Samidoun Brussels is joining together with a wide coalition of organizations for the third annual Resistance Festival in Brussels between June 6 through 8. The annual event, which began in May 2023, highlights the culture of Palestinian, Arab and international anti-imperialist resistance. As the festival organizers note, “This 3rd edition will be a space of support for all liberation struggles facing the empire in all its forms and that, despite everything, continue to carry the hopes of the people high.”
Follow the Festival’s Instagram page for the latest updates: https://www.instagram.com/festivalresistance/
The full list of organizing partners participating in the Festival is as follows: AJAB (Alliance Juive Antisioniste de Belgique), Alfalasteniyeh, Antwerp for Palestine, Bamko asbl, Bruxelles Panthères, Bxl Dévie, C3, Charleroi pour la Palestine, Comité BDS-ULB, Comité Ujamaa, Collectif 8 mars, Collectif des madres, Decolonial EU, De-Colonizer, Estafette 4 Palestine, Flavors of Resistance, Flyers for Palestine, Front2Mères, Getting The Voice Out, JOC Bruxelles, JOC Liège, La Voix des Sans-Papiers, Le Comité des Femmes Sans Papiers, Le DK, Le Steki, Liege Occupation Free, Mémoire Coloniale, Mouvement Citoyen Palestine, Palettes of Palestine, ODSI (One Democtaric State Initiative), PCP (Popular Committee for Palestine), Queef, Rise & Resist Festival, OSVP (Outils solidaire contre les violences policières), Samidoun Brussels, Unitedscreen4palestine, Zin TV.
The schedule promises a wide array of activities and programs — food, t-shirts, and other merchandise will be available on-site, all of which helps to sustain and support the self-organized, independent Festival and allows it to continue its work each year.
The festival begins on Friday, June 6 at 7 pm in a collaboration with United Screens for Palestine at Pianofabriek (Rue du Fort 35, Saint-Gilles 1060), featuring two film screenings and discussions:
- First, a screening of “The Dupes” (1972), adapted from Ghassan Kanafani’s “Men in the Sun,” and a discussion with Reem Shilleh
- Second, a screening of “Behind the Lines”, a film featuring the art and resistance of 14 artists from Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and from the Favelas in Brazil, with the presence of co-director Fanny Arnulf (directed with Youssef Haider)
On Saturday, June 7, from 10 am to 3 pm, the Resistance Festival begins the day at the sports ground on rue Vlogaert, Saint-Gilles where Gaza Stars and the Festival are co-organizing a football tournament for youth in the community.
The football tournament will be followed from 3 pm to 10 pm with the main program at place Bethléem in Saint-Gilles.
The full program includes:
- Theater performance by Palestinian youth from Gaza
- Slam poetry with Asma Soulista
- Poetry by Malika, Hala, Ihssane and Abu Tareq
- Militant village with henna, many activist organizations in Brussels, calligraphy, solidarity food and lemonade
- Children’s space and program
- Palestinian music by Husein Abu Shammala
- Dabkeh by Raj’een
- Musical performances and concerts by:
- Ryaam
- Osloob
- Achille
- Témoin
- DJ set by Hishek Bishek and other invitees
- Performance by DJ Hussam
On Sunday, June 8, the program will continue beginning at 10:30 am at DK (Rue de Danmark 7B, Saint-Gilles)
From 10:30 am to 3 pm, the Festival will co-host, with the School of the Revolution, a school and learning collaboration bringing together collectives across Brussels resisting police violence and state repression, organizing against fascism, struggling against the targeting of migrants and building solidarity with Palestine.
The day will also feature a letter-writing workshop in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners in Zionist and international prisons.
This will be followed from 3 pm to 8:30 pm by a series of political panels:
- 3 pm to 4:30 pm Palestinians and non-Palestinians, Jews and non-Jews: all together against zionism
- 5 pm to 6:30 pm: Organizing for boycott as a revolutionary movement
- 7 pm to 8:30 pm Anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles and the coalition at the heart of the empire
Palestinian writer and academic Rima Najjar wrote about the Festival:
“Because the Palestinian cause draws parallels with anti-colonial, anti-apartheid, and anti-imperialist movements (e.g., South Africa, Vietnam, Algeria, Latin America and Indigenous movements), it resonates with oppressed peoples worldwide.
Israel’s occupation of Palestine is now linked to the global arms trade, especially U.S. weapons exports and surveillance technology like the Israeli Pegasus spyware tested on Palestinians…With all the above said, why is it then that, as historian Nur Masalha put it, “Many of us Palestinians do not realize the extent to which the Palestinian cause has become the center of the global conscience”?
Perhaps many don’t because the “global conscience” remains confined to grass-roots networks that continue to be brutally suppressed for their activism by Western powers and their allies. This suppression is rooted in a combination of geopolitical interests, historical alliances, and ideological frameworks that prioritize Israel over Palestinian existence and universal justice.”
Join us on June 6-8 for a weekend of solidarity, resistance and collective struggle against imperialism and Zionism in Brussels!
Discover more from Samidoun: Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network
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