A Palestinian you should know: Leena Odeh
The following was originally published in Palestine in America’s 2021 Politics Edition. Order a print copy, download the digital version or subscribe today!
Community Network Weaver, Researcher, Legal & Community Advocate and Racial Justice Consultant, Teacher
Palestinein America (PiA): What balad(s) is your family from?
Leena Odeh (LO): Lifta, Jerusalem Palestine
PiA: Was there a moment(s) that drove you to begin your career?
LO: Visiting loved ones who were incarcerated by the political prison industrial complex here in the U.S. and back home pushed me to strive for a career in community lawyering and law and society scholarship.
PiA: What is your earliest memory of participating in political work?
LO: My memories of political work date back to the moment I was born! As a toddler I remember standing at the federal plaza in downtown Chicago for protest sit-ins against the first gulf war. Political “work” or simply being was woven into every facet of life for me. Whether it was being intentional in the friends and communities we built kin-ship with or showing up for others when no one else would. One of the most transformative and earliest experiences of political work was being trained as youth-led organizer by my then mentors Jeremy Lahoud, Charity Tolliver and many others in the summer Liberation Institute at the Southwest Youth Collaborative as a young teenager.
PiA: How has/does Palestine play a role in your work?
LO: Being who I am, standing on the shoulders of ancestors and elders who came before more and paved the way, Palestine is woven into the essence of everything I do. When I think of Palestine, of course I think of the land and us a people of the land being proudly from falaha origins. But I also think of it extending beyond its geographic borders, living in the Southwest side of Chicago, in the camps of Lebanon, in the new Palestinian-Syrian communities emerging out of Syria in Europe. There is a piece of it everywhere. Not some romanticized notion of - but instead the values. So Palestine plays a role in all my work because my work is values driven, the values of radical love, generosity of spirit, interdependence & collectivity, dignity, respect, justice & accountability, equity, sumoud, honoring of our roots and where we come from, shahameh, building communities of trust steeped in emotional intelligence, knowledge and wisdom and beyond …
PiA: What’s a Palestinian adverb/quote/person/poem/song that you often reflect on in this work?
LO: A quote by an ancestor who is not Palestinian, but had a huge impact on my political thinking, and actually, the political thinking and work of my father was Amical Cabral:
““We must act as if we answer to, and only answer to, our Ancestors, our children, and the unborn.”
PiA: What do you hope to achieve in your line of work?
LO: For me the work I do is about creating sustainable transformative processes that have a material impact on those most directly impacted by structural oppression … the process however, is just as important and critical to the destination, that which we attempt to collectively achieve. I hope to be part of cultivating and co-creating building community, and community power based on shared principles & values with a set of processes and methods that embody those values, towards a vision for life-affirming, sustaining, transformative communities.
PiA; Many times, Palestinians endure marginalization on all sides of the aisle -- what obstacles do you face/have you faced, and how have you overcome it?
LO: This list could go on, for the purpose of this interview I choose to center the ways in which I and we thrive.
PiA: What’s your advice to folks looking to deepen their political journeys?
LO:: Political education in and of itself is an important project. That developing a critical analysis, the ability to think deeply, ask questions, to hold opinions with humility, For example, whenever you think, I already know this, ask yourself "How can I take this deeper?" Or, "How am I applying in practice what I already know?"
PiA: How do you see the Palestinian diaspora intersect with issue based work amongst other communities?
LO: Whether it’s Palestinians in exile, in the camps, forcibly migrated or in historic Palestine, we have a long history and duty to be in joint-struggle with other communities. Joint in our differences and struggle.
I am guided by the Seven Generations Principle - an indigenous value that acknowledges seven generations of history behind us, those ancestors we stand on the shoulders and made our current struggle possible, and that calls us to imagine how our actions impact seven generations in front of us. This lens grounds me in a decolonial ethic and reminds me that our joint struggle is a must because it asks, “Who has the right to a future? How is the erasure of the past also a violation” “And how are each of us nestled in the histories that follow us and what is our power to impact what comes next?” That said our connectedness to other communities extends beyond shared interests on “issues” but rather Our actions in the present can begin to repair the harms of 7 generations past and have the ability to project healing to 7 generations in the future through the struggle for justice, liberation, and embodied cultural wisdom. The belief that every decision is centered in safeguarding future descendants. So as a Palestinian in the US I ask, what is our North Star - our ultimate purpose and the light that will guide all of our decisions moving the project for justice, liberation, and return forward from a place of grounded integrity. That MUST mean that we understand our political, spiritual, historical, cultural, and principled shared visions with other communities of struggle, particularly communities whose quest for liberation and justice is our guiding north start at these times. That means centering Black liberation, Indigenous liberation and land repatriation, understanding that decolonization is not a metaphor but a practice.
PiA: How would you define solidarity?
LO: For me, it’s a question of how much do we walk the walk, not just talk the talk … in relationship to each other, our families, loved ones, within our communities, Palestinians as we know are not monolithic - across class, legal status, colorism, refugee status or migration, gender, sexuality, and beyond. And what does that look like in practice with other communities and siblings of struggle? Our struggles are not the same, but solidarity for me is while we are rooted in the complexities of our differences, how do we show up for each other? How do we show up for each other collectively in the face of capitalism, neoliberalism, patriarchy, white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, and imperialism. As a people we have a long history in North America and beyond of a practice of solidarity across regions, peoples, languages rooted in difference but join the in the vision and quest for liberation.
PiA: What do you want people to know about you/your experience as a Palestinian in this work?
LO: That part of our work as Palestinians, yes, is a duty to the land, our peoples, families, and friends, but also a duty to undo the ways systems of oppression manifest in ourselves and how we show up, relate, and work with each other, and beyond … That as Palestinians we have something to offer the world and social movements - our values for liberation and justice, our vision for a new world without borders, our unique historical, cultural, and material realities and experiences.
PiA: What does a free world mean to you?
LO: There is no pinnacle to freedom or liberation -- when I envision or dream of a just or liberated Palestine, I know it does not end with the right of return for all of us in exile, but that it’s simply the beginning. How do we see freedom as a practice, “love as a practice of freedom”
PiA: Was there a moment that made you consider leaving political work? What was it and what kept you working in politics?
LO: Whether it’s something i’ve considered or not, it’s never felt like an option or choice. Simply in who I am, where I'm from, who my people are there is not option or choice where one could walk away from engaging in community and or political work - we simply don’t have that luxury. Doing this work is not only about survival, but that our interconnected, interdependent relationships based in a community of trust is a gift, a strength - organized communities means safe communities. Some of us don’t have the luxury to walk away. There has been extended periods of time where the nature of the work I engaged in looked different. I’ve been in movement and organizing my entire life. And as my own person since I was 13. I’ve gone through many cycles and phases that naturally come with the evolution one goes through politically from a very young age.
For a long time the I took a backseat to be “behind the scenes.” in political work. It came from 2 places:
1) A point of political practice. I come from a long tradition of Arab, Black, Indigenous, and Central/South American traditions of organizing that believe as Ella Baker said "strong people don't need strong leaders," and I often challenge the notion of a single charismatic leader of movements for social change - and instead center collective power, particularly the cultivation of young leaders and young people. In keeping the idea of practicing participatory action, I am more concerned with each person to get involved, that each person has a critical role, and centering or amplifying myself would be in the disservice of that. "People under the heel," so to speak or the most oppressed members of any community, have to be the ones to decide what action they are going to take to get (out) from under their oppression and we must principally collectively develop politically processes that center that.
2) Protection from state and structural violence. With that said, I've also come to realize that while I do believe and am committed to this a political stitched into the fiber of the social fabric we work to re-build, re-member, and re-constitute - it also was a function of protecting myself Something our people was forced to develop from the moment we are born.. The participating in self-censure or erasure alongside the very real systemic and structural censorship and erasure happening is a product of real collective, familial, and personal targeting of state/structural violence, surveillance, and beyond. This I know I need not elaborate too, because while my experience may be particular - it is a collective experience and structural condition for each of us in our communities. Sometimes the walls we put up to protect ourselves and hide behind also become the carceral mindset that imprisons us. I don't blame myself or others for this practice, it allows us to survive and sometimes is vital for our survival and others we love. How do we re-connect to ancestral practices and ways of being so that we can re-discover a new sense of belonging - to us, to each other, to the earth and practice radical inclusion, belonging, and mutual interdependence; and plant seeds of values centered liberation, healing and steadfastness in all of our communities so that we can reclaim our wholeness.
How do we build safe, loving, life-affirming social and movement spaces, that support each other as we contend with this real violence and build movements for liberation in Palestine, throughout the region, and beyond? I offer a creative invitation, an invitation to unsettle linear and Western ways of knowing and understanding many of us have been conditioned with to survive our lived material world and realities. It will feel uncomfortable, but the challenge is to harness the tension for the purposes of growth, self reflection, and new ideas, collectively.
