BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Nearly 100 students at Birzeit University in the central West Bank on Wednesday took part in a solidarity event with the African-American community in the United States in the wake of spiraling rates of deadly police violence there.
Entitled, "Similar
Struggles: Racism in Palestine and Abroad," the event was organized by
the Right to Education Campaign at the university and featured lectures
from professors as well as a number of students who recently returned
from a tour of the United States
where they visited Ferguson, Missouri -- the site of months of protest
against police violence -- and met with community organizers across the
nation.
Organizers said the activity was one of the "most
successful" events organized by the campaign, highlighting how the topic
spoke directly to the experiences of Palestinian students.
"Following
the uprisings of Black communities across the US, a lot of us here in
Palestine began to see the similarities between these communities'
oppression by the militarized state and our own oppression as
Palestinians under Israeli colonialism," organizer Deema al-Saafin told
Ma'an in an emailed statement.
She said that the event was part
of an effort to "create and sustain solidarity with other struggles,"
adding: "We aimed to emphasize that change begins with liberating the
mind first, and to build solidarity we need to actively resist
derogatory terminology and stereotypes between each other and the way we
address other people of color."
She said the event featured
three professors, Ahmad Abu Awad, Rana Barakat, and Hanada Kharama, who
addressed racism as an ideology, the institutionalization of racism, and
how racism becomes embedded in linguistics, respectively.
In
addition, students who took part in the recent Right to Education tour
shared their experiences meeting with activists from communities of
color in the United States and "how deeply connected our struggles are
against the same systems of oppression," al-Saafin said.
Another
organizer, Reema Asia, stressed that the event was important for
educating students about struggles faced by their peers abroad: "Through
the discussion that took place, the students at the university will
have a better understanding of the situation of Black communities not
just in America, but around the world. You simply cannot be an ally to a
people without having an idea of what it is they are fighting against."
Al-Saafin
told Ma'an that the event was part of the larger effort of building
solidarity through knowledge, and that the Right to Education campaign
hoped it would help bolster their work to create linkages between the
struggles faced by Palestinians and other marginalized communities
around the world.
"We hope that this event and those in the
future will emphasize the fact that as Palestinians and as students, we
have to actively fight injustice everywhere ... Our liberation is simply
incomplete without the liberation of all oppressed peoples," she said.