PHILIPPINES: OBR 2024 launch in November 2023 was dedicated entirely to Gaza / Palestine, with a march and protest. This was followed up by a huge march to call for a ceasefire. The main February and March Rising Freedom Festival included portions on“ Free Palestine”. Additional actions included a Palestine poetry event with artists, an awareness and solidarity support campaign for the refugees from Gaza who have fled to the Philippines( with Filipino spouses and Palestinian / Filipino children); several online events on the Palestine situation and history; creation of Filipino- Palestine solidarity networks; meeting with the South African ambassador on solidarity for their actions at the ICJ. Planned for July and August are 2 theatre events performed by Filipino artists:
“ The Revolution’ s Promise” – a Playtext reading project celebrating and building Palestinian cultural resistance( an initiative of The Freedom Theatre in Jenin)
“ The Gaza Monologues”( created by Ashtar Theatre Palestine in Ramallah – our former OBR Palestine coordinators)
INDONESIA:
The main focus of their Rise for Freedom theme was Freedom for the Malayan( indigenous) people of Indonesia, and also freedom for the Palestinian people. Most of the Malayan people are Muslim and feel very close to the Palestine culture.
NEPAL: Live art creation during the Freedom Festival rising event, with the theme“ No One is Free Until Everyone Is Free”.
SRI LANKA: Local artists created murals in the towns highlighting the children of Gaza and war.
HONG KONG: Planned actions are underway for solidarity actions – they have had to try and navigate and circumvent current restrictions of the HK government.
INDIA: OBR India’ s primary solidarity actions on Gaza were in the form of signature campaigns, webinars, demanding an immediate ceasefire and raising funds.
PORTUGAL: Created an OBR /“ Break The Chain” film dedicated to Gaza. Also held a vigil for Gaza.
“ At demonstrations, we listened to Aida( from Palestine) and Yuval( from Israel), both members of our Tamera community and both in the inner peace work of what it means to be Palestinian and Israeli living together, sharing one land. If we want peace in the outer, we need to face our inner war, our reactions, hate, judgements and moments of blaming each other. Both of them spoke about their people and how it has had an impact on them, both are traumatized and both are able to see the other with eyes of compassion – as much as they are able to. What an experience and information to witness this. People were amazed and moved, happy and touched to tears, but also sad as this is still the exception.” – Janka Striffler( OBR Portugal coordinator)
NAMIBIA: Free Palestine and ceasefire were mentioned during speeches at the rising festival.
ESWATINI: OBR Eswatini delivered a petition to the US embassy calling for an intervention to stop the war.
ZIMBABWE: Planning a solidarity virtual rising event with the Zimbabwe women’ s movement in support of the women of Gaza. Clearance for events is difficult to obtain so they are choosing to do the solidarity event online.
SOUTH AFRICA: They dedicated their local poems in their Mother tongue( for security purposes and social media) to the children of Gaza, inside the former torture chambers of the Castle( what was once the Slave Castle) as a strong symbol. They also painted the Lavander Hill and Steenberg Mosque with Palestine flags in the middle of the night as the City of Cape Town, DA lead Law enforcement have been painting over the Palestine flags and been issuing fines to those who have painted Palestinian flags. So for security reasons, they chose to do the painting in the early hours of the morning.
SERBIA: Street actions are being planned on Afghanistan, Gaza, Syria and Congo on International Immigrants Day on June 20.