6 August 2016
AFOPA’s BDS group enjoyed a fabulous protest and celebration today to honour our milestone – 300 weeks of continuous BDS education and activism in Adelaide, South Australia.
We almost ran out of our 300 leaflets. Much fun and bonhomie was shared between the 20 protesters both at the protest and the following coffee and cake celebration at a local cafe.
Some Christian Zionists appeared, saw our buskers and went to fetch their loudspeaker. The gods were smiling on us when their technology failed, leaving Helen, Phil and Sue’s beautiful harmonies soaring out unimpeded along Rundle Mall.
At significant milestones like this it is good to reflect on our many successes: approximately 136,000 leaflets distributed educating the people of Adelaide about the Palestinian boycott campaign, thousands of conversations about Palestine, and hundreds of thousands of views of our placards. The closure of the Seacret kiosk in the Myer Centre, the abandonment of the Israeli Film Festival, plus Palestinian programming at significant cultural events in Adelaide have been other significant outcomes.
Jack noticed yesterday, as he stood a little way up the Mall from our group, that the word ‘Palestine’ seemed to be the main topic of conversation in the Mall. I have often been heartened by this response to our protests.
Our group is very proud that for 300 weeks, non-stop, we have raised the flag for Palestine and not let the human rights abuses inflicted by the illegal Israeli occupation leave the public’s consciousness and conscience. We look forward to to continuing our work educating and raising awareness about Palestine and to more successes in the future.
Thank you everyone for your support.
Margaret.
