I would like to begin by thanking the Hague Group and everyone who has worked to organise this congress. I know it’s taken a lot of hard work to make this happen, and it’s a great honour for me to be here and to take part. I also want to thank my fellow delegates, from whom I’ve already learned so much over the course of our conversations today. I am conscious that I am really here to listen and learn rather than to speak, and I will keep these remarks very brief.
In 1984, a shop worker in a Dublin supermarket, a young woman named Mary Manning, refused to handle the sale of grapefruit from apartheid South Africa. As a result of her refusal, she was suspended from her job, and along with other members of her union, she went on strike. Their strike lasted for nearly three years and finally succeeded in driving the Irish government to implement a complete national ban on imported fruit and vegetables from South Africa.
Was the fall of apartheid brought about by the actions of workers in Europe? Of course not. The struggle for liberation was fought and won by South Africans. But we know that the international pressure brought to bear on the economy of the apartheid state was an important part of that struggle. In solidarity with South Africans, responding to the call of the anti-apartheid movement, workers around the world chose not to be passive onlookers but participants in liberation.
Many beautiful speeches were no doubt given in Ireland condemning the evils of apartheid. But none are remembered now with such national pride and admiration as the courageous actions of those striking workers. Theirs was the example I had in mind in 2021 when I made my own belated decision to join the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement and refuse to work with Israeli organisations complicit in apartheid. Mary Manning and her colleagues had used their work to stand up against injustice. I wanted in my own very limited way to do the same.
I need not tell you all that the systematic destruction of Palestinian life and culture we have witnessed in these last years has permanently changed the course of history and our world. Many of us may feel that, facing the moral abyss of undisguised genocide, there is nothing left that we can usefully say. We feel capable only of letting out an inarticulate cry of horror, a cry that could begin and never end. At times, I think, speaking just for myself, that cry would be more honest than words and speeches. But one of the lessons of this congress is that, even if at times there may be nothing we can say, there is still something we can do.
The struggle for Palestinian liberation is fought and will ultimately be won by Palestinians. One of the questions we have discussed this weekend is how the international community—by which I mean not only nation states, but trade unions, civic society, protest groups and even individuals—can stand in the way of genocide and support Palestinian liberation.
The Hague Group has provided us with a model and a meeting point for that work. The imperial and industrial complexes driving the war on Palestine may be very powerful, but we know that they are not indestructible. Together we can and must identify the weak points in the machinery of genocide and apply all the pressure that we can—through litigation, industrial action, media work, consumer boycotts, direct action, and more.
The struggle for Palestine is also and has always been a struggle for human liberation and for our future on this earth. The adversaries we confront in the Palestinian solidarity movement—the United States and its constellation of client states, including not only Israel but much of Europe; the military-industrial complex; the fossil fuel trade; and corporate finance and tech, among others—are the same forces driving catastrophic climate change and destroying the very basis for our shared survival. By standing in solidarity with Palestine, we are learning how to fight for life on earth.
Many of the delegates here this weekend have faced serious personal and organisational retribution for their work. And I want to take a moment to thank those of our colleagues, especially those working in the global south and most especially our Palestinian comrades, who have persisted in the face of legal persecution, harassment, and state violence. We know that the extent to which resistance is effective can be measured by the degree of official repression that it provokes. And we know how many of the heroes of this movement have been imprisoned for their work. For those of us who are lucky enough to be here today, especially those of us who are not Palestinian, there is always more we can do.
Artists, writers and other public figures in the wealthy global north are now increasingly speaking out against genocide, and even joining protest campaigns and formal boycotts. As one such figure myself, I know that I am often asked questions about the price I have had to pay for trying to show solidarity with Palestine. When I think of what others have sacrificed for this struggle, I cannot help feeling that this is simply the wrong question. I know that by speaking out, we may end up out of favour with the media and indeed perhaps in trouble with the law. But I would like to ask my fellow writers and artists, if I may, not to dwell too exclusively on what we stand to lose. There is another, more important side to the story.
To join in something greater than ourselves, to participate in some small way in a struggle for human liberation, to stand for what we know in our hearts is right and try not to be complicit in what we know is wrong—what else can make our lives endurable in times as dark as these? What else in the face of such horror can give us a reason to go on, to fend off despair, to live with ourselves and to fight for our future, no matter the consequences? For those of us living at the heart of the empire, those of us who have the extraordinary privilege of a public platform, it is not a question of paying a price. On the contrary. We should see and say that it is the honour of our lives to stand with Palestine.
