Settler Colonialism - Blog Posts

in case you missed it

yesterday the US HOUSE VOTED TO HIDE Gaza death toll statistics.

this is far morethan just an institucional genocide denial, this is one half of American Congress giving a foreing nation green light to kill with billions of dollars and blind eye.

this measure, if passeed in Senate, would make illegal for the US state Department to cite genocide stadistics.

in other words, illegal to do its job.

These people are just as important.

They're already trying to create support for new settlements in Gaza. Unreal.

like to charge reblog to cast

shout out for the ppl that attend Super B*wl hope u enjoyed the genocide!

Rafah was supposed to be a safe zone. The world has failed Palestinians in many ways, and it continues to be beyond horrifying. The Super Bowl usually reaches over 100 million viewers every year, and I just saw the advertisement the IOF displayed in advance the other day to 'release the hostages.' They're calling it a 'Gaza hostage awareness video campaign' while they're mercilessly bombing Palestinian people to severe injury or death. A genocide is going on, and Israel is committing ethnic cleansing. The IOF are nothing but settler-colonial terrorists, but the world is being fed a message that they are innocent.

I hope the IOF falls to the greatest depths of despair and experiences tenfold what Palestinian people and children have.

the fact that y'all r ignoring the suffering of palestinians just like your 'leader' is so funny that next time u see this post Palestine no longer exist, keep that in mind we don't have much more time.

This is a picture of Montaser Al Sawaf, another Palestinian journalist killed by the IOF:

I am continually enraged by the normalization of Palestinian people's deaths in mainstream western media, and the constant dehumanization of each of their lives. They are not just numbers -they are people who have dreams, ambitions, livelihoods, families, friends, hobbies, and interests.

The IOF is committing war crimes, crimes against humanity, is breaking dozens of international laws and UN Conventions -is committing mass genocide -but a small fraction of people in power get to determine the narrative of 'who is the REAL victim here,' by reinforcing IOF and American propaganda which sides with settler-colonial violence -and it is beyond abhorrent.

Where do I even begin? I'm appalled. The Canadian government living up to its roots in colonial-settler violence... this is beyond criminal. Contact your MP's. This erasure and anti-Palestinian racism is unacceptable.

For anyone reading this on or after February 26th, 2024 -here is more information/updates:

The IOF lies. It's inherently part of their zionist settler-colonial agenda -literally. They are not to be trusted -everything they say is meant to distort and distract people from what is really going on. This is just another example of this.

Palestine Masterlist 

Introduction to Palestine: 

Decolonize Palestine:

Palestine 101

Rainbow washing 

Frequently asked questions 

Myths 

IMEU (Institute for Middle East Understanding):

Quick Facts - The Palestinian Nakba 

The Nakba and Palestinian Refugees 

The Gaza Strip

The Palestinian catastrophe (Al-Nakba)

Al-Nakba (documentary)

The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017 (book)

The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (book)

Nakba Day: What happened in Palestine in 1948? (Article)

The Nakba did not start or end in 1948 (Article)

Donations and charities: 

Al-Shabaka

Electronic Intifada 

Adalah Justice Project 

IMEU Fundraiser 

Medical Aid for Palestinians 

Palestine Children’s Relief Fund 

Addameer

Muslim Aid

Palestine Red Crescent

Gaza Mutual Aid Patreon

Books:

A New Critical Approach to the History of Palestine

The Idea of Israel: A History of Power and Knowledge

Hidden Histories: Palestine and the Eastern Mediterranean

The Balfour Declaration: Empire, the Mandate and Resistance in Palestine

Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique

From Haven to Conquest: Readings in Zionism and the Palestine Problem until 1948

Captive Revolution - Palestinian Women’s Anti-Colonial Struggle within the Israeli Prison System

Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History

Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics

Before Their Diaspora: A Photographic History of The Palestinians 1876-1948

The Battle for Justice in Palestine Paperback

Uncivil Rites: Palestine and the Limits of Academic Freedom

Palestine Rising: How I survived the 1948 Deir Yasin Massacre

The Transformation of Palestine: Essays on the Origin and Development of the Arab-Israeli Conflict

A Land Without a People: Israel, Transfer, and the Palestinians 1949-1996

The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood

A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples

Where Now for Palestine?: The Demise of the Two-State Solution

Terrorist Assemblages - Homonationalism in Queer Times

Militarization and Violence against Women in Conflict Zones in the Middle East

The one-state solution: A breakthrough for peace in the Israeli-Palestinian deadlock

The Persistence of the Palestinian Question: Essays on Zionism and the Palestinians

Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel and the Palestinians

The False Prophets of Peace: Liberal Zionism and the Struggle for Palestine

Ten myths about Israel

Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the Palestinian Question

Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict, New and Revised Edition

Israel and its Palestinian Citizens - Ethnic Privileges in the Jewish State

Palestinians in Israel: Segregation, Discrimination and Democracy

Greater than the Sum of Our Parts: Feminism, Inter/Nationalism, and Palestine

Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History

Palestinian Culture:

Mountain against the Sea: Essays on Palestinian Society and Culture

Palestinian Costume

Traditional Palestinian Costume: Origins and Evolution

Tatreez & Tea: Embroidery and Storytelling in the Palestinian Diaspora

Embroidering Identities: A Century of Palestinian Clothing (Oriental Institute Museum Publications)

The Palestinian Table (Authentic Palestinian Recipes)

Falastin: A Cookbook

Palestine on a Plate: Memories from My Mother’s Kitchen

Palestinian Social Customs and Traditions

Palestinian Culture before the Nakba

Tatreez & Tea (Website)

The Traditional Clothing of Palestine

The Palestinian thobe: A creative expression of national identity

Embroidering Identities:A Century of Palestinian Clothing

Palestine Traditional Costumes

Palestine Family 

Palestinian Costume

Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion, v5: Volume 5: Central and Southwest Asia

Tent Work in Palestine: A Record of Discovery and Adventure

Documentaries, Films, and Video Essays:

Jenin, Jenin

Born in Gaza

GAZA 

Wedding in Galilee 

Omar

5 Broken Cameras

OBAIDA

Indigeneity, Indigenous Liberation, and Settler Colonialism (not entirely about Palestine, but an important watch for indigenous struggles worldwide - including Palestine)

Edward Said - Reflections on Exile and Other Essays

Palestine Remix: 

AL NAKBA

Gaza Lives On

Gaza we are coming

Lost cities of Palestine 

Stories from the Intifada 

Last Shepherds of the Valley

Voices from Gaza

Muhammad Smiry

Najla Shawa

Nour Naim

Wael Al dahdouh

Motaz Azaiza

Ghassan Abu Sitta

Refaat Alareer

Plestia Alaqad

Bisan Owda

Ebrahem Ateef

Mohammed Zaanoun

Doaa Mohammad

Hind Khoudary

Palestinian Voices, Organizations, and News 

Boycott Divest and Sanction (BDS)

Defense for Children in Palestine

Palestine Legal 

Palestine Action

Palestine Action US

United Nations relief and works for Palestinian refugees in the Middle East (UNRWA)

National Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP)

Times of Gaza

Middle East Eye

Middle East Monitor

Mohammed El-Kurd

Muna El-Kurd 

Electronic Intifada 

Dr. Yara Hawari (suspended on X 10/25/2023)

Mariam Barghouti

Omar Ghraieb

Steven Salaita

Noura Erakat

The Palestinian Museum N.G.

Palestine Museum US

Artists for Palestine UK 

Eye on Palestine (suspended on Instagram 10/25/2023)

A few weeks ago the UN reported that everyone in Gaza is facing a food crisis -and that 1 in every 4 people in Gaza are starving -a quarter of their population is hundreds of thousands of Palestinian people. EVERYONE is hungry -their medical systems have collapsed and there are imminent outbreaks of diseases. How HUMILIATING and dehumanizing it is to have to fight for basic necessities. Imagine seeing a humanitarian truck -something rare because as we know the IOF has been collectively punishing Palestinian people for months now and has been committing mass genocide under the guide of 'war.' Not letting through resources to prevent people from dying from starvation is beyond depraved. And the fact we will NEVER see this on western/European mass media is just... absolutely infuriating.

Since 2014, millions of Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other minorities have been locked up in China and subjected to torture and forced labour. Some of those freed talk about trying to rebuild their lives in neighbouring Kazakhstan.

Photography by Robin Tutenges

A Chinese course book

Saliman Yesbolat used to live in Ghulja county, Xinjiang. After she refused to denounce her Uyghur neighbours to the police, she was forced to perform the raising of the Chinese flag every Monday at dawn, and to attend Chinese lessons twice a week in the basement of her building, where she would learn the Chinese language, patriotic songs and Xi Jinping's discourses by heart. This is her exercise book.

Forced to leave China

At 65, Imam Madi Toleukhan is one of the oldest refugees in Bekbolat, Kazakhstan, where more than 100 families took shelter after fleeing the Chinese regime. 'We were richer back there. I owned a herd, but I was too afraid for my sons, my grandchildren and their future: I came to Kazakhstan to save them. I didn't want them to be the fourth generation to suffer at the hands of the Chinese government, he says.

Remembering Uyghur culture in exile

Two members of the Dolan Ensemble, a Uyghur dance troupe based in Kazakhstan, get ready before performing a traditional dance to mark 40 days since the birth of a baby. Founded in 2016, the troupe performs at festivals or private events that bring together members of the Uyghur community, some of whom have had to leave Xinjiang.

Torture, infertility and damaged genitalia

In Kazakhstan, medical care for camp survivors is poor. Most victims can barely afford to see a family doctor. Anara*, an endocrinologist in a Kazakh hospital who has examined about 50 camp survivors since 2020, noticed recurrent infertility problems among her patients. 'Men or women, many have damaged genitalia. Some told me they'd been given drugs, others said they'd been raped. As they didn't come to us right after being released from the camps, it's impossible to know what kind of drugs they were administered in Xinjiang, she says. *Not her real name

The tiger chair

Ospan* spent a year in a re-education camp. He says his mind and body were crushed by the tortures he experienced in a tiger chair - a steel apparatus with handcuffs that restrains the body in painful positions. Aged about 50, this former shepherd, who took refuge with his family in eastern Kazakhstan, is no longer fit for work. Physically wrecked and prone to headaches, he mourns the loss of his memory above all. 'I used to know a lot of songs and I loved to sing; I also knew poems by heart ... Now, I can't sing any more, I can't remember the words,' he says. *Not his real name

Broken families and imprisonment

Aikamal Rashibek saw the dreadful efficiency of the CCP's brainwashing on her husband, Kerimbek Bakytali, after he was released from a Chinese psychiatric hospital. 'He disappeared for a year. When he came back, he didn't tell me anything about what happened to him. He was highly unhinged, always nervous, and got angry whenever I asked questions. He couldn't stop repeating that he hated Kazakhstan now, and that he wanted to go back to China with the kids to give them a Chinese education, says Aikamal. They are now separated.

Missing loved ones in China’s camps

In March 2017, Miyessar Muhedamu, left, a Uyghur woman, was arrested in Xinjiang under the pretext that she had studied Arabic in Egypt when she was young. Her husband, Sadirzhan Ayupov, right, and her three children have not seen her since. Now that Miyessar has left the camp, Sadirzhan receives a short call every few months. He suspects she might have suffered abuse, yet Miyessar can’t speak freely. ‘She told me she’d been in a re-education camp, and that she’d been released. When I ask her what she went through there, she doesn’t answer,’ says Sadirzhan.

Life after fleeing China

Sent to a re-education camp in 2018 at the age of 64, Yerke* saw her health quickly deteriorate. Locked a tiny cell with dozens of other women, she almost lost the use of her legs due to the cold floor she had to lie on. She was in the camp when she learned of her son’s death: pressured by the Chinese authorities, he took his own life. After her release, Yerke fled to Kazakhstan with some family members, but two of her children remain in China. *Not her real name

Forced labour and confessions

Dina Nurdybay, 32, was arrested in Nilka county, Xinjiang, because her traditional Kazakh clothing business made her a separatist, according to the Chinese authorities. She spent 11 months between two re-education camps, a CCP school and a forced-labour sewing factory. After proving she was capable of being ‘well behaved’ and having performed a self-criticism in front of the whole village, Dina was released and managed to escape when she obtained a week’s leave to visit her ailing father in Kazakhstan.

Cultural genocide

China’s repression of ethnic minorities also involves cultural genocide. As Muslim rituals are forbidden in Xinjiang, people are trying to keep their traditions alive across borders. Here, a family is praying together in Kazakhstan after the death of one of their relatives in Xinjiang. They could not repatriate the body because the border between the two countries was closed at the time.

(continue reading)

1945: The village of Uskut, Crimea after Stalin's deportation of the entire native population of the Crimean Tatars from the 18th-20th of May 1944.

russian colonisers had yet to move into the houses.