The Nakba is not a memory; it is a continuous uprooting

HRS Youth Committee members supported the “Freedom for Palestinian people” march organised in London on the 75th anniversary of NAKBA.

ASIYE BETUL

Saturday May 13th saw dozens of protests take place across the UK, to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Nakba. 10,000 people were marching in central London showing their stance against the illegal and inhumane oppression and displacement of Palestinians. People of all ages marched together from the BBC Portland Place building to Parliament square, as proof that the younger generation will not forget and forgive the 75 years of humanity crimes and injustices.

 The Nakba, is a period of ethnic cleansing, colonialism, and dispossession that started with the establishment of Israel in 1948. It resulted in the expulsion of more than 750,000 Palestinians and the disappearance of more than 500 towns and villages off the map.

Nakba, meaning calamity and catastrophe, signalling the destructiveness of the date, was remembered by Palestinians and thousands of people on its 75th anniversary.

Last Saturday, my friends from Human Rights Solidarity and I joined the march and showed our solidarity with the Palestinian people. Alongside protesters, we chanted calling for the end of the apartheid and occupation, and claimed that Palestine will be free ‘from the river to the sea’.

 We were reminded of Mahmoud Darwish’s words ‘The Nakba is not a memory; it is a continuous uprooting’.

 Nakba is the present. Nakba is now the Nakba, with all the significance that using the word in Arabic entails, rather than just another disaster like so many others. It is an act of resistance against the ongoing displacement of Palestinians, and proof of the existence and validity of the Palestinian territory and its people. History, more than ever, serves as resistance and the reminder of the catastrophe brought with the formation of a nation.

 End Apartheid. Free Palestine.