This sentence spoken by Emmeline Pankhurst at the Royal Albert Hall in London on October 17, 1912 has been on my mind for days. I went back to find the entire speech, which I had read before, but God, did it resonate with what is going on right now. Known as the ‘I incite this meeting to rebellion speech,’ it was her first public speech after being released from prison. 150 Suffragettes were arrested in March of that year following a wave of window smashing when the government showed no sign of turning. They went on hunger strike, were brutally force fed, and only released due to their deteriorating health. Spoken over a century ago, Emmeline Pankhurst’s words sound as shocking as anything that was said at Glastonbury. They are really worth a read. 

'There is something that governments care far more for than human life, and that is the security of property, and so it is through property that we shall strike the enemy. From henceforward the women who agree with me will say, 'We disregard your laws, gentlemen, we set the liberty and the dignity and the welfare of women above all such considerations, and we shall continue this war, as we have done in the past; and what sacrifice of property, or what injury to property accrues will not be our fault. It will be the fault of that Government who admit the justice of our demands, but refuses to concede them without the evidence, so they have told us, afforded to governments of the past, that those who asked for liberty were in earnest in their demands!

 

Be militant each in your own way. Those of you who can express your militancy by going to the House of Commons and refusing to leave without satisfaction, as we did in the early days—do so. Those of you who can express militancy by facing party mobs at Cabinet Ministers' meetings, when you remind them of their falseness to principle—do so. Those of you who can express your militancy by joining us in our anti-Government by-election policy—do so. Those of you who can break windows—break them. Those of you who can still further attack the secret idol of property, so as to make the Government realize that property is as greatly endangered by women's suffrage as it was by the Chartists of old—do so.

 

And my last word is to the Government: I incite this meeting to rebellion. I say to the Government: You have not dared to take the leaders of Ulster for their incitement to rebellion. Take me if you dare, but if you dare I tell you this, that so long as those who incited to armed rebellion and the destruction of human life in Ulster are at liberty, you will not keep me in prison. So long as men rebels—and voters—are at liberty, we will not remain in prison, first division or no first division."

This was a response to a government that wasn’t listening, or if it was, it wasn’t showing signs of pursuing any meaningful change. Just like today. So many of us,  horrified by the situation in Gaza, feel powerless and at a loss about how to convince the government to change its policy on Israel. Despite the clear evidence: videos, photographs, doctors accounts and fact checkers we continue to back a genocide. Our Prime Minister has shown he is more concerned with the words spoken by members of a band, and if they should be allowed to play at a music festival, than the substance of the words themselves. And the BBC, who’s mandate is to ‘serve the public interest by providing impartial, high-quality, and distinctive output that informs, educates, and entertains.’ have proven to be utterly partial. On Saturday, while they were busy deciding if to show, or how to censor Kneecap at Glastonbury, 81 people were killed in Gaza (as later reported by the same BBC). And still, for days afterwards, the news has focused on what was said there, rather than the reality of the situation, or the lives of those killed.

I’m half afraid that even quoting Emmeline Pankhurst's speech might result in a knock at my door for inciting violence. Yvette Cooper, who wore a rosette of the Suffragette Colours in Parliament last week, judged them by the same standards as Palestine Action, she would have to proscribe them under the Terrorism Act as well. The Suffragettes were not posh tea drinking women, who kept themselves busy sewing sashes. They were radicals who caused far more harm to property. The windows they smashed were on Bond Street, Regent Street and Downing Street. And that was why it worked, because: ‘There is something that governments care far more for than human life, and that is the security of property.’

If

List of suffragettes arrested from 1906–1914 – The National Archives

This is even more the case today when protecting wealth is unashamedly promoted over human welfare. Last year when I did the Vote necklaces, I had such high hopes for the election. I now feel foolish to have believed change was coming. Not only has austerity remained we are now facing truly Dickensian cuts to welfare, and rather than taxing the billionaires, we have invited Palantir into the NHS.

It is becoming more and more difficult to know what to do, how to fight, how to live. Social media is a combination of horrific human suffering and unmonitored misinformation juxtaposed with reels of kittens. If I wasn’t running Wear and Resist I would consider going off it all. What good is witnessing when there is so little we can do? But it’s not right to turn away either. Reading Greta Thunberg’s recent post.

I felt shame that I haven’t used my voice more to speak up about Palestine. I made a Ukraine brooch, why hadn’t I done something for Palestine? I have been thinking about this for days. The Ukraine war was a sudden invasion, immediately clear who was at fault. But when the October 7 attacks happened, the reports were too awful to comprehend. I stayed away from the news for days. 

Most of my friends growing up in the US were Jewish, Reading Elie Wiesel’s book Night about the Holocaust when I was 12 or 13 caused a separation in my life into before and after I knew what humans were capable of. I knew the very basic bones of  history, that Palestinians were displaced from their land, that the British were involved. I thought the Settlers were pretty awful and knew it was a growing problem, but that was about the extent of my knowledge. My good friends had gone to Israel on kibbutz, many of their families supported Israeli charities. I now think my opinion of Israel was similar to how misguided I used to think many Irish Americans were in supporting the IRA. But I had grown up on a diet of Hamas being terrorists and accounts of what it was like to live with constant bomb threats in Israel, which reminded me of an exaggerated version of London in the 1980s where I had also lived.  

Watching Israel’s disproportionate response, I was scared to speak out. I didn’t want to upset my Jewish friends, or be called antisemitic. The situation was complicated, I thought. I didn't know enough. I quietly donated to the Red Cross. But as anyone with a brain can now see clearly, the statistics are not complicated.

Since the events of October 7th when 1,200 Israelis were killed, 55,000 Palestinians have been killed. Unicef reported in May that more than more than 50,000 children have been killed or injured in the Gaza Strip – a number that has of course continued to rise. We have all seen the IDF shooting starving people at aid sites. They are stopping baby formula from entering Gaza, lacing flour with drugs and killing children for sport. And yet our government continues to support Israel, a regime that gifted a golden pager mounted on olive wood to Trump, ‘their greatest friend and ally – a man who has clearly stated his plan to turn Palestine into the Riviera of the Middle East. If it makes me anti-semitic to point out these facts, then the definition of the word has changed

I was living in Washington DC in 1995 when when Yitzhak Rabin was killed. People who understood politics were devastated. Someone explained to me why it was a huge tragedy. That he would have taken the country down a very different path. I know that many Israelis are against what is happening, just as I know many (I believe most) Americans didn’t vote for Trump. Criticising Israel for its actions is not anti-semitic, any more than criticising the Trump regime is anti American.

Yes I make political jewellery, but I am struggling to know how to make a necklace about genocide. The situation is far too series for an irreverent brooch. I am running a business and I don’t want to profit in any shape or from this horror, or use it to market my designs. Most days lately I have found it hard to work at all knowing what is going on. But I also know how important it is to fund aid to Gaza, so I will continue to donate to the best places I can find where the money can get through.

But this isn't enough. What can I actually do? I keep asking myself and anyone that will listen. What do we do when it isn’t effective to write to your MP, to march and protest, when Democracy is no longer functioning as it should and the majority of the country’s voices are not being taken into consideration? It is important to recognise our rage when it rises. Anger can be a destructive emotion but it also motivates us to take action.

"Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble."

John Lewis, 2018

I have been trying to figure out how to fit this incredible quote from American Congressman John Lewis onto a bracelet. He was arrested 45 times in his life (five times while he was a Member of Congress) fighting for civil and voting rights, healthcare reform gun control and fair immigration. 'I’ll continue this fight, including the arrests,' he said, 'because there are dangerous forces today that are trying to take us back to a worse era.'

I recommend checking out Palestine Action's website. 'Be militant each in your own way.' 

Sarah xx