Unbroken Bond: Tracing the Ties Between African and Palestinian Anti-Colonial Struggles – Symposium Introduction

[Mohsen al Attar is Associate Dean of Learning & Teaching at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University as well as a Contributing Editor to Opinio Juris.

Nciko wa Nciko is an Amnesty International Climate Justice Advisor in East and Southern Africa and its lead advisor on human rights in Madagascar.]

African peoples and states have long stood in solidarity with the liberation struggle of Palestinians. During the decolonisation era, each proclamation of independence across the continent was followed by a demand for the same for Palestine, a place that encapsulated anti-colonial resistance to Western (racial) imperialism. As Nelson Mandela powerfully declared: ‘our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.’ 

Sankara was equally unforgiving: 

“Lastly, I speak out in indignation as I think of the Palestinians, whom this most inhuman humanity has replaced with another people, a people who only yesterday were themselves being martyred at leisure. I think of the valiant Palestinian people, the families which have been splintered and split up and are wandering throughout the world seeking asylum. Courageous, determined, stoic and tireless, the Palestinians remind us all of the need and moral obligation to respect the rights of a people. Along with their Jewish brothers, they are anti-Zionists.”

Thomas Sankara (1984)

All anti-colonial struggles are indeed interconnected. The settler-colonial violence inflicted on the Palestinians is intrinsically tied to the neocolonial violence Africans continue to face. As Nkrumah forewarned, neocolonialism has instigated some of the deadliest conflicts of the 21st century, many of which are still unfolding on the African continent and bear genocidal features akin to those witnessed in Gaza. The use of sexual violence as a weapon of war, massacres of women, men, and children, and mass displacements are characteristic of neocolonial armed conflicts in regions such as Amhara, Cabo Delgado, central Somalia, Khartoum, North Kivu, and Tigray. Our aim with this symposium is to foster a diverse dialogue that illuminates the connections between African and Palestinian liberation struggles, advancing our collective understanding and pursuit of justice and human dignity globally.

The symposium is divided into two parts. Part I, which begins on 29 July 2024, opens with David Arita, who highlights the relevance of the Black radical tradition as an intellectual and political lens through which we can understand and confront systemic racism and its intersections with other forms of oppression. Arita centres this tradition as a critical tool to help us better engage with the theme of this symposium as well as the various contributions.

Next, Mariam Hiba Malik discusses how India in Kashmir and the UAE in Sudan are using similar oppressive tactics as Israel in Palestine. Drawing on revolutionary thinkers like Edward Said, Arundhati Roy, and Frantz Fanon, Malik argues that these tactics manifest principally in militarisation, enforced legal suppression, demographic manipulation, and strategic media censorship. Malik applauds the recent ICJ Advisory Opinion on the illegality of Israel’s occupation in Palestine as a step in the right direction toward subverting these tactics.

Rugenge wa Nciko then brings in Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s “politics of language” and Mahmood Mamdani’s “politics of naming” to provide a nuanced understanding of the solidarity between the advocacy and campaigning of the Palestinian Al-Haq and the Congolese Action Youth Platform (CAYP) against “genocide.” He explains how these civil society organisations have tactically used the term “genocide” to amplify global consciousness regarding the atrocities in Gaza and Eastern DRC. Given that Al-Haq and CAYP’s definitions are historically contextualised and extend beyond the Rome Statute’s limited scope, Rugenge concludes that their campaigns and advocacy should also reflect on abolition: to dismantle the international criminal justice system, which he finds to have been designed to only serve western imperial interests.

Elvis Mogesa Ongiri concludes Part I of this symposium with a critique of the media. Mogesa draws inspiration from Palestinian humanist Edward Said and Kenyan Pan-Africanist Tom Mboya, with the latter declaring we should be the news bearers of the true quotidian injustices that occur in our home: “it was important that the Press in Africa should concern itself with finding out what goes on in the African mind and shun the bias and prejudice that is oblivious of what is pro-African.” Guided by these revolutionary thinkers, Mogesa assesses how key events in the conflicts in Palestine and Sudan have been reported—often ignored—by select African news outlets. He argues that African mainstream media take a more proactive role in shaping perceptions of the African public, both to counter Western media prejudices, which have long distorted the narrative of and about the Global South, and to present invaluable counter-narratives about the afterlives of colonialism and the associated struggles for justice. 

Part II of the symposium, which we will introduce on 5 August 2024, includes seven contributions that explore the significance of the African Human Rights Charter’s liberation ethos to the Palestinian struggles, reflections on narratives and violence, the role of international law in facilitating settler colonialism and land grabbing in Zimbabwe and Palestine, the historical ties between South African and Palestinian struggles against apartheid, and the economics of suffering and racial capitalism as lenses to understand the interconnectedness of the Palestinian struggle and ongoing African conflicts.

We are grateful to the diverse and courageous group of early-career researchers and senior academics who have dedicated their time and labour to advancing this essential debate on justice and human dignity worldwide. Where some senior scholars from the continent have chosen to remain silent on Palestine, the upcoming generation has bucked their timidity showing us, as Mandela and Sankara did, that the unbroken bond between African and Palestinian anti-colonial struggles is emblematic of the power of solidarity and the enduring spirit of anti-colonial resistance to injustice, wherever it manifests.