Burak Bir
19 January 2025•Update: 23 January 2025
- 'Solidarity is important. It's important that we all work together, come together on the issues that affect us,' says Kehinde Andrews
LONDON
What has been happening in the Gaza Strip is a genocide that is a part of Western imperialism, according to a Black British academic and author who specializes in Black studies.
In the face of decades-long Israeli occupation and oppression, the Palestine issue has long been embraced by Black rights activists, writers, and academics as a part of colonialism and the Black struggle for freedom.
"But we know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians," Nelson Mandela, the first Black president of South Africa, said at the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people in 1997.
Twenty-seven years have passed since those iconic words were spoken. Palestinian people have again faced an Israeli onslaught that has left nearly 47,000 fatalities since Oct. 7, 2023.
For Andrews, the first Black Studies professor in the UK, "Palestine has always been the Black issue.” He noted that thinking about Black studies to understand white supremacy and colonialism is a big part of it.
"I work mostly on African and Caribbean (studies), but what you're seeing in Palestine is an extension of it," he said in an interview with Anadolu.
Andrews also led the establishment of the first Black Studies program in Europe at the UK's Birmingham City University.
"What you're seeing with the genocidal impulses of Israel, we saw on the African continent, we've seen in Australia, we've seen in America, etc.," he said.
Andrews explained that it is why the Black radical tradition has always said it is imperative to support the Palestinian people because the same process is taking place in other parts of the world.
He added: "The only real difference now ... you've got pictures of it, you've got video of it and you can actually see that genocide taking place."
It requires global action
About the colonial history of the US as a "perfect example" to understand what Palestinian people have been facing, Andrews asserted that the colonizers moved in, took the land, and faced resistance.
"They say, 'We want to take more land,' so what do they do? They kill everyone. That is Australia, the same way South America, the same way," he said.
"The only real difference in Palestine, because we have cameras, because we have video."
Those examples show that there is not something different or separate in Palestine, but "part of a process of Western imperialism," said Andrews.
"Solidarity is important. It's important that we all work together, come together on the issues that affect us," he noted, pointing out that it is a global problem that requires global action.
"Black and brown people die by the second because of Western imperialism. And so, we have to have a global struggle that really unites all of us against our common oppressors," he added.
Israel launched a genocidal war on Gaza that has killed nearly 47,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023.
On Sunday, a ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement between Israel and Hamas took effect at 11.15 a.m. local time (0915GMT).
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants in November 2024 for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on Gaza.
