The South Loop's Chicago Freedom School was filled to capacity June 18 for an impassioned three-hour discussion hosted by the member-led collaborative Gender JUST and fellow transformative organizations Semillas AutÃ"nomas (Seeds of Autonomy) and The Center for Jewish Nonviolence (CJNV) on the subject of Diasporas—people separated from their homeland and scattered across worldwide borders.
The consistent elimination of their humanity in actions such as ethnic cleansing, the theft of their homes, mass incarceration and deportation, even their rights to assemble in cities like Chicago was addressed and connections were made between the horrific experiences of people who are part of a diaspora in countries such as Israel and Mexico and marginalized communities in the United States.
One of the principal questions grappled with during the discussion was the ability for local activists "to strive toward insurgent diasporas that oppose state violence across borders."
Erez Bleicher of CJNV opened with a devastating look at Palestinian life in the West Bank City of Hebron—home to an estimated 250,000 Palestinians who live in a walled-off community littered with invasive checkpoints where violence is part of their day-to-day lives.
According to organizations like CJNV, the Palestinian's human rights are being systematically stripped away in favor of the some 800 Israeli settlers who live there.
On its website, CJNV states that it strives "for a future that that honors the full equality and shared humanity of both Palestinians and Israelis" through "creative, nonviolent activism in the occupied Palestinian territories and Israel with the aim of bringing an end to the occupation."
Bleicher spent five months in Jerusalem during 2015 where he said he became "obsessed with diasporism as an ethical and political framework."
"I was thinking a lot about interconnections between different world communities, diasporic and refugee communities and how we can, together, think through those things in a way that helps us in Chicago and across borders and national boundaries," he said.
"In recent years many Jewish anti-occupation activists have been championing diasporism as a counterpoint to Zionism, nationalism and Occupational Statism," he noted. "They and others have asked us to consider a very central question when thinking about Israel/Palestine which is 'what happens when one diaspora creates another?'"
"One of the most interesting and tragic parts about the situation today is that there's a way in which Palestinians have a closer identity to the Jewish historical experience in terms of dislocation, incarceration, expulsion and exile than any other people," Bleicher added. "Their collective narrative is even centered on the same land."
"Israel doesn't escape diasporism," Bleicher asserted. "Israel likes to think of itself as an autonomous, self-sufficient place but it is materially dependent on the United States and on Jewish communities throughout the world. I think Israeli Jews are as tied to a web of communities across borders as much as anyone."
Bleicher also tied diasporism to the queer experience.
"It means we're going to embrace others, we're going to embrace exile, we're going to embrace homelessness as our home" he said. "What does it mean to be displaced? Kicked out of your house? What does it mean for that to be a part of power and pride?"
"One of the reasons it's so important to me to be involved in bringing Jewish activists from abroad to Israel/Palestine is to embody Jewish ethics that say "I put my future with these people.' We throw in our fates, our destinies with Palestinians," he concluded. "We don't want to live in a walled-off State forever by ourselves unable to trust or be vulnerable with others."
Bleicher was followed by Ezra and Carolena. They are both representatives from Semillas AutÃ"nomas—a collective of individuals centered around solidarity with people struggling with social justice issues in Mexico.
To frame their discussion, Ezra and Carolina wondered about public perceptions of the Mexican war on drugs.
"It's portrayed as this conflict between organized crime and the State," Ezra said. "The war on drugs is an extension of counter-insurgency that has its roots in Colonialism but is more recently filling the vacuum of the Cold War against Communism. It's part of a larger, global Capitalist context that is never addressed but is structurally erased by constantly thinking about it as a conflict against big narco celebrities like [El Chapo] Guzman."
According to Ezra, such a perception has helped the Mexican State displace and imprison many of its people in favor of economic projects such as mining.
"Our interests are in resisting this on every possible front we can engage in," he said.
Translated by Ezra, Carolena said that she was interested in confronting nationalism.
"This is a moment in time where a lot of people find themselves in a community struggle," she noted.
One such struggle recently took place at the Mexican embassy in Chicago. A group of protestors were removed from the building by members of the Chicago Police Department (CPD) even though they were Mexican nationals gathering on Mexican soil.
One organization whose name kept popping up throughout the various examples of state-sanctioned persecution both in Mexico and the West Bank was G4S—a global security company based in the United States.
It recently made headlines when it was discovered that the perpetrator of the June 12 massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla. worked for G4S as a security guard.
