The Wits Liberated Zone on the Library Lawns at the Braamfontein campus of the University of the Witwatersrand in May 2024. [Picture: @witsliberatedzone/Instagram]
Walking on the University of the Witwatersrand’s Braamfontein campus in Johannesburg, the energy of activism is unmissable. Small stickers on light posts, students donning the keffiyeh and the Palestinian flag here and there, Witsies know their cause.
“We will be the last generation to fight for Palestine because we will get it right,” says Imaan. Appearing on screen with a black and white keffiyeh, she tells Salaamedia’s Inayet Wadee about Gen Z’s mission.
A year since the start of Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza, Palestine, there is no end in sight. The death toll keeps climbing. But so too do calls for a ceasefire. It is an ever-growing chant that will become difficult to ignore.
“It’s a difficult time for a lot of people, but for as long as we continue to believe that we will be the last generation fighting for a free Palestine, a free Sudan, a free Congo, for a free world, we will continue to make progress,” she says.
Earlier this year, when campus protests rocked the US and other parts of the world, Wits students set up tents on the Library Lawns. On a patch of green between the Wartenweiler and William Cullen Libraries, the Wits Liberated Zone (WLZ) drew like–minded students in solidarity.
It had to be disbanded when exam season approached in June, but the work of WLZ continues. It is driven by a recognition of the plight of students in Gaza, who have nowhere to study since universities there have not been spared from Israel’s relentless bombardment.
The cause does not come without its challenges and challengers. On Monday, campus security took down an exhibition that had been installed outside the iconic Great Hall. According to WLZ, exhibition boards, artwork and banners were confiscated. Just another instance of pro-Palestine voices being stifled by Wits, they said.
Another student, Aaliyah, believes people have forgotten that the people of Palestine are humans with the same desires and needs as everyone else. “These are people just like us, with dreams and ambitions. They just want to study like us”.
Except, it is difficult to study when occupation forces wage war against your society. Studying is practically impossible when schools, universities, clinics, hospitals, mosques, churches and homes are the targets of one of the mightiest militaries in the world.
She says people have become desensitised to what is happening in Palestine – and now, Lebanon. It becomes easier to scroll past the gory footage of decapitated babies and crumbled homes, but the human suffering does not go away.
“The fact that there’s this large population who have gone under constant attack and people can’t see that. People have become demoralised and they brush it off as Middle Eastern problems. They don’t see the people of Palestine as one of us, they don’t see them as human anymore.”
For Imaan, the generational mission is to see a liberated Palestine. Not just a liberated Palestine, but a liberated world, free of suffering and oppression. It may happen or it may not. “Even if we don’t [succeed], it becomes that much easier for the next generation,” she says.