Party for Palestine

He's also involved in real estate speculation on the developed land: it's five million euros a square metre, still ravaged. But will it be "clean"? ... Everything seems to be happening as if Israel, tired of being an example, of being untouchable, of exploiting what it believes it has become: the inquisitorial and vengeful saint, had decided to let itself be coldly judged. Thanks to a skilful but predictable metamorphosis, here it is as it had been preparing for so long: an execrable temporal power, colonizing as one hardly dares, now the Definitive Instance it owes to its long curse as much as to its election."

Jean Genet, "Four Hours in Chatila".



What would Jean Genet, who was one of the first Europeans to enter the Chatila camp in September 1982, say today after the massacre of 3,000 Palestinians in the refugee camps in Lebanon? What would he say about the murder of 54,000 Gazans to date, including 15,000 children, and doubtless many more, from cold, hunger, malnutrition and disease? Slow death is as inexorable as lightning death"?

What would he say about the Trumpesque "Middle East Riviera" project, less delirious than revealing, ethnic cleansing completed in a real estate predation operation, he who already denounced the "real estate battles" behind the desire to "drive out and destroy the Palestinians" from the Sabra and Chatila camps, in order to raze them to the ground to "rebuild on this very flat cemetery", at the gates of Beirut...

What would he say of the Zionist techno-nation that Israel has become, of the giant military training zone that the Gaza Strip has become for Tsahal and its artificial intelligence tools, drones and robot dogs, he who already considered Palestine to have been destroyed by the crescendist ideology of capitalist development: "In the camps, after twenty years of exile, the refugees dreamed of their Palestine, but no one dared to know or say that Israel had ravaged it from top to bottom, that instead of a barley field there was a bank, a power station instead of a creeping vine. "

Finally, what would he say about the enduring cowardice of European countries, the "unconditional support" given by almost the entire French political class to the criminal actions of a far-right government, during months of inane propaganda, or the liberticidal measures feverishly imposed to stifle, here, any popular support for the Palestinian struggle?

We're not going to make the dead speak on June 21st, not even him, who defended the dead so well, and who is more alive than many of our corrupt contemporaries, who have a corpse in their mouth. We'll be celebrating to honor the living and the dead, and to defend the "Urgence Palestine" collective, threatened with dissolution by the sinister Retailleau. We'll write our names in Arabic, listen to the sunny poetry of Mahmoud Darwich or Marwan Makhoul, eat Palestinian food, look at the drawings and paintings of Gazan refugee artist Mohammed Emrany (who'll also be bringing photos of other murdered Gazan artists), and dance to the lively music of Raoul Ficel, who's volunteering his time from Bordeaux. All proceeds from the day's activities will be donated to fund the legal challenge to the dissolution of Urgence Palestine:
https://don.npa-lanticapitaliste.org/stop-dissolution-urgence-palestine/

Here's the program!

3pm: Calligraphy workshop with Elias MASSOUD - Textile workshop with Michèle DALLON, from Jardin délirant.

4pm: Poetry by Elias MASSOUD in Arabic (including "Identity" by Mahmoud DARWICH, the great Palestinian poet) and "Petite fille", lasting around 20 minutes in Arabic and French.

4:30pm: Palestinian poetry by Théâtre D'or, 30-minute performance by a collective of actors and musicians.
[Poems by Ziad Medhouk, Fidaa Ziyad, Marwan Makhoul, Basman Aldirawi, Sami Al Qâsim, Najwan Darwich, Rashid Hussein, Refaat Alareer, Amira Hamdane, Doha Al Khahlout, Amina Abu Safat, Ashraf Fayat, Youssef Al- Quidra, Maya Abu Al-Hayyat, Marwa Attiya with Bruno Jouhet, Cécile Duval, Marie Lopes, Valérie Lavollé (text and cello), Alain Bruhl (text, Jew's harp, sax pet, bells)].

5pm: Vernissage: works by Palestinian artist Mohammed EMRANY from Gaza and exhibition on murdered Gazan artists.

6:00 pm: Screening of BLAST documentary film "Netanyahu: portrait d'un criminel de guerre" + debate with Françoise MARTIN of the LDH.

8pm: Meal (Palestinian keftas made by Elias MASSOUD + Moroccan tabbouleh à la Jean Genet).

9pm: Concert by Raoul Ficel
https://www.raoulficel.com/

"I think it's important to divide the blues into two categories: the blues of the living and the blues of the dead. Well, I refuse to play the blues of the dead; Robert Johnson didn't want to either." Otis Taylor

Crowned the best guitarist of all time, Robert Johnson was such a bon vivant that he died of it. How did he die? Mystery and a blue ball of chewing gum. That's the question Raoul Ficel ponders in one of his latest albums, "Qui a tué Robert Johnson?" (Who Killed Robert Johnson?), produced with the help of his friend and mentor, the exceptional guitarist Lenny Lafargue.

A road companion to some of the biggest names in blues (Louisiana Red, Chicago's Big Time Sarah, Tommy Mac Cracken), Raoul is still very much alive, despite nearly 30 years of plying the blues crossroads. Author, composer, performer, guitarist and harmonica player, his warm, stripped-down style sets him apart in the galaxy of bluesmen who venture to sing in French. Far from the glitz and business, the cardboard crooners and second-hand Cadillacs peddlers, it's humanity and sincerity that come through in his performance and lyrics. Simple stories that remind us that virtuosity isn't everything in music, that it also requires a good dose of heart and guts. And Raoul Ficel has so much sincere passion, it's not for sale...
at the age of fifteen. Let's hear it!