Today, on the UN International Day of Solidarity With the Palestinian People it is an honour to welcome you all to this evening of Palestinian culture organised by the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

We in Ireland know only too well the effects that colonialism can have on an indigenous culture. Although British imperialism had a disastrous effect on Irish culture, they failed to destroy it and it now thrives all over the world, while at home in our new diverse and multi-ethnic society it melds, morphs, blends and breeds, resulting in new and wonderful outputs.

Similarly Israel has failed in its attempts to suppress Palestinian culture since 1948. Although as anyone who has ever seen ‘Israeli’ hummus and falafel advertised, or Israeli fashion designers using traditional Palestinian embroidery, will know, it has, sadly, been somewhat successful in appropriating aspects of Palestinian culture for its own colonial ends. But Palestinian culture will survive this theft too, just as the Palestinian people have survived the theft of their land.

Tonight we will be treated to a showcase of Palestine’s cultural output – music, song, poetry, and of course, food! We will also hear two Palestinian speakers reflect on the importance of culture as a means of resistance for Palestinians who are fighting Israel’s injustice and apartheid.

Solidarity was manifest in a very symbolic and, yes, controversial way, when Dublin City Council voted to fly the Palestinian flag over our City Hall.

The vehement and almost hysterical reaction to that simple, peaceful gesture, spoke volumes about the Israeli government and its supporters and their intolerance of views other than their own when it comes to the question of Palestine and their treatment of the Palestinians.

Small though that gesture was, it won international attention and broke through the heavily funded blanket lobby for the Israeli government that is so dominant in the media and society in the EU and the US.

There has always been an affinity between people in Ireland and the people of Palestine. Our historical experience as an oppressed people, isolated from the world by an Empire which denied our right to self-determination for so long, is at the root of this fellow feeling.

And the more you drill into history the more parallels you find.  100 years ago we had the infamous Balfour declaration by which the British government promised Palestine as a homeland to people who did not live in Palestine, sowing the seeds of a sectarian Zionist state.

On 21 January 1919 the First Dáil Éireann, the national assembly of Ireland declared Ireland a Republic in the Round Room of the Mansion House, residence of the Lord Mayor. Six days later on 27 January in Jerusalem a coalition of Muslim and Christian associations from towns across Palestine convened the first Palestinian Arab Congress and framed a national charter demanding independence for Palestine and denouncing the Balfour declaration.

And just as Dáil Éireann’s delegation was denied a hearing at the Paris Peace Conference so also was the Palestinian Arab Congress denied a hearing by the same British and French governments.

These governments of course, in the Sykes-Picot agreement, had agreed to carve up the Middle East between them, regardless of the consequences for the peoples disrupted by their partitions, their spheres of influence and their global power games.

Similarly the overwhelming will of the Irish people was denied and Ireland was partitioned by the same British government which established Zionism as a real force and flagrantly denied the rights of the people of Palestine.

And so today, while no two people’s stories are exactly the same, we share many historic experiences and we share a commitment to human rights, justice and international law. We ask no more of the Israeli government than that they adhere to international law, human rights principles and United Nations resolutions.

The Palestinian people need and deserve out help. We saw in the South African anti-apartheid struggle how a few brave women and men on the Dunnes Stores picket line made a world of difference.

And just as with South Africa before it, a just and necessary response to Israeli apartheid is for internationals to boycott the oppressor state – economically yes, but also culturally. The cultural and sporting boycott of South Africa played a big role in helping to bring about the fall of apartheid. It can play a similar role to help end the oppression that the Palestinian people suffer at the hands of the Israeli state. BDS, boycotts, divestment and sanctions, is what Palestinian civil society has called upon us to do – indeed, the very least we can do is heed this call!

In that spirit let us work together for freedom, justice and peace for the people of Palestine.

Today is International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. The UN chose this day, 29^th November, to mark the shameful day in 1947 when the UN voted to partition Palestine against the wishes of the indigenous people.

Today 70 years on, we Palestinians continue to suffer the disastrous consequences of that imperial decision to allow the colonisation Palestine.

Of course, Ireland knows only too well the hurt, pain and injustice caused by colonial partition, and it is fitting that we are gathered this evening in the Mansion House, the home of the first Dail which first sat in the room behind us almost a century ago.

As is well known, many of the leaders and participants in the Ireland’s independence struggle were cultural as well as political activists.

To take one example of many, Cathal Brugha, the President of the first Dail, was a respected member of the Gaelic League, a leading force in the Gaelic Revival movement of the period, a movement which resurrected, reinvigorated and rehabilitated the indigenous people’s culture as an important method of resistance to British colonialism.

As a Palestinian, this movement resonates deeply with me, for this, too, is how we Palestinians view our culture.

Palestine’s national poet Mahmoud Darwish wrote that “every beautiful poem is an act of resistance”.

Poet and author Mourid Barghouti, said that Israel “took from us the land of the poem and left us with the poem of the land”.

And Palestinian singer Mohammed Assaf said, “for any nation under occupation songs can stimulate people to resist.”

All speak to the importance of art, music, poetry, dance – and even food and fashion – as a form of Palestinian cultural resistance to the dispossession, occupation, colonisation and apartheid of forced upon us by our oppressors.

As a people forcibly scattered throughout the world, our culture – words, songs, images, tastes, smells, clothes – defines and unites us, whether at home or in exile.

It reminds us that one day we will return to our homeland to sing our songs, tell our stories, dance our dances, and eat our meals… together as a proud people in a free, just and equal country.

But we will not get there without struggling. I believe the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement is the best way that internationals – and Palestinians in the Diaspora – can contribute to helping achieve Palestinian freedom.

The BDS movement has been under attack around the world as Israel and its allies seek to strangle the growing nonviolent movement for Palestinian rights.

We must build the BDS movement in Ireland, to stand as an example for other countries in Europe, North America and beyond – especially those with significant Irish populations. In particular, as tonight we are focusing on the role of culture in resistance, we should also focus on the role a cultural boycott of Israeli institutions can play.

The renowned and outspoken Irish artist Robert Ballagh, who is here tonight, once told me of the time he met Nelson Mandela and asked him what role the cultural boycott of apartheid South Africa played in ending South African Apartheid?

Nelson Mandela told him that “the boycott was one of the important weapons in the struggle against apartheid.”

Now, as then, the artistic and creative world can play a similar role. But artists need to listen to the Palestinian people – not to their own egos. They need to respect the call from Palestinian civil society and not cross the cultural picket line. They should not patronise the oppressed with empty platitudes about peace and love.

Yes I’m looking at you Nick Cave, Radiohead, Rod Stewart, Lisa Simone, Bryan Adams and every other artist who has chosen to betray our struggle for freedom by normalising the apartheid state of Israel.

Performing or exhibiting in an apartheid state has never moved us along the road to freedom – on the contrary, it is the act of not appearing that has helped; we have Nelson Mandela’s words as proof of that.

Palestinian culture serves a dual role; it both reflects on and contributes to our ongoing resistance.

It speaks of our hopes and dreams, desires and longings, loves and losses, our tragic past, our present predicaments and our future freedom.

Palestinian singer Reem Kelani once asked: “without culture, without narrative, without historic continuity, without music and poetry, what good is the land?”

I agree.

When it comes, our freedom will be the freedom to enjoy ourselves – to live and love, even to lament, in a free Palestine!