Kilmallie hosts Lochaber Supports Palestine event
Friday night saw Kilmallie Community Centre play host to a talk by Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh organised by the Lochaber Supports Palestine (LSP) group.
Professor Qumsiyeh previously served on the faculties of the University of Tennessee, Duke, and Yale Universities.
He and his wife returned to Palestine in 2008 where the Professor took up a post at Bethlehem University, where he has run the Palestine Institute for Biodiversity and Sustainability (PIBS) since 2014.
Qumsiyeh has published more than 160 scientific papers, over 30 book chapters, and several books on topics ranging from cultural heritage to human rights to biodiversity conservation to cancer.
Introduced by well-known retired local surgeon, David Sedgwick, Qumsiyeh initially spoke for just over an hour, drawing parallels between the diagnosis process used in medicine to the history and events in Palestine, both now and in the past, and setting the events in the framework of settler colonialism.
This allowed the professor to include references to his work, such as the impact of the current conflict on the migratory patterns of birds as well as the increase of carbon emissions from war and conflict.
After his speech, Professor Qumsiyeh took questions from the audience tackling topics such as the history of Zionism.
Mr Sedgwick said, “I felt it was such an informative meeting and a privilege for us to have such an academically grounded Palestinian dealing with such a diversity of subjects related to colonisation and the issues causing the ‘disease’ in the Middle East [displaced settler, colonialism].
“I felt he dealt with the questions so well, drawing on his deep knowledge of the history and his experience of living in Bethlehem.”
Marie Nolan, one of the instigators of LSP agreed, saying, “He was insightful, inspiring and a profound speaker which we were lucky to have as part of his small tour in the Highlands.”
Saturday December 21 will see LSP staging a screening of On My Land, also at Kilmallie Hall. The documentary filmmaker Mohamad Zwhara will attend the showing and will take part in a Q&A session.
Lochaber Supports Palestine will be having a meeting in January 2025 to form a committee to carry on organising events and talks in the area.
Additionally, there are plans to hold a one-day conference in Corpach next year to expand on Professor Qumsiyeh’s talk about Palestine and the environmental destruction caused by war and the humanitarian disaster.
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