I was there, including the opening ceremony.
The excitement and feeling of solidarity was building through all the local women, talking about women’s history and Brighton suffragettes. It felt positive and wonderful. My first FiLiA.
Then the Hamas sympathizer started chanting, “Free, free Palestine.” Some women in the audience stood up and joined in, a few women walked out and the rest of us sat there in stunned silence.
It took all the joy out of the occasion and divided the room. The compere could easily have apologized and said that the chanting wasn’t appropriate or that FiLiA didn’t condone it, but there was nothing said. The poor woman who came on to speak last had to talk to a room where everything had fallen flat.
This morning, perhaps as a sop to the FiLiA consciences, a small room was allocated for a meeting of those who wanted to support the Jewish women. Even there, some anti-Semitic women gatecrashed and when one was given the microphone, started on an anti-Israel rant. She was ejected, but it was honestly shocking to do that on the one small session given to the support of Jewish women, some of whom had family members who were directly affected on October 7th. I know they asked FiLiA to say something at the closing ceremony. I didn’t expect FiLiA to say what that group of women hoped they would say, but I did hope they’d at least give some kind of indication that they sympathised.
I waited to see if any apology or even recognition was forthcoming from FiLiA to say that the flag waving and chanting wasn’t appropriate. There was nothing.
The closing ceremony was shortened and fairly muted. After we’d all left, FiLiA sent out an email and I opened it, still hoping for some comment, but it was an email saying there had been two women banned for their actions at the disco. Those women were Jean Hatchet and Aja.
So there has been zero acknowledgment from the management that some women came to FiLiA with the deliberate intention of expressing their anti-Semitism and celebrating terrorists.
There were some brilliant sessions, particularly the Supreme Court session this morning, but the attitude of the FiLiA management in not condemning those who came to cause trouble and hurt genuinely put a dampener on the whole event and I won’t be going again, which is honestly really sad. It should have been amazing, but I can’t give my money to this organisation again.