JenI haven’t found the heart to update this blog with the genocide that has been happening in Palestine and still having to go about daily life in a country that is complicit. I had been frustrated with the action sports world remaining relatively silent. Granted, politics are a touchy subject for sponsored athletes, and it turns out I was looking in the wrong place. Beyond the contest scene and big brands are organizations, media, and individuals highlighting the years-long struggle of Palestinian surfers and skaters.
Explore Corps founded the Gaza Surf Club in 2008, and that same year, the documentary God Went Surfing With The Devil highlighted the struggles to just get surfboards into the blocked-off area. Eight years later, a film that centered the voices of Palestinian surfers themselves, Gaza Surf Club. One noteworthy aspect of this documentary is the inclusion of female surfers, and although the male surfers espouse sexist attitudes, this is visual evidence that Palestine is not the oppressive place that Zionists are trying have us believe it is. You can rent Gaza Surf Club on Vimeo.
Last November, Australian surf culture site The Section published a letter, Surfers in Solidarity with Palestine, which condemns the genocide in Gaza and calls for a ceasefire. The Instagram accounts, surfequity and surfyonder, boosted the letter and have continued to post in support of Palestine. Their founders are among the initial signatories of the letter, which also includes Lee-Ann Curren (yes, she’s Tom Curren’s daughter) and Saad Abid. Another notable name on the list is the legendary Tom Carroll, who previously led some of his fellow pros in boycotting South Africa during the apartheid.
Similar to surfing, skateboarding in Palestine grew thanks to both nonprofits and locals. Inspired by his time as an English teacher in Palestine, Charlie Davis founded Skate Pal in 2013 to build skateparks and provide lessons to kids in the West Bank. Its ambassadors include pro skaters Chris Jones, who helped Isle Skateboards become the first pro team to tour Palestine, and Ryan Lay, who filmed a part in the West Bank. Ryan has also spoken about his experience on the Vent City podcast (along with Charlie and two other SkatePal members) and in a Thrasher article.
Being ignorant about Palestine’s history, I learned through the Vent City episode that the Gaza and West Bank skate scenes cannot interact due the separation of the two territories. Therefore, while the West Bank had SkatePal and SkateQilya, Gaza had the Italian NGO Gaza Freestyle Festival and the locally-founded Team Skate Gaza.
If you actually start looking for Palestinian skate content, you’ll actually come across several films. Fully Falafelled is another piece about Skate Pal while Rick McCrank talked to Charlie Davis as well as SkateQilya co-founder Mohammed Othman in an episode of Post Radical for Vice. Epicly Palestine’d and Walls Cannot Keep Us from Flying are two other films about the West Bank skate scene. Unfortunately I could not find much from Gaza besides segments from news outlets like Al Jazeera and Al Monitor.
Maen Hammad might be known these days for his images of the West Bank during the war published in Time, but he’s another member of SkatePal and has an ongoing photo project about skateboarding as a means to create community and find liberation for Palestinians called Landing. More recently he wrote about this subject in SkateJawn and guested on an episode of Vent City. You can also see him skating in Ryan Lay’s video.
Through Skateboarders for Palestine Alliance, Maen, Ryan, SkatePal manager Aram Sabbah, and others will be doing a virtual teach-in on why and how the skateboard industry should support Palestine on January 23 at 12 PM CST. Click here if you are interested in participating (a recording will be available at a later date). The Linktree also includes an open letter created by magazine Forever Playground and Jordanian skate nonprofit Seven Hills.
Since the open letter was released, more organizations, brands, and individuals, including like Skate Like a Girl, froSkate, CHPO Brand, There Skateboards, and Alex White have called for a ceasefire. You can also catch Alexis Sablone drawing a watermelon, a symbol for solidarity Palestine, in one of their posts for Samsung. It may not be a loud declaration, but sometimes it’s worth slipping in signs of support into mainstream channels that would reject an explicit statement. Every small action from every person counts when you have the government acting against the interest of the people.
To the Power of X 