This post is also available in: العربية (Arabic)
On Thursday October 19, 2023, I walked in the streets of Algiers alongside fellow feminists and hundreds of Algerian men and women. I chanted “Free, free Palestine” and “Occupation no more” until my voice went hoarse because it is my conviction that fighting colonialism is an integral part of my, of our feminism. Because I believe that human rights, women’s rights, and children’s rights—that freedoms, equality, and everything we women fight for cannot be achieved under the weight of colonialism. And because I do not compromise when it comes to freedom, because freedom is what we breathe, you and I.
Because I am conscious of the atrocities currently being committed. Because I know what two lines are parallel and will never meet. Because I was, and still am angry, because I reject injustice and believe in what’s right, because I am alive, because there are things on this earth worth living for.
For all these reasons, I joined the march to say: Stop killing our people in Gaza and Palestine, to clearly state that what is happening is genocide and ethnic cleansing, that these are war crimes that not only need to stop but whose perpetrators need to be held accountable. Because I, we, are still paying the price of the war and occupation that lasted 132 years in my, in our country, in Algeria. Because I am outraged at those who did not stand against the theft of a land that used to be called Palestine. That is still called Palestine.
One of the banners raised by Algerian feminists in the rage and solidarity march of October 19 read, in large letters: NO MATTER HOW HARD YOU TRY TO CHANGE A MAP’S GEOGRAPHY, YOU CANNOT CHANGE HISTORY.
On another: THE PALESTINIAN CAUSE IS A JUST CAUSE. THIS IS COLONIALISM, OCCUPATION, CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY.
On a third one: WHOEVER CANNOT DISMANTLE INJUSTICE MUST TELL ABOUT IT.
Today, Algerian feminists have added their voices to those of the people standing in solidarity with Palestine amid all the oppression it continues to be subjected to. Feminist movements are making every effort to get this world to act and to get countries to stop adopting policies of silence, neglect, and oppression, in an attempt to lift immunity from the entity that calls itself “Israel,” an entity that plunders, deprives, lies, and tortures in front of the whole world and with the complicity of the spineless.
Today, I firmly believe that it is never possible to defend women’s rights, to believe in equality, and to commit to continuing the struggle without denouncing and rejecting all forms of injustice, colonialism, war crimes, and crimes against humanity that we have been witnessing through the thousands of images reaching us from Palestine, many of which social networking sites have blocked us from viewing due to the sheer horror contained within them. They warn us against viewing the content because the scenes hidden behind the warning are too violent for the human mind to accept.
More than ever, I am convinced that our feminism intersects deeply with many forms of injustice, with racism, with war, with colonialism, and it forces us to stand against the Zionist occupation, against the systems which have normalized relations with this occupation, against double standards, against imperialist media, against those who said no to a ceasefire, against those who kill civilians, bomb schools, hospitals, and temples, and cut off internet and communication networks for more than two million people… against the theft of a land that used to be called Palestine and that is still called Palestine.
Today, I am certain that standing together as Algerian feminists in solidarity with the Palestinian cause translates our strong belief in the right to life, in the full meaning and scope of human rights, in equal rights for all. It conveys our belief that Palestine is a state living under the burden of colonialism. And these convictions mean we stand firmly against this colonialism, firmly against the idea that the executioner and the victim are on an equal footing, firmly against the idea that Palestine will be defeated.
I chanted alongside my friends from May Day Square to Martyrs’ Square: Free, free Palestine, Occupation no more because I am certain of the need to establish the state of Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital, to liberate Palestine so that Palestinian men and women can live freely and independently in their land with sovereignty and prosperity. Peace must be achieved in Palestine, unlike the type of peace depicted by the Zionist occupation and those who have normalized with it. A peace without colonialism, without occupation.
To me, feminism is what makes us now feel the need to say No, enough, stop, it’s over, leave Palestine alone. Feminism forces us to rise up alongside the people of the world who forced their way out of the grip of brutal colonial powers that killed children, women, men, the elderly, that killed fetuses in their mothers’ wombs, killed dreams and hopes and lives. Colonialism leaves behind and continues to produce blood, pain, tears, and corpses. The only descriptor for colonialism is destruction.
I fully believe that what is present in Palestine today and what was once present in Algeria is a full-fledged colonialism. We tasted its torture and cruelty and we still hate it. It was what dispersed and separated us, what plundered and stole from us, what raped and violently abused us.
What is happening in Palestine today would even draw tears from stones and rocks. What is happening goes against the meaning of humanity and freedom and is contrary to all the terminology that “major democracies” like to applaud themselves for. These are the “democracies” that keep shoving treaties and international laws and regulations down our throats—“democracies” that are now contributing to the harshest, bloodiest picture that haunts us everywhere we go: in our homes, the headquarters of our associations, our workplaces, on our means of transportation… everywhere, as we prepare for bed, in our sleep.
A film that made me swim in the depths of 21st-century Gaza and Algeria of 193 years ago
A few days ago, some female journalist friends and colleagues and I watched a documentary called Beyond the Frontlines: Tales of Resistance and Resilience from Palestine by French director Alexandra Dols, thanks to a link that is accessible on Vimeo until October 31. It was not just the images and words within it that touched me—I found myself deeply immersed in a film that narrates the bitterness of colonialism in Palestine and the psychological and socio-social effects it has on women, children, and men. It depicts the extent of the psychological devastation and the magnitude of the catastrophe people are subjected to because of colonialism.
Every second, every minute of its footage communicates what I am experiencing today because of brutal colonialism. Through it, I found the part of myself that I was looking for. It answered questions that I had and continue to have about the way colonialism obliterates our identity, the illiteracy it leaves behind, the violent society it leaves within us, the injustice and vileness whose poisonous fruits the men and women of my country are still reaping, the devastation of massacres and holocausts, the feeling of oppression and disgust I get every time I remember that the skulls of the women and men who lived through the cruelty of colonialism are displayed today in the Musée de l’Homme in Paris, France.
I will continue to wear these two hats: the hat of the journalist who writes and reports on news of injustice and tyranny, and the hat of the activist who fights to end the occupation because she believes that there can be no rights on a colonized land, a land where human rights are violated, women are tortured, and freedoms are suppressed.
French director of Beyond the Frontlines Alexandra Dols says in the introduction to the documentary that in 2007, she was finishing up the filming of a documentary about the commitment that Algerian women displayed during the War of Independence (1954-1962), and it was in this context that she discovered articles written by the Palestinian psychologist Samah Jabr about the psychological effects of oppression and occupation so as to work toward ending the invisible occupation of the mind.
This introduction really spoke to me. As I watched and listened to what Dols had documented, I remembered what I felt as I got ready with fellow feminists to go first to the Embassy of Palestine in Algiers (Tuesday October 17, 2023) to denounce what is happening in Gaza and second when the solidarity march for Palestine was authorized. I also remembered what I felt when I saw the news on my smartphone that a solidarity march for Palestine was banned in the capital (Friday October 13, 2023). The documentary took me back about 69 years to 1954, then 193 years to the year 1830 when France occupied Algeria.
Lost in this time capsule, I thought of the women of my country who were raped, tortured, robbed of their freedom, burned, had their children killed in front of them. As I swam back in time I saw the same being perpetrated in Gaza and Palestine, where women are killed, and burned, and tortured, and have their children killed in front of them or even inside them. I saw a woman checking her neighbor’s for tomatoes for her sweet, pale-skinned, curly-haired son, her son who was killed by raids. I saw a little girl crying and saying, “That’s my mother. I recognize her from her hair. Let me see her!” I saw an Algerian woman named Djamila Bouhired being tortured by ten French men during the War of Independence. I saw women being arrested in order to be raped by colonial military squads. I was comparing and told myself that there is no use for comparison. What is happening in Palestine, what is happening in Gaza is the same thing that happened in Algeria: brutal colonialism and occupation.
The documentary ended, but I am still knee-deep in the past, in what my country went through. I go back and forth between what is happening in Palestine and what happened in Algeria. It was self-evident that we Algerian feminists would mobilize for Palestine. No doubt, no question about it.
It is time for fate and destiny to sway in Palestine’s favor
Today I see that Palestine is colonized just like Algeria was. And because colonialism leaves behind the entire lexicon of the violence and destruction it brings, and because Palestinian women are more vulnerable to sexual and physical violence, homelessness, and a lack of healthcare and relief for safe births and abortions, because their children are more likely to be killed due to their inability to defend themselves, because they are more affected by the lack of nutrition and healthcare, I will continue to wear these two hats: the hat of the journalist who writes and reports on news of injustice and tyranny, and the hat of the human rights activist who fights to end the occupation because she believes that there can be no rights on a colonized land, a land where human rights are violated, women are tortured, and freedoms are suppressed.
And because in the face of this there was and still is a steadfast resistance, determination, and persistence, a struggle for equal rights, and a belief in sovereignty and freedom, I believe that fate and destiny must be with Palestine, with freedom for Palestine, with the people of Palestine, with the women and children of Palestine, with the land of Palestine.