Thursday night the Russell House ballroom said goodbye to Columbia and caught a flight to Palestine — or so it seemed.
Thanks to the members of Students for Justice in Palestine, or SJP, the ballroom was transformed into a slice of the Middle East for the first ever SJP Palestinian Culture Night, a lively event featuring all the sights, smells and sounds of Palestine.
SJP, a student group that raises awareness about current political issues in the West Bank and Gaza areas, opened its USC chapter in January 2015. Ten months later, the organization is thriving. The Palestinian Culture Night event brought a crowd of USC students and Columbia residents of all ages out to sample hummus, have their name written in Arabic and more.
Azza Shoaibi, a member of SJP working the event, is a Palestinian USC grad student studying public health who wants people to experience true Palestinian culture away from what the media says.
“The main goal is to educate people about the Palestinian culture,especially because Palestine is this special case where people usually hear about, from the news ... but they don’t really know the culture,” Shoaibi said. “So, the main goal is to educate people about just the normal life in Palestine, away from all the political problems.”
The event definitely offered a thorough and enjoyable cultural education to attendees. The night featured performances of Palestinian belly dancing and dabke dancing and booths such as the keffiyeh photo booth, where visitors could have their photo taken in a Palestinian keffiyeh veil. The cultural booth completed the truly immersive Palestinian experience with a number of cultural artifacts from Palestine itself.
Sofie Shoenherr is a fourth-year Danish exchange student studying management science and business administration. After hearing about the event, she decided to attend.
“I got an email about it, and it sounded interesting,” Shoenherr said. “I like to try and learn about other cultures.”
However, the night was not strictly cultural. The attendees received a sobering reminder of the event’s serious message halfway through the night with a reverent singing of both the Palestinian and American national anthems, followed by a moment of silence for the Palestinians and Israelis that have died in the last year in the Middle Eastern political conflicts.
“We do want to celebrate the cultural aspect of Palestine, but it’s also political,” Cynthia Beaven said. She is vice president of the USC chapter of the SJP and a third-year sexual and reproductive health rights in developing countries student. “We are students for justice in Palestine and so we do want to see some changes in how the Palestinians are treated by Israelis. So, it's kind of a mix; we educate and celebrate.”
Although an homage to Palestinian culture, the event was also a supportive rally for Palestinian rights, evidenced by the handprinted Palestinian support signs around the room and by some attendees’ personal connections to the cause.
“I have some friends who are of Palestinian descent and, they can't even go back home because of the occupation,” second-year sociology and public relations student Martin Aveldanes said at the event, “they can’t see their families.”
Palestinian Culture Night was both an immersive cultural education and a rallying cry for the Palestinian people — and it left event visitors with a strong political and sociological message by its end.
“I definitely think the occupation of the Palestinian people is illegal,” Grant Seuser, a third-year chemistry grad student and SJP member working the event, said. “It’s immoral and it has to stop.”