City march commemorates Nakba in Wollongong
About 100 people attended
Wollongong was among cities around the world that hosted Nakba commemorations on Friday.
Nakba means “catastrophe” in Arabic. It refers to the mass displacement and dispossession of Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, a conflict that followed the 1947 UN resolution partitioning Palestine into two states.
About 100 people gathered at the amphitheatre in Crown Street Mall at 6pm on Friday, May 15.
A member of Wollongong Friends of Palestine, Safaa Rayan, spoke to guests about her family’s survival of the Nakba.
"On Monday, my father turned 80. So Nakba Day, or his birthday, is actually a really hard day for him, because it’s a constant reminder of his second birthday, and what his family lost that day,” she said.
"I rang my father this morning to say, 'Baba, you always tell us 80 years, so this is the last Nakba anniversary. On your next birthday, I swear Baba, on your next birthday, we will be in Palestine. We will be in a free Palestine.'
“I do pray, and I do hope, that on his 81st birthday we can walk to Bab al-Amud... in Jerusalem... and see a free Palestine. Because with every passing year you hold onto that hope and then you watch your children grow, and you pray that you are not your parents, 80 and praying for a free Palestine."
Safaa extended her support to all people fighting for human rights.
"When we say 'Free Palestine', we don't mean just Palestinians. We mean indigenous rights. We mean the rights of those who are most vulnerable in our communities... We mean a free Congo, we mean a free Sudan, we mean a free Haiti, and every country and every people that is under this capitalist, imperialist system that’s stealing and fracking their natural resources for somebody else’s gain,” she said.
“As a community, we can no longer say that my life is more worthy than your life because the colour of your skin does not match mine. But today we say free Palestine. Always was, always will be.”
The crowd marched down Crown Street and Marine Drive, finishing at the lighthouse at Flagstaff Hill.
Wollongong Friends of Palestine organised the rally and the group's next event will be a picket line at Bisalloy Steel from 14-17 June.
