A lively ode to symbol
Sunny shopping lacksadaise at Santa Monica Place was broke clean through by a wave of Palestinian Youth Movement protesters on Black Friday.
The assembly met at the mouth of Tongva Park, abuzz with jovial electrics. At the meeting place, the congregate interspersed convivially. All sorts of factions, from political parties to two-person alliances, made for a calm and unsynthesized audience. Pairs of parents and children wielding PYM buttons could have been spontaneously inspired parkgoers.
Markedly, the occasion was the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, or the anniversary of the UN resolution that separated Palestine into two states in 1947. This observance was the named purpose of PYM’s congregation.
However, a happenstance linkage with Black Friday permeated the chanting and decor of the attendees. The Party of Socialism and Liberation (PSL) was in full force distributing brandished signs with their campaign symbols, which pierced the airspace.
“We’re here to commemorate 76 years of occupation,” said Tharwa Khalid of PYM. “We’re also here to say that we’re not going to allow American consumerism to continue so long as our taxes continue to fund genocide.”
With PYM actions, the occasion shifts, but the movement’s objective remains the same, said Khalid. “We’re here to call an arms embargo against Israel and to demand an end to the occupation.”
The opening speaker defined the day’s combined operations. “The UN Security Council resolution - the partition resolution - (confirmed) the ancient semantics of the colonial Zionist project (that) Western powers had been establishing,” he said.
Quickly following, he added “we are here to call upon you all to engage in a consumer strike and boycott Black Friday, to stand in unwavering support for the Palestinian people in their struggle against imperialism and the war for profit, driven by the same economic system relying on our unconditional spending to operate.”
The park, with a homey feel, allowed for a chill seldom known to demonstrations. Repetitions were hazy, drumbeats erratic. Comfortably, the park’s verdancy inspired peaceful arrangement between speeches. In preparation, the protesters sampled and selected their verbal catechisms, favoring “While you’re shopping, bombs are dropping” and “Long live the intifada!”
The gathering hour elapsed. With the revving of drums and chants, the spirit made the irreversible switch to abrasive, entering their first disruptive action.
The quorum stormed into the street, resisting traffic, to the slow puzzlement of the drive-by. Flourish of car after car in gas guzzling symphony proved opponent to the dutiful chanters.
Tourists filmed protesters with museum-like awe, in admiration of a regional spectacle.
Whenever the protesters entered and left an area, their presence was duly remembered by movement stickers brushed on mallposts and dusty clouds of smoke. The crowd shifted onto Santa Monica Place, turning on consumers directly.
The sparsely populated mall proved a complementary recipient of the rally. The biggest receptor was a premature three-story Christmas tree sprouting red-and-green mechanics, affirming the storm’s Palestinian and Lebanese flags.
The few onlookers present were amazed. Many grinned patronizingly, others quizzical. The most common response was cellphone filming, as if in defense.
Sweeping through the mall, marchers gesticulated and snarled at centered vendors.
The march stalled and planted itself on the intersection of Broadway and Promenade, perched between Nike and Tesla storefronts. A casual blockade of police cars encroached on either side. One officer wearing an off-duty badge positioned behind the Nike glass. He stood braced, with bent arms and fists to the neck as he watched the crosswalk.
A chalk scratch on the ground read “Glory 2 All Our Martyrs.” Pumped up and showcased were the movement’s tried and tired symbols, including IDF diapers, bruised baby dolls, and watermelons.
Speakers broke up the chants with deliverance. Both Nike and Tesla were criticized for their complicity, specifically upon the basis of their partnerships with A.P. Møller—Maersk A/S, or Maersk.
Khalid shed light on PYM’s subset Mask off Maersk: “There’s this logistics company called Maersk. And Maersk basically ships weapons to Israel. And there is Maersk literally all over the world, it’s like an international company. We’ve seen gatherings of people similar to today who come out to protest Maersk’s compliance in genocide, and we’ve seen Maersk back down from it.”
PYM’s speaker called out Nike directly. “We’re standing right outside of the Nike store. If many of you remember, this past August, Maersk… hosted a free event at their port in LA in collaboration with Nike. Our community mobilized and we kicked Maersk out of that port.”
She related this to international movement success: “Two weeks ago, PYM published a report exposing Maersk’s crimes and showing they violated the Spanish government’s arms embargo by shipping military cargo to the Israeli occupation,” she said. “When we had our actions, the Spanish government responded. They refused to have three Maersk ships that were filled with military cargo docked at their port. They also announced they were launching a formal lawsuit against Maersk for their violation of the arms embargo.”
The crowd celebrated with cheers of “No more shipping Israeli cargo!”
Tesla, another company reliant on Maersk for transport and material, was approached by marchers, who threw open their glass doors and funneled in their chants from the outside. Customers continued to shop unabated.
Over the eve, PYM’s main megaphone became a sort of forum for the movement’s Santa Monica figureheads, who voiced faction-specific grievances.
A speaker from Doctors Against Genocide called upon the Hippocratic Oath: “The same doctors and healthcare workers who proclaim that all life is sacred, that have taken vows and oaths to do no harm, are sitting idly. Quietly. Watching this bombardment continue.”
Other speakers made similar connections. A prison abolitionist activist referred disparagingly to the rejected Proposition 6 which would have outlawed slave labor in state prisons. The American Indian Movement (AIM) representative read a land acknowledgment on behalf of the Tongva people and correlated the genocides of Indigenous people and Palestinians.
Similarly, individuality among the populace was present. The protest’s aggregate was a walking Santa Monican bulletin board, boasting such demographic associations as “Community College Students…,” “Socialists…,” and “Dancers for a Free Palestine.” Stringed instrument players and restless pet owners dotted the ensemble. As if desperate for inclusion, people’s wordplay banners ran the gamut. One attendee pushed his dog in a stroller with the cardboard message “Petestine.” This skewed selection resulted in disjointed action.
Others present might have been in search of refuge, such as SMC’s own Elias Serna, professor of ethnic studies. Serna, who didn’t respond to the Corsair’s request for comment, faced substantive local and online backlash last spring for referring to Israel’s actions in Gaza as objective genocide in his curriculum.
While the speakers cried out, voices muffled by the bustles and spotty megaphones, the marchers shifted around with some unease. The police blockade wasn’t letting up and the towering marketplace walls seemed a constant antagonist. Breaking off, some flag-bearers spilled into the Third Street Promenade and jockeyed their holds at pedestrians.
Shoppers daring to shortcut through the commotion left retaliatory cracks of “so stupid” and cursory mocking eyes. Apartment-building starers dared direct rivalry with middle fingers.
Without a stop in chant, the protest made the collective trek into the promenade in a hearty attempt to derail commerce. They boomed, “Money for jobs and education… not for wars and occupation!”
The terrain, though passive receptive, was some deceptive carrion. Once an epicenter of communal activity, the promenade joins the ranks of decaying Santa Monican infrastructure. Building on the barren, protesters and their screams saturated the streets as if filling a prescribed niche. They were attacking the air and rattling empty storefronts.
With little resistance, however, the sounds travelled, elongated, and disintegrated. The aspired cutdown on purchasing power diminished in evident likelihood.
Regardless, inspiring any level of discomfit aligns with the movement. A speaker from Stop LAPD Spying acknowledged and cherished social risks: “ It will impact friendships, it will impact relationships, and it will impact camaraderie… (This is) a difficult journey, a difficult path, but the only path to our collective liberation.”
Shop managers greeted the marchers by standing in their doorways, in symbolic defense. Some threw solidative peace signs. And protesters did cluster the Apple store, the avenue’s last chance at hubbub.
Met with the horizon and blazing sunset, protesters’ molten cheering was refired. The next recipients were the beachfront hotels, whose tweedy clientele cracked their windows to eye down the ruckus with bemuse.
The demonstration wouldn’t spare any consumers. On sight, they were unanimously defamed by the marchers, and enveloped into their trickling calls of “Shame!”
Finally, the synod was re-centripetal at the entryway of the Santa Monica Pier. For their last stop of the night, the speakers amassed for final congratulations and bookkeeping.
The bellows prolonged. Protesters maintained conviction as Ocean Avenue’s nightlife and piergoers filtered around, as for a sullen pothole. The only bridge between the protesters and shoppers was the slow-creeping lurk of police vehicles from behind.
“The mainstream media also wants us to feel hopeless and to feel despair because of these recent elections, but we know that we've been feeling this way before,” said a final speaker. “With the Democrats, whether it's the Republicans, the ruling class has shown time and time again that their allegiance is with Zionism and with making profit.
“But just like the generations of people who have been fighting before us, we will continue because we are the children of the resistance. Is that right? Yes! And so thus we have honored the title of thousands of martyrs that we saw, and our political prisoners.
“Whether it's Joe Biden, whether it's Donald Trump, we know where their allegiance lies and we know that we will continue this fight. …We hope to see you again on the streets, time and time again, until we see an end to this genocide, and end to the occupation and settler-colonialism in Palestine and wherever it manifests around the world.”
With a snap, the megaphones ceased, and the protest blinked back to normal.
Having cycled the ring, exhausted, the hoarsened crowd dispersed cooly and evenly. The perfect storm evaporated, tidy, and night fell in velvet thickness. A not-so-subtle test of consequence descended.
As their traces disappeared, organizers faced a tincture of reflection. They might not have stopped the magnet of utmost consumerism, but the definite upset of normalcy was, at least, cause for re-evaluation.
“This was supposed to be a big thing,” said an organizer. “We’ll get back on track.”