Claudia Ortu is a senior researcher in English Language and Translation at the University of Cagliari, Italy. Her research interests include Critical Discourse Analysis and the interplay of hegemonic and counter-hegemonic discourses, with a focus on Neoliberalism and Trade Unions. She is active with the Rete Ricerca E Università Per La Palestina, which works for an academic boycott of Israel, and with the Al Ard Film Festival, where she met Jan Haaken, who was showing her film The Palestine Exception. They talk here about the festival and the role of film in the Global Palestine movement as well as the organizing of recent general strikes in Italy in support of Palestine.
Their discussion considers policing strategies tested on Palestinians and used against activists in Italy and the USA, parallels and connections in work for Palestinian justice and against ICE, lessons of the Holocaust, students' demands for justice, dignity, and human lives rather than for narrowly careerist self-interest, the effective actions of Italian dockworkers refusing to handle weapons shipments, use of the Italian constitution and involvement in the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, and the wisdom of Antonio Gramsci.
Image combines a Palestinian flag, an Italian flag, a photo of 8 mm Kodak safety film reel by Coyau via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0, and a cropped image of the text "'In this Interregnum a Great Variety of Morbid Symptoms Appear'" by Ruth and Dave licensed under CC BY 2.0.
