We won’t be silenced

If you have a piece of critical research, essay or longread that touches on Palestinian self determination and/or Israel’s genocide and settler colonial regime in relation to TNI’s thematic topics, you are invited to submit it. We will review and publish your work given that it meets our publication standards and aligns with our mission.

The purpose of this effort is to allow your work to be published online on our website. We particularly want to open this opportunity for young scholars who have felt pressured to not publish their pro-Palestinian work due to censorship. Please note that all work that will be sent to us will have to follow our usual editorial quality control process, which means 1-2 people within TNI and possibly 1 external person will review the essay.

Criteria for submissions:

• Finished or near-finished pieces of work aligning with our mission, and publication standards, and broadly fitting our scope of topics
• In English, Arabic, Spanish, or French
• Priority will be given to young Palestinian activists, academics or artists
• Please also attach your CV

 Please get in touch with j.valeske@tni.org for further details.

Today marks the 250th day of the ongoing Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip. To date Israel has murdered more than 37,000 Palestinians, of which more than 40% are children, and bombed all forms of infrastructure in the Gaza Strip necessary for sustaining life, including economic, cultural and social life.

Amidst the ongoing Nakba, or catastrophe, Western complicity includes the material and political support to Israel’s genocide abroad and increased repression and censorship at home. In the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France and Australia, Palestinians and solidarity activists and academics are increasingly facing censorship and intimidation, including the risk of contract termination, withdrawal of funding, doxing, harassment, death threats and in extreme cases the risk of being seriously injured or killed. Numerous outlets and organisations have highlighted the systematic censorship of Palestinian content on prominent social media platforms. Students in schools and universities are being harassed by other students, teachers, and the administration. The administrations of institutions like universities that are supposed to be holding space for critical discussions are complicit with the crackdown on critical voices, as evident in their suspension and cooperation in the dismantling of protest camps in the US and beyond.

It is in this context that we reaffirm the many voices that have stated "We won’t be silenced".

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Transnational Institute (TNI), which has been a political home for exiled and persecuted academics and activists since 1974 under the first director Eqbal Ahmad, the Pakistani political scientist, writer, academic and veteran of the Algerian liberation and anti-Vietnam War struggles. Eqbal himself was targeted within the academic community in the US for his vocal support of Palestinian rights during the 1967 war, which led him to leave Cornell University. In the spirit of Eqbal, and 50 years of TNI, we launch "We won’t be silenced" for those who have had their work revoked or left unpublished for their support for Palestinians' right to self-determination and condemnation of colonialism, imperialism and Zionism. We hope that this call will provide the opportunity for critical Palestinian and ally voices, particularly young writers and academics, to continue to be heard in calling for an end to the ongoing genocide and Western complicity.