let's light this candle
Direct (re)Actions from November 2024
Dear Beloved,
What a time - neither the best nor the worst, I believe, but it is certainly a time. I’m writing you from the subliminal edge of wonder and shock.
First, the most recent: Biden seems to have realized this is the last month of his presidential term, and he pardoned his son on December 1st. While about 2,250 people languish on death row and over 1.9 million are incarcerated by the prison industrial complex, Biden has pardoned precisely 26 people - including his son - and a few fucking turkeys. (And no, I refuse to include his toothless cannabis possession pardon as it freed absolutely no one from prison.)
Add insult to injury: The 1994 Crime Bill which has put thousands of people - disproportionately Black and Brown community members - behind bars, written by Joe Biden, is the same law that found Hunter Biden guilty. A law for thee, not me.
In other news regarding our genocidaire-in-chief last week, Biden had a photo opp while leaving a bookstore with his pardoned son, daughter-in-law, and grandson. He visibly held a copy of The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler-Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017 by Palestinian historian Rashid Khalidi.
It’s a book selection “four years too late,” as stated by Khalidi - and it’s painfully true.
Watching the machine’s gears turn is disheartening. Our oppressors makes it terribly easy to give into despair or worse, apathy.
However, it is in times such as this that hope remains our most critical and dangerous weapon, Beloved.
I continue to find hope in daily acts of resistance. Always, I put my faith in people and our collective struggle. I find strength in seeing others’ resiliency and dedication to our shared fight for a better world. We are stronger than they are. It is our unity, our love and dedication to our humanity, which frightens them most.
Welcome to Direct (re)Actions - a new section of seedgiver which shares our Beloveds’ direct actions for liberation and justice. Shared each month, these direct actions are seeds of resistance planted by everyday people. Let’s tend to these seeds and grow a kinder, just world for us all.
“Our revenge will be the laughter of our children.” - Bobby Sands
One. Plymouth, United States Wampanoag Land
Indigenous leaders and comrades gathered at the very foundation of the empire, disrupting the most insidious of settler mythologies, at Plymouth, Massachusetts on the National Day of Mourning.
Since 1970, beginning with Wampanoag leader - now ancestor - Wamsutta when settlers attempted to censor a speech they invited him to make at a Thanksgiving Day celebration, the fourth Thursday of November is a day of protest against pervading American genocide. Organized by the United American Indians of New England (UAINE), hundreds of people gather annually at the very place the so-called pilgrims landed to counter the widespread lie of thanksgiving and friendship.
This year, Kimimilasha James gave a powerful speech that honored her grandfather Wamustta and Wampanoag ancestors. She also shared a powerful call for solidarity:
“All of us are struggling under the oppression of a capitalist system which forces people to make a bitter choice between heating and eating. And we will continue to gather on this hill until we are free from this oppressive system. Until corporations and the U.S. military stop polluting the earth. Until we dismantle the brutal apparatus of mass incarceration.
“We will not stop until the oppression of our LGBTQIA+ and Two Spirit siblings is a thing of the past. Until unhoused people have homes. Until there are no more murdered and missing Indigenous women and other relatives. Until human beings are no longer deported or locked in cages at the U.S. border, despite the fact that no one is illegal on stolen land. Until no person goes hungry or is left to die, because they have little or no access to quality health care. Until insulin is free. Until union busting is a thing of the past.
“We will not stop until the U.S. ends its colonial occupations of Puerto Rico and the sovereign Kingdom of Hawaiʻi. Until the U.S. stops its warmongering worldwide. Until the U.S. ends its interventions in Haiti and repays the billions it stole from the Haitian people. Until the U.S. pays reparations to Black Americans. Until Land Back for Native nations! Until then, the struggle will continue!
“In the spirit of Crazy Horse, in the spirit of Metacom, in the spirit of Geronimo. Above all, to all people who fight and struggle for real justice.
“We are not vanishing. We are not conquered. We are as strong as ever.”
Two. Tangier, Morocco
Note: While the video’s opening image highlights Spain, this is a report on the protests in Tangier, Morocco.
Brave dockworkers in Morocco refused to be complicit in death-company Maersk’s transference of US military supplies to the Zionist entity.
In Tangier, Moroccan dockworkers refused to load the vessel NYSTED MAESK with weapons. This vessel has already received at least 46 US military shipments since October 7, 2023 from MAERSK DENVER for Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, Palestine. Already Spain has refused to allow this vessel to dock in any of its ports, and the death-ship found no friends at the Port of Tangier as Moroccan protesters gathered to hold their own government accountable.
Transport and shipping are the arteries through which imperial forces spread their weapons of terror. No dockworker or seafarer should be placed in the position to serve genocide, apartheid, and other crimes against humanity. BDS calls on all dockworkers, seafarers, and transport unions to stand in solidarity with our comrades at the port of Tangier.
Three. England, United Kingdom
British actionists not only shut down an Elbit weapons factory but also ruined the Israeli drones being manufactured inside. With colorful smoke bombs, this direct action set off sprinklers within the factory and destroyed all its contents.
Elbit Systems makes 85% of the drones bombing Gaza; its UK innovation and manufacturing hub is a key component in the slaughter of Palestinians. Risking their own freedom, our comrades disrupted the very weapons murdering Palestinian children.
While Beloved actionists are arrested for standing against genocide, their community stands with them - calling for their immediate release.
Four. Frankfurt, Germany
Comrades in Frankfurt, Germany spray painted a statue of colonizer Otto von Bismarck with a scarlet “colonizer” brand and toppled the public statue. This comes at the 140-year anniversary of the Berlin Conference where European powers divided up Africa between themselves for the pillaging, organized by Otto von Bismarck at the request of Congo’s butcher King Leopold II of Belgium.
As described by Nigerian writer Dipo Faloyin in his book Africa is Not a Country, the Berlin Conference “devised the General Act of the Berlin Conference – a document that codified the end of Africa’s right to self-determination, and accelerated the rush to gorge on the continent until it was picked clean.” People throughout the African continent continue to recover from the impacts of this damning conference to this day.
An unnamed group of comrades claimed responsibility for removing this monument to colonization. Additionally, they emphasized the harm these statues represent. “To this day there are countless Bismarck monuments and statues in Germany. Even today, he is still remembered positively, although his atrocities are left out.”
Five. New York City, United States
Lenape Land
Comrades shut down Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York. In front of Palestine genocide supporter McDonald’s creepy balloon, you see Beloveds holding up a sign condemning the annual American celebration of genocide. Our community called for the long overdue arms embargo and for land to be returned to Indigenous people across the world.
25 comrades were arrested in this direct action.
Six. Newcastle Harbor, Australia
Awabakal and Worimi Land
Beloved climate activists and Earth defenders came together in the thousands. On kayaks and small boats, protestors sailed out to block a massive coal ship from docking at the world’s largest coal port for the People’s Blockade.
This year’s People Blockade is in direct opposition to the fossil fuel industry and the New South Wales government’s attempts to shut down the protest. The government even broke their own laws to try and prevent the people from completing this direct action, going as far as banning the public from beaches in so-called “exclusion zones.”
“People are dying,” said one protester, “and our government wants to spend their resources shutting down peaceful protesting rather than acting [on the climate crisis].”
In true solidarity, many protesters at the People’s Blockade arrived wearing keffiyehs and chanted for a free Palestine and Lebanon. These Earth defenders understand that climate justice is a shared struggle and is connected to liberation movements across the world.
Seven. Ottawa, Canada
Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation
At a protest for Palestine, rabbis formed a defensive fence with their bodies around Muslim Beloveds so they may safely pray. This act of love and protection defies Zionist propaganda that the colonial occupation of Palestine and continued Israeli aggression throughout the Levant region was ever about religion.
This direct action is one of many protests and demonstrations ongoing in Ottawa right now. As far right Canadian politics flare, the City of Ottawa’s response to peaceful protests against genocide heighten and becomes more violent. Comrades have reported that the Ottawa Police Department has become increasingly aggressive, harassing pro-Palestine protestors while simultaneously shielding Zionist counter protesters.
Now more than ever, we need to protect and love one another while systemic violence and oppression continues assaulting our Beloved communities.
Eight. Ayacucho, Peru
“Water yes! Mining no!”
This is the cry of local community members in Ayacucho as they protest against the private-owned, destructive mining companies. While foreign companies seize their resources, water is poisoned and families suffer the dire climate consequences. In the Peruvian Amazon, 22 major rivers have been contaminated and entire landscapes polluted by gold mining companies.
Throughout Peru, Indigenous communities have spoken out against and protested these extractive mining projects for decades. However, the Peruvian government continues to shell out mining permits and simultaneously incarcerate protesters. If they are not arrested by the state, climate organizers and land defenders are increasingly murdered.
Nine. Istanbul, Türkiye
Another port was stormed by Beloveds after another death ship carrying Zionist weapons arrived in the Port of Haydarpasa in Istanbul. TThis time, protesters made it on to the ship itself.
Together Turkish activists staged a sit-in on the German-owned MV Kathrin. Already rejected by several countries prior to the Port of Haydarpasa , the ship unloaded its weapons of Zionist terror in Alexandria, Egypt - eight shipping containers holding 150,000 kg of RDX explosives for Israeli Military Industries, the munitions production arm of Israel’s largest military company Elbit Systems.
Turkish protesters ensured that the ship did not know peace in their port. This direct action comes shortly after another one at the nearby Ambarli Port.
Ten. Wellington, New Zealand
Aotearoa
Of course, the haka led by MP Hana-Rawhiti Kareariki Maipi-Clarke that woke up the world. I talked about it in “become ungovernable” but this haka cannot be talked about enough. Then came the stunning hikoi.
What direct actions have you and your community taken? Share them in the comments so they can be shared in the next Direct (re)Actions!
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