The arts have long been a powerful medium for human rights activism. Last week, students hosted two film screenings alongside workshops and teach-ins during the Student Society of McGill University (SSMU)’s student strike for Palestinian liberation.
“It’s to reiterate that our education is not just happening within the classroom,” Rama Al Malah, U2 Science, said in an interview with The Tribune. “Education is happening when we’re having these discussions and these reflections within these political and cultural spaces, and it’s also part of this revolutionary study and education that we need to engage with in order to be part of this movement.”
Gaza Fights for Freedom—written and directed by Abby Martin—documents the Great March of Return protests that took place in 2018. The opening shot shows Palestinian children building sandcastles, washed away by the sea—the same sea that Israel has blockaded.
The documentary centres on Palestinian stories, faces, and voices. Poet and journalist Ahmed Abu Artema, watching birds fly over barbed wire, tells us that he hates the occupation because it goes against nature. His poetry inspired the March. Nurse and paramedic Razan Al-Najjar’s grieving family tells us how, at the end of the day, she used to tell them about every person she had saved. The Israeli Defense Forces fatally shot her in June 2018.
“If you look at […] Black Studies, if you look at Indigenous Studies, and then you look at Palestinian Studies, documentaries have been critical for people under occupation, or people whose histories—or some parts of their histories—have been obliterated because the documentary puts you in direct contact with the people living the reality of an occupation,” Professor of Islamic History Rula Jurdi said in an interview with The Tribune.
Perhaps the power of documentary lies in its intimacy in the face of injustice: That, too often, the people who see, hear, speak, and live under occupation are not those who are listened to. From behind the camera, viewers can hear voices, some since silenced, telling us not to forget.
Gaza Fights for Freedom screened on April 2.
