“We should should fight endlessly to have our own sovereign flag…and as soon as we have it, we should fight to burn it.” – from the film Alam in the Brisbane Palestinian film festival March 2024.
The Arabic word for flag is al-Alam. And it’s also the subject of a Palestinian film, a sad film, but very insightful too. Alam is about Palestinian kids who are being taught by Israeli teachers. And they hate it. And every time something happens in the community under Israeli occupation, the kids want to raise the Palestinian flag.
This a similar story, a symbol of resistance happened today (9 March 2024) in Magandjin, and that’s Brisbane, in Queensland, where we had the march of 1000 flags. This is our story …
Sometimes one of their comrades would get killed, shot by the Israelis, as is happening now in Gaza and on the West Bank.
They would raise the Palestinian flag and the black flag to commemorate the death of their friends.
Forty-two (42 )years ago, in 1982, there was a massacre in two refugee camps, Palestinian camps in West Beirut, Sabra and Shatila. It had a big effect on people here in Brisbane, even though the number of Palestinian families living here at the time was very small. There was a solidarity action in King George Square, where we gathered together with about a 10 or 13, or whatever, a number of families were there. And we held up a flag that read: Workers solidarity, Arab unity, Palestinian victory that was 42 years ago. And a lot has happened since then. A Palestinian woman, Sameha, spoke strongly at the rally. Ten years later Sameha led the march against Australian government backing the US invasion of Kuwait in the “first Gulf War” (1991).
But yesterday, I took that flag to the to the West End in Brisbane, where as part of the Palestine fair trade as a volunteer, I was banned by the misnamed Goodwill Projects that runs the West End markets on Saturdays there.
There are a lot of people in West End, and we’d had this amazing March of 1000 flags across the Victoria bridge right along Melbourne street up to the corner of Boundary and Vulture street. Boundary Street being the delineation, in the old times, in the wild times, in the genocide times of Australia, where Aboriginal people were not allowed to cross Boundary street after dark. They were held out of their own country. Anyway, during this genocide in Gaza. Some people came up with this idea that we will march and fill the Victoria bridge with 1,000 flags. And we’ll carry the biggest of those flags and drop it over the edge. And then people will gather together, and they’ll take them right up to West End where the Lord Mayor of Brisbane, Adrian Schrinner, had declared that he is on the side of Israel. He lit up the Story Bridge Israeli colors, he made sure that the Brisbane City Council Rapid Response Unit erase every Palestinian flag that was painted on the road in response.
It was first painted outside the West End markets. Then it was painted on the corner of Boundary and Vulture. After consultation with Aboriginal people, not one Aboriginal person that I know of opposed the painting of the Palestinian flag alongside the Aboriginal flag because both is it’s a one struggle, one fight. They’re both the victims of colonialism. Anyway, after an amazing March of unity, people came together and gathered while these brave workers painted the Palestinian flag underneath the big flag that that marchers were holding. And after a period of about 30 minutes, the big flag that had been dropped over the Victoria Street Bridge was pulled back unfurled, only to reveal the magnificent Palestinian flag with its red, black, white and green colors.
Alongside a beautiful Aboriginal flag with its yellow, black colors, the circle of the yellow, the black of the people, the and the red, the blood of the people. There was a great speech given by Sam Watson the fifth Sam Watson that I’ve known now even I’m thinking there’s going to be another one soon, but he carried on the tradition of the Birragubba and Watson, all the people before him the ancestors would be proud that he told the story of the flag alongside the Aboriginal flag. So there we have it.
Let’s go to the to the March of 1000 flags and have a look at what happened and what was said and the chants that were made. And even if I can to get the pictures that are there. Let’s go there. Now if I can on this on this day, and I just want to thank those people who there were a lot of police in present 30 or 40 I don’t know exactly how many. And the police were trying to make sure that nothing untoward was happening. And I’ve got to say that the organizers justice for Palestine Magandjin, they put in a notice of intention, they follow that notice of intention. It’s just a way of, of notifying the authorities that we’re going to do the march ,we gonna assemble, and that we’re going to do it with a specific purpose. And we’re going to be there as a unified group, our marshals.
And I’ve got to say that every single thing that was on that notice of intention was done excepting one thing that wasn’t on it. And that was the right of the Palestinian people to have a flag alongside the Aboriginal flag on the corner of Boundary and Vulture straight in West End. And that is what they did. So the police had their long lens cameras, they had their tablets were magnified by the cameras to try to detect who the brave painters were. But they could not because the people covered themselves in their own flags, and they made sure that there was no line of sight for the police to intervene and charged them with willful damage or graffiti or what other absurd charges they come up with. In the middle of a genocide. They had nothing but the public assembly worked brilliantly. And then we we went off to Bunyapa Park, and that and that was it. It was the March of 1000 flags is the anchor signing off from 4PR voice of the people.
Summary
- Palestinian flag and solidarity action in Brisbane.0:00
- Palestinian community in Brisbane commemorates 1982 massacre.
- Palestine, flags, and genocide in Australia.1:32
- Palestine Fair Trade banned from West End market for showing disappearing Palestine Map Palestine, flying the Palestinian flag, protesting Lord Mayor’s support for Israel.
- Palestinian flag display in Brisbane.2:51
- Palestinian flag painted alongside Aboriginal flag in Brisbane, symbolizing unity against colonialism.
- Organizers of March of 1000 Flags successfully held peaceful protest despite police efforts to stop them.
- Aboriginal rights and solidarity with Palestine.6:51
- Activist paints Palestinian flag at intersection to show solidarity with Palestine and Aboriginal people’s struggle for self-determination.
- Sam Waibura Watson describes encountering homeless Aboriginal people who support the Palestinian flag in Brisbane.
- Aboriginal people stand with Palestine, demanding self-determination and sovereignty.
- Black fella, White Fella cover by Phil Monsour.
Ian Curr
9 March 2024