"Because of our struggle, we have learned so much."

Christ at the Checkpoint

I’m about a day into Christ at the Checkpoint and I’ve been reflecting on a few themes. The first:

Global Solidarities with Gaza

After our family was in Palestine for the month of June in 2022, we flew to Northern Ireland for the month of July. We spent time in Derry, a city scarred by partition that became a focal point for the civil rights movement of Catholics who were discriminated against by the Unionist government. A famous sign in the town announces, “You are now entering Free Derry,” the words of Eamonn McCann after a brutal night of police violence in 1968. “I like to think of Free Derry wall as sort of representing a moment in our history, when the idea of freedom didn’t mean just having an Ireland free of British rule or influence, but when it meant something far broader and more hopeful in that it meant freedom for the world,” McCann would later explain in an interview.

Today the Free Derry sign has the words “End Israeli Apartheid” scrawled underneath and a Palestinian flag flying above. I thought about this convergence here at CATCP where speakers from Uganda, South Africa, Costa Rica, and the U.S. are discussing the linkage between their own country’s struggles for political recognition and justice and that of Palestine. The heroes of this conference are the South Africans. “You are Palestine’s greatest friends,” Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac announced in the opening session.

As we’ve continued through the lectures, we’ve seen that the web of these connections is more than recognition of each other’s struggles. We’ve heard about learning and strategy exchanges between activists. These are communities sharing tactics and living into each other’s histories on the ground and in person. The common language of apartheid is not rhetoric – it’s a description of the political programs that unfold in different ways but with similar impact across multiple geographies. And there are limits to these descriptions. At one point the South African ambassador to the Palestine explained that there is more happening here in Palestine in the form of ethnic cleansing, an additional atrocity that I imagine requires different imaginary to defy.

It was much easier to see how the ICC charge from South Africa was rooted in decades of solidarity and organizing, much of which I imagine the US was oblivious to. (I really know only a bit about this from hearing in Derry about the continuing conferences and training No Ireland, South Africa, and Palestine engage in together.) I’m also reflecting on the isolationism of US protest over Gaza. Much of the activism and organizing I’m seeing from other countries is indebted to global solidarity work. I’m thinking about the Global Gaza pilgrimage movement, the on-the-ground exchanges with South Africans and Palestinians through Iziko Lamaquabane. As we met, Norway, Ireland, and Spain recognized Palestine as a state.

We could see this reflected most in the models for organizing that were presented by two different speakers. An American evangelical spoke to a religiously-based action that was built through his network and was largely interpreted through stories about his experience. It seemed like a good action driven by leveraging platform with a specific target in mind to attract media attention. I participate in action like these often, and this one was familiar.

Then we heard from Buyiswe Pokie Putu, Director of Afro Feminist-Womanist Solidarity & Operations Manager of Iziko Lamaquabane. None of her stories were about her specific experience (although I would have loved to hear them!) but about the principled organizing strategy of pilgrimage as a tool for “decoloniality and disruption of colonial roots.” She dug us deep into the concept of “comradeship,” which works not along the model of popular leaders but through sharing circles. Her group works of the anti-apartheid slogan of “each one, teach one,” recognizing that each person can teach others how to lead, each person passing along what they know. They utilize the methodologies and practices of Paolo Freire and bell hooks.

In closing, Putu turned towards this form of organizing as a way that does not reinforce oppressor’s methods. “How do we stop repeating what the oppressor has done to us?” I thought about what that might mean within movement work in US context, especially since much Christian organizing seems to have stopped its learning at Martin Luther King, Jr. There are so many other movements and organizers for us to learn from, particularly from horizontal, leaderful movements. I’ve appreciated this approach from Mennonite Action, which many people, especially Palestinians, have talked about as a significant and hopeful movement of US Christians.

In the next post I’ll share about the righteous anger I’ve heard from Palestinians.