Resisting Pessimism, Practicing Hope: the Role of Political Education

This paper is based on the experiences of Makan, an independent Palestinian-led organisation that provides transformative education to strengthen the movement for liberation by contextualising Palestine within the broader framework of social justice and global liberation movements. Drawing on Makan’s learnings over the past 10 years, working with students, educators, organisers, trade unionists, journalists, cultural workers, grassroots collectives, NGOs and funders, this paper will explore education as an act of resistance and a practice that is not ‘objective’ or ‘neutral’, but involves ethics and civic courage. Focusing on how to resist pessimism at a time of rapidly increasing authoritarianism around the globe, including within liberal institutions, it will consider how to practice hope in a time of genocide and push back with confidence against different attacks on resistance, including: the demonization and defamation of individuals and organisations; the surveillance and suspicion of particular groups; the weaponization of safeguarding; and attacks on civil society tactics pushing for accountability. The paper will delve into various forms of repression, from the misuse of language and complicity through silence, to the expansion of policing into civic spaces and the disfiguring of social responsibility within our institutions. It will consider resistance as a spectrum, not a hierarchy, while also exploring the implications of what we might lose if we concede to institutional boundaries of the sayable, by trying to get critical discussions of Palestine into spaces through the back door. While it is hard not to lose hope in the face of ongoing genocide and the relentless efforts to quell any resistance, the administrations of institutions that have been ravaged by neoliberal reforms are banking on exhausting those who have been making a stand. Yet despite these systematic attacks, people are proving determined, time and again, to keep on showing up to educate themselves about Palestine and its interconnections with other struggles, more so than ever before. There is moreover much to learn about practicing hope from the resistance of Palestinians living on the frontlines, who even in catastrophe, mass displacement and annihilation, are continuing to lead the way: educating, organising, creating, and imagining a liberated future. At this pivotal moment in our history, this paper will argue, education couldn’t be more vital as a political act of resistance that has the potential to make liberation a shared practice.