Grantmakers in the Arts’ Statement on a Ceasefire in Gaza
Calling for Ceasefire, Committed to Liberation
As we write this, we have witnessed more than 50 days of genocidal violence and bombing in Gaza and are coming to the end of a temporary “humanitarian pause.” We are seeing, with each passing day, more lives are lost and more of our humanity leeched from us. We have also recently concluded our annual conference in San Juan, Revisiting Pasts to Build the Future, during which many sessions, conversations, and keynotes talked about the need for equity and justice, sovereignty, and liberation. Just as we have called for Puerto Rico’s social and economic self-determination, we call for Palestine’s.
At Grantmakers in the Arts (GIA), we work daily to enact our theory of transformation, which calls for cultural self-determination through increasingly just economic systems for BIPOC folks and oppressed peoples. The goal of GIA’s work is racial, economic, and social justice through an intersectional lens, ultimately realized through cultural change. We know BIPOC folks’ struggles are interconnected. We know that systems of oppression are interdependent, as is our liberation.
This liberated reality will not be possible, however, when no place is safe, when hospitals, schools, and refugee camps are bombed, when journalists are kidnapped or killed, when hospitals are bombed while trying to care for the elderly, chronically ill, critically injured, for premature babies and 5,500 pregnant people forced to give birth in a state of crisis, when ambulances are unable to reach thousands of civilians crushed under rubble. All while an economic blockade keeps food, water, electricity, fuel, medical supplies, and even rainwater controlled at near-starvation levels. This cannot go on.
As such, we have signed onto the Funders for a Ceasefire Now’s Philanthropy Open Letter for Humanity and Justice, led by an initiating group of 28 philanthropic representatives and organizations, calling for:
An immediate ceasefire;
Safe, unimpeded passage of humanitarian aid (including food, water, medicine, and fuel), humanitarian organizations, staff, and medical professionals into all areas of Gaza in a way that is sufficient and sustained enough to meet the scale of the catastrophe;
Stopping US and European funding and weapons for the Israeli military; an
Adherence to international humanitarian and human rights laws by all parties, including the safe release of all civilians taken hostage from Israel as well as of all Palestinians who have been unlawfully detained.
As this group of funders state, “We take seriously our responsibility to address the root causes of what we see unfolding today,” and we see increasing anti-Palestinian, Islamophobic, and anti-Semitic violence spreading around the world. We must be united in ending White supremacy in all forms, and as cultural funders, we can learn from and support the extraordinary efforts of artists, cultural communities, and social movements to transform oppressive realities.
We have seen artists leading cultural change efforts around a ceasefire. Artists have been organizing for justice – from leaving institutional positions to challenging the Venice Biennale and making the absence of art a vacuum within which the implications of silence or inaction are reflected. Artists have led protests, organized cultural campaigns, and stood with communities blocking the transport of weapons.
This is no surprise. As was so well said in the GIA “Unpacking the Landback Movement” podcast, “the power of our artistic expression is…for resistance and change. Our artists are also carriers and warriors and changemakers, and the imagination that they are able to share with all of us helps us to envision this new world, this new normal, a new world of justice and equity. We can and must work alongside artists and cultural communities and envision a future where Palestinian liberation and humanity are realized and where true safety is ensured for Palestinians, Jewish people, and BIPOC folks globally.
I am reminded of the important and precise words of Kwame Ture, “There’s a difference between peace and liberation, is there not? You can have injustice and have peace…So, peace isn’t the answer; liberation is the answer. That’s the White man’s word: peace. Liberation is our word.” Perhaps the distinction of ‘White supremacy’s word’ rather than ‘White man’s word’ can help contextualize this within the context of the genocide in Gaza and the state-sponsored violence in the West Bank. Ture's sentiments strike as quite apt.
While we loudly call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire - not simply a humanitarian pause – we also call for a path toward liberation. We must challenge ourselves as cultural funders and organizers to think in transformational ways, to think beyond the limits of what has been, and to center self-determination and liberation for oppressed peoples everywhere. Our struggles are interconnected and interdependent. As GIA, as cultural funders, and as folks concerned with championing a thriving and just future for all, we must take this charge seriously.
