Organizer: CUNY/SUNY Southeast Asia Consortium
Type/Location: Virtual
Description:
Palestine has been a focus of advocacy and concern in Southeast Asian and among Southeast Asians for decades now. Some of that engagement extends to the state level—especially in Malaysia and Indonesia, which officially recognize Palestine, but not Israel. That the region’s Muslim-majority states incline toward Palestine is perhaps unsurprising. But the support runs deeper in the region, along multiple tracks. Many Southeast Asians, including Southeast Asian Americans in the United States, share those sympathies; significant numbers have participated in recent protest actions around Gaza, including many who cite parallels with movements for human rights and social justice, and against neocolonialism and securitization, in their countries of origin. This webinar will probe the roots, character, extent, and intended impact of that solidarity activism. Panelists will address the trajectory of pro-Palestinian efforts in Southeast Asia, including its current efflorescence; what has motivated Southeast Asian-identified students in the US to take part in solidarity campaigns for Gaza now—and what messages such transnational activism conveys or what it might achieve.
About the Speakers:
Walid Jumblatt Bin Abdullah is an Assistant Professor at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore, specifically within the Public Policy and Global Affairs Program. He specializes in the study of state-Islam relations, political Islam, and the dynamics of political parties and elections, with a particular focus on Southeast Asian contexts, especially Singapore and Malaysia.
Amirah Lidasan is a prominent Moro activist and secretary general of the Moro-Christian People’s Alliance, recently announced as the 11th senatorial candidate for the Makabayan Coalition in the 2025 Philippine elections. With a background in journalism from the University of the Philippines Diliman, she has served as the national chairperson of the National Union of Students of the Philippines. Lidasan is dedicated to advocating for the rights and representation of marginalized sectors, particularly the Bangsamoro people, and seeks to amplify their voices in Congress through her commitment to justice and human rights
Julian Maceren is a research assistant who has worked at both the Memorial Sloan Kettering Institute and Stony Brook University's Renaissance School of Medicine. He earned his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Rochester in 2020. Maceren's research interests lie at the intersection of chemistry and biology, particularly in developing new therapeutics for human diseases. He has previously participated in the Amgen Scholars Program at UT Southwestern, where he gained hands-on laboratory experience in synthesizing small-molecule antibiotics and creating drug delivery systems.
Barry Trachtenberg is the Rubin Presidential Chair of Jewish History at Wake Forest University, specializing in modern European and American Jewish history. He teaches courses on the Holocaust, Zionism, and Jewish responses to historical challenges. Trachtenberg is the author of The Holocaust and the Exile of Yiddish (2022) and The United States and the Nazi Holocaust: Race, Refuge, and Remembrance (2018), examining the complexities of U.S. responses to the Holocaust. He is also actively involved in discussions on antisemitism and political activism, contributing to publications like Tablet and Jewish Currents.
Registration link:
To attend this webinar, please register here.