Witnessing the ongoing and, at time of writing, ever growing Escalation of israeli violence in Gaza against the Palestinian people over 2023/2024 has broken me. After the “gathering for Gaza” at BOO BOoks earlier in the year, by September it felt time to contribute something else. a small piece to keep the conversation going and growing. the hand in Hand festival was the right time to do this.
This is a CoWS event because it is about weathering things together and building a better world. There is no justification for this violence. There is no environmental justice without the struggle for freedom for all people. in our work, many folks try to connect the environmental crisis to colonisation and colonial violence and land disposession/appropriation, here the fact of this process is so stark because the whole of Gaza city is literally being flattened by bombs and tanks and removed of life (human and nonhuman). Anything we do to stand against this totalising and violent colonial political process feels important. However small, we can try to keep our hearts open to possibility of another way of being and reminding as many people as we can that another way is possible.
At Kent House (141 Faulkner Street) on September 7, we screened Daz Chandler’s Film Shireen of al-Walaja. It was followed by a Q&A with the filmmaker.
This 30-minute documentary film reveals an intimate portrait of the day-to-day life of a dynamic and popular resistance leader from Palestine who left her full time job with the UN to return to her home village of al-Walaja and fight for its survival. Shot on location over a four-year period, Shireen of al-Walaja examines the philosophical and psychological drivers behind tireless resistance providing a refreshingly candid and inspirational insight into just what it is that motivates someone to become a full-time activist. The film screens with another short “Two Films About Apartheid”.
Daz Chandler is an interdisciplinary storyteller and documentary filmmaker with a background in media and human rights advocacy. They spent several years living, volunteering and working with various communities in occupied Palestine. Bearing witness to, and documenting, human rights abuses.
PART OF THE HAND-IN-HAND FESTIVAL
A simple red lentil soup was provided for dinner at the price of donations to cover costs.
Community Weathering Station (Cows) 