Picture by : André Querry
Before reading our communiqué, we encourage you to read this letter written by Palestinian queers, which says all this much better than we do. We also invite organizationsd and collectives to share and sign it : https://queersinpalestine.noblogs.org/
P!nk Bloc declaration of solidarity with the Palestinian resistance
The P!nk Bloc hereby affirms its solidarity with the Palestinian people, who have been struggling for over 75 years against Israeli genocide, siege, occupation and colonization. We denounce and call on the entire queer community and its allies to fight actively against the genocide perpetrated against the Palestinians. This solidarity means mobilizing in a concrete struggle that must be waged here too, against Canada's support for Israel.
As queers and revolutionaries, we consider it our duty to explicitly oppose the pinkwashing used by Israel to justify ethnic cleansing and apartheid. Moreover, we affirm that the liberation of the Palestinian people and of all colonized communities is not only linked to our own, but also to that of all communities experiencing the oppression, exploitation and violence of the capitalist-imperialist-patriarchal system. We call on queer organizations and public figures to end their complicit silence, which benefits Israeli pinkwashing, and to take an active part in the struggle in solidarity with the Palestinian people.
The liberation of oppressed peoples cannot be achieved without a broad international solidarity struggle against all oppressors. This is why we have mobilized in recent weeks, and will continue to do so, for the liberation of Palestine, against the ongoing genocide, and against colonialism and imperialism.
WAR ON PINKWASHING
Depuis des années, Israël mène une campagne internationale d’instrumentalisation des enjeux LGBTQ+ visant à se présenter comme le bastion du progressisme occidental, face à un « Orient » (concept européen et raciste) qui serait réactionnaire et arriéré. Nous rejetons ce narratif raciste et mensonger et condamnons la propagande israélienne largement endossée par les médias occidentaux. Nous refusons la diabolisation des communautés musulman·es et arabes, et l’instrumentalisation des réalités queers comme prétexte à celle-ci.
It is in Israel, moreover, that a minister in the ruling coalition defines himself as a homophobic fascist (source).
It is in Israel that the intelligence services blackmail LGBTQ+ Palestinians with threats of forced public outings to obtain false confessions and information aimed at persecuting the Palestinian resistance (source).
It is Israel that is killing an entire people, including its LGBTQ+ population, with bombs and chemical weapons (source).
It is Israel that is responsible for the Nakba and the displacement of millions of refugees through arms and ethnic cleansing, including all people belonging to gender and sexuality minorities (
It's not in Israel that LGBTQ+ battalions are fighting fascism, but in Western Kurdistan (source).
What's more, it was the Palestinian Authority on the West Bank that first decriminalized homosexuality in Palestine, before the State of Israel saw it as a way of gaining sympathy in the West.
We would also like to reiterate that the thousands of queer Palestinians who have always been born, loved, lived and died in Palestine are currently being murdered by the State of Israel.
NO PEOPLE DESERVES TO PAY FOR THE ACTIONS OF ITS GOVERNMENTS
As Western states and elites continue to build their project of eliminating trans and queer communities, the instrumentalization of queer realities by LGBTQ+ organizations and individuals in justifying the genocide of the Palestinian people is unacceptable and inexcusable. The ease with which the most privileged parts of our communities justify the massacre of innocent people is unacceptable.
Don't they understand that they too will find themselves at the end of a barrel if they don't take a stand against the international alliance of reactionary forces?
Do they know of the links between the Netanyahu clan and the Western far right?
You who are complicit in Israel's genocidal propaganda, would you accept that Nashville should be bombed with white phosphorus since the government of Tennessee made it illegal to express gender differences? Do you consider the lives of Palestinians to be less valuable than those of Americans?
OUR SOLIDARITY IS NOT CONDITIONAL.
Even if all Palestinians were to declare their opposition to our communities with one voice, and the thousands of Palestinian queers were to disappear (both of which are completely inconceivable), our solidarity would not disappear. Our opposition to genocide is not the result of calculations for our own gain. Our defense of human life and dignity is not conditional on our affinity with those who defend it. We will never accept a discourse that says the best thing for our community is slaughter and occupation.
Our solidarity with our oppressed siblings should not be conditional on individual interests.
We express our solidarity with all those who fight the apartheid system from within the territories directly controlled by Israel, especially the Arab communities living there.
We refuse to serve as a rhetorical pawn for genocide. Our struggle is also the struggle of Palestine!
FROM TURTLE ISLAND TO PALESTINE, OCCUPATION IS A CRIME !
Because we are queers and revolutionaries, our duty is to oppose all massacres and genocides, here and elsewhere. The P!nk bloc struggles on the stolen land where thousands of cultures and nations have lived, and which still survive and fight today. Indigenous people who have since time immemorial held complex conceptions of gender that go beyond the simple binary vision imposed by European imperialist societies.
Because we support the Palestinian people's right to self-determination, it is our duty to affirm that the right to resistance, by whatever means necessary, must also govern the social and political organization of Tio'tià:ke, and of so-called Canada.
In our struggles, we recognize the links between imperialist, patriarchal and capitalist systems. These systems, which organize populations to maximize the profit and power of capitalist elites, converge in a single global empire of exploitation. The imperialist-capitalist-patriarchal system is behind white supremacy, the conquest, occupation and colonization of territories, the imposition of the cisheteronormative model and the exploitation of land, resources and individuals.
Ce que la résistance palestinienne combat, c’est le système colonial de peuplement, extension de la colonisation britannique dans la région. C’est le même système combattu ici à Tio’tia:ke par les résistances des premiers peuples (dont les Kanien’kehá:ka). C’est le même projet colonial et fasciste qui est combattu par les camarades du KCK et des SDF au Rojava, présentement victimes de leur propre campagne de nettoyage ethnique par un état de l’OTAN.
All these aspects feed off each other, reinforce each other and depend on each other. We need to fight them all. Our struggles will never have an impact if they don't embrace internationalism, intersectionality and solidarity among the oppressed. So, we say again, there can be no queer liberation without the liberation of Palestine! Without the destruction of the colonial system!
No one is free as long as some people live under oppression and violence, as long as states murder and imprison!
Long live the international struggle for universal liberation!
War on imperialism!
Long live a free Palestine!