For our fourth episode, Scholasticide and solidarity: The mind and memory of Gaza, we welcome University of Toronto professor, researcher and host of the Liberation Pedagogy Podcast, Dr. Chandni Desai and Mount Royal University professor, author and policy analyst with Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network, Dr. Muhannad Ayyash.
Discussing the months-long Israeli military onslaught waged on Palestinians, we focus on the destruction of Gaza’s educational systems, educators and students, the role of scholasticide within genocide and the global solidarity mobilizing across university and college campuses to counter it.
Reflecting on scholasticide and the meaning of education for the Palestinian people Desai says:
“Scholasticide is the systemic destruction of the Palestinian education system, which has been ongoing since the 1948 Nakba…But in this genocide ..we are seeing a complete annihilation of the education system in Gaza…When a people have lost everything, including the land …education has become a really important pillar, not just in terms of preserving a national identity across fragmented borders and fragmented geographies, but also as a central pillar of knowledge that gets passed on in various ways that contribute to the cause for liberation. ”
Speaking on the rise of global pro-Palestinian solidarity, including on university campuses, Ayyash says:
“One of the reasons that the Palestinian struggle speaks to so many people around the world, why we see so many people going on their streets in all corners of the globe, speaking up for Palestine .. [i]t’s precisely because the Palestinian struggle makes clear… a yearning for a liberation from the age of colonial modernity that has brought far too much death and destruction for too many around the world …In this moment, the Palestinian struggle is becoming a political consciousness. .. a way for people to make sense of their own systems of oppression.. that oppress and repress their own aspirations for freedom in their own context..”
About the guests:
Dr. Muhannad Ayyash was born and raised in Silwan, Al-Quds, before immigrating to Canada where he is professor of Sociology at Mount Royal University. He is also a policy analyst at Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network. He is the author of A Hermeneutics of Violence, has co-edited two books, and is the author of multiple journal articles, book chapters, and opinion pieces.
Dr. Chandni Desai is an assistant professor in the Critical Studies of Equity and Solidarity at the University of Toronto. Her areas of research, teaching and supervision include: comparative settler colonialisms, Palestine studies, the politics of the Middle East, state violence (carceral politics, militarism and war), cultures of resistance and revolution, political economy, third world internationalism, solidarity, memory, oral history, anti-racism and feminism. She is working on her first book Revolutionary Circuits of Liberation: The Radical Tradition of Palestinian Resistance Culture and Internationalism. Desai also hosts the Liberation Pedagogy Podcast.
Check out Scholars Against the War on Palestine and SAWP’s International Actions Against Scholasticide Toolkit.
Transcript of this episode can be accessed at georgebrown.ca/TommyDouglasInstitute or here.
Image: Chandni Desai, Muhannad Ayyash / Used with permission.
Music: Ang Kahora. Lynne, Bjorn. Rights Purchased.
Intro Voices: Ashley Booth (Podcast Announcer); Bob Luker (Tommy); Grace Taruc-Almeda, Karin Maier and Jim Cheung (Street Voices)
Courage My Friends Podcast Organizing Committee: Chandra Budhu, Ashley Booth, Resh Budhu.
Produced by: Resh Budhu, Tommy Douglas Institute and Breanne Doyle, rabble.ca.
Host: Resh Budhu.
