For months now the war in Gaza has captivated and moved masses online. And whilst it may seem that this issue has only recently popped up and gained social media clout, this struggle for freedom has been occurring for more than 75 years since the British separated Palestine in 1948 in order to give displaced Jewish people land. But as one can piece together, this then caused land that was previously occupied by Palestinians who had lived there for years to be slowly but surely pushed and kicked out of their land.

This then creates a power imbalance, but not in the way we would think. Having two Western powers, Britain and the U.S both come together to create this state with their colonial influence has shaped the way most of how the global world approaches politics and ethics, I feel that this skewed the power imbalance we are now seeing being challenged and has resulted in the mass destruction that is currently unfolding before our eyes. 

Now what does this have to do with solidarity?

Because of this wave of activism in an almost absolute manner many other struggles in different places in the world. For example Congo. That shocked me because for so long I had been living next to this country, our neighbour and heard and sometimes even seen the effects of the conflicts plaguing Congo and how mining industries from big corporations took advantage of said conflict. And more specifically how it affected people and how our countries responded to that.

I felt powerless, then, when I suddenly saw people on the formerly known bird app trending “free Palestine, free Congo, free Tigray, free Hawaii” adding various countries and places felt like a flip switch in my head. What about this situation in Gaza stirred us all to look at the world we live in more scrupulously? To criticise the media outlets and what is shown to us and the narratives that often come with it. 

In a podcast interview with journalists who have been vocal about this crisis in Palestine Marc Owen Jones - Associate Professor of Middle East Studies, at Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Doha talks about why this occurs, “A key point, aspect of dehumanisation is also marginalisation. If you can make a people invisible, you can make their suffering disappear.” For most media outlets that are Western-driven, the way information is disseminated and shared means you only get what they want you to know, filtering and censoring what people hear. For example, I have tried to find the article's statistics of Hamas- short for Islamic Resistance Movement and whilst it is hard to say that any loss of life is justified when Palestinians in Gaza have lost over 4.600 people and over 16 million homes destroyed compared to 1,400 Israelis in a one-time “attack” and 200 hundred hostages that were “taken” who were not harmed and as of now have been released due to the ceasefire, things feel sickening. 

Like being the only one awake while everyone is sleeping peacefully. Bell Hooks talks about the oppositional gaze using the example of how Emmett Till’s look was weaponized to fit the notion and concept of what it means when a black boy looks at a white person and in this case a white woman rather than looking at the truth. They were putting this racialised lens on a young boy they knew nothing about, all because he was black. 

Now, back to solidarity, how do we disrupt this obscuring of the lives of the people who live in these places of conflict I asked people to respond to what solidarity means and what it could mean or do to change the way we approach these very real conflicts and what they think their answer is:

“We must always care about other people and the safety of other people. So it also would always matter because it is a great way to form bonds with people and always feeling the need to stand up for an oppressed group of people
will eventually lead to the progression of society. I think a lot of Western cultures are very individualistic and that has caused big problems with the way they view helping people. Think about how big the homelessness issue is in places like the UK, America, etc.”

Our generation, which would technically be considered Gen-Z, has been faced with a very depressing economic landscape and a decline in a lot of countries in the quality of life. And I think that we have come to cherish and value knowing what's happening and information in an age where an oversaturation of raw data takes precedence like during BLM and COVID-19. 

“And while like during the BLM process in 2020, the worst thing people did was the fucking black square. That was not solidarity, that was patronising.”

I was curious to know, what they thought solidarity meant to them and how would it act as a remedial solution:

“You don't form solidarity with somebody because you feel bad for them. You form solidarity of the kindness of your heart. Pity is a lot of the time with pity you look down on somebody. That's why you're helping them. It was solidarity. You see someone as your equal. I feel like another thing about solidarity is not patronising. You're offering people kindness and energy because you relate to their struggles. You understand why they want help. Again, you don't look down on them.”

In every struggle and movement there has been a call to equality but what does equality mean to a society whose scales have been tipped so heavily on one side? Umkhonto weSizwe, a resistance group formed in 1961 as an armed wing of the ANC ( African National Congress) in South Africa during apartheid, was considered a threat and labelled most party members terrorists. Exiling anyone who associated themselves with the wing and also imprisoning and brutalising those who didn’t cooperate. This was not done by the Afrikaner government because of the “violent” acts of Umkhonto weSizwe but as a form of subjugation and control. So by creating communities where we centre our thoughts and beliefs and keep on sharing information, we share awareness and that someone cares through our engagement of these topics. 

Photo courtesy of SA History Org

So how do we get that power back? How did these groups of people get their power back and how can we help elevate the voices of our fellow human beings?

“Protesting. Community action. I think one of the main things is community action. You can't vote people out. You can’t, voting doesn't, barely does anything. Talking to your MPs and representatives is a very good thing because right now, that's what they did to get them to agree to a ceasefire. Because if they hadn't, we would have kept protesting and kept protesting. It would have shamed and named people.”

We don’t exist in a vacuum, every action we do affects one another and we are somewhat of a global community. As the person I spoke to put it:

“I've seen these videos of these kids crying about their mothers and losing their family. And then I've seen, of course, they've been like, this fucking child becomes a resistance fighter. Don't be fucking surprised.”