Cultural resistance: a crucial component of struggle

Art has always served as the heartbeat of liberation movements, and the struggle for Palestinian freedom is no different.

Roomaan Leach

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Ten percent of any population is cruel, no matter what, and 10 percent is merciful, no matter what, and the remaining 80 percent can be moved in either direction.

            – Susan Sontag

IN an era in which Palestinian voices are silenced under rubble while the world debates semantics, the raw, unfiltered voice of cultural resistance has never been more vital. From London’s grimy underground scene to Hollywood’s red carpets, contemporary artists are wielding their platforms as weapons against manufactured consent.

Sontag’s insight cuts to the heart of why this form of cultural work matters. The majority of people are not inherently committed to either justice or injustice; they are simply responding to the cultural forces surrounding them, the stories they’re told and the examples they witness. In the face of this apathy, every protest at an award show, every speech evoking Palestine and every cent raised by celebrity figures matters far beyond its immediate impact.

Art as resistance

Art has always served as the heartbeat of liberation movements, and the struggle for Palestinian freedom is no different. Punk may have evolved and mutated across genres but its mandate remains unchanged: flying the banner of resistance in the face of fascist regimes. It’s because of this that today’s artists can no longer hide behind the veneer of being mere entertainers. They have become a bastion of resistance against apathy, against hopelessness, and against the manufactured consent that enables mass atrocity.

Contemporary artists like Bob Vylan, Kneecap and Macklemore have positioned themselves at the forefront of this movement. They use their platforms to challenge not just abstract systems of oppression, but the very real, immediate violence being perpetrated against the Palestinian people. Each public figure that refuses to normalise genocide and occupation brings something distinct to the movement, but all recognise that their platforms do not afford them ‘opportunities’ for dissent but rather make it obligatory.

Bob Vylan’s confrontational approach cuts through the comfortable distance that allows atrocities to continue. Their music forces British audiences to confront their government’s arms sales to Israel and the myriad of ways their tax money funds occupation. There is no gentle awakening here – only the harsh light of complicity exposed. Louis Theroux, on the other hand, wields his platform as a beloved British personality more subtly. He uses wit and humour to point out the absurdities in the settler ethos. Both understand that their platforms come with responsibility. Both understand that silence in the face of genocide is complicity.

Kneecap’s perspective as Irish artists carries particular weight in Palestinian solidarity. Their understanding of colonialism emerges from lived experience of British occupation. When they speak about Palestinian liberation, they’re drawing blood-soaked connections between historical and contemporary forms of colonial violence that run deeper than academic discourse ever could.

When Gianmarco Soresi, a Jewish American comedian, uses his comedy to expose the inanity of Western media coverage of Palestine, he provides emotional permission for audiences to question narratives they’ve been told are unquestionable. Comedy becomes a weapon against manufactured consent. Each time Ms. Rachel risks her career to speak for Palestinian children, she’s modelling a courage that ordinary people feel empowered to emulate.

Macklemore’s evolution from mainstream success to outspoken human rights advocate represents perhaps the most dramatic example of cultural resistance in action. His music has always carried political undertones, but his advocacy for Palestine became a gateway to broader consciousness. When he cancelled shows in the UAE over their complicity in Sudanese suffering, he demonstrated how cultural resistance moves beyond symbolic gestures into material action with real economic consequences. This is solidarity in motion: one struggle illuminating another, each act expanding the borders of resistance.

Attacking the cultural foundations of genocide

To understand why cultural resistance matters so urgently, we must examine how propaganda enables genocide. The story of Erna Petri, a Nazi homemaker who murdered Jewish children while maintaining ordinary domesticity, reveals how people become complicit through gradual normalisation of dehumanisation. Petri didn’t transform overnight into a killer; she progressed through small steps of complicity, each making the next seem reasonable. She accepted that Jewish people were different, then threatening, then expendable, then deserving of death.

This same progression operates today in Palestine. Media coverage that obsesses over Israeli casualties while treating Palestinian deaths as statistics. Language that describes Israeli ‘responses’ to Palestinian ‘provocations’ rather than acknowledging the ongoing siege. Cultural representations that present Palestinian resistance as terrorism while Israeli violence is self-defence. All of these create conditions that make genocide psychologically acceptable to ordinary people.

As Edward Said understood, ‘colonialism is not just about economic and political control of territory and people, but also about the control of knowledge, culture, and consciousness’. The Israeli state has invested enormous resources in controlling cultural narratives about Palestine – funding institutions, sponsoring exchanges and leveraging celebrity endorsements to normalise occupation. This cultural dimension of colonialism extends beyond direct propaganda to the very frameworks through which Palestinian experience is understood.

Artists who challenge these narratives are disrupting the cognitive infrastructure that makes occupation possible. They’re attacking the cultural foundations of genocide.

Traditional spaces for Palestinian political discourse have been systematically compromised. Academic institutions face donor pressure and accusations of antisemitism. Mainstream media operates under editorial constraints, preventing honest reporting about Israeli violence. Political institutions are captured by lobbying that makes meaningful policy change nearly impossible.

Cultural resistance fills this gap by bringing Palestinian solidarity into popular spaces where people actually gather and engage emotionally. A punk show becomes political education about apartheid. A comedy special introduces audiences to Palestinian history they’d never encounter in mainstream education. A protest song makes Palestinian suffering emotionally accessible in ways that news reports, constrained by false balance, cannot achieve.

This accessibility is crucial because Palestinian liberation requires mass mobilisation. Cultural figures are uniquely situated within the public discourse, allowing them to reach audiences that traditional political organisations might struggle to engage. By putting Palestinian humanity in the spotlight, in spaces where it’s commonly erased, the cultural foundations of political transformation begin to take root. In a world designed to obscure the moral clarity of Palestinian liberation – where genocide is debated rather than condemned – cultural resistance serves a vital clarifying function. It cuts through manufactured complexity to identify what matters: Palestinians are being murdered; Palestinian land is being stolen; Palestinian culture is being systematically erased.

Cultural figures from Kneecap to Gary Lineker understand that their role extends beyond entertainment to moral witness. They recognise that in a society where Palestinian suffering is systematically minimised, where Palestinian voices are silenced, cultural work becomes survival. They understand that neutrality in the face of genocide is complicity, that entertainment divorced from political reality is little more than propaganda for the status quo.

This moral clarity proves contagious precisely because it’s so rare. When artists refuse to separate cultural work from political commitment, they challenge audiences to examine their own complicity. They make it impossible to enjoy their art while remaining comfortable with Palestinian oppression. They force Sontag’s persuadable 80% to choose sides in a conflict where only one side represents justice.

The revolution made irresistible

Punk’s not dead, because the conditions that created punk – systemic violence, manufactured consent, suppression of dissent – have intensified around the Palestinian struggle. The angry, uncompromising voice of cultural resistance is not just relevant; it’s essential for collective survival, for maintaining our capacity to recognise atrocity and demand its end.

The artists carrying forward this tradition understand their work serves functions beyond personal expression or commercial success. They are cultural workers fighting for Palestinian liberation, using their platforms to maintain space for dissent, to preserve memory of Palestinian struggle, to connect Palestinian liberation with global movements for justice. They punch holes in the framework of manufactured consent that enables ongoing genocide.

As Toni Cade Bambara reminds us: ‘The role of the artist is to make the revolution irresistible.’ Cultural resistance to Palestinian oppression represents our collective immune system – the force that keeps societies capable of recognising and responding to atrocity. In preserving and supporting these voices, we preserve our capacity for moral imagination, our ability to see genocide and demand its end.

The 80% can still be moved – towards justice, towards liberation, towards recognising that Palestinian freedom is inseparable from our own humanity.

Aluta continua

Tiocfaidh ár lá

Amandla!

Roomaan Leach is a member of the South Africa–based Amandla! Collective and Founder/Director of Dismantle the Ivory Tower. This article was originally published in Amandla! magazine (No. 99, September 2025, www.amandla.org.za).

*Third World Resurgence No. 364, 2025/3, pp 40-41