By Evan Quarles
Forgive me if I have made light of the justice system by using it as a platform to condemn the genocidal aims of the United States in Palestine. I still do not comprehend how these proceedings relate to justice at all.
How can the same state that is committing one of the worst genocidal atrocities in history be a purveyor of justice? How can the same state that is a pariah of international law, the same state that has cast away its own laws to supply the weapons of extermination and genocide be a purveyor of justice in this room?
The district attorney is acutely aware of the fact that my co-defendants and I did not intend from the start to seek justice here. If I had taken a plea deal back in April, I would have been done with probation and community service by now and my charges would already have been dismissed. By going to trial with my co-defendants, I did not seek to exonerate myself.
The only –– the only –– reason why I am here is because the DA singled out three of my comrades, including my Palestinian American friend, Salem, for higher punishment. The same principles that lead me to struggle for the freedom of the Palestinian people in collective action also lead me to struggle here at home for my comrades in collective defense. I refuse to leave my comrades behind.
If the DA were simply to have given the same “plea deal” to all of us equally, I wouldn’t be here today, the courts wouldn’t be wasting precious resources on these trials, and I wouldn’t be explaining my actions to you at this moment. But the DA repeatedly refused to even negotiate with us. So here I am –– ready to receive my punishment for standing up, not just for the Palestinian people, but also for my own comrades at home, including my dear Palestinian American friend. That’s not justice –– it’s political repression.
It’s the same political repression with which the U.S. has consistently used to maintain its hegemonic control over anyone who has ever dared to struggle for liberation against the violence it wields against the poor and oppressed of the world. It’s the same political repression that has lead to violent crackdowns on the student movement, sending in police thugs to brutalize students calling for their universities to divest from genocide.
It’s the same political repression that has led the state to pursue felony charges and prison sentences against Palestinian actionists who have sabotaged U.S.-funded weapons manufacturers. It’s the same political repression that is currently being waged against the numerous political prisoners in U.S. cages who still fight for freedom. Why is it that we have stood by and let the genocide continue unabated? Why is Cop City still being built, the forests still being cleared, and 61 of our friends and comrades still facing spurious charges of domestic terrorism?
Why did we let Tortuguita be murdered by the police? Why do we allow the police to continue to kill, evict and displace in our own communities?
If it weren’t the purpose of the courts to strip the political context away from political actions to leave just the objective facts of crime, I would have talked about being a child and asking myself what I would do if I was living under a state that was committing genocide. I would talk about how I no longer have to ask myself that because this is what I am doing under a state that is committing genocide.
I would have talked about being a child and forcing myself to witness the horrors of the holocaust, thinking that by witnessing the atrocities I would help to ensure that they never happened again. I would have talked about how those same atrocities are happening again, and I would talk about witnessing them every day. I would have talked about death toll estimates approaching 200,000 Palestinians in Gaza, approaching 10 percent of the population.
I would have talked about how cumulatively the U.S.-funded and manufactured and supplied bombs dropped in Gaza have exceeded in tonnage and destructive capabilities the nuclear bombs dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, how they have exceeded in tonnage and destructive capabilities the bombs dropped during WWII in Dresden, London, Hamburg. I would have talked about entire cities reduced to rubble, schools, mosques, aid convoys attacked, starving people in breadlines massacred, fathers holding their headless children, patients in hospital beds burning alive.
I would have talked about how witnessing isn’t enough. How collective action might be. How we tried. How we’ll still try to stop a genocide.
No matter the sentence I will receive, I am proud to have answered the call from the Palestinian people enduring and fighting against their extermination in a moment of collective action and autonomy. My fight is their fight because all of us want to be free from the restricting confines of a system that causes so much pain and suffering. I am always on the side of freedom.
Always and forever.
Evan Quarles was one of the protesters who blocked I-5 on April 15, 2024. Quarles is a wildland firefighter, dedicated abolitionist, writer, distroist and organizer who has committed their life to struggles for liberation.
Salem Younes, a Palestinian American student, and K. Anton, a Lebanese American activist, will take the stand in a joint trial for their charge of disorderly conduct Jan. 17 at the Lane County Courthouse.
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