Last weekend, two images resonated widely: the Madleen sailing toward Gaza to break the blockade, and Los Angeles communities standing against ICE’s armoured raids to protect their undocumented neighbours.
The Madleen‘s journey exposed both the arbitrary division of people and the interconnectedness of our struggles. En route, the crew responded to a distress call from a migrant dinghy, urging the Greek Coast Guard to act. Near the site of the Pylos shipwreck, they highlighted its responsibility for the deaths of over 600 migrants. All the while, their attempt to reach Gaza gave renewed energy to millions demanding action.
In LA, communities met ICE raids with self-defence rallies. Some carried Mexican flags, rejecting Trump’s assault on their heritage; others waved Palestinian flags, drawing links between the occupation of Palestine and the militarization of downtown LA. Speaking to US troops, Trump saw only “invasion and third-world lawlessness”.
Global protests show how many reject his logic and instead forge connections—both in terms of who they stand with and how they see things. Anti-ICE actions spread to New York, Spokane, Seattle, and Las Vegas. On June 14, No Kings Day rallies are expected to grow across the US. The same day in Greece, protests marking the second anniversary of the Pylos shipwreck will connect it with a national tragedy, the Tempi state crime, and European complicity in Gaza’s genocide. In Colombia, Indigenous communities are resisting the violent resource extraction that destroys their lands and fuels attacks on Palestine.
This week, our teams help us to see that we can’t expect justice from structures that produce violence. CPT’s Turtle Island Solidarity Network continues our abolition series with “Abolition: Building Community to Transform Violence and Oppression”, exposing the role of Canadian police in upholding race- and class-based hierarchies. They link historic colonial violence to the present-day misuse of hate-crime laws to smear Gaza solidarity as anti-Semitic. In Lesvos, our team reports from the appeal trial of those convicted for the 2018 anti-migrant attack—remembered locally as the “pogrom.” Incredibly, the court refused to recognise racism as a motive, a stark reminder of how the criminal justice system favours certain groups and undermines collective memory.
It’s hard to ignore how rigged the game is. But what gives hope is the urgency with which people recognise their connections, climbing the walls between them—seeing, in order to act.
