Louna Sbou, cultural organiser and director of Oyoun, Berlin’s cultural hub for intersectional art and discourse, will set sail with the Global Sumud Flotilla. ~ The Global Sumud Flotilla is a historic civilian-run mission to peacefully end Israel’s illegal blockade of Gaza and create a humanitarian corridor where states are failing to protect civilians and enforce international law. ~ Louna’s participation holds critical pertinence in Germany, where public administrations, aligned with international corporations, imposed a repressive funding and media regime targeting Palestinian culture and solidarity with Palestine. As part of enforcing this framework, the Berlin Senate actively defunded Oyoun in 2024 for hosting an event led by a Jewish anti-Zionist association. From 2020 Oyoun became a vital platform for internationalist and intersectional cultural practice. Its collectivist approach supported creative civil resistance to right-wing politics including rising anti-Muslim racism and antisemitism. Click to find more.
In a video message released today, Louna announced her participation as part of a global coalition determined to resist the erasure, ethnic cleansing, and genocide of Palestinian life and culture. She joins doctors, lawyers, humanitarians, academics, journalists, and artists from over 40 countries.
“As a mother, a migrant, and a cultural worker, I feel a deep sense of urgency and responsibility to act. In a few days I will join the Global Sumud Flotilla - an international mission dedicated to peacefully breaking the illegal siege and delivering desperately needed aid to a population being starved and massacred by Israeli forces, with the backing of Western governments.” - Louna Sbou
With national governments and international institutions failing to act and protect the Palestinian people, citizens of the world are taking action as part of the Global Sumud Flotilla to create a non violent humanitarian corridor, deliver aid and a message to the world to end the siege of Gaza.
~ Across Gaza, cultural heritage, museums, archives, archeological treasures, universities have been systematically destroyed alongside human life and its infrastructure. The destruction of culture was central to Raphael Lemkin's 1944 formulation of the term “genocide”. Culture can and must protect life, memory, and dignity. It is made to shed light on silenced narratives, on injustice, and on complicity - but also on possibilities and hope. Cultural workers bear a unique responsibility to oppose what Lemkin called “culturicide”. ~
The Berlin Senate actively defunded Oyoun in 2024: ‘Free speech is a facade’: how Gaza war has deepened divisions in German arts world.