Organised by the SRC’s Autonomous Collective Against Racism, Students for Palestine and Students for BDS, the event opposed the Israeli occupation of Palestine and expressed global solidarity with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
On 30 March, the USyd SRC’s Autonomous Collective Against Racism (ACAR) held a rally and speak-out to stand in solidarity with Palestine and protest against the Israeli occupation. It was the 47th anniversary of Land Day, a commemoration of the Palestinian resistance fighting against the apartheid regime.
Land Day began on March 30th 1976, when Israeli police shot and killed six Palestinian civilians who were part of a protest against the Israeli government’s expropriation of Palestinian land. Since then, March 30th has been commemorated by Palestinians as Land Day.
The protest was chaired by Jasmine Al-Rawi, USyd SRC Global Solidarity Officer, and Wiradjuri student activist Ethan Lyons. Attendees rallied outside Fisher Library to call for an end to Israel’s settler-colonialism in historic Palestine.
Ethan Floyd, Wiradjuri Wailwan activist, spoke on the solidarity between Indigenous Australians and Palestinians who were both subject to the brutalities of colonialism.
“I believe that Indigenous sovereignty is the future. I believe that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander laws and lore can and must provide a pathway forward,” said Floyd.
“Palestinians living within diaspora communities in Australia, — more so than Palestinians in Palestinian — must help envision and support our future of a decolonised Australia, moving beyond the notion of reciprocal solidarity.”
Read the article by Andy Park in Honi Soit.