(Ελληνικά κυπριακά ακολουθούν) STAND UP FOR THE WOMEN OF PALESTINE PROTEST On International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women Today we gather for the women of Palestine.We gather for those alive under occupation, those forced to flee by settler colonialism, those in exile for those imprisoned under apartheid law, We gather for those maimed,For all the generations of children who have been through the ‘unchilding’ of the Zionist machine; We gather for those murdered by Israhell’s sociopathic necropolitics, Because, throughout all the layered violence Palestinian women endure,They have always taught us life. We gather to remember their lessons of endless love and generosity From back in the 40s, when they let Jews, going through their own genocide, into their homes, fed, clothed, ᾽sheltered them and shared the bounty of their land with them᾽, Until today, when they take in the children with no remaining families, We gathered to learn from their courage From the 50s refugee camps, to the first Intifada where women organised marches,smuggled food under occupation and wrote poetry in prisonPalestinian women carry the struggle across any borders and all generations, across every attempt of erasure. From a Palestinian woman holding onto the olive tree, protecting it from being burned To another one standing firm in front of her soon-to-be-bulldozed home We gather to humble ourselves before their resilience For over 7 decades Palestinian women have lived in a reality engineered to break them Before the Nakba in 47, to the 67 occupation, and repeatedly since then – the Zionist state has inflicted upon them looting, theft, dispossession, displacement, siege, expalsion, healthcare and other deprivation, torture, rape, starvation and all kinds of indispeakable humiliation. Gazans live besieged for almost twenty years, with no power over any resources.In the West Bank, people live in a matrix of over 600 checkpoints, apartheid walls and roads Their bodies, minds, movement controlled Their education and health restrictedtheir very existence policed. This violence is structural.It lives in the ‘security apparatus of the settler colony’:a system that governs land and life through militarisation, surveillance and fear.> Militarised architecture – crucial for the colony to reinvent itself and its territory > Surveillance – important to have control and power over > Sponsored narratives – needed to cause fear and excuse violence and dominance; And for decades now Israhell has perfected policies of domination:the “break the bones” policy, the “mowing the lawn” , the “shoot to cripple,” or the “sterilise the buffer zone” doctrines And Palestinians still find the breath to keep existing.Birthing in impossible conditions,burying their children,braiding grief into strength.Teaching grandchildren the names of their looted villages – now buried under forests of foreign trees, sponsored by worldwide campaigns for planting trees! Teaching them the secrets of local lore, flora and wildlife through every motif sewn into the clothes of their foremothers, that sprang from the land over centuries. Teaching them, and us! that dignity does not require permission, it requires resistance. And so today, we gather honouring the women who passionately persevere! the journalists who film under buzzing drones,the girls who became mothers to their siblings, the mother and daughter who sleep in their land’s caves to protect it from settlers. The ones like Suheir Hammad who ‘dance and resist and dance and persist and dance’ the women, who we can watch on our screens, scream and mourn loudly We gather to recognise our rage, practicing the defiance of Palestinian women,because calmness is a colonial demand as Nadera Shalhoub teaches us,‘the settler wants our rage to be silent,our grief to be orderly,our resistance to be polite.But in a world set on fire, anger is not only reasonable;It is evidence that we are still alive.’ The rage of Palestinian women is a sacred fire; it burns because life is being stolen,because justice is denied, because the world is complicit. And, even so, Palestinian women still keep teaching us; in the words of Rafeef Ziadah: “We teach life, sir. We Palestinians teach life after they have occupied the last sky. We teach life after they have built their settlements and apartheid walls, after the last skies. We teach life, sir.” These are the blueprints of a people surviving genocide. And from Palestine herself – we have learned that ‘the struggle against racism, sexism, imperialism and Zionism is one connected struggle’ Our liberation is interconnected with the liberation of all peoples, in Sudan, Congo, Yemen, Haiti and all places in the world facing occupation, militarisation, racial oppression, gendered violence and environmental distraction. And in this way Palestine is teaching us to free the world!! ΣΤΕΚΟΥΜΑΣΤΕΝ ΥΠΕΡ ΤΩΝ ΓΥΝΑΙΚΩΝ ΤΗΣ ΠΑΛΕΣΤΙΝΗΣ ΔΙΑΔΗΛΩΣΗ Με την ευκαιρία της Διεθνούς Ημέρας για την Εξάλειψη της Βίας κατά των Γυναικών Σήμερα συγκεντρωννούμαστεν για τες γεναίτζες της Παλαιστίνης. Συγκεντρωννούμαστεν για όσες ζουν υπό κατοχή, Για όσα αναγκάστηκαν να φύουν λόγω της εποικιστικής αποικιοκρατίας, Για όσες βρίσκουνται σε εξορία, Για όσα εφυλακίστηκαν βάσει απαρτχάιντ νόμων. Συγκεντρωννούμαστεν για όσες ακρωτηριάστηκαν, για ούλλες τις γενιές παιθκιών που τους έκλεψεν τη παιδικότητα τους η σιωνιστική μηχανή Συγκεντρωνόμαστεν για όσες εδολοφονήθηκαν που την κοινωνιοπαθή νεκροπολιτική του Ισραήλ, Επειδή, παρά ούλλην τη πολυεπίπεδη βία που υφίστανται οι Παλαιστίνιες γεναίτζες, Δίδασκουν μας πάντα τη ζωή. Συγκεντρωννούμαστεν για να θυμηθούμεν τα μαθήματά τους, της ατελείωτης αγάπης τζαι γενναιοδωρίας, Που τη δεκαετία του ’40, όταν εκαλωσόρισαν τους Εβραίους, που υπέφεραν τη δική τους γενοκτονία, που ετάισαν, έντυσαν, εδὠκαν τους καταφύγιο τζαι εμοιράστηκαν μαζί τους τα αγαθά της γης τους, Ως τζαι σήμερα, που αναγιώννουν τα παιθκιά που εν τους εμίναν πια οικογένειες. Εσυγκεντρωθήκαμεν για να μάθουμε που το θάρρος τους. Που τα στρατόπεδα προσφύγων της δεκαετίας του ’50, ως την πρώτη Ιντιφάντα, που οι γεναίτζες οργάνωνναν πορείες, εμεταφέραν απαγορευμένα τρόφιμα υπό κατοχή τζαι εγρἀφαν ποίηση στη φυλακή. Οι Παλαιστίνιες γεναίτζες μεταφέρουν τον αγώνα πέρα συνόρων τζαι μεταξύ γεννιών, Κόντρα σε κάθε προσπάθεια εξάλειψης τους. Που μια Παλαιστίνια γεναίκα που κρατά τον κορμό της ελιάς, για να μεν την κρούσουν έποικοι Ως μιαν άλλην που στέκεται γερά μπροστά που το σπίτι της που σύντομα εννἀ κατεδαφίσουν Συγκεντρωνούμαστεν για να γηοθούμεν
