The Sunday Paper: uncensored Indigenous voices

The Palestine Project
3 min readDec 7, 2021

The Sunday Paper was launched on December 6. It is a new publication that displays the strong solidarity and co-resistances between Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and Palestinian communities in ‘Australia’; communities that understand the reality of living under settler colonial occupation.

“The Sunday Paper is a powerful affirmation that colonised people will stand together despite attempts by powerful institutions to stifle and undermine their collective solidarity.

We have lost patience with performative selective ‘progressive’ posturing especially the so-called ‘progressives except Palestine’. An oxymoron if ever there was one. Solidarity must be uncompromising, reflexive and consistent.”

— Randa Abdel-Fattah

“When it comes to Black-Palestinian solidarity, I feel like I’m always watching history in the making! This is a remarkable project, built by truly the most remarkable anticolonial minds on this continent. Pre-order available now!”

Brianna Dax

“An exciting project that we’ve been working on this year — it was conceived of to draw attention to Schwartz Media’s positioning of itself as progressive despite serial refusals to publish Palestinian voices — most notably during the Unity Intifada in May this year — but also over many years. It is part of the hard work towards ending the great Palestinian silence; but it is also part of important solidarity work that has brought Indigenous and Palestinian communities together to amplify our shared struggle towards justice in settler-colonies here and elsewhere.”

— Micaela Sahhar

“Because a progressive politics that does not include a commitment to Palestine is not a progressive politics that merely leaves out an issue, it is a progressive politics that leaves out part of its substance and it’s soul.”

— Ghassan Hage

The Sunday Paper also holds voices in boycott of Schwartz Media, the parent company of publications such as The Saturday Paper, 7am Podcast, The Monthly, Black Inc. Books, Quarterly Essay, The Culture Podcast and Australian Foreign Affairs.

To produce creative work on this continent is to reckon with the violence of the Australian state. It is to reckon with the relentless racism and propaganda of a settler-colonial occupation. If a media outlet examines this violence in one instance while being complicit in another, there is a problem. In the case of Schwartz, the problem is an insidious top-down anti-Palestinian directive.

— Matt Chun from The Sunday Paper collective.

Contributors to The Sunday Paper include leading thinkers, poets, activists and academics, including: Amy McQuire, Chelsea Watego, Laniyuk, Alison Whittaker, Aunty Barbara McGrady, Steve Bunbagee Hodder Watt, Randa Abdel- Fattah, Jennine Khalik, Sara Saleh, Jeanine and Hasib Hourani, Tasnim Sammak, Rihab Charida, Samar Abu Elouf, Micaela Sahhar, Nader Ruhayel, Amal Naser, Fahad Ali, Rose Nakad, Alissar Chidiac, Omar Sakr, Charandev Singh, Jordy Silverstein, Dennis Grauel and Ghassan Hage.

This publication builds on the rich tradition of solidarity between Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and Palestinian communities on this continent, including the conference ‘Black-Palestinian Solidarity: contesting settler nationalisms’, hosted at the Universtity of Melbourne in 2019.

Schwartz Media’s active silencing of Palestinian voices and its erasure
of Israeli apartheid and ethnic cleansing in Palestine has been an open secret amongst Australian journalists for years. Due in large part to the work of Palestinian activists, this knowledge has become more widely known. This racism has most recently been documented in John Lyons’ book Dateline Jerusalem: Journalism’s Toughest Assignment published this year.

The Sunday Paper will be available through online sales at www.thesundaypaper.com.au and selected bookshops.

FURTHER INFO:
MATT CHUN, Co-Editor
hello@thesundaypaper.com.au
+61403 755 672

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