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As we reflect on the IACS Conference 2025 in Nakhon Si Thammarat held in July, where speakers convened around the theme of Geo-Social Connection: The Continuing Journey of Critical Inquiry, we encourage attendees and members to join us in reflecting on how we, as scholars, cultural workers, and activists, can continue to deepen the spirit of Bandung—something urgently needed in this moment, marked by the most horrific manifestations of interlocking colonialisms from Sudan to Congo to Palestine. Notable in the robust intellectual debate and critical inquiry displayed throughout the conference, and particularly by our speakers at the closing plenary marking the 70th anniversary of the Afro-Asian Bandung Conference, was a shared concern about how we might collectively attend to the ongoing genocide of Palestinians by the state of Israel as crucial to the project of Inter-Asian solidarity. There is much work to be done in that respect.
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We also understand that an important part of praxis, and indeed, solidarity, is supporting the daily, on-the-ground mutual aid work that Palestinians are currently engaged in at immense risk to themselves. Rejecting the transactional nature of much solidarity work in the West, sacrificing so that someone is able to feed their families and communities is a radical act that too often goes underappreciated even by scholars who write about resistance or decolonization. We’d like to share several mutual aid organizations doing radical, life-saving work on the ground, which we encourage you to donate to as an important act of solidarity:
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The Sameer Project, a mutual aid organization run by Palestinians in diaspora, currently operates four distinct campaigns: a medical campaign, a North and Central Gaza campaign, a South Gaza campaign, and the Refaat Alareer Camp, which provides medical care for the most vulnerable patients. The Zaynab Project is a women-led nonprofit focusing on delivering aid to families and orphaned children across Gaza. The Sameer Project and Zaynab Project recently joined forces with Reviving Gaza, a mutual aid initiative founded by three siblings from Gaza, to deliver extra water trucks in the South to respond to extremely high temperatures. If you prefer giving to individual campaigns, lifeline4gaza is a relatively new resource of vetted campaigns designed so that families who have not received any donations appear first on the website.
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Finally, we remind you that many of our colleagues and students have paid a heavy price for speaking out in solidarity with Palestinian liberation. Because of the cruel temporality of university bureaucracies, we are only now learning the outcomes of some censure processes that began many months ago. If you are able to support them as they endure repression from their own institutions and governments, please do so. Silence and isolation only protect those in power. Here are a couple of campaigns that we are familiar with:
https://chuffed.org/project/145573-black-trans-academic-targeted-and-fined-for-pro-palestine-speech