Activism

Bringing the conversation to the skatepark

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , , ,

A local Montreal crew, some of whom are part of Diesel and Layla’s group, takes in the sunrise from Mount Royal. Courtesy Emanuele Barbier

Alice Martin,
Local Journalism Initiative

Montreal skateboarders merge skateboarding with activism

For Diesel and Layla, two Montreal-based skateboarders, skateboarding is a tool to engage their community in conversations and action around the ongoing genocide in Palestine.

“Me and Layla were talking about our feelings on the skateboarding scene and the lack of action that we felt,” Diesel said. “After Oct. 7, I found myself putting a lot more energy into activism, or being really mentally affected by the situation, and because of that I haven’t been skating as much. I think I have been putting a lot of energy into other things.”

Diesel and Layla, who omitted their last names to preserve privacy, found issues in the way their activist lives weren’t intersecting with their skateboarding lives.

“We both have talked about the lack of integration of [activism] into the general discussion of skaters,” Diesel said. “Basically, we just have been talking for a long time about gathering skaters to talk about, not just Palestine, but a lot of current issues, politics and fascism and just all the shit that’s going on in the world.”

This dissonance prompted Diesel and Layla to facilitate a collective called Skaters Working Against Genocide, which aims to bring these discussions to the skatepark and within a skateboarding context. One of their first meetings was a viewing party of the short film “Epicly Palestine’d: The Birth of Skateboarding in the West Bank.” 

“[The film] goes into the roots of how skateboarding was brought in [to the West Bank], and how it became a form of resistance,” Layla said. “The act of skateboarding itself is anti-fascist in the way that it counters the use of space and the way that skaters reimagine spaces.”

Skateboarding has deep roots in anti-capitalism and anti-fascism, having been cemented as a symbol of rebellion and counterculture originating from the working class youth of 1970s California.

“In my opinion, skateboarding is inherently anti-capitalist, because you’re occupying public space for free, and often, you’re using it to create joy and to make it your own,” Diesel said. “You’re going against the law in some cases, to skate these obstacles.”

Diesel and Layla both found inspiration in their activism in Skateboarders for Palestine Alliance (SPA), a U.K.-based platform that aims “to support the skateboarding industry in proactive solidarity with Palestine,” according to SPA’s Instagram account.

SPA’s Manifesto for the Global Skateboarding Community is a hand-folded paper zine that calls on skateboarders to support Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions within skateboarding brands and to actively “engage in raising awareness, advocating for change and amplifying Palestinian voices within skateboarding and beyond.”

The SPA manifesto reads, “In Palestine, where the struggle for liberation is ongoing, skateboarding can serve as a symbol of resilience and defiance against the oppressive powers at force. We must learn from Palestinian skateboarders, who despite facing immense challenges and dangers, continue to use their boards as tools for resistance and solidarity.”

SPA also advocates for community engagement within skateboarding, exactly what Layla and Diesel strive for and encourage. Diesel said this is especially important when people may be overwhelmed by information they see on social media about Palestine and the rise of fascism, leading them to feel disempowered.

“But everyone has the tools to do something, and especially as skateboarders we practice a lot of disobeying,” said Diesel. “The fight against fascism is people understanding that it’s not one big thing, it’s integrating small practices every day into your life that can slowly create the world you want to live in.”

Both Diesel and Layla encourage people to start their own groups to actively include their activism in their hobbies and spaces, even if it’s not skateboarding.

“I was always really interested in this intersection between politics and skateboarding, and resistance as this joyous action and as a responsibility that I have to my community,” Layla said. “How can we build capacity within the communities, especially with the rise of fascism?”

This article originally appeared in Volume 45, Issue 11, published March 18, 2025.

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One year since Oct. 7

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , , , , , , ,

Protesters marched through downtown Montreal for the Palestinian liberation cause on Feb. 18, 2024. Photo Andraé Lerone Lewis

Hannah Scott-Talib,
Local Journalism Initiative

Reflecting on the heights of activism this past year and the future of the movement

It will soon be one year since Oct. 7.

Exactly 357 days ago, the Palestinian militant group Hamas fired rockets into and re-entered the occupied territory known as Israel, killing over a thousand Israeli civilians, according to Israeli officials. Israel’s retaliation of the event continues, with the displacement of over 2 million Palestinians and 42,000 confirmed Palestinian civilian murders to date, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. 

Reflecting on the past year, advocates for Palestine in Montreal talk about how the Palestinian liberation movement has progressed and discuss where it is now. 

Peaks of activism

Last year, the first peak in mobilization came immediately after Israel’s escalated attacks on Gaza. 

“In the heat of the moment, everyone just wanted to do something for Palestine. They didn’t care what we were doing [or] how we did it, as long as we did something,” said Hassan Ridha, a member of Concordia University’s Thaqalayn Muslim Students’ Association and an active advocate for Palestine. 

“We hadn’t mobilized this quickly and this efficiently until an attack happened, until we saw the death numbers rise significantly within a matter of days,” Ridha said. “So this is when we reacted.” 

Ridha added that, over the past year, another key point in the liberation movement was the establishment of the encampment at McGill University.

“When students came together to say ‘No, we’re not going to get used to what is happening in Gaza, until the university meets [our] demands we’re not just going to sit idly,’” he said, “I think this revived the spirit of many people who weren’t as involved anymore with the movement.”

Ridha isn’t the only one that feels like the encampment was a key step towards liberation. 

“The encampment set a precedent,” said a member of Students for Palestine’s Honour and Resistance Concordia (SPHR ConU), who has been granted anonymity for safety reasons. They said that the encampment saw a huge surge in student mobilization in particular, and that it set a precedent for what was considered fair protest in Montreal through McGill’s two rejected injunctions to dismantle the encampment.

According to Ridha, throughout the year, collective activism for the Palestinian cause was the most prominent directly following Israel’s heaviest attacks. He said there was a surge in activism most recently following Israel’s air strikes on Lebanon that began on Sept. 23.

“People came back together after they saw the heavy bombardment of Beirut,” Ridha said, “which at least shows consistency, that we are able to come back together [and mobilize].”

The future of the Palestinian cause 

“Over the last year, I think we’ve seen action from the masses at, what I would say, is an unprecedented and an inspiring level,” said Haya, a member of The Palestinian Youth Movement’s (PYM) Montreal chapter, whose last name has been kept anonymous for safety reasons. “People have responded to the fact that the genocide has been going on for a year and continue to respond to it.”

Now, Haya added, PYM is looking to shift to more long-term forms of activism. She said that PYM recently launched a new campaign entitled “Mask Off Maersk.” which aims to target one of the largest shipping companies in the world, the A.P. Moller-Maersk Group. 

“[Maersk] acts as a middleman for arms and weapons shipments to Israel,” Haya said. According to her, by interrupting the logistics of shipping, this campaign will attack weapons and arms manufacturers “across the board.”

Meanwhile, the SPHR ConU member said they feel that—through heightened awareness for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement—successfully pressuring Concordia, McGill and other large Montreal institutions to divest from Israel is a realistic goal for 2025. 

“We’re closer to divestment than ever,” they said. “[The] BDS movement has grown so much it’s become a [central] topic in the city.”

They added that, in relation to the BDS movement, the next step after divestment would be an academic boycott of institutions such as Concordia. 

“Everyone has the freedom to learn whatever they want, but if it’s at the cost of the occupation of a people, or if it’s at the cost of killing people, then I don’t think that’s academic freedom,” they said. 

Still, activists like Ridha believe that certain important accomplishments have already been made since Oct. 7, 2023.

“The biggest achievement, for me, is awareness—it’s something you can’t lose,” Ridha said. “Over time, people might lose interest in participating in protests or in doing active work for Palestine, but no one is going to go home and forget about the companies to boycott.”

He added that new activists for the Palestinian cause have learned so much more about the movement as a whole over the past year, from the meaning of the keffiyeh to the history of Palestinian resistance. 

“This, I think, is the best thing we have achieved since Oct. 7,” Ridha said. “It’s the gaining of knowledge that gives us a foundation for the next time.” 

With files from Menna Nayel

This article originally appeared in Volume 45, Issue 3, published October 1, 2024.

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