FREE PALESTINE:
A CONVERGENCE OF VOICES
Background image features Mahmoud Salameh
Mahmoud Salameh is a cartoonist, illustrator and animator. He was born in Damascus, Syria, of Palestinian origin and is now living in Australia. Mahmoud’s animation ‘Freedom is mine’, won Best Animation Film Award at Buddha International Film Festival, India, 2022. His work is published in Arab and Australian newspapers, including Al Safir and The Guardian, he has exhibited in collective and solo shows in Damascus, Beirut, Warrane-Sydney, Naarm-Melbourne and Berlin and his animations shown at national and international film festivals. You can find more of Mahmoud's work at his instagram:
@salameh_art
The editors of Free Palestine: A Convergence of Voices asked Mahmoud Salameh if we could use this work to headline the project.
Free Palestine: A Convergence of Voices was a Writing Through Fences publishing project focused on foregrounding Palestinian literature, art, music and commentary.
It is also an offering we hope will mobilise non-Palestinians to untangle the racist colonial histories we/they have been fed and engage with Palestinian voices and knowledges in order to create an upswell toward liberation.
And, we hope, that this will help to counter the harmful language of Australian media, and that of the ideological West, mobilised in the interests of continuing the settler colonial project.
From the river to the sea, always was, always will be.
2023
Blog
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Nour Melhem
This work speaks about the number of martyrs who sacrificed their souls for the Palestinians. How much this struggling people has endured with this occupation that has continued to destroy them all this time. May God grant victory to our people in Palestine.
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Mahmoud Salameh - Writing Through Fences
Many of us know well how narratives are used to demonise and dehumanise. We also know their material and bodily effects. We follow Palestinian journalist and co-founder of We Are Not Numbers, Ahmed Alnaouq, in calling out the violence of much mainstream media and, we add, publishers, ‘Most of the mainstream media in the West has always been complicit against the Palestinian people… The blood of my family is on their hand’ -@AlnaouqA
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Dana Albattrawi
The losses of precious lives have been heart-wrenching, yet I believe that Gaza will remain beautiful amidst the ashes and smoke.
It's a place filled with cherished memories and loved ones.
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We are not numbers - Marziya Mohammedali
…numbers are impersonal and often numbing. What they don’t convey are the daily personal struggles and triumphs, the tears and the laughter, and the aspirations that are so universal that if it weren’t for the context…
