Upcoming events

On Wednesday, 16 October (17:30-19:00), professor Roschanack Shaery will give a public lecture (UAntwerpen, Stadscampus, R.008):

Contextualising October 7th. Islamic Resistance in the Arab East

Zooming in on the history of the Israeli occupation of Lebanese territories, its several wars on Lebanon, and the history of Israeli state assassination of Palestinian and Lebanese resistance leaders, this talk will discuss how Palestinian and Lebanese resistance against Israeli military occupation time and again is presented as terrorism. This talk will show the entanglement of white supremacy and Islamophobia in the success of Zionist settler colonialism in Palestine. The two factors have been decisive in delegitimizing any collaborative resistance front against Israeli military and settler violence. The phrase ‘the heroes of one group are the terrorists for the other group’ may seem at first sight to allow equally valid narratives to coexist and appear as if the choice is merely about individual political inclinations. At a closer look, however, this liberal view glosses over the massive power inequalities between the state of Israel and the resistance axis, inequalities that dictate the terms of whose history is actually considered objective and legitimate. Without necessarily endorsing Islamist ideologies, this talk will emphasize how Europe’s support of Israel is, at the core, more about race than about its guilt over its historical injustices to the Jewish communities. The Israeli state's open and casual use of genocidal language and the systematic ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and its repeated destruction of Lebanon follows patterns of earlier European colonial and settler colonial practices. The massive support of ordinary citizens around the world for the plight of Palestinians and their call to decolonize Palestine needs, therefore, to be viewed as a call to finally dismantle the structures of white supremacy that provoke violent resistance around the world.

Roschanack Shaery has been involved in research on political violence in Lebanon for over two decades. In particular, she has done ethnographic fieldwork among the Shiite community, zooming in on Islamist movements and Lebanese victims of Israeli and Syrian military occupation. Her PhD dissertation and subsequent book Shi’ite Lebanon. Transnational Religion and the Making of National Identities was published by Columbia University Press in 2008 (reprinted 2011). She has a forthcoming book called Caring Violence. Syrian Authoritarianism and Enforced Disappearances in Lebanon (1976-2005).

Participation is free and registration is not required.

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