My name is Adnan Barq. I’m 25 and I’m a Palestinian from the Old City of Jerusalem. I’m a journalist and also make films. The Durban Conference was happening when I was one year old. It’s fascinating to see how many people got together back then to try and shape justice in the world but, […] The post Durban Conference 25 years on. Adnan Barq: “The very fact of existing is a fight in itself” appeared first on Amnesty International .
The third UN Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance in 2001 was a watershed moment for millions across the world. Seven thousand people representing governments and civil society from 170 countries gathered in Durban, South Africa. Led by countries in the Global South, the Durban Conference challenged the idea that human rights is a Western concept, recognized the historical roots of contemporary forms of racism and called on States to repair the lasting consequences of colonialism and slavery. While the US and Israel withdrew from the Conference, the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action were adopted, both of which became foundational documents for the global fight against racism. But with racism still very much alive, we spoke with activists about their struggles and hopes.
My name is Adnan Barq. I’m 25 and I’m a Palestinian from the Old City of Jerusalem. I’m a journalist and also make films.
The Durban Conference was happening when I was one year old. It’s fascinating to see how many people got together back then to try and shape justice in the world but, without being too pessimistic, I see that things are getting worse. This is happening everywhere, not just in Palestine.
I got involved in activism when I was at university, out of a refusal to normalize the occupation. I see how my people survive by being forced to normalize Israeli practices of injustice, apartheid, and colonialism but I just could not do that.
I studied in Bethlehem University, so I always had to cross a checkpoint back and forth to Jerusalem. That was my biggest exposure to the Israeli occupation’s physical system of oppression, even though I also experienced it as a child, when Israeli settlers wanted to take over the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
As an adult, I realized that being able to speak English was a privilege and a tool, so I had a responsibility to send a message to the world about Palestine, to expose the occupation. That was in 2020.
Israel’s apartheid is sophisticated. The Israeli soldiers on the walls of Jerusalem are trained to racially profile people. Whenever they see a Palestinian, you are dragged from the street out of hundreds of white settlers, and you are taken to the wall and you get fully body inspected while your ID says that your house is in that specific street.
I think the Israeli occupation forces are aiming to create a coercive environment that makes us want to leave because they cannot easily uproot us. But all these practices make us embrace ourselves even more. They reject our existence and this makes us scream louder.
I wish that it was only the government that was the problem so we could fight for change. But the genocide, the call to erase Palestinians is now fully embedded in public discourse.
This is what systemic racism is. It’s coming from everywhere.
Just the fact of existing is a fight in itself. Me walking from my house to a school, me walking from my house to a café with friends, is in fact resisting the occupation by existing.
I don’t want to accept this but I also don’t want to spend all my life fighting. It’s exhausting.
As Palestinians, we are destined to be like lawyers for our cause.
I felt the need to just show the world how my people are living and social media was a good tool for that. The fact that our cause is universal. The people who are harassing my friends are from Florida, from Norway, London, Germany. The ones who stop me at checkpoints are like some random Spanish Jewish people who just live in Israel.
When the violence escalated in 2021, I had to fully engage in activism. I had the opportunity to travel to Belgium and to other countries and met many parliamentarians to explain what we are going through.
I try to keep what I show as real as I can, showing what we are suffering but also that I have a full life. I have family, friends and I also go to parties, we study, we enjoy basic activities and at the same time can talk about why and how we are resisting the occupation. Showing that there are many sides to our lives as Palestinians is very important to me and it is part of the fight.
It’s difficult to understand the pain that otherness and racial profiling causes unless you experience it. The best thing we can do is unite and keep calling out all these systems that are built to victimize us. We need to organize, meet, plan and seek solutions and not rely on empty slogans that are only good for a sticker. We need more than that.
In this era, we are privileged to have access to each other digitally, but this kind of connection is not enough, we need to turn it into something real. Social media is an important tool, but not the end game.
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The post Durban Conference 25 years on. Adnan Barq: “The very fact of existing is a fight in itself” appeared first on Amnesty International.
