Passing on the torch - Vietnam, Algeria, Palestine w/ Hamza Hamouchene

Although it's increasingly common to describe the Palestinian struggle for liberation in terms of a conflict with settler colonialism, it's more rare for Palestine to be situated in the broader context of anti-imperialist struggles of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and specifically the wars for liberation conducted by the FLN in Algeria and the Vietminh and the National Liberation Front in Vietnam. Hamza Hamouchene seeks to do just that. In our conversation we talked about the importance of recognising that although the success of past decolonisation struggles is seen today as inevitable, they were not so perceived at the time and that in the cases of both Algeria and Vietnam their battles for independence endured for an extremely long time and were punctuated by what seemed to be possibly permanent defeats. We also talked about the Vietminh's victory of the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 and the shockwaves this sent through territories under the control of the French and other European empires elsewhere. We went on to talk about the direct assistance the Vietnamese and Algerians provided to each other, and how both aided the Palestinians after they had achieved independence. Finally, we talked about the relevance of the moment of the high point of anti-colonial struggle to the Palestinian cause now, given the even more challenging geopolitical situation that Palestinian resistance faces today. Notes: Towards Palestinian Liberation: Global Perspectives on Anti-Colonial Resistance and Solidarity, edited by Abi Bae and Hamza Hamouchene: https://www.tni.org/en/publication/towards-palestinian-liberation