[News] Afro-Palestinians talk heritage and resistance

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/03/afro-palestinians-talk-heritage-resistance-170329072425883.html 



  Afro-Palestinians talk heritage and resistance

August 5, 2017 by Jaclynn Ashly 
<http://www.aljazeera.com/profile/jaclynn-ashly.html>

------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Occupied East Jerusalem* - "It's hard not to get detained here," 
16-year-old Abdallah Balalawi, an Afro-Palestinian from Chad, told Al 
Jazeera from his home in the Old City 
<http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/10/israel-limits-palestinian-access-jerusalem-city-151004052101194.html>. 
"I have to be aware of the way I look and even the way I walk to avoid 
making the Israelis suspicious."

Abdallah is one of at least 350 Afro-Palestinians from Nigeria 
<http://www.aljazeera.com/topics/country/nigeria.html>, Chad, Senegal 
and Sudan <http://www.aljazeera.com/topics/country/sudan.html> residing 
in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City, adjacent to the Al-Aqsa Mosque 
<http://www.aljazeera.com/topics/subjects/al-aqsa-mosque.html> compound. 
The Afro-Palestinian neighbourhood is not the easiest to find, 
accessible only through an Israeli police checkpoint 
<http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/11/israeli-checkpoints-live-colonisation-151129073339365.html> 
where officers interrogate anyone who is not from the local community.

On a nearly hidden road straddled between two police blockades, third 
generation Afro-Palestinian teenagers tell Al Jazeera about the world 
they inherited, characterised by checkpoints, daily interrogations, 
night raids 
<http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/01/sweeping-police-raids-target-palestinians-israel-160109032131831.html> and 
incessant fears of detention by Israeli forces.

READ MORE: Palestinian women lead resistance in Budrus 
<http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/02/palestinian-women-lead-resistance-budrus-170201075132592.html>

Most Afro-Palestinians in this tight-knit community came to the region 
as religious pilgrims during the British Mandate for Palestine, and many 
have been part of the Palestinian resistance movement since Israel's 
establishment in 1948. Others arrived as volunteers with the Egyptian 
army to fight against Zionist militias taking control of historic 
Palestine during the Arab-Israeli war 
<http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/specialseries/2013/10/war-october-2013102172128280627.html>. 


The community has played a pivotal role in the history of Palestinian 
resistance. Locals say that the first Palestinian woman to be imprisoned 
for a paramilitary operation against Israel was Fatima Barnawi, a 
Nigerian-Palestinian detained in 1967 for the attempted bombing of an 
Israeli cinema in West Jerusalem.

Yet decades later, Afro-Palestinian youth continue to live their daily 
lives under Israeli control.

At just 17, Abdallah's cousin, Jibrin, has already been detained five 
times by Israeli forces, mostly over allegations that he threw stones 
<http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/07/palestinian-stone-throwers-face-20-years-jail-150721182722412.html> at 
Israeli police and military officers. While he and his friends face the 
same harassment as other Palestinians, he said, they sometimes 
experience "double-racism" for both being Palestinian and having dark skin.

"The soldiers are always cursing at me and interrogating me when I pass 
them. They try to provoke me so that I do something they could get me in 
trouble for," Jibrin told Al Jazeera, noting that he has been beaten 
several times by Israeli police and soldiers during detentions.

"Most of those in my generation have the same experiences," he added 
with a shrug. "It's routine."

Growing up under the constant presence of Israeli soldiers, police and 
checkpoints, Jibrin's sister, Ruaa, 18, told Al Jazeera that the 
militarisation of the Old City felt "normal". But watching Jibrin leave 
home every day fills her with dread, as Israeli forces "constantly 
harass young Palestinian men", she said.

Ruaa, now studying psychology at Al-Quds University, said that in the 
future she wants to develop lectures for young Palestinians in occupied 
East Jerusalem, to teach them how to deal with Israeli police and 
soldiers in hopes of preventing their arrest.

Ali Jiddeh, a long-standing leader in the Afro-Palestinian community, 
said that Israel's harassment and routine detention of Palestinian youth 
has intensified since a wave of violence 
<http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/10/palestine-intifada-powerful-151016094419464.html> 
erupted in late 2015.

"You have to notice these soldiers," Jiddeh told Al Jazeera. "They focus 
on the young generation of girls and boys, because they are the main 
element of this uprising. They interrogate them and humiliate them in 
front of everyone. Eventually, the youth can't take it any more, and 
they explode."

But this generation of Afro-Palestinians is different from those before, 
Jiddeh added: "They are watching TV and constantly browsing the 
internet. They make comparisons with what they see in other countries. 
 From a very young age, they realise life under occupation is not normal."

For Jibrin, education is the most important tool of resistance for his 
generation.

"If I am educated, I can challenge this occupation more effectively than 
by throwing stones," he said.

READ MORE: 'Basil al-Araj was a beacon for Palestinian youth' 
<http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/03/al-araj-beacon-palestinian-youth-170307103833988.html>

However, education in the Old City is far from immune from Israel's 
occupation. Most of the youth in the community attend the nearby Dar 
al-Aytam school, a target of frequent Israeli raids 
<http://www.civiccoalition-jerusalem.org/uploads/9/3/6/8/93682182/october_2016_dar_al_aytam_school_in_jerusalem.pdf>.

Saed Firawi, a 17-year-old Sudanese-Palestinian, said students merely 
have to "throw a plastic bottle" to prompt Israeli forces to raid the 
entire school and fire tear gas at students and staff.

Meanwhile, Saed's cousin, Ali, 18, was detained by Israeli forces the 
night before crucial examinations that determine students' eligibility 
to graduate; sleep-deprived and shaken, he ultimately failed.

The Israeli occupation has also ruptured Ali's family life. At the age 
of 16, his brother, Mohammad, was sentenced last year in an Israeli 
court to eight years in prison after authorities accused him of dropping 
a large rock on the head of an Israeli soldier, paralysing him. Ali 
contends that his brother was innocent, claiming that Israeli forces 
used the allegations "as an excuse" to lock up Mohammad for his 
political activism.

Ali and his siblings have not been allowed to visit their brother in 
prison because of what the Israelis have deemed "security concerns", 
while the family's home has been repeatedly raided by Israeli forces.

Mohammad Qous, 17, whose father's family migrated to historic Palestine 
<http://www.aljazeera.com/topics/country/palestine.html> from Chad, has 
big goals for the future, aiming to study in Switzerland 
<http://www.aljazeera.com/topics/country/switzerland.html> in the coming 
months. Always on edge, Mohammad said, he must remain calm and collected 
when dealing with Israeli forces, since one wrong move could send him to 
prison and destroy his future dreams.

One day when Mohammad was late for school, he recalls rushing past 
Israeli police, who stopped him to search his belongings. "They found my 
house key and began interrogating me about what I was doing with it, 
saying that I could stab someone with it," he said, noting that the 
soldiers allowed him to pass only after he showed them his US passport.

Mohammad's sister, Shaden, 14, said it was difficult to hold out much 
hope for Palestine in the years ahead.

"In East Jerusalem, it's different for us," she told Al Jazeera. "I 
think Palestinians in other places have more hope. But we live with the 
Israelis. It has become part of our lives."

Still, this has not stopped her from resisting the Israeli occupation in 
her own way. Shaden considers the /dabke/, a traditional Palestinian 
dance, to be a powerful form of resistance to Israel's colonisation.

"It's a creative way of resisting. It keeps our Palestinian traditions 
alive, and we all know the Israelis don't like it," she said with a smile.

A member of the el-Funoun Palestinian dance group, Shaden and her fellow 
members also attempt to boycott Israeli products in occupied East 
Jerusalem <http://www.aljazeera.com/topics/subjects/east-jerusalem.html> 
whenever possible.

Her brother, meanwhile, echoed the feeling of despair expressed by 
numerous youths in the Afro-Palestinian community: "We've been resisting 
Israel since 1948 and nothing has changed," Mohammad said. "Nonviolence 
hasn't worked; violence hasn't worked. I really don't know what any of 
us should do any more."

Source: Al Jazeera

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