Protestors placed photos of those killed in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen outside Chancellor Javier Reyes’ office and inside the Isenberg School of Management building in a mourning event held by the UMass Coalition for Palestine the afternoon of Friday, Nov. 1.
“The goal was to create a space for us to come together, to grieve, to honor lost lives, our martyrs specifically,” Tatiana Rodriguez, chairperson of the Palestine Solidarity Caucus said.
Demonstrators engaged in group prayer, silent march and visual demonstration in a somber, tearful event to honor those killed in the ongoing conflict between Israel, Palestine and now many other countries in the region.
According to the Gaza Health Ministry, over 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza. This number is likely higher due to the destruction of their healthcare system.
At 2 p.m., around 100 people gathered on South Lawn, where a speaker from the Muslim Students Association led the crowd in a prayer.
“See how many people have been killed, how many people have been martyred, how many people have been murdered by the oppressors in the Holy Land,” speaker Aareb Chowdhury said.
He assured the crowd that a “Day of Account” would come, “a day that God will remind us of what we used to do in this life, and a day that not a soul will get away with doing wrong, not a single soul will get away.”
Chowdhury described his community’s belief in afterlife justice. “With that very faith, our brothers and sisters are persevering through the worst situation of all situations,” he said.
After the prayer, people were asked to grab printed photographs of those killed in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen. Other demonstrators wrote the names of lost loved ones on sticky notes.
The protestors entered Whitmore and walked to Chancellor Reyes’ office, where they taped the pictures and sticky notes to the glass wall of Reyes’ office.
Two of the organizers stood at the door to Whitmore with a banner that read “Glory to the Martyrs” and with names of the dead written around the main statement.
The procession then entered Isenberg, where the organizers set up photographs of the dead on a panel and on a memorial table adorned with rose petals and a Palestinian flag. Children’s shoes were placed on the floor around the table.
After remarks by Rodriguez, the ceremony closed with a group reading of slain poet Refaat Alareer’s “If I Must Die” led by Sarah Ahmad, a PhD student and instructor at UMass.
“If I must die / you must live / to tell my story / to sell my things,” Ahmad recited.
The event was planned to be “centered around spirituality and also centered around this heavy grief that we’ve been holding for the last year,” Rodriguez said, “in a way that called together community members here on campus.”
The UMass for Palestine Coalition includes the Palestine Solidarity Caucus, Students for Justice in Palestine, the Young Communist League, Faculty for Justice in Palestine, the Prison Abolition Committee and the Young Democratic Socialists for America.
“We are always striving to work together to continue holding on to hope,” Rodriguez said of the coalition.
According to Rodriguez, the UMass for Palestine Coalition doesn’t have specifics about any further events.
Alexandra Rowe can be reached at [email protected], Norah Stewart can be reached at [email protected] and Alexandra Hill can be reached at [email protected]
