Uprooting Qahr! Power, Privilege and Paperwork is a project that was sparked from Taishya’s visit to the West Bank of Palestine, the America West, and the Deep South of Alabama.
Arrival Day in Tel Aviv – May 2025
Taishya was instantly confronted with the scars of a wildfire.
In late April and early May 2025, Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank of Palestine experienced major fires in more than 100 different locations through the Judaean Mountains area. These wildfires had spread quickly and strong due to both drought conditions from human caused climate change and also due to the colonial land management done by the Israeli government.
Israel, since the Nakba of 1948, has displaced and erased the history and presence of Palestinian towns and villages by turning them into parks using non-native plants, and often invasive trees, particularly Aleppo pines. Due to this forestation effort, the landscape has become less biodiverse and more prone to wildfires.
“The colonialism claims have resurfaced periodically in international media as part of their coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, linking forestation to the “Judaization” of previously Arab-owned land. […] A JNF spokesperson told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the tree planting began as an effort to “demonstrate ownership” over non-urban Jewish-owned land that could not be farmed.”
From West Asia to the American West
Here in the settler colonial state of Colorado in the American West, we can relate. We have a share intensified extreme wildfires due to human centered and human caused climate change.
These wildfires are due to both climate change and also the removal of the Indigenous worldview that saw the natural world as a relative not a resource.
After thousands of years of having relationship to this land, the human inhabitants learned how to tend to the local fire ecosystem.
Call to Action
Land stewarding voices, like the local Harvest of All First Nations and the West Bank Al-anda University, are essential to the wellbeing of our ecology and there is a pattern of these voices being left out of conversations both here on the Front Range of Colorado and in Palestine. In both places, the land is being subjected to perpetual development which puts the wants of settler colonialists over all other living beings in our ecosystem.
Read the Indigenous stewardship in the book, Restoring the Kinship Worldview: Indigenous Voices Introduce 28 Precepts for Rebalancing Life on Planet Earth. (https://bookshop.org/p/books/restoring-the-kinship-worldview-indigenous-voices-introduce-28-precepts-for-rebalancing-life-on-planet-earth-darcia-narvaez-phd/57d7ef725279ff3c?ean=9781623176426&next=t&) Wahinkpe Topa (Four Arrows) and Darcia Narvaez present and discuss 28 powerful excerpted passages from Indigenous leaders, including Mourning Dove, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Winona LaDuke, and Xiuhtezcatl Martinez. Accompanied by the authors’ own analyses, each chapter reflects the wisdom of Indigenous worldview precepts like:
-
Egalitarian rule versus hierarchical governance
-
A fearless trust in the universe, instead of a fear-based culture
-
The life-sustaining role of ceremony
-
Emphasizing generosity and the greater good instead of pursuing selfish goals and for personal gain
-
The laws of nature as the highest rules for living
The authors emphasize our deep need to move away from the dominant Western paradigm–one that dictates we live without strong social purpose, fails to honor the earth as sacred, leads with the head while ignoring the heart, and places individual “rights” over collective responsibility.
Learn more with our extended-learning post about the colonization in relation to Olive Trees in Palestine to Bison in Colorado and also the ways these plant/animal relations are being revived by becoming a free or paid member.
Save the Date: Uprooting Qahr! Goes to Denver in May 2026!
We can’t wait for this next Uprooting Qahr experiences that will take place on May 12th and May 19th in Denver, Colorado!
Performance Preview – May 12th 6:30 – 8:30 pm
We are excited to share the latest monologues and music of Uprooting Qahr! Power, Privilege, and Paperwork. We will be joined by special musical guest – SELASSEE!! Selasee, originally from Ghana, is a singer/songwriter who explores reggae music influenced by pop and the west African highlife music genres. He is the founder of the Blackeye Watching Records LLC and leader of the band Selasee & The Fafa Family now based in Colorado. Note that tickets are donation based.
Register for Performance Preview
Film Sneak Peak & Talk Back – May 19th 6:30 – 8:30 pm
We will screen a work sample of the short film and facilitate a talk back with filmmakers – Dewi, Jason, and Taishya. We will also hear from Linda Badwan, Palestinian community leader and human rights activist. Note that tickets are donation based.
Register for UQ Film & Talk Back
About Uprooting Qahr! Power, Privilege, and Paperwork
This multimedia experience that follows Taishya Adams – educator, artist, and policy maker – as she confronts colonial cancers spread from Europe to Africa to the Americas and West Asia. Weaving across personal and political histories, we face the uneven promise of democracy and the possibilities of liberty and justice for all. Qahr (n): an Arabic word for the combined feelings of Sadness, frustration, anger caused by intergenerational displacement, dispossession and discrimination.
Uprooting Qahr! is a Mukuyu Collective Production in partnership with eight16creative. The Climate Justice Hive, a 501(c)3 organization, serves as our fiscal sponsor.
This is our first previews in Denver and we are hoping for a BIG turnout!! The broader public will have access to tickets on Friday!
Help Us Get the Word Out!
If you are looking for a way to uplift and help out with this project, please share with your family, friends and on social media and in group chats!!
We are also looking for help getting broader media attention. Email us at team@mukuyucollective.com if you have ideas and can offer support!
We Are One.
