Gigi Hadid to donate fashion month earnings to aid people in Ukraine and Palestine
Gigi Hadid has decided to donate all of her earnings from fashion month to assist people in Ukraine and Palestine.
The Palestinian-Dutch model pledged on Instagram that she would donate the entirety of her earnings from the fall 2022 shows to "aid those suffering from the war in Ukraine, as well as continuing to support those experiencing the same in Palestine".
Gigi continued, stating that "our eyes and hearts must be open to all human injustice.
"At the end of the day, innocent lives pay for war - not leaders.”
"HANDS OFF UKRAINE. HANDS OFF PALESTINE. PEACE. PEACE. PEACE" she declared at the end of her statement.
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Gigi's announcement comes a day after her sister and supermodel Bella Hadid questioned the distinction between outrage over atrocities in Muslim countries and the reaction to the war in Ukraine on Instagram.
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” the post's caption reads. Bella emphasised the biased response to the Ukraine war, stating that "if this is your first time realising a war in some years, you’re not of the world. War is forever and the position we take during it is forever too.”
The supermodel encouraged people to speak out against injustice despite their discomfort, explaining that support for Ukraine might be easier because "the moment the American president is defending a liberation movement, there’s no risk in joining that defence.
"There’s little glory in joining a warmonger to point at another warmonger" she added.
Bella asserts in her post that the "language we use to define oppression cannot favour one victim over another", joining many on social media to point out the visisble bias over the conflict in Ukraine as opposed to other conflicts in the Middle East.
Online, Bella’s post was met with widespread praise.
“Bella Hadid said it perfectly in my opinion. If you really care about injustice, you should be loud about injustice happening all ver the world and not just people who look like you,” one user tweeted.
Bella ended her post with a question asking "how many Muslim nations aflame? Invasions by the west, merciless drone strikes, executions, internment camps in China? How much of Palestine, how little of Palestine left?"
Biased media coverage
Since the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, many have highlighted the biased and racist media coverage, which activists and critics say has been covered extensivley in comparison to other conflicts around the world, suggesting that some lives are deemed more worthy than others.
Last week, social media users hit out at a number of journalists for the coverage and language used to report the crisis.
In one particularly popular trend, social media users from the Middle East, Africa, and Asia shared pictures highlighting their countries' contributions to human civilisation, often captioned with tongue-in-cheek comments.
In doing so, these social media users hope to counter the bias and vilification of Middle Eastern refugees, which they believe is widespread in the media.
This is not the first time the Hadid sisters have spoken out against injustice and politics on their social media platforms, with both being vocal about minority and Palestinian rights.
In 2020, Bella Hadid called out Instagram for removing one of her posts, where she shared a photo of her father’s passport, highlighting the section on place of birth, which read: "Palestine". She then stated that “you can’t erase history by silencing people. It doesn’t work like that".
She has also previously spoken out about the double standards surrounding the Palestinian issue, stating in one of her Instagram stories, which was also reshared by Gigi, that "one cannot advocate for racial equality, LGBT, and women’s rights, condemn corrupt and abusive regimes and other injustices yet choose to ignore the Palestinian oppression".
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