IN STEREO

We Palestinians, of course, engage in resistance – struggle, if you want. We say, “To exist is to resist.” When I’m drinking this coffee here, I’m engaged in resistance, because the Israeli Zionists don’t want me to be here. Now, there are hundreds of forms of resistance, and we pay a heavy price for this resistance. Already over 100,000 native Palestinians have been killed, over 800,000 have been injured, and over 700,000 have been detained or imprisoned. Unfortunately, we face a lot. I mean, I have faced very little, myself, compared to friends of mine. I’ve actually lost 19 of my own personal friends since I came back from the US ten years ago. All 19 people I lost in the past ten years were under 35 years of age. They were all killed. Not one of them was engaged in armed resistance, by the way.

We ask you to join us in boycott, divestment, and sanctions, which is a form of resistance that is nonviolent. This is a joint struggle – joint struggle is the answer. Settler colonialism is the diagnosis; joint struggle is the therapy. I don’t like the term ‘solidarity’ because it implies somehow that we are disconnected, and you are just showing sympathy to us. It’s joint struggle because it’s our struggle. I actually became involved in political activism in 1980, not for Palestine – it was for South Africa. South Africa galvanised us because it showed the Western hypocrisy; it showed that we need to connect as human beings, [that] when somebody is suffering, we need to support, regardless. We need to work because it’s our responsibility: this is one globe we share. Joint struggle because it’s a human struggle. – Mazin