I heard a program on the radio today (This Is Happening with Jerry Quickley), and he was joined by Nana Gyamfi who said, "I think it's important to talk about the fact that international women's day was called up by women of the global south ... it is women of the global south that make the world go 'round ... and yet these same women - we are the poorest in terms of economics in the world ... we are carrying the burden but we are getting the least amount in terms of how we are valued." Among many other things, I heard that point and I heard her call for the importance of speaking on the issues of "freedom and liberation of the global south" without which "everyone else is not free."
So, I decided to feature this piece I made with a Palestinian woman holding up what looks to a racist like a rocket launcher (it will always look like a rocket launcher to a racist, even as I explain this), but her weapon is loaded with something far more dangerous and explosive (pun intended); Memory and will. The scariest thing to colonizers is the memory of injustice and the will to move forward in demanding our rights - women are even scarier to them because they can make other humans who are capable of remembering and carrying the will to do something about it into new generations.
To explain symbols that appear in the 'toon; the key represents the literal keys that many Palestinian refugees held onto when they were forced into refugee status. Many of them still hold these keys. The key also metaphorically represents the key to the collective homeland of Palestine that every Palestinian deserves no matter where they live scattered throughout the world. It's a fundamental right that we should be allowed to return to our home - the land - which is ours despite the murder, guns and racist policies of modern apartheid states which keep us away. The nakba means 'the disaster,' which people in the "state of Israel" consider their day of independence, but for the indigenous Palestinians is a memory of a brutal 'catastrophe,' of which the most infamous massacre is known as the Deir Yessin massacre (that was the name of the village where everyone was slaughtered to make room for this new "state" in 1948).
This is my history and my collective memory (it's not even that old), to reproduce and share; everyone should be holding up their struggles on this international women's day (and obviously 364 other days in the year), but I wanted to share Nana Gyamfi's call to remind people that without "freedom and liberation of the global south" ... "everyone else is not free."
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