Jason Cohen, a City College of New York student who was active in the Gaza Solidarity Encampment there, gave this talk May 16 at the Workers World Party New York City branch meeting. Several weeks have passed since the CCNY administration ordered the brutal destruction of the Gaza Solidarity Enca

In South Africa, Palestine Solidarity Encampments were set up on May 14 and May 16 at the University of Witwatersrand and the University of Cape Town. They exemplify the deep connection between South Africa’s people in their historical struggle against apartheid and the struggle of the Palestinians.

An extremely powerful picture came out of the encampment at the University of Cape Town. On the Sarah Baartman Memorial Steps activists unrolled a huge list of all the Palestinians who have been murdered by [neocolonial] aggression since October 7.

For me this was so powerful, as it showed a deeper connection between the Palestinian struggle and the African liberation struggle that superseded shared experiences of apartheid. Due to the fact that the Sarah Baartman memorial stairs was chosen as the venue, this action, in my eyes, connected the African people’s struggle against European colonialism and abject dehumanization to the struggle of Palestinians.

Sarah Baartman was an Indigenous Khoikhoi woman who lived in the Cape during both the Dutch and British colonial periods. She was kidnapped by colonialists and paraded around Europe as part of a “freak show.” Baartman became an object of study by various European “intellectuals” and “scientists” as they sought to make theoretical justifications for their “civilizational orders,” which were built upon chattel slavery, Indigenous genocide and the colonization of Africa and Asia. Baartman, an African woman, was stripped of her humanity by European colonizers.

Such white supremacist discourses remain salient to this day, as we can clearly see during this genocide against Palestinians. A connection has been forged between peoples who are dehumanized under the hegemonic world capitalist order, people whose deaths mean nothing to the media and bourgeoisie, people who must struggle, people who will win their dignity and the right to control their national futures.

This powerful show of solidarity by the students at University of Cape Town must energize us and call on us to deepen the struggles for Palestinian liberation and against [neo]imperialism and the world capitalist order. As long as the Palestinian people and the oppressed peoples of the world refuse to lay down their weapons or end their struggles, we must be right there beside them as comrades in arms.