Since we have been hacked during our last meeting, we kindly ask you to fill out the form to access the meeting. You will receive the link by Monday the 15th of January, thank you for understanding.
What happened after our last meeting
After the Open Meeting of the 5th of December, dedicated to Palestine, where Ahmed Tobasi and other guests spoke and told us how they feel, what is happening in the Occupied Territories, and which actions we can take to fully support the cause, many things happened. On the morning of the 13th of December, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) began attacking and ransacking The Freedom Theatre, in the Jenin Refugee Camp. They shot from inside the theater, destroying the offices and knocking down a wall. The army then went to the homes of Ahmed Tobasi and Mustafa Sheta, blindfolded, handcuffed, and took them away.
That evening the army went to the home of Jamal Abu Joas, a young poet and graduated actor from The Freedom Theatre, severely beat him and then took him. On the evening of the 14th of December, Tobasi was released, and yesterday, on the 21st of December, Jamal Abu Joal was released, while Mustafa Sheta is still in administrative detention, a measure where a person is held without trial without having committed an offense because he or she plans to break the law in the future. The person is detained without legal proceedings, by order of the regional military commander, based on classified evidence that is not revealed to them. This leaves the detainees helpless – facing unknown allegations with no way to disprove them, not knowing when they will be released, and without being charged, tried, or convicted.
In the last few weeks in Gaza, an unprecedented number of writers, poets, theatremakers, and journalists have been killed, including DR. Refaat Alareer, who was deliberately targeted and murdered. Israel continues to target and destroy buildings of cultural heritage, a war crime under international law.
We ask our colleagues from all over the World to stand for the rights of Palestinians to exist and to live in their homeland and to ask for an immediate ceasefire. We continue to support and be connected with our peers in Palestine and we continue to talk with them and to open the floor of the AREA to freedom of speech.
For this reason, we will host another meeting dedicated to organizing and cooperating on actions we can share and multiply in our inner circles, wherever we work, live, or stand.
We invite you to join a Global artistic collaboration and we subscribe to the words of Juliano Mer Khamis, founder of The Freedom Theatre, assassinated in Jenin, in 2011: ”The 3rd Intifada will be a cultural one”, we invite you to fight for Palestinian Justice through Culture.
Immediately after the meeting on the 5th of December, we launched a platform called RiseUpForPalestine, the coordination is curated by the journalist Simona Frigerio, InTheNet, and Anna Estdahl, member of AREA and founder of Code per Curiosi, a non-profit association based in Italy.
Guest speakers of the 16th of January, among others:
- Ahmed Tobasi, artistic director of The Freedom Theatre
- prof. Iain Chambers taught Cultural, Postcolonial, and Mediterranean Studies at the University of Naples, Orientale, for many years. He is the author of Mediterraneo blues, and with Marta Cariello of the forthcoming volume The Mediterranean Question, as well as the recent essay, also with Marta Cariello, ‘At History’s Edge’:
- prof. Benoit Challand is an Associate Professor of Sociology at The New School for Social Research, where he teaches social theory, historical sociology, and political sociology. He has previously taught at New York University, the University of Fribourg (CH), and at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence (Italy). He is the author of the book Violence and Representation in the Arab Uprisings (Cambridge University Press, 2023), a book in the vein of historical sociology that explains why democratic participation has been undermined after the revolutionary wave of 2011 (with a focus on Tunisia and Yemen).
- Mike van Graan is a South African playwright and producer based in Cape Town. He has extensive experience in policy formulation and advocacy and building artists’ networks, both in South Africa and across the African continent. After the first democratic elections in South Africa in 1994, he was appointed as a Special Advisor to the minister responsible for arts and culture where he played an influential role in helping to develop post-apartheid cultural policies. He is the 2018 recipient of the Swedish Hiroshima Prize for Peace and Culture, the same year that he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Pretoria in recognition of his work as a playwright, and as a cultural activist.
Resources from the guest speakers:
Prof. Iain Chambers:
The colonial clock: https://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/colonial-clock-critical-chaos-kassel-documenta-15/
Thinking beyond terrorism: https://mediatheoryjournal.org/2023/10/18/iain-chambers-thinking-beyond-terrorism/
Prof. Benoit Challand:
Mike van Graan:
First day of ICJ hearings in South Africa's genocide case against Israel in Gaza, 11th of January 2024 (full video)
Useful links and initiatives: The Revolutions Promise Artists on the Frontline Friends of Palestinian Circus Music for Ceasefire (a collective call for a ceasefire in Gaza through sound, a fundraiser compilation; all proceeds will go to Medical Aid for Palestinians) Dismantling Israel’s illegal occupation is a sine qua non for Palestinian right to self-determination: UN expert
Petitions:
ITALIAN ARTS UNITED FOR PALESTINE: Lettera aperta per una presa di posizione rispetto al genocidio in Palestina Codepink.org Open Letter in Solidarity with Freedom Theatre (Jenin) – Bella Caledonia Solidarité avec l’équipe du Freedom Théâtre de Jenine Open Letter in Solidarity with The Freedom Theatre Statements:
WE STAND FOR THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH
On December 5th, 2023, Palestinian actor and Artistic Director of the Freedom Theatre in Jenin, Ahmed Tobasi, took part in an online open meeting organized by AREA in solidarity with Gaza and Palestine. He gave the following testimony:
I’m Ahmed Tobasi, the Artistic Director of the Freedom Theatre. We are now touring in France (and here I am), we left to start the tour a few days after the event (October, 7th). An event that today the entire world is part of. The Palestinians know that the world is watching because the Israelis are involved in this event. We have been saying all this for the last 75 years, we have been asking, we have been telling the world that this happening every day in Palestine, in Gaza, in Jenin.
I live in Jenin Camp (West Bank). Jenin Camp is one square kilometer, and 20000 people live in this camp. I lived the first Intifada, I lived the second Intifada, and I’m living now the third Intifada. For me, it’s like a series and the same episode is playing again, and again, and again, in different and more modern colors. How long is it going to keep happening? How long will this continue?
We have to address that Europe and the United States are part of this too, it’s not just the Israelis. Europeans must know that they are not helping the Palestinians to get their rights. No, you are not helping, you are playing a part, a big part. You are the ones who support Israel with money, with guns, with bombs. The soldiers who are called to the service, all of are in Europe, living there, going on vacations, and carrying second nationalities. Any time they are called, they go back. Most Israelis have a second European or American nationality. So, you are part of this. You have to take your responsibility, not just because of us. As Palestinians, we ask the world to fight for its humanity. To fight for planet Earth. As Palestinians, we are now experienced and specialized in colonization and occupation. If the Israelis succeed in finishing us and if the Palestinians disappear, we know that the occupation will move to another land, to other people, to other minorities. That’s how colonization and the West have always been. We’re not the last step. Now it’s Gaza, next it will be the West Bank, and next it will be (the territory) of 1948. This has been the plan from day 1: the Israelis were waiting, and they always had an argument to promote their plan in the West.
We tried to do everything: diplomacy through Europe and the United States, non-violence, art, human rights… What now?
In Gaza, in Palestine, in Jenin, children are killed. Artists are killed. Journalists are killed. Doctors are killed. It shows that it’s not only about Hamas, or ‘terrorists’, or violence; it’s about the fact that Palestinians are not considered as humans by the Israeli soldiers. That’s why they can kill us easily, and they know that no one in this world can ask them: Why do you do that? Why do you kill these people? They have proved that they don’t care about any of that. I mean, years and tones of proofs: UNESCO reports, human rights reports, EU reports… tons of proofs of massacres every day, and what did it do? Nothing.
The first thing that anyone will ask and discuss with you is: Do you condemn Hamas?
It’s a boring question, a boring conversation.
We are bored of these questions and conversations.
To be honest, I always said that we need more violence so maybe something will happen, but I never imagined…I know they could go beyond everything, but they still manage to surprise us with their actions. They have no limit. And when we as human beings think that aliens will attack the planet, for me yes, they are aliens in the shape of human beings. It’s good that the Palestinians got it: no one will do anything for you unless you as a Palestinian do something first. All the promises, all the human rights, all the funding to keep the genocide going on… For me, the good thing at least is that the Palestinians now know: that they are the only ones who can make a difference and fight for themselves. No Arabs, no Europe, no West, no more of these lies we’ve been told for a long time now.
We make art, we do theatre because we are fighting to humanize Palestine again, to humanize Palestinians again, to make the world see that there are human beings in Palestine while the Israelis work so hard on dehumanizing the Palestinians. For us, when we make art, when we do theatre when we do culture, we believe that we are fighting through these forms, we’re not just leaving violence and going towards non-violence. No, no, no. We are fighting because we believe that everyone has to fight in any way they can. We need to create a culture of resistance: everyone should fight in any way, in any method, in any tool they can. We don’t want to put resistance in one form, as the West and the Israelis always do: just guns and terrorists. They shaped this propaganda: ‘fighters are terrorists’. No, no, no. We are artists and we are fighters, and that’s what we should always focus on: art should not be away from resistance and fights, from making change on the ground. That’s what I believe in.
We did this project, The Revolution Promise, it’s about Palestinian artists who always face problems and struggles with the Israeli army because of their art, and through that, we want to create an international community of artists, a power, a movement that can decide, have impact on politicians and support other artists in China, in Africa, in Ukraine, in Palestine… even in Russia and in Europe, because I believe that many artists are facing censorship there too. The Zionist movement has many hands all over the world that prevent any artist, filmmaker, or famous person from saying or doing what they believe in. As you can see, all over the world, in any institution, in any organization, any theatre, anyone who speaks up will be fired the next day or be forced to take back their speech. So I think that with all the sad things that we see today, we don’t have a choice but to resist.
For me hope is bullshit. I don’t like the word ‘hope', I call it ‘act’. Hope means ‘act now’. Hope means to do something, not just to sit and wait to see what’s going to happen in the future. We need to do something now. For me this is the first step, to gather artists from all over the world to speak up, to sign up, in one movement. To start talking, to start sharing, to start putting pressure. We can do it. If everyone does it from their position, I’m sure we can have an impact and bring change, even if it’s a small change. We’re not asking people to blow themselves, we’re asking people to speak up and embrace their responsibility as artists. We are the ones who can show communities and normal people what is going on and what it is reality.
In Jenin Camp, in Palestine, we believe in culture and we’re going to continue. For example, The Freedom Theatre continues its mission despite all the attacks and the death of our children. Every time Israeli soldiers pass by our premises, they see a sign saying: The Freedom Theatre; and for me, telling the Israelis that we are artists and that we do theatre is resistance, because everything around us wants us to close the theatre, to stop being artists, and to turn into animals… This is why, you’re not just fighting for us as Palestinians, you’re also fighting for yourselves. As a Palestinian, I stood with Ukraine, not because of politics, but because I believe in our humanity and that we have to fight for each other. Today Palestine and Ukraine, tomorrow I don’t know where it will be. This is just the circle of colonization. You fight for us, you fight for yourself and others
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