A group of 12 swimmers is currently training for a Freedom Day relay swim from Robben Island to Bloubergstrand, aiming to raise much-needed funds for humanitarian aid in Palestine.
On April 27, three teams of four swimmers each will brave the icy waters between Robben Island and Bloubergstrand to raise funds for disaster relief Gift of the Givers (GOTG), supporting its humanitarian and disaster relief efforts in Palestine.
The event is hosted by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC).
The campaign is further endorsed and supported by the Muslim Judicial Council-SA and Al Quds Foundation.
Among the participants in the 8km relay swim are members of solidarity organisations, including Healthcare Workers for Palestine (HCW4P-SA) and South African Jews for a Free Palestine (SAJFP).
Each volunteer is actively raising funds for the charity swim through the GivenGain platform.
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Cape Town-based academic, activist, and SAJFP member Professor Kelly Gillespie will be swimming in part to honor the idea that our freedoms are inextricably linked to, and incomplete without, the freedom of Palestinians.
“Several things are aligned, the first is the fact that we really wanted to raise money directly for Palestinians and Gift of the Givers has been doing this incredible work directly in Palestine, in Gaza, and also increasingly now with Israel’s horrific annexation and violence in the West Bank. Gift of the Givers is this honorable, reliable organisation that takes every rand that’s given and puts it to good use in service of people who most need it… We also wanted to do something on Freedom Day, that continues to insist on those very important words that Mandela spoke after being released from prison, that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of Palestinians.”
Professor Gillespie emphasised that the liberation struggles in South Africa and Palestine have historically been intertwined.
“The state of Israel and the apartheid state worked very closely together, they borrowed from each other. We understand that the project of racist ethno-nationalism that informed apartheid also is one that unfortunately informs Israeli violence against Palestine-The land occupations, the forms of dispossession, and increasingly this genocidal violence. And so we wanted to remind ourselves and the world really that we understand our own freedom as incomplete, as unfinished, because these struggles are so deeply linked.”
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The choice of Robben Island is symbolic, as many liberation leaders were detained there not only during apartheid but also throughout the colonial era. Similarly, Israel is using its prisons to detain, torture, and subject Palestinians to severe abuse under violent conditions, she said.
“So the swim feels incredibly meaningful as a way to hold all of that together and hold all of that in mind as we swim.”
On the importance of including Jewish voices in the Palestine solidarity movement, Professor Gillespie stated:
“So much of Israel’s violence is explained or justified by referencing the violence that was done to Jews, especially during the Holocaust but of course across the very long history of anti-semitism internationally… There’s a strong understanding in South African Jews for a Free Palestine that in order to really honor and respect the fight against anti-semitism, it cannot be that you annex other people’s land, that you subject other people to violence, especially to the genocidal violence that we saw during the Second World War, we saw during the pogroms in eastern Europe against Jews, that it cannot be that victims become perpetrators in this way.”
She expressed deep respect for the work that progressive Jews are doing, insisting that Jewish freedom is incomplete without Palestinian freedom.
“It cannot be that the violence against Palestinians is the requirement for the safety of Jews.”
She said it appears that Israel is intent on annexing all of Palestine, acting with seeming impunity and supported by the world’s largest imperial power, the United States.
Solidarity with Palestine is crucial, especially now, as many become despondent following the collapse of the ceasefire and in the face of escalating violence in the West Bank and Gaza.
She shared that she draws enormous energy and purpose from the Palestinian philosophy of Sumud—steadfastness.
“It’s the principle of steadfastness, of staying true to purpose, of remaining clear on the task of not allowing oneself to be cowed or bent by the will of a colonising force and an imperial power working in concert with it. To remain clear on purpose and steadfast in resistance. So this is what I’m certainly going to be meditating on when I swim.”
Donations from as little as R50 can be made through the GivenGain platform (Robben Island – Palestine – Relay Swim), with the goal of raising R500 000 for GOTG.
Image: Getty Images
