The African and Black literary community, refusing complicity in Israel’s literary institutions, has joined others to condemn the actions of Israel in Palestine.
The artist is the conscience of the community and one of the most pressing issues in the world right now is Palestine. The Middle Eastern country was colonised by European Jews who killed and drove the natives from their land and homes since 1948. Shocked by the actions of the Israel regime for decades, many have done what they could to put pressure on the US-backed government to stop their many atrocities. In 2014 for instance, the African Literature Association stated that they endorsed and “will honour the call of Palestinian civil society for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions.”
On October 7, 2023, the Palestinian group Hamas attacked the Israeli state from Gaza and their response was the killing of civilians in an unprecedented manner. The actions to make that part of the world unliveable while slaughtering women and children have led to many actions at various bodies like the United Nations.
On October 28, the world writing community joined in the fray with a statement refusing complicity in Israel’s literary institutions.
The statement read in part, “Culture has played an integral role in normalizing these injustices. Israeli cultural institutions, often working directly with the state, have been crucial in obfuscating, disguising and artwashing the dispossession and oppression of millions of Palestinians for decades. We have a role to play. We cannot in good conscience engage with Israeli institutions without interrogating their relationship to apartheid and displacement. This was the position taken by countless authors against South Africa; it was their contribution to the struggle against apartheid there.”
African/Black literary workers, some of whom have won important literary awards like the Nobel Prize, have joined their colleagues to stand against the atrocities happening in Palestine. Those who are initiating signatories to the statement include Abdulrazak Gurnah, Percival Everett, Maaza Mengiste, Hisham Matar, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Michelle Alexander, Dionne Brand, Jericho Brown, Junot Díaz, Inua Ellams, Eve L. Ewing, Afua Hirsch, Raven Leilani, Derecka Purnell, Christina Sharpe, Gillian Slovo, and Ahdaf Soueif.
Since these initial signatories, many have added their names to the cause. They include Fatin Abbas, Jason Allen-Paisant, Valérie Bah, Tolu Agbelusi, CA Davids, Safia Elhillo, Rémy Ngamije, Zukiswa Wanner, Frances Williams, Jesmyn Ward, Bryan Washington, Leone Ross, Nadia Owusu, Troy Onyango, Lola Olufemi, Suyi Davies Okungbowa, Noor Naga, Jamal Mahjoub, and many others.
Here is the document in full;
Refusing Complicity in Israel’s Literary Institutions
We, as writers, publishers, literary festival workers, and other book workers, publish this letter as we face the most profound moral, political and cultural crisis of the 21st century. The overwhelming injustice faced by the Palestinians cannot be denied. The current war has entered our homes and pierced our hearts.
The emergency is here: Israel has made Gaza unlivable. It is not possible to know exactly how many Palestinians Israel has killed since October, because Israel has destroyed all infrastructure, including the ability to count and bury the dead. We do know that Israel has killed, at the very least, 43,362 Palestinians in Gaza since October and that this is the biggest war on children this century.
This is a genocide, as leading expert scholars and institutions have been saying for months. Israeli officials speak plainly of their motivations to eliminate the population of Gaza, to make Palestinian statehood impossible, and to seize Palestinian land. This follows 75 years of displacement, ethnic cleansing and apartheid.
Culture has played an integral role in normalizing these injustices. Israeli cultural institutions, often working directly with the state, have been crucial in obfuscating, disguising and artwashing the dispossession and oppression of millions of Palestinians for decades.
We have a role to play. We cannot in good conscience engage with Israeli institutions without interrogating their relationship to apartheid and displacement. This was the position taken by countless authors against South Africa; it was their contribution to the struggle against apartheid there.
Therefore: we will not work with Israeli cultural institutions that are complicit or have remained silent observers of the overwhelming oppression of Palestinians. We will not cooperate with Israeli institutions including publishers, festivals, literary agencies and publications that:
A) Are complicit in violating Palestinian rights, including through discriminatory policies and practices or by whitewashing and justifying Israel’s occupation, apartheid or genocide, or
B) Have never publicly recognized the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people as enshrined in international law.
To work with these institutions is to harm Palestinians, and so we call on our fellow writers, translators, illustrators and book workers to join us in this pledge. We call on our publishers, editors and agents to join us in taking a stand, in recognising our own involvement, our own moral responsibility and to stop engaging with the Israeli state and with complicit Israeli institutions.
If you are a literary worker and wish to append your signature to this document please click here.
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