bless this show to reach as many people as possible bless this show to have the best cut to be effective for the best human behavior and me so so glad you could make it yeah thank you i'm really impressed by your world tour but first of all let's talk was available for palestinian refugees in refugee camps mostly provided by which is a united nations special institution created to cater for palestinian refugees deported by the israeli occupation back to gaza eventually found my way to the states where i did my all of my degrees really my aim my b a and my m a my last two degrees of the university of downtrodden and the poor you would always find that our understanding of history is almost entirely different from what we are often taught at school or at universities research was really kind of an attempt to explore history from below or people's history and to rewrite the history of palestine based on this understanding so this is the fourth of the volumes really did they cat to this particular subject and and it has been so for the most success feel the idea that the the world is closing on us and we have fewer and fewer options so the last earth is kind of a spin on that of the last guy we refugee ultimate it tries to find a place where they could find peace could find safety shelter and hope ultimately hope so the last earth is a story of a number of refugees each trying to find that piece of land that lost earth where they know that we can live and die and be buried there and unfortunately they can't that's really constant tim generation after generation to find that piece of land that lost and somehow they still got after seventy years no i didn't ask you this before the show will is it any particular relate to the type of language just being used you know if something happens you know the language is all twisted around it it's your fault it was your fault you know that favorite statement what would you do what would you do about it hamas is thrown out there like this is some big super organization you know who has nuclear weapons and everything so  you know as african americans we were the same kind of propaganda i remember the civil rights to the time of civil rights there was a caucasian lady who went down to go to the south you know to help get the struggle of our african american sisters and brothers in this country has always resisted really in the collective psyche of the palestinians and this is not fake solidity it's just really i mean i grew up in a refugee camp knowing and one of my daughters for example is very much involved in the all sorts of anti racist campaigns of the university and the black lives matter movement it's part and parcel of her political awareness and it's just and there is nothing alien it's not you do it because there's something sectional about it it's just part of our struggle as well and i see the future palestine really the future to begin with i think that the struggle for the palestinians cannot be sexualized or divided from the overall struggle that's happening all across the world they continue to be oppressed and could an honest israel will continue to set the carter presidency that other military regimes around the world with you know would follow and and this is why our struggle as oppressed is the same and the know that more or less they are all involved in the same a practice of oppression whether in palestine in iraq in afghanistan in libya in yemen it's all you know one and the same and i think really the future of palestine is going to be dependent on the resistance of the palestinian people as long as palestinians resist as long as there whites will always be preserved in the future our brothers and sisters in south africa fought against apartheid for fifty years or so but they also fought a good school only listen for nearly four centuries is very important that we remember that prior to apartheid in south africa there was centuries old dutch lot of work to be done in south africa but really the key to the the freedom of and in the apartheid in south africa was the south african people and their struggle for their freedom and for their rights and i think that is the same key for the success of the palestinian collective struggle as well that said that cannot happen in isolation the so that international solidarity with the palestinian people must be must continue and must continue not just against israel but also against israeli enablers who sadly come from this country number one but also other western countries canada the united kingdom and so forth they have finance they have created the israeli project they have financed it they have sustained it and they have prevented any attempt at reversing the horrific realities that were created by that regime over the last seventy years we have to struggle against that our governments cannot continue to fund and finance israel at the expense of  forever so that's our responsibility as people outside the palace you know you can go and fight for the palestinians in gaza and but there is no reason of why we can't play our part here in this support the deal castro and yasser arafat he said because they help me with natural resources struggle they were mostly stationed in the may be at the time and they told me of the conduct of direct training and support that was coming from the p l o the palestine liberation organization even their military uniform the fight uniforms were actually funded by the p l o yes i thought you know i'm very critical of yasser arafat for many things but to be entirely honest that was really kind of a moment where i felt so proud that you know that we had the kind of political consciousness that we understand that this struggle that is seemingly far away from palestine is very very important for our struggle as well he had that foresight in this to see it and he was absolutely right and i think the same thing can be reversed people who think well the situation palestine is too early and too far why should i care well so there's an example of why we are very much all connected heading back to south africa and there's another trip to hawaii as well and after that the foreign additions of the book will come out and then i will go to french speaking countries spanish speaking countries italian speaking countries and so forth so i'm expecting that the tour is going to last for another year or so and i'm using it really as kind of as an opportunity not just to promote the book percent but to promote the idea you truly want to understand the essence of an issue you have to understand and in a round it sort of way when it comes to history you talk to the to the people who paid the heaviest price of it of  or of class struggle those who are oppressed by colonialism by apartheid by military occupation you speak to the refugees you don't speak to the politicians because the politicians you know they have their talking points they have their prepared most likely by someone else they will never give you a true version of events with their current events or past events so my message is let's try to understand palestine beyond all the problems of your right now that's really interesting is that because of course wherever you go especially if i am touring in western come there is you know more likely you're going to find a pushback i have had various events that mere idea in in austria i was i had four different events canceling on me until finally we found a place that didn't because they were afraid that by hosting someone who opposes is i apartheid then you know it could be perceived you know could create controversy and problems ford said today but two things number one i think the mood is changing great deal in palestine i think it's israel that is really on the defensive as opposed to the palestinians being on the defensive when i came to the u s about twenty four years ago i went to speak at cannes home at the university of washington and i just remember how tough it was the audience was quite hostile the university was not very happy and there was a lot of kind of a tug of war until i managed to actually speak at the  and if you lose control and influence over campuses this this is the generation that is going to define the future that's a very good sign and i see this these kind of changes so the other thing that i'd like to say is that when you present narrative that is not it's not a blame game you know one state versus two states whose response no you present the story is that you know the daily grind in the daily struggles of ordinary people it's very tough for any sort of propaganda to try to negate that so i had to in a university in canada for example the zionists organized pretty well and they came trying to demolish my ideas  advance and i'm sure they've done their research and watched many of my media interviews and all of this and they came with all these prepared questions but they were surprised that i wasn't really talking politics per se i was talking about ordinary people and when the when these two then they start asking all these hostile question their narrative seems completely out of place like it didn't belong there and i like that i like the fact that we can actually successfully humanize the of their people their nations their groups are not being told fairly and is mis presented and misconstrued in the media is to explore the subject of people's history and to try to humanize as opposed to fall into the tribe of you know kind of contentious political ideologies because then it in to the general public it sounds more like cliches than than actual reality that they can relate to if i tell you the story for example of a prisoner who is a woman and who went on a hunger strike for nearly fifty days and she was being tortured by the israelis during that hunger strike and they wanted her to confess to something that she did not do and she is a refugee and and i tell you the story of her family and all of this people can relate to that beyond palestine beyond religion beyond anything they can relate to her as a female as a as as a woman who is oppressed in a in a situation that is absolutely extraordinarily horrific so anyone with her from seattle to s last earth a palestinian story if not we can probably do it at another time but if you care if you can put it on a on a screen  figure well i became familiar with the book about really over twenty years ago i was a student at the university of washington and and i found this book called a people's history of the of history that way for me was kind of quite an alien subject and then when i read it and i saw that it's the story of of the native americans the story is told through the point of view of the slaves through the working class the people who paid a very very heavy price for this country to be established that entire groups of people who were wiped out in order for this country to claim the great that claims today it's just the idea to me like what if i want one day a people's history of palestine it sounded like a very distant and strange idea of the