Please consider reading the above article printed on masarbadil.org by Khaled Barakat, member of the Executive Committee of the Masar Badil, the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement, was originally published inArabic at Al-Akhbar:
Every year, as the fifteenth of May approaches, Palestine returns to the forefront of global memory as an open wound since 1948. Images of displacement, massacres, the destruction of Palestinian villages, and the uprooting of the people from their land are revived under a name and a slogan that has become firmly entrenched in political and media discourse: the “Nakba.”
The difference between the two expressions is not superficial. “Nakba” refers to catastrophe and defeat, while “Day of Palestinian Struggle” refers to resistance, continuity, and popular will. The first focuses on what colonialism did to the Palestinian people, while the second focuses on what Palestinians do to confront and uproot colonialism. Between the two discourses lies a profound difference in the construction of political consciousness, especially among the new generations in Palestine and the diaspora. – Khaled Barakat
Nakba refers to the ethnic cleansing, genocide and apartheid of Palestine by Zionist militias to make the land clear for the creation of Israel in 1948.
This premeditated military campaign resulted in the murder of thousands of Palestinians, the destruction of hundreds of villages and the displacement of nearly 80 per cent of Palestinians from their homeland.
The violence went on for more than a year, and the result was the creations of the State of Israel taking over 78 percent of historic Palestine.
West Bank and Gaza made up the remaining 22 percent. This too fell into Israeli hands later and remains under Israeli military rule today.
What is also disgusting is that Britain had a hand, still has a hand, in all of this, due to the “Balfour Declaration”.
For 100s of years Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire. During the First World War, Palestine was captured but the British. The League of Nations then gave Palestine to the British to mandate. Not taking into account the wishes of the Palestine people, the British were given control of the land, making decisions for the native population until it was decided they were deemed capable of being an independent state. How colonialist is that?
Great Britain, didn’t care about what was right. Didn’t care about the Palestinians who have lived within their homeland for centuries. Nope.
The British Mandate incorporated the “Balfour Declaration” that pledged to establish “in Palestine a national home for the Jewish people”, who made up less than 10 percent of the population at the time.
So all the time Palestine as under the mandate, 1923- 1947, the British were working with Zionists to suppress and eradicate Palestinians, through whatever means necessary, to create a homeland for Jews. Facilitating the immigration of European Jews to Palestine, providing weapons for Zionist’s and training them to kill, all increased the occupation of Palestine by Jews and suppressed the native people, Palestinians.
Once Britain announced its plan to end the mandate in 1947, they left it up to the UN to decide the fate of Palestine. The United Nations decided to partition Palestine into two : 55 percent to a Jewish state, and 45 to an Arab state, while keeping Jerusalem under international control.
It sickens and angers me that other states play god over other states. What right do they have to take away the land and home of the Palestinians?
Palestinians were not consulted over the proposal which never materialised. Because once Britain announced its withdrawal, Zionist groups began their attacks on Palestinians to have complete control over all of Palestine for the return of the Jews.
Nakba was the result.
I do not declare to know the full history. I’ve probably butchered the history as I’ve tried to share it here. Please go and read up on it yourself as it wouldn’t be the first time that histories are shared as ‘facts’ and are really just ‘lies’, manufactured to make the oppressors the victims and heroes.
One thing I am sure about as fact is that the Palestinian people have been brutalised and persecuted from time, kicked and killed out of their own country to make way for ‘the promised land’ of a another people, and that somehow makes it all okay?
Zionists called it a ‘transfer’ of people to other places. I call it genocide. Innocent people killed indiscriminately to create the State of Israel, was wrong then and continues to be wrong today.
I was brought up on the Eurovision Contest. We would gather together at my mum’s with food and drink, and sing along to every song even though we didn’t know the words.
It was an occasion of celebration and fun. We laughed and cried, argued and commiserated.
Whenever I think of Eurovision, I automatically think of my mum. But I can no longer hold Eurovision close to my heart. I cannot continue to support this institution any longer as it has become co-opted by Isreal.
Within hours of Russian invading the Ukraine in 2022, it was banned from Eurovision. Why hasn’t the same happened to Israel?
We have to ask the question what is happening behind the scenes? Especially when last year Israel received the biggest support from the public vote when we know that the genocide in Gaza is not supported by the majority?
Nemo, who won Eurovision in 2024, probably the last time I watched Eurovision, has returned their trophy in protest at Israel’s inclusion. As well as the 1994 winner Charlie McGettigan(from Ireland) returned their trophy in protest too.
There is something rotten in Eurovision.
There is no music that can cover up the atrocities that are happening to the Palestinians. No amount of music can justify a genocide. There is no stage that should platform genocide and apartheid.
Spain, Slovenia, Iceland, Ireland and the Netherlands are boycotting this year’s Eurovision because they cannot continue to ignore the genocide in Gaza.
We refuse to be silent when Israel’s genocidal violence soundtracks and silences Palestinian lives. When children in Israeli prisons endure beatings for humming a tune. When all that’s left of nearly every stage, studio, bookshop and university in Gaza is piles of rubble, under which slaughtered bodies still await recovery and proper burial.
As artists, we recognise our collective agency – and the power of refusal. We refuse to be silent. We refuse to be complicit. We call on others in our industry to join us. And we stand in solidarity with all principled efforts to end complicity in every industry.
No stage for genocide. #BoycottEurovision.
Consider signing the letter and standing with Palestine here.
Irish TV, RTÉ, will be broadcasting the 1996 episode A Song for Europe , Father Ted as Ireland boycotts Eurovision in protest against Israel’s inclusion.
It’s a funny episode which I won’t mind watching as Father Ted and Father Douglas perform their song My Lovely Horse. I’ll not spoil it by telling you how many points they get!
Slovenia are planning to air documentaries under the theme of Voices of Palestine.
These countries boycotting and showing their condemnation of Israel and support for Palestine is what more countries and people should be doing, and I don’t use ‘should’ lightly.
One more point, the Father Ted episode is satire. The Irish put them into Eurovision because the song was so dreadful that they hoped they wouldn’t win again so that they wouldn’t have to foot the bill for hosting the next year’s contest.
Ireland has won the contest 7 times, and back to back wins in 1992 and 1993, is said to nearly have bankrupted the country as they had to host the concert again and again.
For me this is a clear indication of Eurovision, the non disqualification of Israel, the lack of calling out the genocide all comes down to money and vested interests.
Oakmoss lichen is a sign of clean air quality in an area.
There’s a smear campaign against the current leader of the Green Party of England and Wales is Zack Polanski. It’s argued that Polanski, a Jew, is being anti-semitic because he’s arguing that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza against the Palestinian people.
I was brought up on the argument that people died so we could have the vote. So we must vote.
Reform are running on the slogan is if you want to get rid of Starmer, Vote Reform.
It’s a privilege that many people around the world do not have. The right to vote. The right to have their say.
Many people are turning away from Labour because they’ve moved towards the right in their rhetoric and handling of immigration. And the cost of living is sky high.
Rain or shine, day and night, I would walk to my polling station and mark the box next to the red rose with a bold ‘X’.
The Conservative Party, known for its racism and classism, old school boy elitist network, has broken records with being the first political party in the UK to have a Black Woman as their leader.
My pooling card came a couple of weeks ago with the instructions to turn up to vote with photo ID.
Millions of people go to the polls today to decided on the councillors to control their neighbourhoods.
Voting on empty promises.
Voting on empty reforms.
Voting on different names but representing the same arsewipe policies.
Voting on keeping things as they are.
Voting on keeping the rich, rich and the poor, poor.
Voting cannot vote this away.
The tools we are given, granted and offered cannot build anything new.
The voting system was never meant for us to achieve any gains or resemblance of power.
Voting changed nothing.
W.E.B. Du Bois, disturbs the tale that all of our ancestors died for the right to vote. Du Bois echoed Parsons decades later in 1956, writing in a piece titled “I Won’t Vote,” “There is but one evil party with two names, and it will be elected despite all I can do or say.” – W.E.B. Du Bois, “I Won’t Vote,” The Nation, October 20, 1956.
I no longer believe in the voting system. I no longer choose to uphold the system. I choose to refuse.
In an introduction to prophet Henry Dumas‘ 1974 book Ark Of Bones and Other Stories, Amiri Baraka puts forth a term for what he describes as Dumas’ “skill at creating an entirely different world organically connected to this one … the Black aesthetic in its actual contemporary and lived life.” The term he puts forth is Afro-Surreal Expressionism.
Dumas had seen it. Baraka had named it.
This is Afro-Surreal!
This was my first brush up against the term Afro-Surreal, even though as soon as I read what it means/ what it is, I knew in my bones that I’ve been living it, I’ve been experiencing it from time.
Miller takes the time to lay out what Afro-Surrealism is NOT.
Afro-Surrealism is not SURREALISM or AFRO-FUTURISM
SURREALISM is a white, European, literary and artistic movement that attempts to express the subconscious. It’s dreamlike, fantastic imagery and an illogical juxtaposition of subject matter.
Leopold Senghor, poet, first president of Senegal, and African Surrealist, made this distinction: “European Surrealism is empirical. African Surrealism is mystical and metaphorical. Jean-Paul Sartre said that the art of Senghor and the African Surrealist (or Negritude) movement “is revolutionary because it is surrealist, but itself is surrealist because it is black.”
AFRO-FUTURISM
Afro-Futurism is a diaspora intellectual and artistic movement that turns to science, technology, and science fiction to speculate on black possibilities in the future.
Afro-Surrealism is about the present. There is no need to speculate about the disasters that are coming our way or are just around the corner, somewhere in the future. The worst case scenarios of bombs, genocide, floods, fires and destruction are here now.
What is the future? The future has been around so long it is now the past.
RIGHT NOW. Trump is President of USA and is destroying/ dismantling democracy over there, at the same time as creating wars and genocide around the world.
RIGHT NOW, Afro-Surreal is the best description to the reactions, the genuflections, the twists, and the unexpected turns this “browning” of White-Straight-Male-Western-Civilization has produced.
Briefly, the ‘A MANIFESTO OF AFRO-SURREAL’ includes:
The unknown worlds and wonders are emerging in the works of Wifredo Lam, Jean-Michel Basquiat,Frantz Fanon to Jean Genet, Zora Neale, Chester Himes etc.
Afro-Surrealists restore the cult of the past, revisiting the old ways with new eyes. Appropriating symbols of the past, conjuring the ancients for now.
Like the collage of Romare Bearden and Wangechi Mutu, the use of excess is used as subversion. Hybridization is a form of rebellion, refusal, disobedience.
Telling myself I’m starving, I went into a supermarket. Came out half an hour later weighed down with food and toilettes.
I said ‘starving’ but I’m not really. I had lunch about couple of hours ago. Really I don’t know what it feels like to starve as I’m always a couple of hours, footsteps or miles away from gaining access to an abundance of food. I know I will never have to go without.
Unlike the people in Gaza now.
We are in an historic catastrophe. I use ‘we’ as I stand as a witness to what is happening in Gaza, to Palestinian people now.
This means up until 20th July, 86 people had died of starvation in Gaza since the genocide began in October 2023. In the three weeks since, up until 11th August, that number of people dying of starvation in Gaza has risen to 222.
These are the numbers we know about. No doubt this number is rising daily.
I’ve just read this now. While I’m stuffing my face with food, man-made starvation and famine is happening in Gaza and it’s gotten to the point of being irreversible for the vast majority of people. They are so far gone without nourishment that even if they could access food now, it would make no difference to their bodies and minds and nervous systems. They are starving to death by a US backed Israeli genocide. This is happening on purpose and there are still people who are denying it’s happening or who are justifying it.
I got the information from Zeteo media. Go check it out and witness the devastation of life. I’m trying to figure out the next best thing I can do to change this situation in Gaza. Sharing this information, raising awareness is part of this action.
Unconsciously I set myself the task of being creative everyday. A good way of marking this practice, was and still is, turning up here on this blog and posting something. Anything. A word, a quote, an image, an essay, an epiphany.
Some days, I’ve not had the time or energy or bandwidth to create anything, other days when I’ve felt this way, I’ve still turned up and done something. Anything. I’ve wanted to bring in some consistency within a world where consistency is irrelevant and pointless in the grand scheme of things. When the world is on fire, when Palestinians are dying of starvation and gunfire. When anti-immigration riots erupted once more in the UK. When tropical storms kill people in the Philippines. And when Syria returns to bloodshed. The list could go on of more countries and peoples around the world suffering at the hands of others, who do not see them as human or care about them.
I get sick of hearing the news. Watching the news. Seeing the headlines. I look away. I look away because I can and then chastise myself for dong so. There’s something in witnessing it all, even though it hurts my soul. What can I do? What can I say?
I get frustrated with all the hypocrisy I witness. The double standards. The lack of justice. People saying we’re doing this to them because we’ve been persecuted for so long so have a right, or are justified in persecuting other people now. I’m a white man and I rape women and children, but I’m protesting about (illegal) immigrants coming over here and raping our women and children. Everything is operating within this world to keep a few in power and wealth at the expense of other people deemed inferior and dispensable.
I hate hate. I can’t stand it. I see it in the screwed up faces of people hauling abuse at vulnerable people. It’s been there within the marrow of their bones for centuries. Grown white adults, hurling abuse at little black children. Not seeing them as children but as beasts, beasts to destroy. It breaks my heart and disgusts me, but what can I say? What can I do?
I can stop myself from feeing powerless. I can stop my handwringing, and getting frustrated with myself and use this energy otherwise. I can make art to bring about change. No matter how small that change, starting from myself and vibrating out.
I can create stories of an imagined alternative, better, other world. I can create zines which challenge and refuse what has already been refused of us. I can blog about my own experiences in order to connect with others. I can paint/ print posters to raise awareness and change the messages of hate to love and hope. I can create community and create change together, one stitch, one word, one voice at a time. I can create poetry to create conversation. I can self-care so I can in turn community-care. I can donate time, money, resources to a cause I believe in and that is bringing about a better society. I can lean more into mutual aid to divest from racial capitalism.
I can keep showing up here, craving out a safe and brave space on the internet that is liberatory worldmaking, on my own terms.
Living Wild Studios 