To end our Israeli Apartheid Week 2016 activities we are proud to present another day showcasing the wonderful culture of Palestine. From 2pm on Sunday 13th March we’ll be hosting another of our ever popular events allowing people to experience the rich Palestinian culture of resistance. As the celebrated Palestinian singer Mohammed Assaf has said, “the occupation tries to kill every beautiful thing” – it is for this reason that Palestinians struggle to keep their cultural traditions (old and new) alive and vibrant. We aim to bring a little of this important aspect of the Palestinain people’s ongoing resistance to Israeli apartheid to audiences in Ireland.
We are hosting a day-long series of events including exhibitions, poetry and musical performances, discussion, film and even a limited amount of Palestinian snacks.
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NOTE: All the events are FREE – though several require advance booking to ensure entrance. Please see full details (including booking details where applicable) of each aspect of the day below.
ALL DAY EVENTS
Exhibition 1 – Handala and the Life and Work of Naji Al Ali
A selection of the work of Palestinian cartoonist Naji Al Ali (1938-1987).
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Naji Al Ali, and his most famous creation the ten-year-old refugee child Handala, was a tribune of Palestinian people, especially the refugees, of which he himself was one. His work expressed the hopes, fears and frustrations of not just Palestinians, but the Arab masses as well. The Guardian once suggested that Al Ali was “the nearest thing there is to an Arab public opinion”.
In particular, Al-Ali created cartoons that depict the complexities of the plight of the Palestinians. These cartoons are still relevant today – indeed, many of them are so prescient they could be about events today rather than 30 or 40 years ago – and Handala, the refugee child who is present in every cartoon, remains a potent and omnipresent symbol of the struggle of the Palestinian people for freedom, justice, equality and self-determination. Naji Al Ali, who was assassinated in 1987 in a murder than remains unsolved, lives on through his work – and others’ adaptations of this work; today Handala can spotted everywhere from necklaces and t-shirts, to frequent appearances on the Israeli separation wall in Palestine.
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Exhibition 2 – The Art of Solidarity: Posters from the IPSC Archive
An exhibition of a selection of political posters produced by the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
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Over fifteen years, the IPSC has produced scores of posters advertising protests, public talks, films, and other events. We are delighted to showcase a small selection of some our favourites from our extensive archives.
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TIME SPECIFIC & TICKETED EVENTS:
The following events are all free to enter, though booking is essential. Please use the links under each event to book your free tickets.
2.30 – 3.30pm: A Caged Bird’s Song – Live Palestinian Poetry & Music
Readings of Palestinian poetry of resistance, live performances of Palestinian music and live link up with the Lajee Cultural Centre in Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem.
NO COVER CHARGE BUT BOOKING IS ESSENTIAL – GET TICKETS HERE.
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Palestine’s national poet Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008) wrote that “every beautiful poem is an act of resistance”. Mourid Barghouti said that Israel “took from us the land of the poem and left us with the poem of the land”. Both speak to the importance of poetry as a form of Palestinian cultural resistance to dispossession, occupation, colonisation and apartheid. So please join us for readings of some of the finest Palestinian poetry – in both Arabic and English. There will also be a performance of traditional Palestinian music courtesy of Abdullah Bayyari and Rory McCullagh – as Palestinian singing sensation Mohammed Assaf says, “for any nation under occupation songs can stimulate people to resist.”
Finally we will also link up via video with our good friends in the Lajee Cultural Centre in Aida Refugee Camp in Bethlehem, where they will tell us a little about their work in preserving Palestinian culture among young people – and the difficulties they face at the hands of the Israeli occupation forces for doing do.
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4 – 5pm: Palestine’s culture of resistance – Talk and discussion with Kholoud Ajarma
A talk followed by question and answers session about the important role played by Palestinian culture in mirroring and contributing to resistance.
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We are honoured to host (via live video link up) academic Kholoud Ajarma, a Palestinian refugee originally from the village of ‘Ajjur, living in Aida Refugee Camp, Bethlehem, Palestine. She is a candidate of the MPHIL program Anthropology of Development at the University of Bergen, Norway. She is very interested in the effects of armed conflict and displacement imposed on Palestinian refugees. Her latest research focuses on representation of identity and politics of belonging among the Palestinian refugees in Chile who arrived from Iraq in 2008
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6.00 – 7.30pm: Film Screening – Slingshot Hip Hop
A documentary film about the importance of the Palestinian hip hop scene as a means of cultural resistance to Israeli apartheid.
NO COVER CHARGE BUT BOOKING IS ESSENTIAL – GET TICKETS HERE.
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Slingshot Hip Hop (2008, Dir: Jackie Reem Salloum) weaves together the stories of young Palestinians living in Gaza, the West Bank and inside Israel as they discover hip hop and employ it as a tool to surmount divisions imposed by occupation and poverty. From internal checkpoints and Separation Walls to gender norms and generational differences, this is the story of young people crossing the borders that separate them. Since the signing of the Oslo Accords, hip hop has become a complex cultural phenomenon amongst Palestinian youth, and an important and critical voice for freedom, justice and equality.
“Jackie Salloum’s most recommended film presents these artists’ struggle to a global audience and helps ensure that Palestinian hip-hop finds claims its rightful place in the proud tradition of artistic resistance to oppression.” – Electronic Intifada
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYCe17MEkDQ
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This event is organised by the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) as one of a series of events taking place around Ireland during international Israeli Apartheid Week 2015 (5th – 13th March). See the IAW 2016 page for a full list of events taking place around Ireland.
