Lesbian Actor and Activist Adèle Haenel Joins The Global Sumud Flotilla
What we can learn about solidarity with Gaza
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One week ago, French actress and lesbian activist Adèle Haenel joined Instagram. Her sudden appearance on social media comes after her retirement from the film industry. “I decided to politicise my retirement from cinema to denounce the general complacency of the profession towards sexual aggressors and more generally the way in which this sphere collaborates with the mortal, ecocidal, racist order of the world such as it is,” Haenel wrote in a letter. Three years prior, the actress walked out of the César awards when Roman Polanski, accused of sexual assault on several occasions, won an award. Earlier this year, she testified at the trial of director Christophe Ruggia, who was found guilty of sexually abusing her as a child and served as a landmark case for France’s #MeToo movement.
Haenel, best known for starring in Portrait of a Lady on Fire, created the social media account for one purpose: to express her commitment to and solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. Several days ago, Haenel announced that she will set sail on the Global Sumud Flotilla alongside “a coalition of activists from 44 countries aiming to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza and challenge Israel’s naval blockade.” Speaking at a press conference, Haenel shared her feelings about the mission. “Personally, it scares me. Because I think that, in fact, we are on simple sailing boats on the sea, facing an army that has shown immense violence so far. At the same time, I am like everyone else here, extremely determined by an ideal, by an ideal of justice.”
The Global Sumud Flotilla follows several previous flotilla efforts. The first solidarity boat set sail in 2008, and the second in 2010. Israel responded to the 2010 flotilla by killing 10 activists on board. Flotillas followed in 2011, 2015, and 2018, facing massive obstacles in the form of European coordination with Israel. More recently, the Conscience flotilla was targeted by an Israeli drone strike in May, while the Madleen and Handala flotillas were both seized by Israel in June and July, respectively. Israeli officials have described these activists as “terrorists” and vowed to do everything in their power to stop them.
The Global Sumud Flotilla has already weathered two drone strikes, but the mission continues. This time around, the flotilla is backed by a powerful display of solidarity in the form of Genoa dock workers, who have threatened to strike if the flotilla is intercepted. “If we lose contact with our boats for even 20 minutes, with our comrades, we will block all of Europe,” remarked a representative. Speaking with considerable optimism about the importance of international solidarity, Dr Ramzy Baroud writes that the freedom flotillas “are a vital piece of an intricate global process that will ultimately lead to Israel’s profound isolation on the international stage — a process that has already begun with considerable success.”
Online, commentators have compared Haenel's participation in the Global Sumud Flotilla to recent events in Hollywood. Last week, The Voice of Hind Rajab, which details the final moments of a five-year-old Palestinian girl assassinated by Israel, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival to a 23-minute standing ovation. Directed by Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania and produced by big names such as Joaquin Phoenix, Rooney Mara, and Brad Pitt, the docudrama has swept the awards circuit and received vociferous praise.
Despite its widespread critical acclaim, others critique this narrative. Some have noted the striking dissonance of the film, considering Hind’s mother and little brother are still trapped in Gaza. “This could be my last cry for help. I am begging every influential person, every celebrity, every connection to save me…” Wissam Hamada pleaded in a recent video. The filmmakers and producers of the film have made no mention of Hamada and her son during the press tour, and some coverage has even elided the horrific facts of Hind’s murder.
One X user compared the actions of celebrities like Haenel, Susan Sarandon, Liam Cunningham, and Melissa Barrera to the producers of the documentary, in which solidarity is conflated with visibility. As Mohammad Aaquib asks in the Middle East Monitor, “What is there to raise awareness about at this point?” Everyone on earth with internet access knows what’s happening in Gaza, and as Aaquib writes, “Hind’s story is not history. It is not a distant atrocity frozen in time, requiring cinematic treatment so that audiences may be educated.” Indeed, unless the celebrities giving the film a 20-minute standing ovation at Cannes left the theater and immediately donated large sums of money to Palestinians trying to flee Gaza, the praise feels terribly hollow. (You can find GoFundMes to donate to here and more resources here.)
In a marginally more impactful form of solidarity, thousands of film industry professionals signed a pledge to boycott Israeli film institutions “implicated in genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people.” Signatories include numerous LGBTQ creatives such as Cynthia Nixon, Abbi Jacobson, Hannah Einbinder, Lily Gladstone, Indya Moore, Miriam Margolyes, Elliot Page, and Emma D’Arcy. Notably, boycotts are one of the strategies of the BDS movement, which aims to undermine Israeli occupation through economic means.
Speaking with Them, Arab-American journalist Afeef Nessouli discussed global queer solidarity with Gaza. “I think we have a lot to learn from our fellow queer people in Palestine,” Nessouli suggested. “I think we have in many ways lost the plot of what queer resistance looks like and have been totally co-opted by meaningless celebrity culture and indulgent consumerism,” he argued. His question is “whether the very powerful queer community in the West can help bring these Palestinians to safety so that they can explore their own lives and freedoms, or if we are too caught up in our indulgences to care?” International solidarity requires a re-thinking of personal relations, the powerful sense of universal precarity that has spurred the passengers of the Global Sumud Flotilla to action.