Palestine will live forever: all of us or none of us

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This piece is a commission created for a specific event. I am ever grateful to be a part of such a monumental occasion and hope that this drawing fully honors the spirit and power of the gathering. 

Here is a walkthrough of its meanings and influences:

Palestine Will Live Forever: ALL OF US OR NONE OF US

WHY: We live under a manufactured cloud of forced division. My artistic practice is based on one ideology: one love, one blood, one people. This ideology is rooted in solidarity activated by truth, action, education, and love for humanity. 

Lettering + Invisible Indigo

Lettering is not something I generally do. However, the organizers expressed a need to have Palestine Will Live Forever: All OF US OR NONE OF US spelled out. So I took a shot at creating my own lettering which is what you see reflected in this piece.

Initially the letters were painted with indigo ink. In some historical texts dating back to the 1800’s, indigo was seen as the first color of Palestine. Natural indigo was used heavily to dye Palestinian clothing. It was also used on the inside and outside of houses, and there is information on large indigo production spaces in the Jordan valley. I also read that indigo in some cases was used to mark the high status of folks. 

As far as the art, Indigo has been calling to me since I started this piece. Although indigo only made it into the word Palestine, which would eventually turn black, indigo is another part of the global connective tissue in this piece as it enjoys pride of place around the world. Indigo can be found in places like  Mali, Japan, Mexico, and on.

The Keffiyeh Olive Leaf Pattern

Behind the letters of the outermost circle is an olive leaf pattern that was inspired by the Palestinian Keffiyeh. Completing this pattern took me to the point of exhaustion. I felt it important to complete given the significance of olive trees in Palestinian culture. The significance of the olive trees is too deep for this writeup. In this piece, the leaves are designed to signify the identity, connection to the land, and right to livelihood and prosperity of the Palestinian people on their own land. Every leaf was a meditation on the human rights, and the right to life of our Palestinian family members. 

Making the olive leaves was also important to me because one of my village aunties went to Palestine to check on her olive trees one month before October 7th. Those closest to her did not know if she was going to make it back to her family and community in the US. She did. 

The Fists

The fists inside the circle are inspired by the brothas who did the Black Power/Human Rights Salute at the Olympics. During their medal ceremony in the Olympic Stadium in Mexico City in 1968, Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their black gloved fists in the air during the Star-Spangled Banner. They also wore human rights badges.  Smith would later say in his book that this salute was about human rights. 

Both brothas got their medals shoeless, but wearing black socks to represent black poverty. One wore a black scarf to represent black pride. One showed solidarity with blue-collar workers by unzipping his tracksuit top, and wore a necklace representing those who were lynched, killed, hung and tarred, thrown off the side of boats in the middle passage. The athletes also expressed concern over the lack of housing and education for black kids. 

They recognized that the Black American struggle was a global human rights struggle.

Also, while working on this piece, at my brother’s behest, I watched the movie: Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat.

It was incredible, and proper to watch given the spirit of this piece and the inclusion on the Congolese flag. Long live Patrice Lumumba and the original Congolese people! Felt good adding color to the fists with the spirit of Lumumba in mind. The documentary provided me with an important education on the struggle for the Congo, and how Black American musicians were used as puppets on the continent by the American Government during that time. 

The United Farmworkers Symbol + Coast Salish Honoring

The stone gray eagle in the middle of the circle was inspired by the United Farmworkers symbol. Dolores Huerta of Mexican heritage, and Larry Itliong of Filipino heritage are two of many recognizable figures in the united farmworkers movement. With everything our farm working immigrant family members are going through in the present day, I wanted to honor them. 

The patterns in the eagle were inspired by the art of the Coast Salish people, specifically the art of the Duwamish (The first people of Seattle). The Duwamish tribe is STILL unrecognized federally. 

The Monarch Butterfly:

The monarch butterfly is a well known symbol for the immigrant community coming to the US from Mexico. The monarch is known to travel back and forth from Mexico to the US, and from the US to Mexico. As a species, the monarch are facing extinction. There have been many conservation efforts centralized at the Mexico/US border, which adds another layer of meaning to the butterfly. The butterfly is also used as a symbol for our Dreamers/ DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) recipients. 

The Transgender Symbol: 

In the top middle of the monarch's back is the symbol for transgender people. This is the combined symbol used to represent androgyne or transgender people. The struggle for transgender rights is the foundation for the entire spectrum of LGBTQIA2S+ struggle. Transness, two spiritness, etc… is ancestral and dates back millennia. Visibility into the modern day struggle for human rights in this community was played out/is being played out most visibly in the lives of leaders like Sylvia Rivera, Marsha P Johnson, Miss Major, Dee Dee Chamblee, Kylar Broadus, Bambi Salcedo, and the countless unnamed.  

This symbol found its way into the center of this piece, which I believe speaks to the importance of the community, and the fact that transness is central to the human experience.

The Watermelon:

I really wanted the watermelon in here as it is a dual symbol for Black and Palestinian people.

Watermelons were the primary source of income for Black people post enslavement. They grew fast, not a lot of land needed, and you could travel and sell them. So my people were out here really making a coin off growing and harvesting watermelons.

We made something out of nothing. We saw everything in what other people treated as nothing. 

Unfortunately for us, so many whites hate when we do well on our own. So white people turned watermelons into something dirty, they made it a slur, went on generations-long campaigns to associate black people and watermelon with inferiority, and all but ruined our ability to sell the fruit.

For my Palestinian family members, even when the occupiers would not allow them to display their own flag, the watermelon elevated their protests and their displays of pride. Its red, white, green, and black colors mirror the Palestinian flag. It is now a global symbol for Palestinian liberation. 

The Flags:

There are four flags included in this piece. There are flags for Palestine + Congo + Sudan + The ANC (African National Congress representing the original South African people) 

I WAS going to put the flag of South Africa in because of their status as comrades to the Palestinian people. But Afrikkkaners getting moved to the US for free and claiming they are being brutalized in South Africa got in the way of that flags inclusion. The art truly did not want the South African flag in. It is the only flag I never started. 

According to a recent Aljazeera article, data show that 73 percent of privately owned land in South Africa is white-owned despite white people comprising about 7 percent of the population.

But these people are being flown here at taxpayer expense based on the lie that they are oppressed. WILD.

So… we honor the originals, and the flag they flew while fighting the colonizers. While working on this piece, I watched AMANDLA! A Revolution in Four Part Harmony. In it, the original South Africans used the African National Congress Flag as a symbol of their freedom struggle. The flag was also adopted by Nelson Mandela after his release from prison. This flag more accurately symbolizes the battle against the white government of Apartheid. 

Over time, I am trying to learn more about what is going on in Sudan. It is a struggle that receives the least amount of attention amongst those represented in this piece. I too am guilty of that lack of attention. If you are reading this, and you can direct me toward credible and accessible info on the struggle in Sudan, please message me. 

THE KEY:

The key came in at the end of this piece. The art didn't tell me where to put it until the piece was almost finished. Many years ago, while working on another piece called Flowers for Palestine, I came across the work of Palestinian artist Sliman Mansour. 

In his work ‘Jerusalem Heritage’ there is a small key. I remain fascinated by this key. As I studied his work and the work of other Palestinian artists, I became more aware of the right of return significance of this key. 

The art placed the key behind the word ALL. I find this important because in every community represented in this piece, there is an element of struggle related to place, related to land, and one's ability to be sustained from the land. This is not to take away from the centrality of the key in Palestinian culture specifically. It is only to acknowledge the cross cultural similarities of the indigenous struggle against colonizers. For Black Americans, it is also to acknowledge that while we are a people seen as without a claim to a land, the land we are on is soaked in our blood and scarred by our struggle for place. 

The symbol of the key found its rightful place in this piece. In between Palestine and Forever. Backed by the olive leaves. 

Tatreez: 

Tatreez is a traditional form of Palestinian embroidery. I had hoped to put tatreez inspired art throughout this piece, but the piece itself did not agree. However, the characters seen in between the Congolese flag and the ANC flag are inspired by Palestinian tatreez patterns. I wanted these characters to feel almost as if they were words that are traveling. For whatever reason, to me they feel like they are laying down traveling through a tunnel. 

Fatima Hassouneh:

Close to the start of this piece, Fatima Hassouneh and her family were murdered in an Israeli airstrike targeting their home in Gaza. Fatima was a brilliant photographer, photojournalist, and youth advocate who was in a film just selected by Cannes before her assissination. Fatima and her family sat on my mind during the entire time I worked on this piece. I thought about what she said everyday. “If I die, I want a loud death.” 

When she was killed, I wanted the center of this piece to resemble a camera lens. Although that was not meant to be, the outer circles of this piece will always remind me of camera lens circles, with the center of the piece being what is seen through the lens. 

Long live Fatima Hassouneh and her family.