Settler Colonialism and Transnational Solidarity - Etalase 2021 (moderator's notes)

ETALASE PEMIKIRAN PEREMPUAN

RANTAU: SETTLER COLONIALISM AND TRANSNATIONAL SOLIDARITY

July 25, 2021

Speakers:

AMIRA SILMI (Birzeit, Palestine)

Amirah Silmi is assistant professor in the Institute of Women’s Studies- Birzeit University. She has a PhD in Rhetoric from the University of California–Berkeley, and M.A in Gender and Development from Birzeit University. Her research is in the fields of colonial discourse, anticolonial and revolutionary writing, aesthetics, and feminist theory.

SARA SALEH (Gadigal Land, Australia)

Sara Saleh is the daughter of migrants from Palestine, Egypt, and Lebanon, living on Gadigal land. A human rights activist, community organiser, and campaigner for refugee rights and racial justice, she has spent over a decade in grassroots and non-governmental organisations in Australia and the Middle East. A poet and writer, Sara’s pieces have been published in English and Arabic in various national and international outlets and anthologies. Sara sits on the board of Australia's largest advocacy organisation, GetUp!, and is a proud Bankstown Poetry Slam 'Slambassador’.

RODE WANIMBO (West Papua)

Rode Wanimbo was born and grew up in Agamua, Wamena, the Central Highland of West Papua. She graduated from Cenderawasih University in Jayapura, Papua, in 2003. She is a mother of two. She grew up feeling inferior even at the university, and she became Christian and read the scriptures by using glasses that belong to the dominant cultures. With a collective of women, she engaged in the process of decolonizing the Bible. Since 2013, Rode Manimbo has been the head of the Women’s Department of the GIDI Church (Evangelical Church of Indonesia). Her group has been rediscovering the values of woman in religion in a critical framework.

MODERATOR’S NOTES

This session is part of Etalase Pemikiran Perempuan or ETALASE (July 23-25, 2021). The first international forum of ETALASE, the session is called “Rantau,” which in Malay language means “to travel” or “to wander.” This is our way of traveling in terms of anti-colonial feminist ideas to listen to women’s knowledge and practice so that we can strengthen our transnational solidarity.

Read my notes on transnational solidarity

Settler colonialism is inseparable from imperial projects in global politics, where the accumulation and circulation of capital are built upon expropriation and disenfranchisement. Settler colonialism can be defined as the settlement of what is considered a frontier region by non-indigenous groups. The settler states that we know are the United States, Canada, and Australia, where the population of indigenous people was almost entirely replaced by the settler’s population, and more scholars have included Israel into the discussion of settler colonialism as the occupation of Palestine was also based on the idea of an empty land--like terra nullius in Australia—followed by displacement and dispossession.

In the case of Papua, even though Indonesia is always tied to the discussion of decolonization whenever people talk about the 1955 Bandung Conference and Sukarno’s anti-imperialist rhetoric, what we have been witnessing since 1963, after the Netherlands transferred the sovereignty of West Papua to Indonesia, there has been an ongoing process of colonization.

In this panel we look at specific histories and experiences of settler colonialism in places such as Papua, Australia, and Palestine. The panel also explores possible new routes for transnational solidarity in the struggle against colonialism.

Settler Colonialism: Specific Historical Contexts

Palestine – by Amira Silmi

“Colonialism is linked to capitalism. Uprooting is something inherent in the colonial capitalist system. ”

— Amira Silmi

· Key historical date: 1948, the Nakba, when the Zionists occupied Palestine and declared their state.

· The problem of Palestine starts with Zionism. Zionism started in the previous century with Jewish immigration to Palestine on different waves, which intensified in the beginning of the 20th century. Suddenly it became clear that the settlement was a settler colonial project; Rather than just assisting people who escaped prosecution to come and live in Palestine, the project aimed to uproot the Palestinian people and replace them with settlers.

· The struggle for Palestine is a struggle for land, and this means it will encompass identities, including religion, their ways of living and modes of being. Marx: If it’s a struggle for land, then it is a struggle for life.

· Colonialism is linked to capitalism. Uprooting is something inherent in the colonial capitalist system. There is the need to dispossess people of their sense of power, their ability to resist, and any kind of the feeling of independence and individuality.

· International community and agencies play an important role in turning the colonized into a weakened, helpless mass.

West Papua – by Rode Wanimbo:

“Colonizers divided East and West Papua according to their own interests as they did to the African continent.”

— Rode Wanimbo

· Papuans live in the community. My great grandparents believe in the Divine Creator, and they believe the values of norekore (sisterhood), nabua kabua (loving and caring), empowerment, equality, and unity. They have been living in harmony with nature, and they respect other living creatures.

· Indigenous people around the world are the true guardians of this Mother Earth.

· When settlers arrived in the land of Papua, they said that Papuans are uncivilized, savaged, and primitive. They were forced to live in a new type of house and setting. Hectares of sago forest was replaced by rice field. Millions of trees are dried out due to the tailing disposal from Freeport.

· Colonizers divided East and West Papua according to their own interests as they did to the African continent.

· Key historical dates: August 1962 New York agreement- facilitates the transfer of power from the Netherlands; May 1963 from UNTEA to Indonesia, legitimizing Indonesia’s use of army troops in the island of Papua; 1963: Act of free choice/ Pepera – but the process was under intimidation and manipulation (only 1000 people chose to be with Indonesia).

· In the name of civilization, development, and even Christianity, colonizers created political conspiracy for their own economic interest.

Australia – by Sara Saleh:

“ In Australia, we are settlers. If we have not fought or remained silent, it means that we have been complicit in the violence. We settlers benefit from the proximity to whiteness despite the fact that we are subjected to anti-Asian hate, racism, Islamophobia, and the massive surveillance and the policing of our communities especially post 9/11. ”

— Sara Saleh

· As Palestinians we understand that there is no liberation in Palestine without the liberation of First Nation here.

· Indigenous Muslim woman Eugenia Flynn and Palestinian activist Tasnim Sammak wrote on the shared decolonial struggle: “Together, Black Australians and Palestinians share a history and reality of erasure that has lasted far beyond the anticolonial era of the early last century, when most colonised peoples gained independence from colonial powers. Both Black Australia and Palestine are yet to experience liberation in self-determination, governance, and sovereignty.”

· In the case of support for Palestine, money is just a band-aid; What we need to understand are systems, and in order to do that we need to understand how politics, protests, and building networks of solidarity work.

· We need to be drawing parallels between different global social justice movements.

· In Australia, we are settlers. If we have not fought or remained silent, it means that we have been complicit in the violence. We settlers benefit from the proximity to whiteness despite the fact that we are subjected to anti-Asian hate, racism, Islamophobia, and the massive surveillance and the policing of our communities especially post 9/11.

· We need to shed light on the commonalities of our struggles. As Palestinians, our liberation is inherently intertwined with other movements around the world.

· Micaela Sahhar: “The tenets of BLM are amplifying the struggles of Palestinians and making them more visible and understandable to a global audience. Just as BLM is forcing a reckoning with systemic racism, there is new attention being paid to the origins of the Palestinians’ struggles: settler-colonialism, asymmetric power relations and racial discrimination.”

SOME IMPORTANT QUOTES

CONNECTIONS

“We need to have difficult conversations about things such as West Papua. If there’s support for Palestine, then surely the logical connection would be to know what’s happening in West Papua.” - Sara

LITTLE GAPS

“We try to find those places, those gaps, or little spaces where you can speak of those things that are not usually spoken of… You can point to the lies but it is much harder to find the truth because you know every project that claims truth is actually going to end up into some kind of an oppressive project.” – Amira

STORYTELLING AND RESISTANCE

“Often we are very good at naming what we are opposed to but not so good at articulating what we are fighting for or what we are trying to build… Art is one way to create a language to invite people into worlds where they are understanding the misheard, the mistranslated, the silenced, and the ‘vulnerable.’” – Sara

“Resistance can be done through stories. The story is not something that is established or finished, and so it can always be renewed. It can sleep for a while and then come back to life. Stories go deep inside us; they don’t leave us but they actually form and shape the way we think about things and the way we behave.” — Amira

IMAGINE DIFFERENT WAYS OF KNOWING

“I think what we can do is to go with Toni Morrison and go with Audre Lorde and think of how we can imagine different spaces, different ways, of being, different ways of knowing.” – Amira

“We started reading the bible with our own glasses… One woman asked: If the government is the representative of God on earth, then why the government do nothing when the army and the police rain down the bullets and destroys our gardens and our homes and even the churches were bombed?” – Rode

Now there are communities that are at the forefront of countering mainstream narratives and offering alternatives. We need to be part of these communities and connections. If they are invisible, that’s deliberate and political, and you know that’s part of the erasure.” -- Sara

HOW TO SUPPORT THE STRUGGLE IN WEST PAPUA?

“Please share the true history of Papuans to your family, friends, and especially to your children. Share your resources in terms of network of training because we need training in capacity building, diplomacy, and media to share the true history of Papua through songs, poems, or documentary. Write to your government to say that most of the policies made by the Indonesian government are biased migrant policies. Write to your government about the military oppression that’s still going on here.” -- Rode

SOLIDARITY AND THE QUESTION OF LISTENING

“It is a great need and it’s truly important to have a global solidarity, but I don’t know. I just want to start with the question that comes to myself. I ask myself: Am I really ready to listen to the pain, the truth, the reality of the people that I’m going to have solidarity with? Because for me, solidarity without action will not bring an impact.

Am I able to give my time to listen, and after I listen, am I able to step out of my comfort zone, to take the chance to reconstruct my belief in building this network and solidarity? I don’t have an answer to this question.”

— Rode Wanimbo