The flame of resistance to oppression has burnt throughout history, and the Palestinian cause cannot be put out. This was the message at a solidarity event held over the weekend.
Hosted at the Emmarentia Primary School by Social Intifada, the Palestine Youth Event and Family Market gave entrepreneurs an opportunity to showcase their goods. Visitors were met with an array of local and Palestinian vendors.
But there was also time to hear about the Palestinian cause, one that has been a decades-long struggle for freedom from oppression. Much was said about the Gaza Genocide, too.
Addressing a crowd on Saturday, Khalid Vawda, founder of Social Intifada, explained Palestinians were well within their rights to resist oppression “by any means necessary” – even if that involved violence.
“When you are facing a situation whereby you’re trying every opportunity, every avenue, everything available to you, to make people hear your plight … [but] the powers that be are not listening … by any means necessary is the means by which you stop that oppression, literally by any means necessary,” he said.
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Resistance
While Israel has attempted to convince the world that Hamas conducted a terrorist attack on 7 October, the resistance movement is of the view this was a necessary evil. Operation Al Aqsa Flood, as it had been called, was a response to more than 70 years of subjugation.
Vawda said “by any means necessary” meant, in resistance terms, that “if you have to use violence, you use violence to stop it if that’s the last line of language for the oppressor”.
In response, Israel launched a war on Gaza’s people. In the ten months since, it has flattened much of the Gaza Strip. Its deadly war, now arguably a genocide, has killed no fewer than 39 790 people and injured at least 92 002.
Inayet Wadee, Salaamedia’s speaker at the event, said resistance to occupation had to happen beyond the borders of Palestine.
“This is a struggle in more ways than one. For us, as the media, it’s a media jihad. For those out in Palestine, for Hamas, for the mujahideen, for them it’s a military jihad. At the same time, it is also a jihad in our minds,” he said.
Also speaking at the event was Palestinian content creator Ahmad Ghunaim. He has made it his life’s work, even under threatening conditions, to tell the world about Israel’s atrocities in his corner of the world.
He said the Gaza Genocide has done much to get the world to sympathise with the Palestinian cause.
“This war showed the reality for all the people. This war shows how they tried to lie for more than 70 years. This war helped us to let the world know the reality. It’s very important to share what’s happening in Palestine,” he said.
