Date and time:
February 14, 2:00–4:00 PM
Registration link to come!
Description:
It is unfair to ask the colonized to envision an alternative future in the midst of their ongoing genocide. If there was any semblance of justice and fairness in this world, this intensified moment of genocide would not have taken place, the Palestinian refugees from 1948 onwards would have been able to return to their homes and lands, and the brutal Israeli settler colonial occupation of Palestine would have ended long ago. There is nothing fair or just about the suffering of the Palestinians for over 100 years. Throughout their long struggle, Palestinians have offered alternative visions. Though these visions have been marginalized, silenced, and erased, continuing to offer them is necessary because if such a vision does not come from the colonized, then where is it going to come from? Today, the US, Israel, and their allies are pushing through their vision, which is one of continuing genocide and the complete elimination of Palestinian sovereignty, where Palestinians will come to practice self-administration over 5% to 8% of historic Palestine, becoming a minority in the lands between the river and the sea. The overwhelming majority of the world’s states continue to push the vision of a two-state solution along the 1967 borders with Palestinians practicing full rights of self-determination within those borders but without the Palestinian right of return to 1948 lands. For different reasons, neither vision constitutes decolonial liberation. Against both, this presentation offers an alternative vision that is based on what I call, decolonial sovereignties, a form of sovereignty that is layered, shared, and multiplying in its practice and aspirations. The presentation will look at the long struggle, not by looking back, but by looking forward, understanding that the realization of this alternative world is decades ahead. The urgent task at hand is to stop the genocide, not just this specific genocidal operation, but the structure of genocide, which is none other than the structure of Israeli settler colonial sovereignty itself. In doing so, we must simultaneously advance decolonial sovereignties as the alternative and as the project that demands our long term commitment and fidelity.
Dr. Muhannad Ayyash was born and raised in Silwan, Al-Quds, before immigrating to Canada, where he is Professor of Sociology at Mount Royal University. He is also a policy analyst at Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network. He is the author of A Hermeneutics of Violence (UTP, 2019), and his forthcoming book is titled Lordship and Liberation in Palestine-Israel: The Promise of Decolonial Sovereignties. He has published several academic articles on topics such as political violence, Zionism and colonial modernity, settler colonial sovereignty, anti-Palestinian racism, and Palestinian decolonial movements in journals such as the European Journal of International Relations, the European Journal of Social Theory, Distinktion, Critical Sociology, and Middle East Critique. He has co-edited two books, the most recent with Jeremy Wildeman titled, Canada as a Settler Colony on the Question of Palestine. He is also the author of multiple book chapters, and has written opinion pieces for Al-Jazeera, The Baffler, Middle East Eye, Mondoweiss, and The Breach, among others.