I am a woman from Palestine, where women’s voices are meant to be buried under the rubble. Yet, despite the different forms of blockade, I stand today to make the voices of Palestinian women – women peasants, revolutionaries, martyrs and captives – heard.
I am the witness to the ongoing crime – to women losing their children under bombardment, to women forcibly displaced out of their homes, to a whole generation being denied its right to live in dignity. We experience a genocide, starvation and displacement. However, we hold to, look after, protect and defend our land.
In Palestine, women are the icons of the revolution, resurrection and revival. Women are the ones who protect their besieged homes, and their land, under threat of dispossession and settlement. Women are the custodians of collective memory. They are not mere victims, rather targets that can negatively impact future generations.
I stand before you today, in the name of rural women who make up the backbone of food sovereignty worldwide. At the same time, nonetheless, they are among the most vulnerable to marginalization and exploitation. Rural women cultivate their land, preserve the seeds, tend to livestock, and assume the responsibility of feeding nations. However, they are denied the fundamental rights to land, water and seeds, while enduring patriarchal, social and economic violence. They pay the highest price for poverty, displacement and armed conflicts.
In the Arab region, the suffering by rural women is aggravated by satellite political and economic regimes, fettered by agreements that give place the interest of major corporations over people’s interests. Women in rural Arab counties are deprived of resources, and threatened by climate change and drought. They face neo-liberal agrarian policies that strip them of their rights to land, work and a dignified life. That being said, they stand strong still, fighting for life to continue, to protect the land and defend people’s right to food and sovereignty.
The situation is my country, occupied Palestine, is even harsher; rural Palestinian women face occupation, settlement and land confiscation on top of daily violence perpetrated by the Zionist colonial war machine.
The genocide that Palestinians endure today lay bare the cruel imperialism and complicity of colonial and global capitalist powers. Over 73,000 martyrs and missing persons so far, including 19,000 children, and over 13,000 women have been murdered under shelling, starvation and siege. Palestinian women do not only lose their homes and land, but also their sons and daughters. They are denied the right to life. Yet they continue the struggle for land, for life, for a free and dignified future.
In La Via Campesina, we reaffirm that our struggle is global. We acknowledge that our fight against the Zionist occupation in Palestine is the same one against savage capitalism, and multinational companies that steal peasants’ seeds, wreck the environment and enslave people.
Our struggle against genocide in Palestine is one against patriarchal, backward and imperialist regimes that oppress women everywhere.
My message to you and all women, youth and men of the world who embrace just causes is: do not leave Palestine alone; our struggle is not local- it is the fight of every human being who rejects injustice. We are steadfast and we fight. We dream of unbreakable freedom.
Together we must defend and protect rural women against all forms of violence and exploitation, ensuring their right to land, seeds, and water. We will continue global solidarity with the Palestinian people, viewing its struggle as indivisible of people’s fight against imperialism. We will fight the patriarchal and capitalist regime that marginalizes women, oppresses peasants and destroys the environment, and stand up to monopolistic companies that steal peasants’ seeds, impose devastating industrial agriculture at the expense of popular agriculture and food sovereignty. Through these actions, we will build a global struggle movement anchored in solidarity and shared experiences and expertise, that places food sovereignty at the heart of the fight for social justice, and national and feminist liberation.
Comrades, our struggle is one for life in the face of death policies. From here, we raise our voice: no food sovereignty without a free Palestine, no social justice without free rural women, no future for our people under the control of imperialism, capitalism and backwardness. Globalize the struggle, globalize the hope!
Samah Abunina integra a Via Campesina na Palestina. O texto é uma edição de seu discurso durante a Assembleia de Mulheres do 3º Fórum Global Nyéléni.
