Reclaiming Walls and Imaginaries. Palestine Solidarity and Anti-Colonial Aesthetic Practices in Tunisia

Israel’s devastating retaliation to the Hamas-led attack on 7 October 2023 has sparked the re-emergence of a global wave of solidarity with Palestine. In Tunisia, besides conventional demonstrations, support for Palestine and anti-colonial discourses are articulated through different aesthetic practices of resistance. Drawing from local, regional, and international symbolic repertoires, they reaffirm the necessity of self-representation and question Western cultural hegemony.

• The support of the United States and most European governments for the current Israeli war on Gaza has renewed widespread outrage and disillusionment regarding Western countries’ purported liberal-democratic values. Moreover, it has powerfully repositioned the liberation of Palestine as a central cause in the movement for global justice and emancipation.

• In Tunisia, in the midst of a severe economic crisis and the exacerbation of authoritarian rule and political repression, activists and artists have been mobilising in support of Palestine. They demand the end of the ongoing genocide and denounce Western complicity in it.

• Current pro-Palestine activism confirms the relevance of culture in the articulation of political discourses, in the recomposition of political and (trans)national identities, as well as in raising awareness and mobilising people.

• Anti-colonial aesthetics and discourses consistently inform Tunisian left-wing (especially youth) cultural activism for Palestine, as exemplified by the targeting of Western cultural institutions with graffiti, boycott campaigns against their events, or the revival of militant Third World cinema.

Context

Recent pro-Palestine mobilisations in Tunisia restate the relevance of symbolic repertoires in the articulation of political discourses and in the reactivation of social movements. Culture and representation are once again sites of contention. Through aesthetic action in the public space, activists and artists are denouncing cultural colonialism and subalternity.

English version: Reclaiming Walls and Imaginaries. Palestine Solidarity and Anti-Colonial Aesthetic Practices in Tunisia

French version: Réappropriation des murs et des imaginaires. Solidarité avec la Palestine et pratiques esthétiques anticoloniales en Tunisie

Arabic version: استرداد الجدران والمخيلات. التضامن مع فلسطين والممارسات الجمالية المناهضة للاستعمار في تونس