PALESTINIAN RESISTANCE EXPLAINED

Throughout history, African liberation movements have fought for justice and freedom from imperialism. Leaders like Captain Thomas Sankara and Patrice Lumumba paid with their lives but their revolutionary spirit lived on. This clip will help you understand why.

Palestine author, journalist and activist Ghassan Kanafani describes the reasoning behind Palestinian resistance against Zionist colonisation, displacement, land theft, and massacres. He’s being interviewed by Australian reporter Richard Carleton in Beirut, in 1970. Three years before, Kanafani had joined the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and served as its spokesman. In 1972, he and his 17-year-old niece, Lamees, were killed by a car bomb in Beirut, with Israeli Foreign Intelligence Service (Mossad) claiming the attack. However, they could not stop his legacy inspiring future Palestinian liberation movements and literature.

Born in Acre, Palestine, Kanafani’s family was displaced by the 1948 ‘Nakba’ and resettled in Damascus, Syria. There, Kanafani taught Palestinian refugee children and began crafting short stories to help them grasp their reality. He studied Arabic Literature at the University of Damascus but was expelled due to his involvement with the Movement of Arab Nationalists. He later moved to Kuwait and then Beirut.

His 1963 novel, ‘Men in the Sun’, was highly praised along with ‘A World that is Not Ours’. This outlook changed to active resistance after the 1967 Six-Day War.

From an African perspective, what Kanafani discusses in this short video, is very much relatable. Despite achieving independence across the continent in the 1950s and 60s many nations were simply client states to former colonial powers. They had independent flags but dependent economies, militaries, and politics. Leaders such as Thomas Sankara and Patrice Lumumba rose to fight for true independence. Like Ghassan Kanafani, they were assassinated but left a legacy that continued to inspire.