Say No to Apartheid: demo against Seret film festival
Sunday, September 1st, 2019
We call on all civil society, artists and institutions to contest and boycott Seret Film Festival – an apartheid whitewashing event which is sponsored by the Israeli embassy and the Ministry of Aliyah. Hosting a festival with Israeli state sponsorship shows a striking disregard for international law and willingness to participate in the dehumanization of the Palestinian people. In line with the BDS guidelines for cultural boycott, as called for by the Palestinian civil society, we reject all events sponsored by Apartheid.
“Films through Israel’s eyes”, as the festival is advertised, is not only directly sponsored by Israeli government institutions but is an active act of silencing 60% of the population living under Israeli apartheid. While Palestinians make up the majority of the population under apartheid [over 1.5M as subjugated second class citizens; 4.5M under military occupation; 6M in forced exile], there is only one Palestinian name in the entire list of directors, producers, writers and actors in any of the films that will be screened in the Seret Film Festival. Curating cultural events that purposely ignore indigenous stories in a time when indigenous people are the most threatened is an outrageous form of white-washing and cultural supremacy, as well as an open rejection of their human rights. That is truly seeing films through Israel’s apartheid eyes!
The Seret festival gala event will begin at 7pm and we will also be attending – speaking and singing up against the complicity in Israeli crimes. Join us!
“Slavery broke the world in half, it broke it in every way. It broke Europe. It made them into something else, it made them slave masters, it made them crazy. You can’t do that for hundreds of years and it not take a toll. They had to dehumanize, not just the slaves but themselves”.
Toni Morrison
