By Imran Ahmed
The intricately constructed garment at the back of the Palestine Museum in Bristol is so beautiful that you could be forgiven for overlooking its status as a symbol of cultural resistance.
The black and red thobe, a manifestation of Palestinian culture, history and identity, being displayed in an activist-operated museum in the heart of a major UK city may initially surprise those outside activist circles. However, for those actively engaged in the UK Palestine solidarity movement, there is a clear understanding of the centrality of Palestinian culture in mobilising tens, even hundreds, of thousands of people in acts of solidarity across the country. They have seen firsthand how Palestinian culture rehumanizes Palestinians, challenges hegemonic colonial perspectives, and enables activists to draw upon a potent means of resistance amid tightening protest restrictions.
As solidarity activists engage in struggle on the ground in the UK, culture is a vital component of the actions undertaken in what Aziz Choudry terms ‘living laboratories.’ Here, cultural resistance has emerged as perhaps the most enduring type of resistance to Western policies and actions with strong colonial undertones. Notable Palestinians engaged in struggle have long recognized and advocated for cultural resistance. Ghassan Kanafani, in particular, reminds us in “Resistance Literature in Occupied Palestine” that culture and resistance are not distinct but rather intertwined.
Beyond the Political
Karl Marx argued in his “Theses on Feuerbach” that the fight for social justice must be rooted in real-world struggles. In precisely the same way, we must continually try to gain a clearer sense of those with whom we are in solidarity. Palestinian culture is an essential resource here, giving us a greater sense of the people, including their food, history and lives, with whom we are entangling ourselves.
Culture provides us with a delicate and nuanced sense of what it means to free Palestine and stand with the oppressed. It moves us beyond purely political commitments into the personal realm. It humanizes the cause with which we are struggling, laying bare our commonality and the indivisibility of justice, as Angela Y. Davis espouses. Cultural education also fosters a deeper appreciation of what is at stake. It inspires a commitment to the struggle, beyond the moral and political outrage that typically propels people into action. Culture serves as a remedy for activist fatigue when the struggle for solidarity inevitably becomes drawn out, as hegemonic forces play for time.
Moving beyond purely political and moral motivations to connect activists with the Palestinian people creates a consolidated and reinforced relationship, a bond that endures. Activists have repeatedly shown themselves to be skilled at interweaving Palestinian cultural resistance into their work, including through the celebration of the Palestinian Dabke, dress, food, and poetry. It is through this interweaving that an enriched appreciation for the struggle for the Palestinian way of life, as well as the land, emerges. Whilst more traditional political action is, of course, critical to the efficacy of solidarity activism, when these spaces become closed, as will be explored later in this article, it is cultural resistance that endures.
Solidarity for What?
We hold a particular position in Western solidarity. The spectre of cultural hegemony continues to loom large, notably in the corridors of power in Westminster. The policies towards Palestine and resistance have colonial undertones, symptomatic of what Antonio Gramsci identifies in his Prison Notebooks as a deliberate cultural hegemonic strategy used to maintain power and control.
The significance of promoting Palestinian culture through solidarity activism assumes a new perspective when viewed through the lens of Gramsci. The continued complicity of the UK government and corporate actors mobilize cultural hegemonic narratives that dehumanize Palestinians and attempt to delegitimize the Palestinian liberation struggle. By centralizing Palestinian culture as part of solidarity activism, we can engender a genuine commitment to the Palestinian struggle and avoid a ‘fetishisation’ with Palestine, as Salim Tamri warns against.
When activists exhibit Malak Mattar’s rich artwork, curate museum exhibits, promote Rafeef Ziadeh’s powerful spoken word, or organize events that celebrate Palestinian cuisine, they are not dressing up their activism in superficial performative cultural appropriation but instead translating historic and cultural memory into sustainable social ties that endure.
Interweaving culture into activism opens up new public spheres where the richness of Palestinian life is visible, valued, and fought for, giving renewed life and vitality to acts of solidarity that forge cultural bonds rooted in love and humanity. These bonds are difficult to break and engender a commitment that is difficult to exhaust. They culminate in actions that challenge the selling of UK-made F-35 parts to aid Israeli genocide in Gaza, the operations of Elbit Systems in the UK, and the corporate investment through local council pension schemes and universities. Cultural awareness and appreciation in this sense take on a different dimension. Such an appreciation serves to galvanize solidarity activists’ resolve when taking action and blurs boundaries between culture and resistance into indistinction, as Kanafani advocates.
Understanding the social fabric of Palestinian society in all its richness and intricacies provides an antidote that counteracts the hegemonic narratives seeking to prolong and justify the ongoing genocide and colonisation against the Palestinians.
Shrinking Spaces
As identified in Bristol University’s report “Criminalisation and Repression of Climate and Environmental Protests”, protest spaces in the UK are shrinking, with increasingly draconian laws infringing on all forms of freedom of speech. Since October 7, 2023, the British Government has passed legislation with the specific aims of deterring and punishing dissenting voices, including those on Palestine. Most notably, the proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation in July 2025, in a parliamentary bill, along with the extreme violent groups Maniacs Murder Cult and Russian Imperial Movement. Whilst Huda Amouri, one of the founders of Palestine Action, has recently succeeded in appealing this proscription in the High Court, the UK Government has committed to appealing the decision.
The proscription, by no means particularly egregious or exceptional, is part of a more general trend in the treatment of pro-Palestine activists in the UK. Both Ben Jamal, Chair of the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign (PSC) and Chris Nineham, the Vice-Chair of the Stop the War Campaign, were arrested under public order offences last year after protesting against BBC bias on Palestine/Israel. Despite warnings and concerns from UN legal experts, such as Francesca Albanese and Ben Saul, this increased political mobilisation against UK protest rights has continued unabated.
The extension of police powers under the Public Order Act (2023), the amendments to the Terrorism Act (2001), and the Crime and Policing Bill (2025), all serve to disempower protests from below that challenge the status quo. With the constriction of protest spaces and rights in the UK, the case laid out here for mobilizing cultural resistance as a means of solidarity is not just desirable but a necessity.
Culture opens avenues of resistance to oppose and undermine pro-Zionist narratives that permeate Western discourse. The resilience of culture as a mode of resistance to hegemonic structures of power has a long and rich history; names such as Victor Jara and Ai Weiwei sit alongside those of Kanafani and Mahmoud Darwish. If, as solidarity activists, we can harness the cultural defiance as part of our action in these suffocating times, it could be our strongest act of resistance.
Another World is Wearing a Thobe
My time as a researcher-activist has shown me that Palestinian culture is not merely an appendage to resistance, but is, in and of itself, the act of resistance. Palestinians, such as Mattar, Ziadeh, and, of course, Kanafani, have demonstrated the potency of culture as a mode of resistance.
Such a potent form of resistance is, and needs to remain, a critical component of effective solidarity activism. In a wider legal, political and social context where the possibilities of popular process are increasingly constricted and infringed upon, it is among our strongest tools for forging bonds, challenging hegemonic oppression, and expanding the increasingly shrinking spaces of protest.
If, as Arundhati Roy claims, ‘another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing,’ then there is every chance that the world she hears breathing is wearing a Palestinian thobe.
Imran Ahmed is a doctoral researcher at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter. His work explores how social movements, particularly those in solidarity with Palestine, produce alternative knowledge that challenges dominant state and media narratives. His research focuses on activists as organic intellectuals and examines how grassroots organising shapes political language, analysis, and collective understandings of power, resistance, and global justice.