In a wide-ranging and reflective online discussion, Eelam Tamil writer and researcher Sinthujan Varatharajah joined Palestinian journalist Hebh Jamal to explore the politics of international solidarity, hierarchies of attention, and the contradictions faced by oppressed peoples organising for liberation.
The event, titled “Hierarchies of Solidarity”, drew on themes from the book co-authored by Varatharajah and Moshtari Hilal.
Opening the conversation, Jamal spoke candidly about feeling “provoked” by critiques of solidarity frameworks that seemed to position causes in competition, saying, “I felt like I just couldn't understand... why is this always a competition?” Reflecting on her experience in the Palestinian solidarity movement, she added, “All of this solidarity exists, right? But it doesn't produce any material changes. The Palestinians are still dying in the tens of thousands.”
Varatharajah responded by noting that such discomfort is common but essential. “There is a bit of a romanticisation of solidarity that is very current as well as widespread,” they said, particularly from the perspective of being an Eelam Tamil. “It always felt a little bit cynical, and also maybe frustrating and aggravating... how much disregard there has been in regards to our own issue, and then how much potential there was also in regards to how people were able to mobilise for other issues.”
The conversation moved toward a deeper interrogation of how solidarity is understood and practised—especially among communities who themselves are targets of colonial violence.
Jamal reflected on the burden of expectation and recalled a time when a Sudanese activist asked her about speaking about Sudan. “I was frustrated... because I didn't understand why he expected me to be a poster person for all of these different groups.” She posed a critical question: “Whose responsibility is it to understand a struggle or liberation movement? And how does that translate into a responsibility to act?”
“If you come from a struggle and from a specific kind of history of violence, I feel like there is a different subjectivity you’re faced with,” noted Varatharajah. They advocated for forms of solidarity that are specific, listening-based, and grounded in the real needs of those most affected: “If concerned people ask us to amplify their voices, that’s a very straightforward kind of ask.”
Both speakers grappled with the danger of reducing solidarity to a reflection of one's own identity. “I feel like this is just a trap,” Jamal said. “Once we start to only view it as a mirroring of ourselves, I could never actually truly understand other people, other struggles.” Varatharajah agreed, cautioning against flattening complex realities into metaphor for the entire world. “We should be able to speak about something that has nothing to do with us, but is in contradiction with our values.”
One of the most pointed critiques addressed the popular phrase “Palestine frees us all.” Varatharajah took issue with how such slogans recentre Palestine as the universal metaphor, saying, “It creates a centre... and renders other oppressions as a side effect... an appendix of that one conversation.” Jamal reflected that while the sentiment may resonate in certain geopolitical contexts, “it is actually very Western.”
Their discussion also turned toward how liberation struggles speak to the world. Jamal noted, “The Palestinian people... have developed a diaspora that speaks to the international community.” She asked how the Tamil struggle translates itself to a global audience.
Varatharajah responded that while every movement speaks to the world, “the way their calls resonate is different.” They pointed to how the Sri Lankan state, a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement, has weaponised Global South rhetoric to delegitimise the Tamil cause. “For us, and maybe also for the Kurdish movement, the West sometimes plays a different role,” they said.
The conversation revisited the importance of clear political alignment, with both participants agreeing on the necessity of principled positions.
“Personally, I like stances,” said Varatharajah. “I think it’s the more principled way of doing politics. When I think about resistance movements globally, a lot of them push out statements of solidarity. These are also rejections of someone else's politics. They’re aligning with something while rejecting something else. That creates value, clarity, and stance to a specific principle.”
Jamal shared how difficult it can be to navigate that clarity in practice, highlighting how when she spoke on Kurdistan, it “isolates a majority of the people in my community” who were Turkish.
On the question of whether solidarity is transactional, Varatharajah offered a firm defence of reciprocity. “It's like with friendships. If you don’t invest equally, you’ll see an outcome that might not be what you envisioned.” They rejected the idea that mutual support devalues solidarity. “Whenever people ask for something in return, it’s often dismissed as transactional. I have an issue with that, because in our everyday relationships, we’d never think of an act of giving and receiving as bad. We’d think it’s equitable, respectful, common-sense behavior.”
“That’s how we live, day to day, without necessarily thinking of it as political… If you break it down to this banal level, it makes sense. So, it should also make sense on a meta level.”
In one of the more personal moments during the discussion, Varatharajah reflected on growing up in a refugee camp in Germany. They described how Tamil families, displaced and isolated, created systems of mutual care with others in the camp - from cooking and cleaning schedules to shared transport for medical visits. “These are, in many ways, the core of what it means to be in relationship with each other,” they said. “Solidarity is a relationship. From an individual to another, but also from collectives to other collectives and groups.”
Jamal shared her own upbringing in New York and her journey toward political consciousness. “I’ve figured out what it means to be Palestinian entirely on my own,” she said. “Through this rejection [of gratitude toward the state], I learned about what it means to be Palestinian.”
Both speakers reflected on the emotional difficulty of reconciling intergenerational experiences of trauma, displacement, and political silence.
The conversation also touched on power—and limits—of witnessing. Varatharajah recounted the horror of 2009, when the Sri Lankan military massacred over 100,000 Tamils in Mullivaikkal. “At the end of it, the state still held on to its rhetoric of having said it killed no civilians... That creates a margin of 167,000 people who are just erased,” they said. “One of the saddest parts in our history is that so much suffering has happened, and yet we still have to explain it to people.”
Ultimately, both speakers called for a solidarity grounded in specificity, humility, and listening.
Varatharajah stated,
“In that sense, I kind of feel like listening to people, encountering concerned people, actually allowing them to speak. To be patient, to be open to the critique that they make, the frustrations that they voice. And then to amplify it. And then to also display that type of act of witnessing, act of responding and not just muting yourself.”
Watch the full discussion on the link above.
Read a full transcript of the discussion below.
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Transcript of Discussion: "Hierarchies of Solidarity"
Speakers:
• Sinthujan Varatharajah – Eelam Tamil writer, independent researcher, and essayist based in Berlin.
• Hebh Jamal – Palestinian journalist based in Germany.
Sinthujan Varatharajah:
My name is Sinthujan Varatharajah. I'm based in Berlin. I'm a writer and researcher, and I mostly focus on issues of statelessness, immobilities, mobilities, as well as displacement in my writing.
Hebh Jamal:
And my name is Hebh Jamal. I'm a Palestinian journalist. I'm originally from New York—well, originally, I am originally from Palestine, in the village of Jimzu that was ethnically cleansed in ‘48. But I grew up in New York City and moved to Mannheim, Germany, in 2020. So, I’ve been here for a few years.
So, thank you again, Sinthujan. I know I keep saying this, but really, truly, thank you again.
I want to start off this conversation by telling you, and also the audience, after you very much kindly sent me your book, and I read it, the very first time I was witnessing your conversations around concepts of solidarity, I always felt sort of provoked.
I always felt like, I just couldn't understand. At the time, I considered it like “oppression Olympics”, right? Like, why is this just always a competition?"
And then I was frustrated also because I initially look at this so-called international solidarity with the Palestine movement, and something that I've had a lot of trouble with is all of this solidarity exists, right? But it doesn't produce any material changes. Palestinians are still dying in the tens of thousands.
So, how do you reconcile with that, I guess? With my initial reaction—it has changed, and I want to talk about how this has changed for me. But yeah, I just want to hear your initial thoughts about that.
Sinthujan Varatharajah:
Thank you. I think it's a very common reaction that people feel provoked as well as maybe outraged, and will very quickly frame any type of critique towards the dynamics of solidarity internationally as a form of oppression Olympics or competition that is being drawn or kind of, like, pointed to.
But generally, I feel like there is a bit of a romanticization of solidarity that is very current as well as very widespread. I think amongst many people, that is something I feel quite, yeah, uncomfortable with.
Specifically, also speaking from the point of view and the kind of community that I come from.
So just as a context, I am Eelam Tamil, which means my parents also arrived as refugees. I was born in a refugee camp. We've lived here for the last 40 years, and we are still struggling and fighting for our independence, as well as justice and accountability, in regards to the so-called Sri Lankan state.
And having kind of experienced and grown up in this community, and having seen also the ways in which we've been rendered quite invisible and kind of pushed into this side conversation or into a drawer that is 'of the forgotten people,' it always felt a little bit cynical and also maybe frustrating and aggravating—I think personally, but I think also collectively for a lot of Eelam Tamil people—to watch how much disregard there has been in regards to our own issue, and then how much potential there was also in regards to how people were able to mobilize for other issues.
To me, I think these conversations often are domesticated, right? So they're kind of held in private, and people kind of vent out their anger in private, but very few people actually take it to a more public realm because of fears of precisely those kinds of reactions and accusations.
And I think as a way of collectivizing and as a way of kind of, like, challenging, as well as encouraging and creating discursive engagement, I think it is critical and important for us to really take these conversations into the public, even though they are uncomfortable.
But I think their discomfort is a productive space to start from.
Hebh Jamal:
I could tell you about my initial reaction, right?
The reason why I felt this was so important was because I have been confronted with the concept of responsibility multiple times. So, I have been confronted, you know, when I was in college, the very first time by a Sudanese brother, who, you know, was frustrated—why I never spoke about Sudan, or why I never spoke up for Sudan, or, you know, beyond the Facebook comments or initial tweets or whatever.
And I was frustrated at him, because I didn't understand why he expected me to, you know, be a poster person for all of these different groups.
But this goes into another question for me, which is whose responsibility is it to understand a struggle or a movement or a liberation movement?
And then, how does that translate into a responsibility to act?
But, let's say if I did speak up, right? Let's say I wanted to speak about Sudan in a productive way, or in a way that, you know, takes center stage for me, like I do for Palestine.
Can't that also be sort of speaking over people who are Sudanese, people who have the legitimacy in these conversations?
How do you reconcile with pursuing knowledge and trying to understand these different conflicts, different liberation circles?
Sinthujan Varatharajah:
I mean, we live in a time, right, where social media is prone to be one of the primary ways of how we express ourselves, as well as how we perform ourselves, right?
And also, like, how expressions of solidarity are oftentimes communicated, which means that a lot of times people kind of interrogate as well as monitor our online activities, as well as the focus and also the blind spots that we implicitly produce.
And I think, specifically, if you come directly from a struggle, right? And I think it's a very specific positionality—if you come from a struggle and from a specific history of violence, I feel like there is a different subjectivity that you're faced with, which renders you or pushes you into a specific position, where I feel that's a different interrogation than, say, for example, an ally—someone who is not directly concerned, but who is kind of interested and also active in mobilizing and counteracting violence towards a certain group, right?
And I think, for you, as a Palestinian, for instance, I think, I find it difficult to directly critique you in your own focus on your own history, as well as your own people’s struggle for self-determination, independence, the end of apartheid, the end of occupation, and so on and so forth.
But I do think, amongst all of us, right—like, we’ve met here as a Palestinian as well as an Eelam Tamil—so we’re both directly from histories of colonization and oppression.
I feel like, um, there is a need for us to converse and to kind of get in direct interaction, as well as conversation, to also measure out the amount of solidarity and the type of solidarity we need.
So I feel like, when people ask something of us, I think it’s okay to ask back "What do you need from me?"
Because if solidarity is a practice, and I feel like because we produce these flat-out responses, we think that solidarity is a practice that needs to be equal to every single thing. But every single issue requires specific types of actions and specific types of responses. And these responses need to be on pair as well as in conversation with those most concerned, right?
So if concerned people ask us to amplify their voices, that’s a very straightforward ask, right? And that means that we don’t necessarily need to put our own analysis on top of their posts. We can just share them and amplify them and kind of give them the platform and counteract measures of censorship and other things.
But then if people, for instance, invite you to a demonstration and then ask you to take a role on a stage and make a speech or something, then I think, of course, there's—there needs to be a negotiation, even within yourself and also the kind of representation that you take and how much you want to speak.
I think the act of overwriting mostly happens when we employ our own analysis—when outsiders employ their own analysis of a situation and then also sometimes distort and override concerned people’s own critical sense of reflection and way of mirroring their own realities.
Hebh Jamal:
Okay, I completely understand you. But here’s the thing that, I also have a lot of struggle with.
Because, on one hand, I try to always connect the Palestinian struggle with other struggles. I try to, for example, with the occupation of Kashmir, I try to look at the similarities between India and Israel, look at the connections and all of this stuff.
But my question is, "Is that actually reductive?"
To constantly view other liberation struggles and other histories of people, only in how it relates to yourself?
Because, for example, I know that there’s a lot of similarities between us two, right? But I have never actually been in encounter with another Eelam Tamil person besides you. I never knew about the genocide until I came in contact with you and other activists.
And so, my question is, I feel like this is just a trap.
I feel like once we start to only view it as a mirroring of ourselves, I could never actually truly understand other people, other struggles, and fight for them in a way that is just powerful.
Sinthujan Varatharajah:
I totally agree. I think it’s a very intuitive kind of bodily reaction that we try to understand others through our own bodies. Which means that we try to kind of create bridges, but of course, there are limits to it.
Because it also disallows you from seeing the differences and the specificities. It creates a kind of reductive frame, because it constantly kind of also reinforces yourself in that story.
Whereas, we should actually, like, reach a point where we take a distance and are able to speak about something that has nothing to do with us, but is just in contradiction with our values.
And I feel like a lot of times, in regards to solidarity in practice, a lot of people really embody solidarity. So they think about the fact that, “Oh, they have children,” therefore, “other children suffering is something horrible.”
But, for instance, I don’t have children, and I think children suffering is horrible too. I don’t need to necessarily articulate it through my childlessness or my children.
This type of correlation as well as drawing parallels is a very kind of, like, widespread pattern. And I don’t even think it’s bad, because I think it has potential. Especially in order to draw attention to the systemic nature of how imperial and colonial forms of violence are interrelated.
But I feel like the discussion needs to go beyond that.
For instance, in regards to Kashmir and Palestine, people always like to draw attention to the fact that Kashmiris were shaped by Palestinians, from the Intifada, throwing stones, and everything. Then suddenly, how Kashmiris were doing the same towards the occupying Indian army.
And that is true, you know, because I think we should also acknowledge the fact that people see, learn, and kind of apply certain learnings in their realities. But we can’t reduce it to that single conversation.
Because even though Israel and India are politically collaborating, and are also relating a lot of their measures of violence towards each colonized people, there are still specificities that don’t necessarily correlate and that are very unique to that single situation.
For instance, when I always think about the occupation in Palestine, I need to translate our occupation, it doesn’t really work that way.
If I for instance took you to Eelam, and show you the kind of way of how occupation works for us, you would see a lot of differences. And I think there is a qualitative difference that makes specific realities quite unique.
It is not that I’m trying to say, “What is happening to this group is worse than what is happening to the other.”
But I think we should be able to also speak about these differences and how these differences create specific types of realities.
Like, for instance, the fact that Palestinians are divided between three different territories in historic Palestine. And then, divided all across the world as refugees. These are very specific realities that don’t necessarily apply to other populations, like Darfurians or West Cameroonians or others.
These differences, to me, are very important to kind of also stay true to that one specific history.
And I think we have this urge to constantly speak globally without speaking locally. I think it’s actually much more productive to speak in a locally adjusted and embedded way.
Which means that when I speak about Palestine, I want to speak about Palestine. I don’t want to speak about Tamil Eelam for instance. And then, when I speak about Kashmir, I don’t want to speak about Rohingyas, I speak about Kashmir.
That’s what I’m trying to practice. But I feel like, a lot of times, how people kind of receive it and what people take away from it is something different.
Hebh Jamal:
Right. I mean, but it kind of goes back to this concept.
You have this major issue in your book. And it’s the phrase, “Palestine frees us all.” Or something along those lines.
First of all, it's just not true. Like, we always say it — "Yeah, Palestine frees us all, and when Palestine’s free, we're all free."
And of course, I understand where it comes from. I understand the sentiment, especially in the geopolitical sense, when it concerns, the Arab and Middle Eastern world because nearly every country is run by a dictator.
But, I want more of your reaction to why you vehemently dislike this phrase.
Sinthujan Varatharajah:
I mean, it would be nice if that was real, you know? Like, I would not oppose it.
But the fact is that it's an abstraction and it also creates a center. To me, it's a very colonial, imperial logic. Because it centers certain oppressions and kind of also renders other oppressions as a side effect into side conversations that are only linked as an appendix of that one conversation.
And it also does injustice towards Palestinians because it kind of abstracts Palestinians from their own very land-based issue. It renders Palestine into a metaphor for the world, which it’s not. Because it’s a very real struggle. And it’s a very real suffering that is very localized.
These phrases are like rhetorical tools that are quite easily deployed as a way to shorten some kind of thought processes and some kind of conversations. Whilst their intentions, I think, are right and good, I think the reality is so far apart from it.
And it actually does, in many ways, create harm. Because it also allows people to focus on Palestine as a reference point, to focus on every other oppressed and colonized people. And in doing that, I think we are really creating a center and a periphery. And that is not the logic of any anti-colonial struggle, right?
Hebh Jamal:
Yeah, so this is what I think about this. I constantly ask myself (the) question, and by the way, this is something that Zionists and imperialists always specifically ask, “Oh, why don't you fight for all of these other things?”
And, you know, I actually take that question seriously.
I ask myself, “What is it about Palestine that acts so universal to a lot of these activists? Why is it the major issue on university campuses? Why are the students fighting so much for it?”
And I think it’s because Palestine - this is my analysis - but I’d love to hear also what you think.
I feel like Palestine is the most active decolonization struggle happening right now. It’s the most visible and ongoing form of colonial violence where all of the textbook villains are participating in it.
Not just that. Not only are they participating - not only Germany, Britain, France all of the caricature colonialists - but also, they’re implementing it inward.
So, in Germany, we feel this huge repression if we talk about this one thing. Which makes us want to talk about it more. The more you resist, the more someone tries to punch you down, the more you want to talk about something.
And in the United States, it's taken now such a huge effort to silence and to criminalize and to detain and abduct people for not wanting to be complicit in the crimes against Palestinians.
So, I think that’s where it comes from.
Like for me, "Oh, you know, if Palestine is free, we're all free", it’s actually a very Western concept.
Because in a way, in some instances, if Palestine is free, then some people are free to protest in the United States. Some people have more freedom of speech in Germany.
Right? Like, "Complete the sentence." So it could be, in my opinion, true in some cases.
I mean, Lebanon would also have a sense of freedom and sovereignty if Palestine was free. And also Syria, and also other countries.
I think the reason why it's become such a universal thing is because of how much the caricature colonialists have embodied the Israeli colonial project.
Sinthujan Varatharajah:
I mean, I agree. Palestine wouldn’t have the focus was it not about Israel, right?
I feel like Palestine is central because of Israel, not because of Palestine.
And in the same way, I feel when people always say, “Palestine is complicated,” you know, I think it’s the opposite. It’s actually one of the least complicated issues. Which makes it also so easy to tap into. Because it’s also an issue that everyone has an opinion about. Even the most remotely placed, apolitical person will have an opinion about it, a feeling about it.
Whereas in regards to other issues, they won’t have a feeling. And I think a lot of it also has to do with the fact that it’s an old-fashioned type of colonialism.
In the way that you have a majority European population against an Indigenous population. And setups like that create also a framework to understand and to also react toward it, that is maybe much more easier to handle. Because they also push us back to the history of Algeria. They push us back to all kinds of previous colonial histories from the 20th century and the 21st century.
And that allows a lot of people to read it in a way quite differently than, let’s say, a project of colonization where the colonizer and the colonized don’t look so different. And where they both previously were colonized by Europeans, and then one of them became a colonizer in the tradition of Europeans. And that is oftentimes what creates this overwhelmedness because people cannot draw that distinction between who is colonized and who is the colonizer.
And that pushes a lot of people into a maybe more familiar form of activism. I wouldn’t say easier, but maybe a type of activism that is much easier to the eye. And a type of reaction that conforms with the way we learned about European colonization.
Because I feel like, in many ways, this is like many other projects, it’s an unfinished project of decolonization. And also a product, of course, of that process.
In that way, I feel like a lot of people are better equipped to respond to it than, say, to speak about Ethiopia. Or any other country that colonizes internally and where you have to kind of read more, but also be much more sensitive to your visual perception.
Hebh Jamal:
My question is, and maybe this is even colonial in its articulation, but I'm just going to ask it anyway for the sake of it.
The Palestinian people, and the South African people, have developed a lot of time in speaking to the international community. But also, in terms of just how they have developed a diaspora, that in itself maybe has something to do with it.
But the language in which Palestinian resistance has formulated is that it speaks to the international world and tells them what to do to combat Israeli colonialism.
And I could be totally ignorant of this, but how does this all translate, for example, to the Tamil struggle? When a people’s movement is giving direct asks to the international community, they pretty much laid it out for the world to just sort of do.
Sinthujan Varatharajah:
I feel like the Palestinian position is quite specific and unique in the sense that Palestine has a recognized non-recognized state, in the sense that Palestine has an official representation at the UN.
It has certain types of access to institutions, which other struggles really lack. Which means that their way of accessing the so-called world stage is quite different. It goes through backchannels, it goes through solidarity movements, and through other kinds of stakeholders.
But I think every movement addresses the world. I just feel like the ways of how far their calls resonate are different. In regard to South Africa and Palestine, I mean, these are all settler-colonial European projects. In that sense they also respond in that very historical manner of how we think about a European body in a very specific geography and what kind of issues that has in regards to Indigenous populations.
But, for instance, like, for us, as Eelam Tamils, we struggle a lot with the so-called Global South. Because the Global South has completely sided with the Sri Lankan state. And the Sri Lankan state has employed and really weaponized this Global South rhetoric, as well as anti-imperial rhetoric, ss a way to delegitimize the Tamil struggle as an external force that is in the interest of the empires.
In these regards, there is a much more, cynical as well as sinister way of how rhetoric that might work in regards to Palestine and South Africa does not work in the case of a country like Sri Lanka. Where the state has also been at the forefront of the Non-Aligned Movement, right?
It was one of the founding states, that was also part of the very core members, with Nasser and all these other people, who were running that show. So they are very equipped.
Years ago, I used to be active in lobbying and everything at the UN level. And one of the biggest issues that we had was actually lobbying Global Southern states, countries like Algeria, like Cuba, which are historically always considered as allies for instance to Palestine, to South Africa, and other places and struggles. That have been vehemently opposing for instance us, because they have completely bought into as well as sided with the rhetoric as well as the political framing that Sri Lanka has employed. And also exploited, you know?
So for us, and I think maybe that’s similar to the Kurdish movement that in many ways, like, these rhetorics, like, the West for instance, has a very specific, maybe different role sometimes. Where oftentimes, we have sometimes better relationships even with a country like the UK, which is our former colonizer, than, for instance, with Thailand.
And that creates, maybe globally speaking, skewed conversations. But I think in their own reality, they are coherent still.
Hebh Jamal:
The very reason I texted you saying we need to have a discussion is because I watched the, just part of interview between Mehdi Hasan and the leader of Sri Lanka, or as you say so-called Sri Lanka, and I was like… it was deja vu.
It was just like, "What is happening?" Like, I was so angry at that type of non-response, of the gaslighting and the justification for genocidal crimes.
What I didn’t know, however, is, you know, Sri Lanka’s positioning within the Global South. I want to ask you just the foundational question of solidarity. You use in your book, you use the phrase of “Palestine-washing”, and you used Morocco as an example.
And I think it was absolutely spot on.
You said the Moroccan team, they put the Palestinian flags, they garnered international support. Palestinians themselves were very excited. But the major issue is they weren’t lobbying their government and protesting the actual relations between Israel and Morocco. That was a clear example of what you call “Palestine-washing”.
I don’t even know if I have a question for this. It’s just outrageous to me. And I want to pinpoint and just talk about "What is true solidarity?".
I have had such a hard time trying to answer this question. I know it’s a big one, but I would like to sort of reach something by the end of this conversation, as you try masterfully in your book as well.
Sinthujan Varatharajah:
Thank you. I mean, I don’t think there’s an all-out answer. I feel like there is no universal response to something like solidarity. I think we need to consider solidarity always as a response to a lack of something or a collapse of something.
Therefore, that kind of deficit or absence of something needs to be responded to, or is asked to be responded to by others. And that means that it needs to be very specific. And specific issues need specific responses.
Therefore, I don’t think there is a clear answer to that. Except for the fact that I think one of the things that I find very meaningful and very important is the act of witnessing and acknowledging someone’s suffering.
That is maybe a very important way of acting. Because it also speaks to our lack of power to actually change these realities. One of the things that a lot of, like, violated people are frustrated about iIs the fact that their suffering isn’t reaching, or doesn’t matter.
As much as we cannot change a lot of the policies that, for instance, governments design at the expense of colonized populations, I think there’s something about the act of rendering someone visible. It sounds very superficial, but in the sense that acknowledging someone’s living, but also suffering and dying.
And that is, I think, an elemental part that is oftentimes banalized.
In 2009, when the genocide was going on in Eelam, for instance. It was one of the worst things that we experienced. We lost 170,000 people within a span of five to nine months. And the fact that at the end of it, the state still held on to its rhetoric of having said, "It killed no civilians."
Then, secondly, it also kept on kind of diminishing the numbers reducing them to 2,000, 3,000, or something. Which creates kind of like a margin of 167,000 people.
The question that I was oftentimes concerned and distraught with was, “What is it when 167,000 people just become a statistical number?”. That can be erased. That can be negotiated. That can be questioned in its very existence.
What does that mean in regards to our lives, to our deaths?
One of the things that I find, from a Tamil perspective, one of the saddest parts in our history, was the fact that so much suffering has happened, and yet we still have to explain it to people. As if it wasn’t real. And as if it wasn’t something that should have reached them in other ways.
Sinthujan Varatharajah:
In that sense, I kind of feel like listening to people, encountering concerned people, actually allowing them to speak, to be patient, to be open to the critique that they make, the frustrations that they voice. And then to amplify it. And then to also display that type of act of witnessing, act of responding and not just muting yourself and kind of becoming… what’s the word? Like, so passive. You know?
But I don’t know. I feel like every situation really requires specific types of responses.
I can only speak from my own kind of frustrations and my own reaction, I would have at that moment because we were very similar to Palestinians today.
We were, for months, on the streets. We dropped out of universities. We were just constantly occupying spaces. But people were still asking us, "What’s going on?"
Even though all our banners - they were not very vague. They were very graphic. They had images, they had slogans. They spoke to the violence. But people still didn’t recognize the fact that this was real.
And this kind of feeling that a lot of violence creates, that we’re not real, is something that I feel like is something that we can practically combat, even as outsiders of that history.
Hebh Jamal:
I mean, I’m not even sure how to follow up on that. One of the things that was very prominent for me in your book was when you spoke about your time in the refugee camps.
I would love if you sort of spoke about it to the participants.
I really would love if you spoke about this feeling of what your consciousness of solidarity meant while you were in these refugee camps, which, I believe you describe as the fundamental part of your understanding of it.
Sinthujan Varatharajah:
I like to think about solidarity less from a meta level than, from a micro level and how we practice solidarity in our day-to-day.
And how it’s not necessarily always framed or understood as something political, even though it’s something deeply political. I think it’s a consciousness that we develop.
In the book I talk about the years that we spent in refugee camps.
I grew up in a refugee camp. I was born in one. I lived for the first seven years in one.
If you’re not familiar with Germany, Germany has this very old system of refugee camps, which are dispersed all across the country. They’re mostly in rural areas. And then they’re very commonly at the very periphery, in very kind of isolated areas. Cut off from infrastructure, cut off from society, which renders them into very isolated spaces.
So, we grew up in these spaces. And these spaces, in many ways, they kind of create their own economy as well as force you into an enactment of a collective kind of existence. Where different people, kind of, encounter each other, from different parts of the world. Different struggles, different histories who are then forced into this very small space. And very dehumanizing space. Then have to kind of manage that space.
When I was thinking about the refugee camp, I always thought about the kind of, like, the politics of the space. The spatial politics. The architecture. And in how many ways the architecture is designed to create discomfort. To create pain. To continue the suffering of the detained population.
But refugees, of course, in many ways, also counteract that. For instance, in organizing the space. In decorating the space. In creating ways of actually making it a liveable space. And their existence in the camp turning into something that’s worthwhile.
Because the state constantly keeps telling you that you’re a disposable population. "Therefore, you are in a refugee camp." But refugees themselves often times invert that interpretation by giving themselves meaning and value.
Hebh Jamal:
That’s something that really stood out to me in your book.
Like, this idea that even within these extreme conditions there’s a way of creating community.
That’s so essential to how we think about solidarity because it’s something that is built and practiced, right?
Not just declared.
Sinthujan Varatharajah:
Yeah, and to me, some of the things that I really found quite striking, as well as something that really shaped me, was the ways of how we organized our food plans, our cooking plans, our cleaning plans. As well as how we organized, for instance, going to the doctors. Because the doctors were miles away. So, we had to get a car. No one had licenses. No one had a car, of course.
So you had to interact with different people and then coordinate to meet your everyday needs.
And these are, in many ways the core of what it means to be in relationship with each other. Because I think solidarity is a relationship. From an individual to another ,but also from collectives to other collectives and groups.
And in that way, it kind of broke it down to a very micro level. Where you were faced with a very violent reality and everyone was trying to navigate that. Then making the best out of it through the numbers and the abilities of each of them.
And that, to me was something that really shaped also my understanding of how we interact with each other.
I think I’m generally, like, less concerned with online expressions of solidarity. Even though, of course, this book that we wrote is very much concerned about online expression and social media critique.
I am much more interested in how, in our everyday, how we deal with each other.
I feel like we live in this kind of weird time where people have these very reductive ways of speaking about not showing gratitude, for instance.
Of course, it’s always framed. The German state, for instance, asks foreigners to be grateful for being taken up in this country. Or being given a stay or something.
And a lot of people in our generation, they reject that. Which I completely understand. But then, when I look at my parents’ generation, I see the opposite. Like, they actually express that gratitude oftentimes.
That gratitude is oftentimes directly linked to their own frame of reference which is the violence of the states that they fled from.
So, even though this state is also violent, their sense of relating and measuring that violence is based on their reference points
I always think about everyday interactions. Say you walk on the street, and someone attacks you or something. And someone else comes to help you.
Of course, you’ll say thank you to that person. You won’t say, "Um, yes, you did what you should have done."
And in that everyday interaction, I kind of feel like it kind of speaks also to a kind of global way of how we could relate to each other in a much more, I don’t know if empathetic is the word that I would use, but I think in a much more genuine and acknowledging way.
Like, for instance, when you invited me, Hebh, and you said thank you, I always said, like, "Don’t say thank you."
But I would say thank you too, you know? Because I think there’s a courtesy and a respectfulness and an acknowledgment of the act of actually making an effort.
I would never take that effort for granted. And I think, to me, that is something that I hold dear and want to maintain as a core of how I interact with people.
Hebh Jamal:
I feel like we’re very different people.
I don’t express gratitude often. I’m usually not that grateful. And maybe this sort of becomes, like, my refusal to accept my situation.
You were talking about your parents and I immediately felt heard. That was my parents too. I mean, my parents never wanted me to be an activist. My first introduction to activism or solidarity work was actually tackling school segregation in New York City.
I was at a public high school in New York City. I was one of the only Muslims. And it was a majority white public school. And right behind my high school, there was a housing project for Black kids that couldn’t get into the high school because of how competitive it was.
And so, my whole introduction to activism was tackling school segregation.
Immediately, my parents’ initial reactions were,
"Why are you doing this?"
"Why are you causing a problem?"
"Why are you going to this protest?"
And it was very frustrating. I’ve developed this concept of lacking gratitude because I’m always angry and frustrated over the situation. Mostly because I’ve never got to learn about what it means to be a Palestinian person and what exactly I missed out on. And what my children are missing out on.
Even the conversation for today, it was very hard to get in the mind space of trying to have this talk. It felt like being a Palestinian is all-encompassing and traumatic in all of its sense.
My point is that I’ve figured out what it means to be Palestinian entirely on my own.
It was because of my parents’ sort of—this gratitude that you mentioned, towards the state. I rejected that. And through this rejection, I learned about what it means to be Palestinian.
"Why is it that I was even living in New York City?"
"Why is it that I’m currently now in Germany?"
And my husband, who spent his childhood in Gaza, his family is being slaughtered as we speak.
It’s through this rejection of gratitude.
And of course, it’s not about an interpersonal level, it’s about the space that goes beyond just the personal.
I know our realities are very different because you grew up in a refugee camp, you spent time in a refugee camp. But the access to knowledge, and when your grandparents or parents tell you about the repression and persecution they faced,
How does that couple with this feeling any sort of gratitude?
They’re not supposed to be in this foreign land to begin with. I think I don’t feel gratitude towards Germany. But I think I’ve gone through that trajectory of rejecting my parents’ reaction, and also policing my parents and telling them off for not feeling grateful differently, you know?
Sinthujan Varatharajah:
But I’ve also become more understanding, because I also understand that there’s a difference between their positionality and mine. And there’s a comfort and a privilege in mine that they don’t share. So in that sense I’ve become more soft, maybe, on them. Even though I don’t agree, but I understand.
Hebh Jamal:
Is there a privilege though? Is there really?
Because part of it is, you, of course, react and build, be in spaces that are towing the line of what’s respectable to a state.
But as we both know, when we try to speak in a liberatory sense for all, that isn’t a very acceptable approach to state hegemony.
So are you privileged in that sense?
Sinthujan Varatharajah:
I think I’m privileged in relation to Eelam Tamils who are back home. And I think that is the relationship that I look at.
I’m not comparing myself to—I don’t know, Germans or others who live here. But I’m specifically speaking about that relationship. Of what it means to live outside of that occupying force and outside of the violence of our immediate occupier.
And of course, here we are also subject to many related forms of violence. But I still see that there’s a qualitative difference which allows me to also develop in a way that’s so different.
Personally, my parents did not raise me politically. My parents did not introduce me to our struggle. My parents were very conscious about separating us from the struggle.
And they always made a point by saying that “Our suffering will end with us.”
And “You are here.”
“This is a new life we’ve given you. Be happy.”
“And make the most out of it.”
“Don’t get into trouble.”
“Don’t critique too much.”
“Don’t be too loud.”
“Don’t give yourself a name.”
But of course, that’s not how life works. And that’s also not how families work.
Oftentimes, the ways of how our parents would do it was whenever they would watch the news and stuff, they would push us away or put us into our rooms, and keep us away from any types of interaction.
So, my own knowledge was very superficial. I knew we were persecuted. I knew our people were killed. I knew our people were fleeing. And I knew that the state was causing us trouble. But there was nothing beyond that.
And I think only, like, in my teenage years, I started to also become more interested and intrigued.
Specifically, I was frustrated with my own ignorance, because I was quite early very much, a news person.
As a child, I would be obsessed with watching the news, learning about all kinds of issues and stuff. But I would give very little time and effort into understanding and reading our own history.
When the tsunami in 2004 happened, and more than 35,000 people died on the island - the majority in Eelam - and the state was limiting relief to go into Eelam. They were monopolizing it and sending it toward Sinhala people in the South, I was dragged into relief work. You know, like, networks and everything. That’s the first time when I kind of became a little bit outraged about myself and my ignorance, and also frustrated with my own parents. Because I started blaming them for having artificially kept me away and denied me part of my history.
That to me has become a learning that I Individually also went about and read and learned. Which I’m still grateful for, and not necessarily through just my parents, because I could also critically interrogate my parents’ understandings and political analysis of things.
Hebh Jamal:
How did you personally navigate the traps of, figuring things out only through a Western or European source?
Because, I mean, even if we do search on the internet we have this knowledge base that is still very, very biased.
Our search engines, our access to resources, our abilities to understand, in many ways a lot of it is also just oral histories too.
How did you go about your understanding of your struggle but also of other struggles?
How did you become a person who understands how important it is to have solidarity with different struggles?
Sinthujan Varatharajah:
I think when I started to become politicized there was already a little bit of an infrastructure of knowledge.
There were a couple of websites, so this was in the period of the so-called ceasefire in the early 2000s, where some of the websites were already, historicizing and archiving a lot of our histories.
Like TamilNet, Sangam, these kinds of websites. So I was mostly learning through them and reading historical kind of facts and information through them.
But also, when I moved to London after I finished my A-levels here, I quickly got in touch with a lot of Tamil organizations.
There’s the Tamil Information Centre in the UK, and all of them they have also a lot of archival materials. And you quickly get into more community-based kind of history writings.
I think something that we lack, that, for instance, Palestinians have, is we don’t have many outside commentators who write books about us. Which also means that they’re more difficult to find. Also, when you want to read them in imperial languages, European ones.
But it also, maybe frees you from a lot of the garbage and the shitty takes that outsiders may have on your own struggle. So in that sense it allowed me to be more precise in my reading but to also isolate a lot of the readings that might distract.
But even to me, I had a bit of a learning. I used to have more liberal kind of stance, you know? Where I was also quite critical of the resistance. And I was, a little bit at odds with some of the policies — which I still am.
But there were certain acts of the state that pushed me into a much more radical position where I was able to kind of reposition also my own stance on things.
And in regards to other struggles, I don’t know if it’s like a side effect.
The fact that Tamils and the Eelam Tamil struggle has never been centered on a global stage also forces you to become more knowledgeable of other things, and other struggles.
It doesn’t allow you to sit in a place of comfort, in the sense that you can sit with your own history, and that will be considered to be legitimate or sufficient enough to speak about the world.
I could never say something about Tamil Eelam that would be, like, rendered into a universal kind of reality that everyone would be able to respond to.
I would have to create bridges, kind of like parallels. I would have to dig out histories that might be more easily digestible for outsiders that then kind of bring us back or allow us to go back to Eelam.
And I think this type of sidelining and invisibilizing of our struggle also made me maybe a better reader and forced me into becoming a more cognizant and a more observant person who is also interested in other struggles, maybe as a strategy also to reinforce and re-amplify our own struggle.
I feel like the more central your struggle is, maybe, in Western international spaces, the less you’re kind of forced, I think, oftentimes as a by-effect, to also read into other struggles. Because other struggles will move towards you more likely than you have to move towards them.
And this act of us having to move towards others For instance, look into the liberation movement’s kind of historical publications and everything, they will always make references to the Namibian struggle, to the Palestinian struggle, the Kurdish struggle, the Eritrean struggle, and so on and so forth.
This type of strategy to force yourself into the global stage by pushing yourself, almost latching on to other struggles, is something I think is the result of us being in a very specific kind of peripheral geography.
Hebh Jamal:
So, Sinthujan, I have to say, I very much appreciate your pursuit and how you definitely went about it. I feel like people can take it individually, but let’s switch to the collective.
Because something that I’ve always just been vehemently angry about is the concept of solidarity and how it translates. I'm particularly angry at how it has translated from the Muslim community. I personally find it disgusting, and how they’ve not collectively—just not shown up in an institutional and collective way within Germany.
I have two questions about this.
One: How do we move beyond the individual? I see a couple questions here that want to move away from the emotional, the consciousness. Okay, let’s say we have all of this. Let’s say we understand solidarity, injustice. How do we become a collective?
Two: Do you think that I’m seeing solidarity from the Muslim community in a wrong way that actually isn’t helpful to the Palestinian movement? I tend to look at things through a spiritual lens. I believe in divine rage, and I believe in divine justice, and I think that if anyone has any sort of semblance to that, they should stand up for the Palestinian people. But I would like to hear your critique on that understanding.
So that’s two questions for you.
1. How do we move from the individual to the collective?
2. What’s your take on Muslims in Germany?
Sinthujan Varatharajah:
People always use the phrase, “We need to organize.” I think it's the right response, but the question I have is: what do you mean? Because it’s so easily said but so difficult to translate into actual action.
Hebh Jamal:
It doesn’t mean anything anymore.
Sinthujan Varatharajah:
Exactly. What I’ve found helpful is to actually seek out groups that are already organized, or to found your own groups, and to step into actions that are responding to a local reality—say in Mannheim or Berlin—and then connect with other existing groups to create a more national network.
That’s a more helpful way to take it to another level. Also, all of us have different skills. Knowing our own skills, we can offer them to other groups that already exist—our ability to speak, to write, to enhance things, to edit, to produce posters, to provide technical equipment for protests. These are very hands-on and can be done if we move away from a passive, observing stage into a more active response.
In regards to the Muslim community, the German context is very specific. A lot of the anti-racist movements that existed in the 2010s were very idle toward the question of Palestine, and very silent, which I think deserves more critique. I don’t think it receives enough critique because it actually is a complete failure—and a complete collapse of that kind of shallow politics that has nationalized issues.
A lot of anti-racist movements, even the anti-Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism movements in Germany, have isolated themselves to a national reality. They've only responded to Germany as its own social and political entity, but never dared to turn it into a more global response.
I see the frustration as well, and I’m not even Palestinian or Muslim, and I’m frustrated. It’s an utter failure that speaks to the fact that a lot of people have been very comfortable. There’s been a co-option of critique through the state—through diversity and anti-racism programs—and that allowed people to build careers with state funding. A lot of people are more comfortable continuing that relationship with the state than actually being in opposition.
Hebh Jamal:
They’re now learning that doesn’t work anymore. It doesn't protect them anymore.
Sinthujan Varatharajah:
But I think many people will speak up and stand up until they lose something. That’s the reality for the majority of people. Then they domesticate their frustration. They don’t voice it in the moments or toward the people they should because they’re trying to preserve a certain kind of comfort.
Maybe because I’ve never thought of the Palestinian struggle as a Muslim struggle, I don’t come from that reality. For me, it’s always been an anti-colonial struggle. I’ve always related to it as such.
That’s maybe the more realistic takeaway. The Muslim world will only respond to a certain degree.
Hebh Jamal:
Well, there’s no such thing as “the Muslim world” anyway.
Sinthujan Varatharajah:
When we think about how the UAE is dealing with Israel, how Morocco is dealing with Israel, Sudan, Egypt—you see how these notions have been instrumentalized.
When Palestinians speak on different media channels, one of the first things many of them say is their frustration toward the Muslim and Arab world. That’s a disappointment toward a false narrative that had created a sense of closeness which is now showing its limits and artificiality.
The frustration should be there. But it is maybe useful to collaborate more with groups and people who don’t only frame themselves through these notions, but through very material anti-colonial struggles. These struggles are autonomous from religious affiliation, from cultural notions.
When we break it down to the core, I can be in solidarity with Palestinians without being from any Abrahamic faith. That’s not the point. The point is that my values—believing in anti-colonialism—push me to support people who may have nothing in common with me.
That brings us back to the point you started with. People often want to see themselves in other struggles. From my Muslim friends—non-Palestinian Muslim friends—I’ve always had this frustration that they didn’t even see Palestinians anymore. They saw themselves. Palestine becomes an abstraction for Muslim subjectivity. The same way the Rohingya at some point became an abstraction for the Muslim ummah.
That’s a false and lethal conclusion. It denies Palestinian plurality. It denies Palestinian materiality, which is not only religious.
Hebh Jamal:
Of course. And it sort of infantilizes the Palestinian people, where all of these different groups think they’re seeing their humanity. In reality, they are projecting their own belief systems, ideologies, and acting on what they see fit in order to fight for the Palestinian people.
Sinthujan Varatharajah:
But that was also a strategy. When we think about how Israel hollowed out the PLO and how that reframed the Palestinian struggle in the recent decades—there was a strategy to shift the framework.
And I feel like a lot of times, a lot of our adversaries are very keen on moving away from traditional anti-colonial rhetoric and imagery, in order to create more mismatched interpretations of the issues, which makes it more difficult to respond.
Hebh Jamal:
I want to get to the crux of the issue here for me. One of the major things is connecting with different groups on the ground, organizing together as a collective—not individually. That’s something I very much agree with.
Something I vehemently oppose is acting as if Palestine is unique, or other liberation struggles are unique in one way. The type and process of dehumanization that occurs against the Palestinian people occurred against the Tamil people, is happening in Sudan right now. It’s very much a universal process. And Germans act like they invented it.
So I want to ask you about the problems that come up when you try to organize with different groups. You talk about this at the beginning of your book. You go to a Palestine protest and you see different types of people get into confrontations if they see a Kurdish flag, or if a Turkish person sees a Kurdish flag, or if a Sahrawi person sees a Moroccan flag, or if a pro-regime Syrian sees the Free Syrian flag.
I can't tell you how many times I’ve had to navigate trying not to get it wrong and trying to see everyone’s perspective. But at the end of the day, there is an oppressed and there is an oppressor. Maybe that’s reductive to say, but I want to get your reaction to this.
Because this is a major issue in the pro-Palestinian scene in Berlin, but also across the world.
Sinthujan Varatharajah:
I think because Palestine has become such an abstract, it’s not necessarily about the political demands and reality anymore. A lot of oppressors also identify with Palestine. They're outraged about the genocide in Gaza, but at the same time cheering for the bombing of Rojava, for example.
These types of clashes maybe happen more often around the Palestinian issue. One of the solutions in Berlin was to prohibit other flags.
Hebh Jamal:
We did something similar in Frankfurt and in Mannheim.
Sinthujan Varatharajah:
I think it’s useful. What is that flag doing there anyway? You don’t need to express solidarity through other flags. There’s a nationalizing of solidarity that I find cringey sometimes.
Generally, this may be specific to the Palestinian cause, that so many other people read and identify with it.
Hebh Jamal:
So there needs to be a mediator between all these different groups.
Sinthujan Varatharajah:
A protest is an open space, and you can’t manage or gatekeep it. For organizers, it's practically difficult. But it’s also a constructive form of coming together. It shows the reality we face in imperial centers. It's not just one group—it's many groups. They share space, they collide. The question becomes, how do we deal with the rupture that happens between them?
People say, “This problem is now distracting from the actual core of why we’re here.” That may be true.
Hebh Jamal:
There is a hierarchy then. We’re prioritizing Palestine over a confrontation that is dehumanizing someone, whichever direction it's coming from.
This is my major issue. Do I now, as a group, need to be taking stances on what’s going on in Syria, in Kurdistan, in all of these different conflicts, in order to be principled? Or is it counterintuitive?
Is it impossible for a collective group to make those decisions?
Sinthujan Varatharajah:
Personally, I like stances. I think it’s the more principled way of doing politics. When I think about resistance movements globally, a lot of them push out statements of solidarity. These are also rejections of someone else's politics.
They’re aligning with something while rejecting something else. That creates value, clarity, and stance to a specific principle.
I would wish more groups to make statements. I’ve thought about coming together as a new Tamil collective, making more proactive responses to issues—to create a guideline.
Because we often wait for someone else to do it. And only when someone else does it do we feel encouraged to follow. But there needs to be someone to start and put out a clear point. You need someone to lead the way.
Hebh Jamal:
Then my question to you is about the process of reciprocity.
Let’s say we’re organizing as a collective.
I’m really trying to actively decentre Palestine but it keeps coming back because it is all encompassing right now. But let’s say organising as a collective. How important is reciprocity?
It goes back to the major question that you address in your book about whether solidarity is transactional.
Sinthujan Varatharajah:
I think reciprocity is at the core of relationships. It’s like with friendships—if you don’t invest equally in a friendship, you will see an outcome may not be what you envisioned.
When a more powerful group or individual meets a less powerful one, reciprocity will look different than when people are in a more equitable position.
Whenever people ask for something in return, it’s often dismissed as transactional. I have an issue with that, because in our everyday relationships, we’d never think of an act of giving and receiving as bad. We’d think it’s equitable, respectful, common-sense behavior.
That’s how we live, day to day, without necessarily thinking of it as political.
To me, it’s a very biological reaction to a social grouping. It’s not a contradiction to extend that to how different groups relate to each other.
If someone is helpful to me, I won’t forget that. And in a moment of need, I’ll return that help—not because I think they expect it, but because it’s the right thing to do. To be there for each other in times of need.
If you break it down to this banal level, it makes sense. So it should also make sense on a meta level.
If a group stood up and voiced their opposition to what is happening to another group, I feel like if that other group also needs your help we should enact that.
We shouldn’t reduce that to “they are meant to do that.” If they were “meant to,” so are we.
It’s a social relationship, and it’s built on mutual recognition. Sharing is not negative.
When people frame it as transactional, it often means they’re disrespectful with equity. If you meet each other at an eye-level that is art of a dignified and self-respectful presence.
Hebh Jamal:
My gut reaction is always to take a stand and to have politically relevant alliances.
But I’m also a very non-confrontational person. I know it doesn’t seem like it because I’m always loud and calling things out—but I really struggle when someone doesn’t like me. I want to resolve it.
So when someone community members don’t want you to tow a specific line. I live in Mannheim. It’s predominantly Turkish. There are barely any other ethnic groups here.
So when I take a stand on Kurdistan, that isolates the majority of people in my community. No one will show up.
And that’s the moment where you realize: solidarity was transactional, it’s only when it matched their agenda.
From a practical (perspective), when you need results now—because there’s a genocide happening—it's a scary thing to confront your whole community.
Sinthujan Varatharajah:
Then my question is: is that a community worth holding on to? Are those people worth being in community with?
If people don’t follow principled stances, I don’t want to be in community with them. I don’t want them to have a say in our issue. I don’t think they’re genuine or fair-minded people.
When we think about injustice on a micro level it’s very difficult to deny injustice.
You need to have some mental acts to deny and unsee someone else.
If you are able to deny someone facing similar realities to you then of course that person also has the ability to deny you if that person feels that way at a certain point.
Hebh Jamal:
Which is what has happened.
Sinthujan Varatharajah:
It is very sinister type of reality.
Palestinians and Kurds in Germany have to navigate this often. Germany has very specific demographics that create a very specific political relationship.
For instance, there are almost no Sinhalese people in this country, so we don’t face similar issues than say Palestinians or Kurds. We have a very different kind of way of also enacting ourselves and claiming public spaces.
When you go to a Kurdish protest in Berlin, it's not necessarily the police that you're fearing but it's Turkish people who are attacking you, throwing Grey Wolf signs, and all kinds of violence.
That’s a very a specific reality that is embedded in a context. For Palestinians Germany is a very toxic hostile landscape.
A lot of the measures are European. But I think the German social dynamics also feed into it to create a toxicity that is very specific. It needs to be addressed in a very specific way.
Hebh Jamal:
So someone wrote to me, which I think is interesting. They said, “You’re a Palestinian, it’s normal for you to center Palestine?”
I’ve always said that Palestine is not a unique situation. I always say this.
What’s happening to us, the genocide that’s taking place, has taken place elsewhere.
But to fully understand how it has taken place elsewhere, and to try to delve yourself into true solidarity, I think it’s to first take a step back from your own reality.
And I think this is why I opened up the question with, is it really solidarity if you view something only in how it relates to you? If you’re holding up a mirror? When you see your own humanity, is that when you step in?
That’s sort of the whole point of this conversation. To move away from that version of solidarity and to entirely place yourself into the realities of someone else.
So that’s why I wanted to decenter myself and Palestine—just for a second.
Because again, as I said, Palestine, for me, is all-encompassing.
Sinthujan Varatharajah:
Yeah. I try to do the same. I also try to. Because oftentimes you see people sneakily also push through their own agenda, through the back door. When they try to show solidarity.
And I find it a bit phony. It’s not the moment. I think there’s also something called common sense, where you also think about when something is more important.
And I think there are critical times too, right? There are critical times to say certain things. And not all times are the same. If something is so immediate, I think it’s completely justified to push your attention toward that one thing.
Your reality now as a Palestinian— thinking about what’s happening in Gaza and the West Bank— it’s very much where we were 15 years ago.
And in that sense, I’m pretty sure the majority of Tamil people were also not able to think about anything but what was happening to them.
So I think there’s also a biological reality we need to consider. And to be fair to ourselves.
Hebh Jamal:
This is too much information— But I broke out in hives today over stress.
I couldn’t even continue fasting today. Just from the sheer horror that’s—that’s truly taking place. So I very much resonate with this inability to separate yourself from what’s going on.
So there’s an interesting question from the audience here:
“I wonder whether this conversation would go differently if we looked at the issue of hierarchies in solidarity from the perspective of collective organizing, in the relationships between resistance groups and different struggles — which are often exercised outside the public sphere, based more on modes of collaboration — and are historically much more material. I wonder whether this would change how we frame it?”
What do you think about that?
Sinthujan Varatharajah:
I’m not sure it would look that different.
There have, of course, always been historical relationships between different resistance groups and organizing collectives — that were not necessarily public or framed for visibility the way things are now on social media.
But I still think that in terms of resources, directionality, and response, they followed similar patterns to the hierarchies we see today.
For instance — when I think about Bangladesh. Bangladeshis always frame their solidarity with Palestine by referencing their fighters who joined the PLO, who shot down Israeli jets.
And these are real histories. They’re not fantasies.
But I don’t see it the other way around.
When the student revolution happened in Bangladesh last year, there were very few people referring to it from the other around. That type of directionalilty is real.
I can find multiple statements by Tamil groups referring to the liberation of Palestine, but I would have a harder time to find similar statements from Palestinian groups towards Tamil Eelam.
And that’s not to dismiss their politics or the legitimacy of their struggle — but it shows that material reality and historic reality and dynamics that continue. These dynamics should be interrogated without necessarily considering them attacks.
Hebh Jamal:
I could 100% guarantee that majority of Palestinians have just no idea what's going on in other parts of the world. I think you're entirely correct and I find it completely admirable and enlightening. I have what the Tamil Tigers wrote to the Palestinian people and to be able to in the midst of all your traumatising moments, I felt takes a lot.
So I want to talk about social media. For me, social media has been a blessing and such a huge curse.
Through social media, I’ve met wonderful people—like yourself.
I met my husband on Instagram. Everyone I know, basically—if they’re not my childhood friends—it’s social media.
So how do you view this day and age of navigating collective organizing work through such a toxic but also productive space?
Sinthujan Varatharajah:
I’m neither a tech pessimist nor an optimist. I try to be realistic.
Of course, there are a lot of disadvantages, but there are also a lot of advantages.
Specifically for displaced and stateless people. Our ability to navigate that space, but also our dependency on that space is very different from other groups.
The way a lot of us are interconnected through social media is maybe—some would say—not healthy. But it’s a response to the fact that we don’t share the same analog space. We are dependent on these kinds of connections.
Navigating them is difficult. There's a lot of criticism of social media anyway. But one thing I found really interesting is how Palestinians, throughout the genocide, were using Instagram.
How people were sharing accounts in very ad hoc ways of responding to censorship, to internet blackouts. People were doing collective shared posts. Journalists who were died had already handed over their passwords and other people would continue with the same kind of follower accounts.
And these very practical ways of putting out information, I think they’re critical.
In many ways, social media specifically in Palestine is counteracting the traditional media monopoly. It confronts different realities in a way that’s so powerful.
And I think credit needs to be given to how people have weaponized social media back to fit their own realities. Despite still facing criminalization that happens on social media
Hebh Jamal:
I mean, the Egyptian revolution had a lot of potential and the spirit of the Arab Spring— It was called the WhatsApp Revolution. It was through social media.
But I’m talking more about us. Here in the West, in the diaspora in places where we’ve just solely relied on social media in order to organize or to be a part of collective. I find a very huge problem with this.
There’s this saying: “Socialism failed because it took up too many meetings.”
And I always find that funny but also true.
Because the true work, the concept of what you’re talking about - true solidarity, is when you’re in a room with people. Social media just does doesn't create that space necessary to change.
To push the boundaries of what social change could look like.
Sinthujan Varatharajah:
Ideally, of course, being in the physical presence of someone is much more conducive to building relationships that are sustainable and resilient.
When we look at movements like Palestine or the Sahrawi camps in Algeria, solidarity tourism for instance is propagated.
People are invited to come, to meet the realities, to witness. I find these measures much more fruitful and much more sustainable in the long run.
But even within a country, like Germany.
Through its asylum system has dispersed people all over the country—strategically, politically. There are many centres for many people, but not once core. Like in Paris in France or for the UK, London.
In that sense a lot of the organizing depends on these networks. For instance when ‘Palestine Speaks’ starts organising in Berlin and then suddenly how it nationalised.
All of this is also dependent on social media.
Ideally, it would be much more conducive conversation if we could see each other.
It also makes it mor difficult to deny each other's existence and feelings and responses towards an issue.
Here is the next section of the transcript, where the conversation shifts into questions of nationalism, statehood, and the contradictions embedded in anti-colonial movements. As always, it's been transcribed with care for accuracy, tone, and speaker intent — with unnecessary filler removed, but full meaning preserved.
Hebh Jamal:
So I want to talk about nationalism, because this is a big question for me.
We’re always taught to be against the concept of severe nationalism — right?
We’re taught that in its core nationalism, is not a good thing. it leads to populism, to dehumanizing others.
But a lot of these liberation struggles are nationalist struggles.
So my question is:
Is there a hypocrisy or contradiction in that?
When they say Palestine is a national struggle, the fundamental thing for Palestinians is they want to return home. For me I don’t really care if it’s a state or has borders, I just want to be in my home and not bothered.
But when Kurds, or different ethnic groups, want a state. I’ve always had this contradiction because if everyone wants tis state, then it doesn’t feel like a revolutionary liberation struggle.
It just feels like were state building.
Sinthujan Varatharajah:
I think it’s a trap of colonial modernity that our response to the issue is to try and replicate the issue and find a solution within that system.
Colonial modernity also disallows us from finding different solutions to something like a collective and land relationships.
In many ways our resistance movements are also responses in these modern ways of nation-building, and anti-colonial movements adopting nationalist frameworks and nationalist rhetoric and ideologies.
I wouldn’t say all nationalisms are the same of course. There are those that are oppressive and those that are liberatory. A lot of the liberatory nationalisms of course at some point entail certain oppressive structures from within, as we’ve seen in Eritrea for instance.
Ideally, we should move away from this. But I feel like there is a material reality where a lot of us understand that the only escape from a state’s own violence is to form your own state. Of course that’s a contradiction but in many ways other forms of existence are nor respected.
When we think of Rojava for instance as a way of building something outside statehood. Self-organised groupings that have a lot of meetings, this tedious process of building a collective stricture. As much as they’re imagining and trying to establish a different reality that contradicts statehood, that very lack of statehood makes them also vulnerable in a very nation-centred world, towards the violence of other nation states that will attack it.
Like for instance the new Syrian government forces them into an agreement or Turkey invading and occupying them. These kinds of vulnerabilities force us into this trap, but also into a corner, which we lack a response.
I am someone who supports Tamil independence but I also argue how my sense of independence is an argument towards protection from genocide. That is the only reason for statehood that I would seek and envision.
In 1977 we had the Vaddukoddai resolution, which was formulating our statehood. They were all socialist, but some of them were very specific in terms of rights towards other groups, like so called “minorities”. These kind of envisionments maybe are idealistic and could crumble once you actually build these thing. But there are very few alternatives.
Hebh Jamal:
So nationalism for you is bred out of this like resisting annihilation? That is different.
Sinthujan Varatharajah:
To me that is different.
Once we you have actually achieved that protection, then it is the moment to combat that nationalism.
It is like charities – they should only exist to elevate an issue. And the moment that is resolved, it should dissolve. It is the same with nationalism.
Let me know when you’re ready for the final section — where Hebh and Sinthujan reflect on intergenerational activism, gratitude, trauma, and their respective political awakenings.