APN | Penang, Malaysia
June 19-20, 2024
Razan Zuayter, APN Chairperson, and Hassan Jaajaa, APN Co-Founder, participated as keynote speakers at the fourth International Festival for the Rights and Struggles of Peoples (IFPRS) held in Penang, Malaysia. The festival launched PCFS's Ground Zero campaign under the slogan "Unity, Resistance, Victory: Celebrating Global People's Struggles Against Imperialist War, Plunder, and Oppression".
During the opening session, Al Jaajaa delivered a speech in which he stated that being key players on the global stage does not necessarily mean being the strongest or largest in number. Rather, it means being the wisest, most mature, and possessing a clear vision and strategy. He emphasized the need for us to confront current challenges and not fall behind in keeping pace with the current global awakening, lest we lose historically rare opportunities and fail to reap the rewards of the significant sacrifices made by our informed, capable, and courageous masses.
He emphasized that the current phase, where major global events intersect, imposes a tremendous responsibility on us, as fundamental changes may reshape the current world order. He pointed out that we represent the peoples of the earth, striving earnestly to achieve social justice, freedom, equality, and dignity for our countries and our ecological systems, seeking a balanced equilibrium that ensures our continued existence.
From her end, Zuayter delivered a speech during the Ground Zero session held on 20 June 2024. In her speech, she stated that settler colonialism, as a recognized goal, aims at the complete destruction and replacement of a country's peoples and their cultures with those of the settlers, in order to establish themselves as legitimate inhabitants. This is achieved through land theft and exploitation via occupation, apartheid, genocide, ecocide, and famine.
Zuayter reviewed the history of Zionist occupation of Palestine highlighting its various stages, and the Palestinian resistance in all of its of forms. This served as inspiration for establishing APN and working towards food sovereignty in Palestine through multiple agricultural projects, the latest of which was the launch of the "Revive Gaza's Farmland" project to resist the war of starvation.
Zuayter concluded her speech with recommendations on the importance of preserving various forms of resistance on all fronts and systematic solidarity among countries of the Global South.