding those connections so that people remember that nothing happens in isolation. That when we see the police repressing protests in Ferguson we also have to think about the Israeli police and the Israeli army repressing protests in occupied Palestine.”
This intersectionality, emerging from the Global South - people from countries that were colonised, women, queer and other gender minorities, those from religious minorities, all feel how this abject asymmetrical conflict feels to them. In finding a common cause that we all feel for, helps us in speaking up, offers us respite and hopes to reimagine the future.
Lahore-Berlin based visual artist, Shehzil Malik recently wrote about it on her social media. “For myself and my friends from around the world, I think it’s because it speaks to us who come from formerly colonised lands; who have seen bombs kill their countrymen; or who know what it’s like to be dehumanised and who know that our lives- as non-white, non-European people- are nowhere near as valuable as theirs.
She continues, “We are not born equal, and both the persecution and the resistance of the Palestinian people shows us this reality. It is also truly horrifying that those who once faced this very oppression have now become the oppressors themselves. For many people, we see ourselves in this fight, on one side or the other…this cause is the line I draw in the sand for recognising who people are and the side of history we’ll each be on.”
Most of us in South Asia, have had our home countries colonised, family members separated due to Partition, its echoes ringing in our stories and longings, and the ruptures due to colonisation continue to taint our country’s social fabric and give rise to anti-minority violence and hate. Many of us live with multiple identities which continue to be marginalised or oppressed. The Palestinian crisis might affects us in different ways, but in doing so, it helps us reach out to voices / folks that hear us. Those that witness us through these internalised fears, traumas, anxieties, and our fearlessness in standing up for the oppressed.
Whether you do it by engaging in conversations with new folks on social media, joining meditation / healing circles, attending live sessions of Palestinian voices or allies, supporting fundraising campaigns, attending poetry fundraisers - community building is a healing practice. Beyond active solidarity, if anything, the time we spend on informing ourselves and those around us, is an act of strengthening bonds that make our close-knit circles.
“A very moving theme in many of my interactions was the great hope and solidarity that Palestinians derive from the histories of post-colonial struggles of other marginalised peoples. They spoke of being inspired by the Indian Independence movement, the Civil Rights movement in the US and the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa.” - Ramya M Vijaya, Professor of Economics and Global Studies, Stockton University in New Jersey, on her recent interactions with Palestinians.
When the Palestinians are able to derive strength from our histories, it is our responsibility to harness our intersectional realities and support them. Palestinian-American poet and clinical psychologist, Hala Alyan rightfully said, “For the Palestinians and allies that can, find community now…find spaces where you don’t have to lobby for solidarity.” Our brown, all-things amazing, intersectional spaces are where we can participate with collective devotion to support the Palestinian cause. We need each other. This will be a long road to our collective freedoms and justice.
Some links to donate:
Mariyam Haider is an independent writer-researcher, producer & host of Main Bhi Muslim podcast, and spoken word artist creating works on feminism, culture and society. Her writing has appeared in Scroll, Kontinentalist, Asian Review of Books, Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy, AWARE, Livemint, Mekong Review, among others.
You can follow Mariyam’s other work on Instagram or LinkedIn.
References:
We have To Talk about Systemic Change. Interview by Frank Barat in Paris (December 10, 2014) (Freedom is a Constant Struggle, Angela Y. Davis, 2016)
Notes from the West Bank: Hope amid a life staring down the barrel of a gun (Ramya Vijaya, The Scroll, Oct 17, 2023)
Here’s how you can help people in Gaza right now. (Literary Hub, Oct 16, 2023)