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The perceived similarities between the violence and unrest in the West Bank, and Ferguson, Missouri caused two Southern Illinois University Edwardsville students to make it the subject of their research project. 

“The pictures of tear gas, the unrest and police militarization all looked like it could have been photographed in the West Bank,” said Isabel Gonzales of the aftermath of the August 2014 shooting death of Michael Brown by former police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson. Gonzales is majoring in political science and double minoring in Peace and International Studies and Women’s Studies. 

Gonzales began working on an Undergraduate Research Creative Activities (URCA) project with Gregory Collins, a Spanish Language and Literature major, and a Peace and International Studies minor. Both are students of Dr. Denise DeGarmo, chair of the Department of Political Science. Their project has evolved into an independent study.

Gonzales is comparing the use of social media in Palestine and Ferguson, and evaluating the new civil rights movement with the old, said DeGarmo. The professor added that Collins is looking at the similarities in oppressed young people in Ferguson and the West Bank. He is also comparing the areas’music and art work. 

And while Gonzales and Collins will continue to concentrate on Ferguson and Palestine, they agree that the recent police and community clash in Baltimore over the death of Freddie Gray, only heightens the importance of their work and critical need for solutions.Collins visited DeGarmo while she was conducting research in the West Bank in March 2015. He saw what he says were haunting resemblances between policing of the Israeli occupied strip and Ferguson. 

“It was shocking to see the police brutality of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF),” said Collins. “They used certain methods to brutalize Palestinian people. They used tear gas and grenades. We walked through the midst of bombs being thrown in Bethlehem. 

“The young men in Palestine and in Ferguson are targets for police brutality. I learned that young Palestinian men are almost destined to be arrested or have some encounter with the IDF. In Palestine, we saw slogans, murals and graffiti supporting Ferguson on what is known as the Apartheid Wall or the Israeli Separation Wall.” 

The issues of power and domination are at play in both places, according to DeGarmo, who among other things teaches “Politics of Occupation.” She created the class two years ago based on the work she did in Palestine. DeGarmo first traveled to the West Bank in 2011 and got involved in human security, which looks at what a person needs to survive. 

DeGarmo developed a model for human security and began teaching it in her class. The political science chair has worked on violence defusing teams and is trained in nuclear safety. She has also worked as a social worker for more than 10 years. 

“The riots in both Palestine and Ferguson are both social and political in nature,” DeGarmo said. “It is the result of creating a phenomenon of oppression. When you deny people’s rights to equitable living, when you have social injustice, economic inequality and the dampening of political rights, what do people expect?” 

“The similarities I saw between the use of social media by people in Ferguson and people in Palestine were mostly that of solidarity,” Gonzales said. “We’d see Palestinian activists tweeting to people in Ferguson about tips on how to survive being tear gassed.” 

She also commented that the “new civil rights movement” is less centralized than the old civil rights movement. “What I’ve found are several smaller groups working towards similar goals,” Gonzales continued. "Rather than a large group working towards a single, unified goal. There is more flexibility.” 

Additionally, music helps fuel the activism in Ferguson and Palestine, Collins noted. 

“I remember being in Bethlehem and sitting in a cab listening to Umm Kulthum, a famous Egyptian musician of the 20^th century,” he said. “Her voice represents the struggle of the Palestinian people. It is similar to diving through Ferguson and hearing Tupac, Biggie Smalls and Bone Thuz-N-Harmony.” 

“And here we are again,” DeGarmo said referencing the death of Gray, an unarmed black man while in police custody. “Global borders don’t separate injustice and inhumanity. Until we address the underlining causes of racism and social injustice—locally, nationally and internationally–we can’t expect anything but uprising.”

Photos:

From left to right: Denise DeGarmo, Gregory Collins and Isabel Gonzales.