To the Students of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago,

We, the undersigned faculty of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago wish to express our uncompromising solidarity with the Palestinian people in their righteous struggle for self-determination. We join with the Arab League, the African Union, the United Nations, numerous members of U.S. Congress, and faculty and students at hundreds of other institutions of higher learning in doing so. We join with so many in our community who are wracked with a profound sense of grief over the Palestinian and Israeli lives that have been lost, and the staggering number of women, children, and elderly who’ve been critically wounded both in the past week and over the past 75 years. While we are horrified to bear witness to the violence of the Hamas attacks on Israeli settlers, we stand steadfast in our refusal to excuse Zionism as anything other than a political ideology predicated on colonial theft and destruction which serves to imperil Palestinians, Jews, and many others in the region.

We know the apartheid regime upheld within the colonial occupation of Palestinian land is a project of continuous ethnic cleansing, designed to physically remove Palestinians from their land as well as to establish a narrative that Israel’s right to manifest destiny is inherent. This narrative gives Israel free reign to massacre protesters, as it did most recently during the 2018 Great March of Return. And this narrative establishes any attempts to curtail Israeli’s colonial agendas as “anti-semitic.” The Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign has been smeared by western politicians and media as anti-semitic, leading to anti-BDS policies in 37 states and several European countries.

We understand Palestinian homelands are Indigenous land, and in the spirit of the Diversity Action Group, the Anti-Racism Committee (ARC), and the Land Acknowledgement subcommittee of the ARC, in particular, we are deeply disturbed that the School of the Art Institute has not made a formal statement regarding their position on the conflict. The School’s tendency toward neutrality  is most plainly visible in the stalled renaming of the 280 Building [previously the Columbus Building] – three years after the request by a coalition of Indigenous students, faculty, staff, and allies to rename the building for the people whose land it sits on (the Council of the Three Fires). While we build on such legacies of decolonial resistance at SAIC, our commitment to solidarity comes at an urgent moment: 

The situation is dire. We are on the precipice of genocide, expanded war in the region, and the potential for greater catastrophic, international unrest. As we bear witness to a national uptick in anti-Semitic and Islamaphobic attacks, as we console family and friends with deep ties to the region, we know this is an issue that affects all of us. Now is not the time to betray our stated values as an anti-racist institution. 

We condemn settler colonialism in all forms. And we condemn Israel’s policy of settler colonialism in the region, which, in addition disrupting Palestinian lives and communities by regularly displacing families, also puts Israeli citizens at everyday risk. Zionism broadly, and Israel’s most recent attacks on Gaza specifically, hurt both Palestinians and Israelis. Since the Hamas attack on October 7, Hezbollah immediately began firing rockets into Israel from Lebanon, and Israel has retaliated – most recently bombing a UN peacekeeping headquarters in Lebanon. Iran’s foreign minister has also warned Israel to cease fire, or else suffer “a huge earthquake.” And, through news reports documenting the tragedy last week, we all learned of the daily terror experienced by Israelis who live amongst regularly accessed bomb shelters.

What we are witnessing right now in Palestine is a catastrophe. Indeed, many inside and beyond Palestine are rightly concerned that we are witnessing a second Nakba – the name for the campaign of terror unleashed by Zionist militias across the region in 1948, razing over 500 Palestinian villages and forcing more than 750,000 Palestinians off their native lands through mass murder and systemic sexual violence. As of this writing, the UN estimates that over one million Gazans have been displaced in a week of Israeli bombing, in addition to 3,000 dead – 1,030 of which are children. Indeed, as painful as it is to face, the Nakba did not end in 1948.

As Chicagoans, we are grieving the violent death of Wadea Al-Fayoume, the attack on his mother, and the anti-Arab attacks that are sure to follow. As educators, we are horrified by Israel’s current military campaign, war crimes, and ongoing policy of apartheid in a region that includes 2 million children and young people. As artists, we are particularly positioned to access somatic and aesthetic solidarities with people in crisis. At every historic juncture, artists have been among the first to step up. We know how to teach, but also to listen and learn. We cultivate communities of care in the midst of crisis and violence, and we also have the courage to take a stand, even if it’s unpopular, controversial, risky, or even dangerous. As artists and educators we must summon the courage to not look away. Alongside our students, we spend every day solving complex problems and dreaming of other possibilities. Today we envision a future beyond apartheid and genocide. 

As faculty at SAIC, we implore our institution to publicly pledge its commitment to anti-racism by affirming its opposition to apartheid, settler-colonialism, and genocide. We, the faculty of SAIC, are demanding the administration and Board join us in publicly calling for an end to the war on Gaza and an end to the occupation of Palestinian lands.

In the words of Moussa Kaba, “Everything worthwhile is done with others.” We are inspired by our graduate student colleagues at Northwestern University, whose scholars of the Middle East and North Africa issued the following appeal to colleagues. We co-sign this appeal and wish to amplify it here: 

“We can end the war now. We ask urgently that our colleagues and our academic institutions use their authority to lobby our government and the international community to:  

1. End the bombing of Gaza, one of the world’s most densely populated areas, and demand an end to violence against all civilians across Israel and Palestine. 

2. Hold Israel accountable for the illegality of their demand that 1.1 million Palestinians from northern Gaza relocate. 

3. Guarantee the restoration of and safe access to water, electricity, food, and medical supplies in Gaza and guarantee the safe passage of humanitarian aid across borders. 

4. Uphold the democratic principle of safe protest, debate, and assembly on our campuses, in our cities, and in those around the world.”  

As artists and faculty at SAIC, we know our work has political implications. We can end this war now, and build toward a future where creativity, art, and life can flourish.

 

In solidarity, 

The undersigned

*photo credit Mahmoud Issa