“You know, Diana, we are in Germany. We can’t use words like genocide or apartheid. We don’t know who will be in the audience, and I want to protect you. If an extreme right person interrupts, I’ll have to interfere and control the conversation. I am totally with you, I understand you, but you know the history here, the culture of memory. Someone might be offended, or not understand you.”

With these words, a German scholar, well established and working in a reputable institute, tried to convince me to choose my words.

It was October 2024, one year into Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Lebanon was also under attack.

And I had just realized that the panel I was invited to, addressing Beirut’s history, would talk about the city without addressing the war Israel was waging against it. So I told him it made no sense for me to speak only about history or music while ignoring the ongoing destruction, erasure, and genocide in Palestine and Lebanon.

He then invited me for a coffee to “discuss” my intervention.

The panel was meant to celebrate Beirut as a city always on the edge, a city that loses itself year after year. The city of intellectuals and culture, the city of cafés and books. A city worth mourning, but only in its metaphors.

Not the suburbs. Not the South. Not the Bekaa. Not that Lebanon.

Not the people whose histories disturb. Their ways of mourning, their rituals of grief, their resistance, are not worthy of their attention, nor part of this story. Maybe they are too mournful, too religious, not refined enough for their taste, for this imagined Beirut, cleaned, curated and made to fit a certain language.

So of course, better to leave aside the ongoing destruction by Israel, the ethnic cleansing, the dehumanization of an entire community. The stories of entire villages in the south being erased. The noise of the histories and memories I would bring into the conversation.

On that same day, a rocket hit Ras el-Nabaa, less than 200 meters from my parents’ home, where my aunts and their families were staying. Just meters away, seconds away… yet a million lifetimes away from me. Bombs, erasure, families gone, memories shattered.

The silence goes on, relentless.

And yet, here I was, sitting there, safe in Berlin, listening to him asking me to watch my words. To be careful with my language, not to disturb the fragility of German history.

He kept reassuring me that he would “protect” me, in case some “extreme right wing” guy, the usual monster everyone fears, would interrupt the panel. Because my words would offend him. Would offend them.

Our words scare them. Our history still unsettles them.

But for him, there was no problem using this fear. No problem disciplining me through his own imagined violence. His history, his memory, was something I was expected to accept. To carry.

***

Since October 7, I have heard so many European scholars, people who built their careers on our region, tell me quietly, in private, that they are “with Palestine”, or that they are ashamed of their government.

Quietly. Always so quietly.

But when it comes to speaking publicly, to standing against what is happening in their own institutions, their silence is so loud. They speak about freedom of expression. They love that phrase. But when it comes to Israel, or to questioning German memory and the structural racism it created in their institutions, suddenly it disappears.

Since I became German, some even laugh about it. They come to me, joking, almost hysterically, creepily: “Now you are part of it. Our German guilt. Our memory.”

They laugh and laugh. And my world turns upside down. They laugh while my memories shatter, piece by piece. They laugh while everything around me loses meaning. They laugh while I live this constant dissonance. Here, in Berlin, everything is calm, yet so disturbing. There, everything is collapsing, yet it makes so much sense.

They laugh and laugh, in silence, living their everyday lives, convinced they are safe in their own small, individual worlds. As if safety was natural. As if it was not built on distance. On silence. On what is not said.

***

It is 9am. A peaceful, sunny day in Berlin. March 2026.

I am sitting in the office. I hear a sound.

Drones.

I feel it in my body. I move in my chair, and I look around. Does anyone else hear it? No one reacts. I look again. I am in Berlin.

I have told myself, with a lot of guilt, that the sound of drones is something new to me. That I wasn’t used to it, nor internalized it. Not yet. Not like my family and friends there. They had become hunted by that sound. I kept telling myself this was not my trauma.

But my body tells me otherwise.

It reminds me that it has already absorbed this fear, the fear of something hunting us from above. It didn’t forget the shiver it creates. Fear travels with us. It does not stay there, nor respect borders. It sits in the body, quiet sometimes, then suddenly very loud.

My body has carried this for years. The fear of planes haunting the sky. We used to call it umm kāmel. It watched us. Today they call it zanāni. Now it hunts, speaks, erases you like a bug.

My heart starts beating fast. I look outside. I am still in Berlin. It’s just the neighbor cutting the grass in this nice, fancy and quiet neighborhood. But in my body, it is a drone. Following me here. Into this calm, safe life.

I ask my colleague: do you feel something?

She says yes.

For a second, I think maybe she feels it too. Maybe she understands something of this. Maybe I am not that hunted.

Then she says: yes, this weather… this long winter in Berlin. It’s so depressing.

Yes, I say. The winter.

***

It always comes back to the same moment. The same questions. The same hunted memories.

February 2024. Sitting at a table with German scholars. More than 20,000 people already killed in Gaza.

One of them, a specialist of the region, was speaking loudly, almost proudly. He was talking about the Israeli war on Gaza, its repercussions in Europe, and the pro-Israel stance of universities. He criticized those who expected more from German scholars.

Then I said: “But German scholars are not really fighting back, nor willing to take a clear stand. Maybe this is the moment to give something back to the places you build your carriers on. Even a little.”

Something changed.

His eyes turned red, his face tightened. He looked straight at me and asked me:

“But do you condemn Hamas?”

The post “Now You Are Part of It. Our German Guilt. Our Memory” appeared first on Untold.

Through free-form writing and illustration, the contributors reflect on what divestment can mean for academics of color within knowledge-producing institutions across the Global North. Grounded in the urgency of documenting the present moment and its reverberations in academia, the series reveals how the dehumanization of the “other” has always been structural and systemic.

This story is by Watfa Najdi, with illustrations by Pascale Ghazaly. 

What does it mean to think beyond extractivism in times of war?

I was invited to speak at an event. At the time, I was feeling vulnerable and constantly worried about the situation in Lebanon, and I rarely felt like leaving the house. 

However, it was an important event, so I said yes.

That night, as I was sitting on the stage speaking, a strike hit al-Nuweiri neighborhood in Beirut. Among the martyrs, there was a family with the same last name as mine: Najdi. I didn’t know, and I kept talking about the importance of moving beyond the North/South paradigm that casts certain populations as perpetual beneficiaries or aid recipients in need of Western expertise… I remember saying something about care, holding space, and listening to voices from the majority world. I didn’t look at my phone until the panel ended.

When I finally did, I saw several messages about the strike, the victims, the names.

“Israeli air strikes on central Beirut have killed 22 people and wounded at least 117, Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health said… The strikes appear to have hit densely populated residential areas as flames and smoke rose from two residential blocks.” (Al Jazeera, October 2024)

For a few minutes, everything inside me froze until my dad finally answered his phone and said they were okay. I then texted a friend who lived close to the targeted area. She replied briefly that they were still trying to process what happened, but they were okay.

After that, I put on a smile and said I needed to leave early. So, while everyone went upstairs to continue the conversation, I slipped out and rushed back home. That day I realized that academic conversations feel impossibly small during war, and the world you come from suddenly becomes too heavy to carry into these spaces but also too real to just put on hold.

Excerpt from Megaphone’s X account posted the following day (October 11, 2024):

“Hussein (51) and Lara (40), along with their twins Bassam and Zakaria (15) and Fatima Najdi (4), were laid to rest on Friday in their hometown Srifa, as well as their grandmother Inaam Saqlawi, her brother, and his wife. The death toll from the Noueiri massacre has now reached 22 martyrs, with over 117 others injured.”

How are you doing? How’s your family?

A professor asked me how I was doing. Over the past months, I’ve learned not to answer those questions fully. Most people ask because (I assume) it would be impolite not to, and what they expect is a short confirmation that your family back home is “doing okay,” even while surviving a war. So, I usually say exactly that: “they’re okay” then I smile and nod.

But this time there was something in his tone that made me believe he actually wanted to know more about what’s happening. So, I let myself say a little more. “It’s terrible,” I said. “Last night I couldn’t sleep. I stayed up following the news… watching which buildings were being bombed…”

I was tired and angry, so the words kept coming. “They hit a building close to my neighborhood in Beirut. It’s just…”

I don’t remember what I said after that, only the moment he gently cut in: “Can you walk with me? I need to grab my coffee from inside.”

I froze for a second but then nodded and walked beside him towards the class. It took me a minute to put a smile back on… I stood there as he grabbed his cup and checked something on his desk.

He then turned back to me and said, “…you were telling me about the situation in Beirut?”

I felt ridiculous sharing, even if for a few seconds, something very personal to me with someone who preferred to listen to a conversation about war while sipping coffee. I smiled again and said, “oh, that was it. The situation is difficult. Hopefully it will end soon.”

He smiled back, warmly. I don’t think he was pretending. But this is probably as far as he could go. Not because of lack of empathy, but because news about war, suffering and pain from the other side of the world can only be acknowledged briefly, never long enough to interrupt the rhythm of (academic) life.

The post Diaries of an Academic of Color: On the Limits of Academic Spaces, and Life in Two Places appeared first on Untold.

Through free-form writing and illustration, the contributors reflect on what divestment can mean for academics of color within knowledge-producing institutions across the Global North. Grounded in the urgency of documenting the present moment and its reverberations in academia, the series reveals how the dehumanization of the “other” has always been structural and systemic.

This story is by Myriam Dalal, with illustrations by Pascale Ghazaly. 

Having a conscience is making everything much harder.

As if we needed one more layer of complication to add to our “survival of the fittest” battle as Arab academics in the west.

Since the start of the genocide in Gaza, and the war on Palestine, Lebanon, bits of Syria and bits of Yemen in October of 2023-which coincided with my appointment as a research associate at a university in Europe- my work plan started incorporating multi-level scrutiny measures:

For the places I’m invited to speak at, the funding that I seek for my activities and projects, the people I collaborate with, the researchers I interact with, the university where I work, and our center’s preexisting/ongoing/future collaborations, as well as the research projects conducted here, the way the university communicates about its international collaborations, etc.

And when you’re already in a space where your very being is attacked every single day, from the moment you open your door in the morning till the moment you go back to bed at night, this means you’re adding to your already achy shoulders a new reason to shrug.

You say it’s the mattress that got you this back and shoulder pain, but you know deep inside that it’s Orientalism, you just don’t know how to explain it to the white physician.

Being an Arab woman of color comes with all its “shades of anger” as the amazing Rafeef Ziadeh would say. The orientalist machine starts from the very state administration to the individual level that seeks to discredit you, belittle you, and fetishize you or in its most positive manifestation, save you…

The post Diaries of an Academic of Color: All Shades of Anger – Notes from an Arab Woman in European Academia appeared first on Untold.

Developed as part of the European Research Council–funded PalREAD project, the platform brings together archival material, podcasts, network visualizations, and thematic narratives to document a literature created under conditions of exile, occupation, and censorship. It offers a critical intervention against erasure—especially vital in a moment of genocidal violence against Palestinians and the systematic suppression of their voices.

In this interview, Refqa Abu‑Remaileh reflects on the origins and goals of the project, the challenges of building a literary history from fragments, and the urgency of documenting Palestinian cultural production in the face of historical and ongoing destruction. Through her work, she not only tells the story of Palestinian literature but also how we can learn from this rich creative history of defiance, resistance, and survival.

Walid El Houri: How would you describe this massive project? What made you decide to do it, and who do you believe it is for?

Refqa Abu‑Remaileh: One of the main reasons I started this project was to answer my own questions. I was struggling to understand how to read, write about, and make sense of Palestinian literature. There are many anomalies in this field—disconnections, gaps, scattered histories—and I kept hitting a ceiling. Even though the existing work was incredibly important, it felt like we couldn’t see the bigger picture: how everything connects, how the diaspora relates to the homeland, and how we make sense of a history shaped by fragmentation.

At some point, I became disillusioned with the limits of traditional literary analysis. It no longer felt sufficient to analyze texts in isolation. I felt the need for unconventional approaches to make sense of what is, in many ways, an unconventional literature.

I’m also a visual learner, so I wanted to create something that was visual and interactive. Simple facts, like whether Mahmoud Darwish and Ghassan Kanafani ever met were unclear. The canon of Palestinian literature has been reduced to a few major names, but even those figures lived in entirely different cities, cultural spheres, and political realities. We often treat them as though they belonged to a single, unified literary scene—which they didn’t. So, I wanted to build something that would allow us to explore these disconnections and interconnections more clearly.

This is how the idea of an atlas emerged—something that could show the motion of literature across geographies, a “literature in motion.” I realized that the best way to represent that was through a digital platform that allowed for textual, visual, and audio components. It had to be non-linear and participatory—something more democratic, that could reflect the fragmented and scattered nature of Palestinian literary history. I didn’t want to write a conventional, linear literary history.

The digital realm became essential not only for hosting the project but as a conceptual space—a virtual meeting ground for dispersed data and fragmented narratives. It helped me see Palestinian literature as a story of movement, elasticity, and rupture. I didn’t know all of this when I began, but the drive to answer these questions and see the bigger picture is what propelled the project forward.

WH: What defines Palestinian literature and what makes it special or particular? How is it different from other national literatures?

RA: This was one of the biggest challenges I faced—trying to define what is and isn’t part of Palestinian literature. Early on, I decided to adopt an inclusive approach inspired by the spirit of the Palestinian revolution, particularly the Beirut years. Many people I spoke to, including in our podcast interviews, emphasized that Palestinian identity—at least in the context of literature and culture—wasn’t strictly about nationality or ethnicity, but about belonging to a cause.

So, I made a conscious decision to include non-Palestinians in the project—writers, editors, thinkers—anyone who made a major contribution to Palestinian literature, regardless of their background. This wasn’t about gatekeeping based on origin but about contribution and connection. That inclusiveness felt essential to reflecting the spirit of the literature itself.

At the same time, I had to confront a recurring question: Is Palestinian literature really that different from other Arabic literatures? I remember meeting Salma Khadra Jayyusi, an incredibly important but underrecognized Palestinian poet and literary critic, who was already in her 90s when I interviewed her. She looked at me skeptically and said, “Why do you need a separate project for Palestinian literature? It’s no different from Arabic literature. It has the same genres, styles, movements.”

And she was right—on the level of the literary texts themselves, Palestinian literature is very much part of modern Arabic literature. It shares its genres—novels, short stories, poetry, plays—and it’s shaped by the same regional trends and intellectual currents. These writers were writing in, and part of, the broader Arab world.

But what makes Palestinian literature different is the context of its production and circulation. It’s a national literature without a nation-state—a literature that is unhoused, fragmented, scattered across geographies. Its writers, critics, readers, publishers, and archives are not located within a centralized, territorial state. This affects everything: how the literature is written, read, archived, and remembered.

Most national literatures emerge from relatively stable territorial entities. Palestinian literature doesn’t. Its very conditions of existence are shaped by displacement, exile, censorship, imprisonment, and erasure. These are not just background facts; they define the literature. There’s also a kind of latent transnationalism that has always been there, but we’ve tended to overlook it—perhaps because of a desire to normalize Palestinian literature within national literary frameworks.

So, we end up analyzing the canonical figures—Kanafani in Beirut, Emile Habibi in Haifa, Jabra Ibrahim Jabra in Baghdad—as though they were part of a unified literary tradition. But they were living in completely different political and cultural environments, and rarely, if ever, interacting directly. Ignoring that reality means ignoring what actually makes Palestinian literature distinct.

It’s also a literature that has been systematically targeted—through censorship, imprisonment, exile, and erasure—in ways that go beyond what’s typical in other Arab literatures. All of this contributes to its particularity: a decentralized, transnational, and constantly disrupted literary tradition that still manages to cohere around a sense of collective memory and struggle.

WH: Does Palestinian literature need to be in Arabic, or do you consider it a multilingual literature? Which other languages have you encountered and documented?

RA: Yes, Palestinian literature is multilingual. During the research, I encountered material in many languages—Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, German, English, French, among others. However, for the purposes of this project, I made the decision to focus primarily on Arabic-language sources. That wasn’t because the other languages aren’t important—they are—but because the vast majority of literary production, especially in the 20th century, has been in Arabic.

This sometimes frustrates people, but we can’t deny that Arabic is the dominant language of Palestinian literary expression. And the Arabic corpus is enormous—much of it still unexplored. I realized we’ve barely scratched the surface. When people think of literature, they often focus only on the major literary texts, but there’s so much more: criticism, editorials, letters, essays, manifestos, cultural commentary. All of this exists in Arabic, scattered across newspapers, magazines, private archives, and oral histories.

That said, the multilingual dimension is real, especially when we look at the diaspora—Latin America in particular. One of the surprises in my research was discovering just how much Arabic-language publishing was taking place there, starting in the early 20th century. Many of these publications eventually became bilingual—Arabic-Spanish or Arabic-Portuguese—and then fully Spanish or Portuguese. This history is often overshadowed by the emphasis on Arab migration to the United States, but in fact, Latin America has a rich and largely untapped archive of Palestinian and broader Arab cultural production.

I think we’ll see more work emerge around this in the coming years, and I hope others take up that research. My project doesn’t deny the multilingual nature of Palestinian literature—it simply focuses on Arabic because that’s where the core of the historical production is, and because it remains a massive field requiring further excavation.

WH: What is the importance of this type of documentation amid the genocidal destruction of all things Palestinian—communities, history, heritage, places, and more?

RA: This project was actually completed before the current genocide began—it just happened to be published a few days after October 7. At first, I couldn’t make sense of that timing. But slowly, everything started to click into place. The patterns I had traced over nearly a century of literary history—the erasures, the silences, the censorship, the imprisonments, the massacres—they all pointed toward what we’re witnessing now. This eruption of violence didn’t come out of nowhere. It’s a culmination.

Through the project, it became clear to me that there have been two forms of genocide at play: a slow, grinding genocide that has unfolded over decades, and a fast, spectacular one we are now witnessing. But both follow the same logic: erasure of Palestinian presence on the land, culture, memory, and people.

I didn’t expect to find what I found. When you write literary history, you don’t usually think you’ll be documenting prisons, massacres, and mass censorship. But these elements kept appearing in the sources—so often and so forcefully that I couldn’t ignore them. So I began highlighting them as themes in the project. These include imprisonment, censorship, and massacres—tools of suppression that have shaped the conditions of Palestinian literary production for over a century.

The sheer number of writers who were imprisoned, exiled, banned, or silenced is staggering—and unprecedented. These weren’t isolated incidents. They formed a pattern, and this pattern maps directly onto the political project of erasing Palestinian identity and culture.

And yet, even in times of catastrophe, people wrote. One example I highlight is a magazine published in East Jerusalem after 1948, where the editor, Amin Shunnar, proposed a new literary genre: “Adab al-Nakba”—the literature of catastrophe, or the literature of the Nakba. He believed Palestinians could contribute something unique to the Arab literary tradition by reflecting on how to write from the ruins—not just about destruction, but also about survival, hope, and the future.

This kind of resilience is threaded through the entire history of Palestinian literature. Despite the attempts to destroy and silence, people kept writing, thinking, and imagining. There are precedents to draw on. There is a legacy of resistance—creative, intellectual, cultural—that didn’t emerge out of nowhere in the present moment. It’s been built over generations. This project is one attempt to document and preserve that legacy—not only for memory, but also as a resource for the present and future.

WH: At a time when there is violent erasure and suppression of Palestinian voices, what can the history of Palestinian literature and literary figures teach us about the present moment?

RA: One of the central themes I traced in this project is censorship—not just of Palestinians, but of anyone speaking about Palestine. What surprised me was how early this began. For example, I found Arabic newspapers published in Santiago, Chile, as early as 1920 reporting on events in Palestine, like the Nabi Musa uprising. These papers received Palestinian newspapers from the homeland, but they arrived heavily censored—entire sections blacked out. And the editors in Chile understood this as a systematic attempt to silence Palestinian voices and to decimate their political and cultural leadership.

That was under British colonial rule. What’s striking is how seamlessly the Israeli state inherited these tools—prison, censorship, bans—and expanded them. Palestinians themselves understood this continuity. The poet Tawfiq Zayyad, for example, explicitly said that his struggle inside Israel after 1948 was a direct continuation of the struggle of poets like Ibrahim Touqan under British colonialism. The colonial conditions hadn’t changed—only the rulers had.

This suppression wasn’t limited to literary production. The writers I researched weren’t just writers—they were also teachers, journalists, organizers, activists. Their work spanned cultural and political spheres, and because of that, they were seen as threats. One powerful example is the Al-Ard movement, an anti-Zionist political group inside Israel after 1948. It was quickly banned, and when its members tried to publish a bulletin, they had to use a legal loophole from the British Mandate period that allowed for one-off publications without a license. They issued a series of underground bulletins, each under a different name, editor, and location—but always with “Al-Ard” in the title. It was a brilliant act of resistance using colonial legal mechanisms against the colonial state.

That example reminds me of what we see today with social media. Palestinian journalists and activists create multiple Instagram or Twitter accounts because once one gets taken down, they open another. This pattern of silencing and persistence goes all the way back to the early 20th century. Palestinians have had to fight media blackouts, censorship, and suppression for generations.

What this history teaches us is that Palestinians have always resisted erasure—and they’ve done so with incredible creativity and resilience. The erasure isn’t new, but neither is the resistance. What’s crucial now is to recover those histories—not just to honor them, but to learn from them. They remind us that we’re not starting from scratch. There is a long archive of creative defiance that can guide us through this moment.

WH: In your project to document this rich literature, what were the biggest challenges? And what were the biggest discoveries?

RA: The challenges were many—legal, logistical, emotional, conceptual. First, I had to accept that this project would never be comprehensive. Palestinian literary history is full of ruptures, silences, and missing pieces. I wasn’t dealing with a cohesive, well-preserved archive; I was working with fragments. That required a shift in mindset. I had to be okay with documenting what I could, knowing it would remain partial, interrupted, and unfinished.

There were also major logistical obstacles—accessing sources across geographies, finding rare materials, dealing with COVID travel restrictions. Much of the archive doesn’t exist in national libraries or formal institutions. It’s in people’s homes—private libraries, boxes in garages, basements, old community centers. You have to look in unexpected places.

As a literary scholar, I wasn’t trained in archival research or oral history. But I had to embrace those methods, because often there were no written records. Oral interviews became essential for filling the gaps—especially for capturing lived experiences and connecting dots that the written archive couldn’t provide.

Then there was the digital side. This was a team-based project, and it couldn’t have been done alone. We worked with researchers across the region—in Gaza, the West Bank, inside Israel, in Cairo, Beirut, Kuwait—and coordinated a small team in Berlin. Creating the project’s database  was hugely labor-intensive. There are no pre-existing datasets for Palestinian literature. Everything had to be manually collected, coded, and entered—biographical data, periodical metadata, geographic information, thematic connections.

And because the digital infrastructure is geared toward Latin-script, left-to-right languages, we faced constant hurdles with Arabic—OCR (optical character recognition) is still inaccurate, right-to-left formatting is often buggy, and nothing could be automatically generated. Every node and connection you see in the platform had to be mapped manually in Word docs and Excel sheets.

Conceptually, one of the most difficult questions was: how do I represent a fragmented, non-linear story in visual and textual form? Edward Said’s idea of “counterpoint” was key here—multiple narratives happening simultaneously, often in tension with each other. That’s why I created a timeline with overlapping geographies—showing events in the homeland and in the diaspora at the same time. Palestinian literature has never existed outside occupation. Whether in the homeland or abroad, it’s always responding to colonial pressure. Representing that contrapuntal history was a major challenge, but also one of the most meaningful parts of the work.

WH: What journey do you want the reader to take when navigating the site?

RA: This isn’t a conventional book. You don’t have to read it from beginning to end. The idea was to create multiple entry points so that readers—depending on their interests and background—could navigate the project in a non-linear, intuitive way.

The heart of the project is the timeline, which is also the landing page. It doesn’t follow a single narrative but offers seven overlapping historical periods, each with its own geographic and political context. As you scroll through the timeline, you can literally see the geographies shift—dots move across the map to reflect changing centers of literary production. The idea is to make the fragmentation and movement of Palestinian literature visible.

If you click into any period, you’ll find a narrative that includes highlighted elements. These highlights are color-coded: blue for literary figures, green for periodicals, and red for themes like censorship or exile. There are 94 highlighted figures, 35 periodicals, and 12 themes, all cross-referenced and pre-mapped to show how they connect.

From there, readers can jump to the network view—a meta-perspective that shows the relationships between periods, people, periodicals, and themes across different periods. This was especially helpful for me while writing. I’m a visual thinker, and I often needed to draw connections by hand just to make sense of the data. The network view automates that, allowing readers to hover over nodes, follow links, and see unexpected connections emerge.

There’s also a visualization gallery, which serves as a standalone knowledge source. These graphs and charts are embedded in each chapter but are also available on their own because they contain far more data than I could write about in the text. For instance, someone might discover that a writer based in Tunis was publishing in a periodical in Paris—things I couldn’t always explore in depth, but the data is there for others to pursue.

Finally, we have the audio interviews, which became a podcast. These are also standalone, and they add personal and historical depth to the project. Many of the voices you hear there reflect on periods, people, and publications that are documented in the text or visualizations, but from lived experience.

So, the journey is really up to the reader. You can enter through the timeline, the network, the visualizations, or the audio. You can follow a theme, a writer, a periodical—whatever interests you. The goal was to create an experience that is interactive, non-linear, and generative, where readers can follow their curiosity and find their own path through the story.

WH: What’s next for the project? How do you see it—or wish it—to live on?

RA: The current version of the project is static. That was one of the conditions of publishing with the digital arm of Stanford University Press. I can’t add to or update it, but the upside is that they’ve committed to maintaining the infrastructure over time—keeping the site online, updating it as needed, and ensuring its longevity. That was really important to me. I didn’t want to build something this labor-intensive only for it to disappear once the funding ran out.

That said, I see this project as a foundation for future work—my own and hopefully others’. It was also a way for me to document everything I wished I had time to explore in more depth. I plan to return to many of these threads, starting with the Mahjar period, which is incredibly rich but still under-researched. There are several figures, texts, and publications I want to dive into further. The data I gathered points to so many pathways—Palestine and the Maghreb, Palestine and Latin America, Palestine and Europe—each deserving much more detailed study.

This atlas is also a map for my future research—articles, books, maybe even new collaborations. And I hope it will be the same for others. I wrote the texts in accessible language, without academic jargon, and it’s all open access. That was intentional. I wanted to break through the academic paywalls and make this resource usable for people outside the university—students, educators, cultural workers, or anyone interested in Palestinian literary history.

I’m also developing teaching tools based on the platform. During the project, I didn’t have time to build them, but I’ve started working with collaborators to create digital teaching modules—courses that can be used in schools, universities, or workshops. I’d like to expand that work further, especially with cultural centers and museums, so people can engage with this material outside of academic settings.

Some colleagues are already using the platform in their teaching, which is great to hear. I want to do the same with my students. The idea is for this to be more than a static archive—it’s meant to be a living, generative space where people can learn, research, and pursue their own questions. I hope others will take it in directions I haven’t imagined yet.

The post A Country of Words: Mapping Memory, Resistance, and Exile in Palestinian Literary History appeared first on Untold.

I try not to imagine my nephews or nieces because thinking of them under a barrage of bombs could break me even more. That day I received a WhatsApp message from my niece. It said, “Is my grandmother fine?” She sent it and then seemed to lose her internet connection.  For the past two years, I have been doing everything I can to provide for my family in Gaza, hoping to give them a small sense of safety—like a bird sheltering its young in a nest.

I immediately knew something was serious. Why would my niece contact me and not my brother, who lives with my mother? I called her on her mobile and she said, ‘they say that my grandmother is very ill, and my mother has run to her.’ That day in Gaza, dozens were killed by Israeli drones and attacks. When I called my brother, he was crying. I knew that my mother died. I said to him, “God has chosen her. Be strong”. I hung up the phone and burst into cries. 

I did not know that my mother was killed by Israeli drones. I imagined my mother had died naturally, having suffered from a lack of medication and malnutrition. She had lost a lot of weight. I continued running towards home, but tears were streaming down my face.  My mother was gone. They had killed her. 

Countless Loss

This was not the first time I had experienced loss during the genocide in Gaza. The year before my mother was killed, on December 4, 2023, I opened my Facebook account to see a picture of my niece and mourning messages for her. She was planning to apply for her PhD. She was killed in Deir Al Balah while displaced from her home. I felt devastated at that moment. 

In summer 2024, I opened my eyes to dozens of messages and missed calls. I thought of the worst. But one message got my attention, “We are fine. Mother is fine”. It was from my brother. It happened that when I closed my eyes around 2am, Israel attacked a place where dozens of my family members live, killing 17 among them, and later, my aunt joined them. 

I returned to news channels, and social media reports, it only said my family name. If I was awake, it would have caused me tremendous panic, considering the inability to reach my brother. Reflecting on this, and after twenty months, it seemed that death was just a matter of time, and my family was waiting as if they were standing on the gates of a human slaughterhouse, run by Israel.   

How? Why? I lost more than 70 other members of my family in the recent twenty months, just in August and September 2025, I mourned one or two relatives every week. In between the first draft and the final one of this article, Israel killed two relatives. But this was not the first time I had lost loved ones to the Israeli occupation. I had experience of this at ages seven, 12, and 16.  

Grieving Home

In December 2023, I learned to grieve not just people but my home and my physical memories. I was sitting at my desk in Stockholm at work when the Israeli propaganda machine shared videos of their attacks on Gaza City, claiming they were annihilating Hamas. 

I had been advised to avoid constantly looking at my phone during the first few months. I still did – as I watched the video, my brain stopped working when I saw the Israeli army’s propaganda. There was an attack on the home where my family lived and where I grew up in the Shejaiya area. This place was filled with memories of my childhood. I ran in that street bare feet, I chased goats there, and there I sat with my father and walked along that street for years. 

In the video, soldiers were running, shooting, and attacking our home. It was a shocking moment. I continued working that day, but I was devastated and lost concentration. Since the start of the Gaza genocide, I occasionally see friends being mourned and family members being announced dead. Every time, it feels more devastating, and it only makes me fear loss more. 

Loss and trauma at the hands of Israel is part of being a Gazan. From the moment I took my first steps until my school years and then years later, I was a small, impressionable child caught in a society overwhelmed by soldiers, guns, pervasive fear, violence, and confusion. This reality was ingrained in me, as integral as my own skin, tightly woven into the very fabric of my existence and not easily shed even once I left Gaza and moved to another country. 

Each day as a child, the sight of military jeeps in Gaza became intertwined with my childhood fantasies. They were so entrenched in our lives that we began to name these intruding vehicles of occupation after animals, drawing inspiration from their strange shapes and distinctive sounds. There was for example the  cockroach for its noisy sound and its shape.

From a young age, I was familiar with not just violence, but death. I encountered it more closely than most. In 2000, an Israeli sniper shot a rubber bullet toward my head, and fortunately, it narrowly missed my right eye. If it had gone half a centimetre lower, I might have been dead or at least disabled, losing vision in one eye. 

My life could have been extremely different. Our relative was assassinated during the First Intifada, and I cried for him, for the first time mourning someone’s death. My classmates were killed in the Second Intifada. I walked behind and carried their coffins. Since I left Gaza in 2007, I stopped counting how many of my classmates and childhood friends had been killed. I counted more than fifteen, and I stopped. Each name I counted felt like a hammer dropping on my chest, pounding it. 

Scars of Trauma

Death suddenly became my friend. I thought I knew death, but not until the Gaza genocide started. I started to say that my life after 2007 is just a surplus, and an extra time was given to me. 

My life has helped me to understand the meaning of loss amid a genocide, and what it means to grieve. Grief is a response to a specific event, such as the loss of a beloved person, losing a place, a memory, turning one’s thoughts to that person, and reflecting on their life, or thinking about memories and lost places that hold psychological and mental connections. Part of grief is learning to adjust to the loss. 

For me, to adjust to my grief, it means that an emptiness arises, and this affects plans, activities, and even future vision. It can be a moment of refiguring one’s life and purpose. When we lose someone, we love and care about, we can lose the anchor that holds the family together. This is particularly the case when losing a father or mother. When we relate to a loved one, we create a bond, a memory, and an identity that surrounds them. 

I formed an identity around my father as the carer and provider of our family, and that’s why when he died, I had to take over his position sometimes to check on and care about my siblings, before and after the genocide. 

As the time passed, I thought about my niece, mother, aunt, relatives, friends, the city where I was born and grew up, and the memories we shared. I realised I couldn’t cry anymore. It felt like my entire world and my siblings were on the verge of dying, and my heart was frozen and crushed, yet I couldn’t find the power or time to weep. I just had to keep going with my life, because my first thoughts are that others are relying on me. 

Even before the genocide, I had tried to be strong, knowing that as someone who had lost so much, I couldn’t afford to be weak or surrender. But this time was different – one memory after another had been destroyed, and there were no tears to be found. My eyes were dry, and I’d never felt my tears so dry. 

When my mother passed away, I felt completely isolated. She was the one who would always check in on me, or so I thought. I wondered why I didn’t cry more for her, why I could hear my heart crying and my soul being crushed but I couldn’t seem to break down. Some might argue that it was because I grew up in a society that discouraged men from crying and encouraged women to weep. But I saw my father crying for his mother, and I saw many men, since I was a child, crying for their siblings and loved ones who were killed by Israel, just as I cried and wept alongside them as a child. Yet now, for my mother I couldn’t cry. 

Everyone I’ve lost carried the scars of the trauma Israel has inflicted on them and on all Gazans. My father died in 2019 and I was not able to bid him farewell after 13 years in exile. My mother was murdered in the Gaza genocide. They were in their seventies, but their absence was sudden and unexpected. Our separation was inhumane and painful.  

Beyond Stages

As Palestinians, we’ve known from a young age that life and death are not in our hands, but in the hands of the Israeli occupation. They can kill us, starve us, torture us, or let us live in inhumane conditions. We can do little to object. I remember my parents would say to us when we were in our forties, “There aren’t as many years left as many as we’ve already lived.” Or “When we’re gone, take care of your sisters.” The last words of my father when I left him in Gaza were “Make me proud, alive and dead.” Their words were tinged with the reality of living in Gaza where death is part of our life. 

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s book, Death and Dying, describes five stages of the grieving process: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. These stages are essentially a progression of people’s emotions and may apply to certain cultures or typical death situations. 

However, in my experience, and that of the Palestinian people, these stages merge and persist, overwhelming us every hour and minute. Even if they aren’t immediately apparent, they linger in the back of our minds and consciousness. For us, grief is a constant process of piecing together the shattered remnants of our lives and coping with the residual trauma. 

The grief we experience is compounded by multiple losses and griefs over time. It’s like being repeatedly cut by a shard of glass that shatters on our faces each morning, reminding us of the injustices, losses, and ongoing pain, as well as the unpredictability of what the next wave of grief might bring. Usually, grief in Western scholarly work focuses on specific processes and stages, which reflects how Western culture views grief and adapts the concept of the five stages. For Palestinians, it is more complex, and for Gazans, it is even more so, both individually and collectively. 

Other studies concerning loss suggest that depression tends to lessen over time, but for me, anxiety, depression, feelings of loss and unsafety remain the same or even increase over time. This is because the conditions are still present and getting worse. The Israeli killing and destruction machine, a genocidal state, is like a ghoul waiting to harm more and more. 

Dry Tears

When it comes to sleep, I barely slept more than five hours a day in the last twenty three months of the genocide. For some weeks and for many days, only three hours. However, when I began to sleep more, particularly after my mother was killed, as she was the one I felt I needed presence from, it reflected in my being, and I saw my mother in my dreams. I started seeing other dead people. I saw my father more often and many others whom the Israelis murdered. I would also dream of the war, of my childhood home back in Gaza. I would wake up and run to the internet to seek interpretations of my dreams. Usually, they are helpful, but sometimes they make me overthink and start calling my siblings in Gaza.

Such a dream would leave me reeling for two or three days, until a new one took over and I began to think about new challenges and what’s to come. These dreams make me take on even more responsibility – a social and religious one, where I feel like I must be a fitting legacy for my beloved, lost ones. And that grief would be on a different level altogether. 

For me, death has become a barrier to life, not the end of our connection. But this loss isn’t a normal one; it was caused by a coloniser and oppressor, which makes it even harder to accept that someone has shattered part of me.  

For Palestinians in general, and Gazans in particular, the uncertainty of life makes grief impossible and complicated. You need space and time to grieve. You need peace. In a genocide, just the thought of surviving day to day, and who might be lost is unbearable and takes up all your mental energy. 

In a genocide, strikes are sudden, as perpetrators hunt people down, killing them with joy. When I try to grieve, the uncertainty of keeping the rest of my family safe haunts me, and I put my grief on hold, keeping the shattered pieces inside, leaving scars that continue to wound. However, this uncertainty takes a significant toll on one’s mental state. Research shows that people who struggle with uncertainty are more likely to develop depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts. 

This explains why, with every attack on Gaza, I start tracking the attack and check in with my siblings who are nearby. I often glance at my phone, checking in every so often. Recent research showed that the Palestinians in Gaza who suffer from genocide suffer from fear of death, depression, and loss of life satisfaction. This illustrates why, during a meeting and a motivational moment at work when a colleague asked everyone who felt proud to stand, I did not feel proud. I wasn’t satisfied with my achievements, even after signing a contract for my childhood memoir. 

Art dealers started to offer to buy my work—though I never saw myself as an artist—and I felt I was doing something for the Palestinians, yet none of this made me feel proud. Nothing makes sense when I’ve lost my mother, home, and my loved ones are being destroyed. This ongoing trauma and suffering are relentless. 

Gaza Annihilation Traumatic Syndrome

The trauma experienced by Gazans should warrant a new term, ‘Gaza Annihilation Traumatic Syndrome’ (GATS), which would signify the destruction of individuals, memory, identity, and potentially their future. Persistent and complex grief can lead to mental disorders related to traumatic events. In 2018, the World Health Organization included a grief-specific mental disorder, known as prolonged grief disorder (6B42). This condition is characterized by intense longing, persistent preoccupation, and significant emotional distress—such as anxiety, denial, anger, feelings of having lost a part of oneself—and substantial impairment in daily functioning over time. 

Unfortunately, mental health concerns and this disorder may become widespread in Gaza, requiring targeted attention. Including 6B42 in GATS could add complexity and highlight the need for effective interventions to address mental health impacts in affected populations.

After my mother’s death, challenges began to make sense. I was strong enough and had more strength to stay focused, but then things changed. Staying focused while working without watching the news became difficult. My psychological therapy was ineffective, and I started waking up around midnight to do things I never thought I would do.  For example, I would wake up at three in the morning to paint or make coffee. I started to forget things, and my mind began to feel foggy inside. 

Sleeping pills helped, but I felt tired most of the day. Running helped me to regain some sanity, but I occasionally felt sleepy, and my face lost its usual smile. I felt as though I had suddenly aged by 20 years. My perception of faces and the world around me changed. 

My mother’s death occurred during the Gaza starvation, which made me look at food differently. I decided to eat only one meal a day as a gesture of solidarity and grief for my siblings in Gaza. I realised that I was unable to present a coherent face to the world, and my smile started to seem fake day after day. At times, I wanted to cry, but my eyes held back tears, while my heart continued to cry beneath my skin.  

As someone who started running as a coping mechanism for depression and PTSD long before the ongoing Gaza genocide began, running has become a dangerous habit. Once I start running, I lose track of time, and when I begin walking, I lose track of time. I end up in the same places repeatedly. Of course, it is a way to minimise anxiety, but the scariest part is when news becomes overwhelming, especially when I read that Israel wants to ethnically cleanse Gaza. 

I think of my father’s grave in Gaza, my mother before she was killed, and my siblings. It’s frightening to see how my city and loved ones can be erased, with no hope or help in sight. My name has been linked to Gaza; friends and colleagues in many places called me “the Gazan”. When I think of the city, my siblings, I feel like I am going crazy. I need to leave the office or set work aside and go wash my face or walk. The feeling of losing my mind thinking is indescribable.

According to Lisa Shulman, the brain acts as a filter, sensing the threshold of emotions and memories that we cannot handle. However, in a long process of genocide, daily killings, and constant fear and worry, the brain finds it difficult to function normally and work as a filter. Even if my brain may work generally, the trauma affects work performance. 

Humans cannot change that, according to Shulman, we are, as humans, at the mercy of the process by which the brain handles emotions and memories, with grief occupying a significant portion of the brain’s bandwidth. This is worse for Gazans as they experience complicated, prolonged  unending grief. 

Other studies have found that grief alters the brain size and its activities. A study found that individuals experiencing prolonged grief had a smaller left hippocampus, a brain region essential for memory formation. Researchers suggest that grief may indirectly reduce the size of this area due to increased stress. Changes in memory function have been observed following significant losses and during periods of heightened stress. Other research indicates that prolonged severe grief may permanently reduce an individual’s capacity to learn, use language, and manage thoughts. This is thought to occur because grief affects two areas of the brain: the amygdala, which determines significance and manages anxiety, and the paraventricular thalamic nucleus, which influences responses to long-term emotional memories.

I am terrified about the potential development of complicated, prolonged, severe grief, as I call it: GATS, both for myself and for members of the Gazan diaspora who have endured prolonged periods of mourning. Research indicates that individuals who have experienced the loss of loved ones due to violence are at greater risk for complicated grief. 

The symptoms overlap with depression, PTSD, and anxiety, and may also involve cognitive decline. Although individuals with complicated grief often appear to manage daily life, they typically alternate between intense mourning and fulfilling routine responsibilities. This has been my experience; I find myself compelled to continue with daily tasks while processing my grief. 

Moments of remembrance involving my parents sometimes occur unexpectedly during professional activities such as moderating sessions, writing emails, or attending meetings. This became more frequent following my mother’s killing, evolving from occasional recollections of my father to regular, sometimes hourly, experiences. Despite these challenges, I strive to manage feelings of despair and maintain resilience. I run, I smile, I paint, I write, and I cook. But behind all of this is a weight of mountains on my heart and shoulders.

While reading about grief, as a coping mechanism and experiencing it myself, I have found that grief is a complicated journey, and it can take a long time. According to a study, grief can last up to fifteen years if not forever. One of the symptoms that persists for a long time is lower satisfaction with life.  

One day, I may come to accept the fact of loss as shattered, sharp glass that hits me every day but that reminds me that I’m alive and breathing and how lucky I am to carry the legacy of those I’ve lost. 

For Palestinians, grief is one-of-a-kind, and nothing resembles it. It should be respected and acknowledged as such. 

The post A Chronicle of Loss and Unending Grief: Gaza’s Genocide and the Weight of Inherited Grief appeared first on Untold.

Do you think it will not come, my love?

I watch you with each tick of the clock,

Arriving from afar, my love

Fairouz’s words caught me off guard—her voice piercing the heavy shadows of memory like a sudden shaft of light, perfectly synchronized with a video of Homs’s Clock Tower Square in an Instagram reel. Those brief twenty-one seconds were enough to reshape an entire archive of the last 13 years. Years that began with a revolution shaking the walls of silence, restoring our ability to hope—before it was all veiled in the fog of eternity, and its heartbreaks exploded across every horizon.

Suddenly, the ticking of the clock returned, transcending both time and sound. It pulled us inward, into the depths where we had buried our disappointments, our hopes, and a deep sorrow tinted by the futility of all things—no matter how dazzling on the surface—when measured against our shattered faith in justice, and the specter of ruin clinging to our souls. The voices of our disappeared, silenced in Assad’s slaughterhouses, still echo. Those prisons appeared to us as impenetrable and everlasting, despite everything we had documented, shared, written, screamed, and shown the world. Then came the chimes, gathering the scattered fragments of our souls, flooding them with feeling. It wasn’t just a fleeting glimpse of the past but a rupture, piercing the core of the spirit, dragging it through every station of pain and heartbreak—only to return it to one single moment: the now. To the lingering doubt that perhaps tomorrow has not been completely stolen from us, that the dreams, however shattered and dispersed, might yet find a way to gather and be reborn!

In those few seconds, my heart trembled, and my soul gasped for breath, as if the dream we had nearly forgotten could still return, could once again be our guiding compass—a sudden, magical moment after a long and relentless darkness.

 December 7, 2024

How do I describe the taste of hope returning suddenly after years of forced absence—after we had taught ourselves to live without it, to accept its loss just to survive with what remained of us?

A few fleeting seconds in that reel were enough to stir a feeling I thought had vanished forever. It was more than hope—it was the return of tomorrow as a space for dreaming, for imagining, for waiting.

On this very day, the gates of Adra Prison opened. The same prison where, over years of captivity, my father wove me a beaded bag—bead by bead—as if stitching together a life in a time held captive.

In the realm of the unforeseen,
where prison carves its borders like a blind sculptor,
life takes shape through sound—
an eternal ritual defying time’s barrenness.

But what is time, when it knows no edges?
Our memory, mother, is a hidden prison,
a void that devours the past,
carving hollows of forgetting.

Yet in its wakefulness,
life is reborn—and with it, a quiet rage,
spilling into poems,
into voices that carry us forward.

Mama, you taught me to weave rhyme with my body,
to dance when words abandoned me,
because voice rises from the body—
a typewriter translating pain into motion.

But why do our bodies remain silent now,
when we are more parched than ever for meaning?
No, mother, this silence is not the salt that preserves, as you used to say,
but the silence of a room thick with shadows—
stories trapped in cellars,
a room without light,
where time loses its threads.

Fear, mother, is the shadow of a coiled poem,
spinning without end, searching for a lost horizon.
And yet, beneath it, the voice remains—
a monument of light,
a will that draws us back to the beginning,
again and again.

Yesterday

The opposition factions declared their control over Aleppo and their advance toward other Syrian cities: Hama, Homs. I did not yet realize that tomorrow would be the day when, after decades, the archive of oppression, fear, dreams, and exile would be unearthed. A day when the Assad regime’s legacy of horror and destruction, still too vast to fully reckon with, would be laid bare. It would be a day no Syrian would ever forget.

We didn’t sleep that night. At that moment, the archive of all those years came alive—just like us. We recalled who we had been, before disappointment and the needs of survival overtook us, before our lived reality drifted away from our inner selves—deprived, wounded, and haunted by sorrow.

I have always been drawn to archives. I imagined them as extraordinary time-traveling machines, capable of crossing eras and geographies, gathering infinite worlds where emotions and perceptions converge. But what captivated me most was their relationship to loss: the loss of what was once familiar, cherished, longed for, only to become exiled, deferred, erased, or forbidden. Like a homeland, like my father in prison, like the memory of revolution and the dream itself.

When Assad and the Baath Party seized power in the early 1970s, ushering in what came to be known as Assad’s Eternity, a new phase of political and spatial monopolization began. A culture of submission and repression took hold, as the regime built an ever-expanding archive of fear—etched into our bodies, embedded in our daily lives, woven into our language—recycled and passed down through generations. This archive took many forms: the memory of the Hama Massacre in the 1980s, the prisons and detention centers, the imposed language of obedience, the Baathist indoctrination in schools that sought to shape the Syrian individual in the image of the regime. Then, at the turn of the millennium, a fleeting specter of hope appeared in the form of the Damascus Spring—a moment that quickly revealed itself to be a carefully laid trap, witnessing yet another betrayal of hope.

 The Hour of Dreams and the Making of the Impossible

On March 15, 2011, the Syrian revolution erupted like a sudden flash of lightning, piercing the veil of silence and fear, forging the impossible. Despite the crushing weight of disappointment that later settled over the revolutionary dream, a new archive was born—one that was digital, spoken, and alive in ways unlike anything before it. It carried the faces and voices of the revolution, inscribing a memory that could never be erased. Homs’ Clock Tower Square bore witness to some of the most defining moments of this memory, in a city that carried titles like a mirror reflecting its people: Umm al-Faqir (Mother of the Poor), Umm al-Hijara al-Sawda (Mother of the Black Stones), the capital of humor and wit—until it earned yet another title: The Capital of the Revolution. That square held everything: a peaceful protest that turned into a massacre, then into a funeral and mass arrests, then into a sit-in, only to be followed by yet another massacre. The cycle of blood and siege rewrote tragedy into new scenes, replaying the same horror in different forms.

Clock Tower Square was more than just a place; it became a living symbol of the revolution, a pulse that reached into every rebellious neighborhood in Homs, every town and village that raised the banner of freedom. As A., a friend and activist from Al-Qusayr, recalled:

“After the Clock Tower Massacre, the regime tried to erase its traces from our collective memory. They banned us from gathering there, from demonstrating in its space. So, we said: If we cannot reach the Clock Tower, then let the Clock Tower come to us. And so, symbolic replicas of the square’s clock appeared in every revolutionary neighborhood”, like shattered fragments of Homs’ beating heart, scattered everywhere.

The songs of the revolution—and yours, mother—
carried us like the waves of the Mediterranean once did every summer,
before we arrived in Germany.
Rhythms bore our dreams, and the weight of forty years of silence,
holding us—both within our homeland and in exile.
Hope was a phoenix, a key,
carving waves of meaning into words.
On March 15, thirteen years ago, the clock struck zero,
marking the beginning of a future without end.
The voices of freedom wove the fabric of our being,
and let the voice break through—
in the kingdom of silence.

The Temporality of Siege

Amid the darkness of the siege that engulfed Homs’s opposition neighborhoods between 2011 and 2014, suffering was not the only story. The siege was more than just walls tightening around lives—it became a stage of resilience, a space where human creativity emerged in survival, resistance, and the pursuit of life, even as death loomed from every side.

In the besieged neighborhoods of Baba Amr, Khalidiya, and al-Qusour, life pulsed with scenes of solidarity and innovation. The struggle for survival unfolded in stories that refused to be confined by suffering alone, revealing moments of everyday resistance: a mother teaching the neighborhood children, youth building networks of mutual support, and laughter echoing in defiance of the shellfire.  

 The siege was not merely a tool of destruction—it was a test of the will to endure. As one resident of Homs described: “I don’t want to speak only of our suffering, but of the life we lived. Of our laughter, our solidarity, our attempts to stay alive.” To exist under siege was an act of resistance in itself—one that refused surrender and inscribed a new memory of the revolution, a memory that did not speak only of oppression but of the human spirit’s relentless fight to live.

 The Green Buses… The End

One of the most searing scenes etched into memory was the evacuation of Homs’s residents from the besieged neighborhoods aboard the green buses—a moment pulsing with grief, betrayal, and despair.

As part of a 2014 agreement brokered under UN supervision, these buses carried the last opposition fighters out of Old Homs, sealing the regime’s full control. But the green buses became yet another symbol of a time when dreams were suffocated. Since 2011, the Syrian regime had used them to forcibly displace the people of Homs, after years of siege and relentless bombardment that had drained every last possibility of hope and survival.

The Tomorrow That Came After Eternity

On December 8, 2024, the Assad regime fell, ending 53 years of continuous repression. The impossible—the dream Syrians had carried for so long—had finally become reality. That day marked a turning point—a moment when Syrian history began to be rewritten. The people of Syria began to sketch a new image of hope, one that returned despite disappointment and deep fragility, pulsing once more in their hearts, no matter how far they had been scattered across the exiles of time, geography, and grief.

Today, the clock ticks again—this time as a symbol of freedom, of justice reclaimed, of a homeland being rebuilt. The revolution was never only against a dictatorship; it was also a struggle to reclaim stolen time. Its return was a rupture, a shock that reshaped both our existence and our memory. It was not just a moment in history—it was a bridge between past and future, a long-lost dream finally stepping into the present.

The Syrian Archive: A Guardian of Pain, Fragility, and a Window to the Future

The archive of the revolution is both a child of hope and its creator, brimming with urgency and awakening. Through documenting their revolution and preserving their lived experiences since March 15, 2011, Syrians have defied the temporal void that repression sought to impose. This archive—holding the stories of protests, political activism, detainees, massacre victims, and mothers who lost their children—is not just a record of the past. It was not just a reminder of the past, but a bet on another turn of the future.

The Death of Eternity and the Return of Time

I remember—
but my memory is not a bridge to the past.
It is a window opening onto a distant horizon.

The historian stands at a threshold,
not only to look back,
but to weave time into a tapestry—
a tapestry of hope entwined with sorrow,
fragments and shadows forming a space pulsing with meaning
for those who dare to dive into its depths.

Look at me—
yesterday, I was a prison for a tyrant,
a dusty mass of hollow words,
where the voices of the marginalized faded within my walls,
and their stories disappeared into my cells.

But today, I am the pulse rising from beneath the rubble,
a light tearing through the veil of darkness.
I am a video capturing a city breathing through ash,
an image distilling terror,
a voice gasping: “I am alive… I am here.”

I am a time machine no tyrant can possess,
open for all to see.
But is truth ever fixed,
when it is as fragile as those who speak it—
those who documented their revolution
to defy the abyss of forgetting?

“Why do you document?”
they asked the witnesses and the survivors.
And they answered:
A cry against oblivion.
A testimony before the world.
A mirror reflecting the unimaginable
in the face of the possible.

But documentation was more than a cry—
it was a quiet hope
that pain might one day bear justice,
that what was crushed today
would not vanish into the void of tomorrow.

I am the archive.
I do not merely preserve the past;
I carry a promise—
that the mothers who wrote farewell letters,
the children who painted the sky beneath falling bombs,
the elders who told the stories of Homs
will not disappear into the corners of oblivion.
They will not be swallowed by silence.

I am not a repository of yesterday’s remains—
I am the beginning of what is possible,
a space where the narrative is reclaimed,
where justice is reborn
from the wombs of pain.

This text was written prior to February 2025 and is part of the dossier “Eternity Unwoven,” curated by Veronica Ferreri and Inana Othman.

The dossier is a collaboration of Archivwar with Untoldmag and Arabpop. Its Italian version is available in Arabpop Vol. 8 “Cose” (Arabpop logo)

Graphic project: Greg Olla

The publisher remains available to rights holders regarding any images for which it was not possible to identify or contact the owners.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe Resarch and Innovation Programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 101064513 “ARCHIVWAR – Archives in Times of War: Scattered Families and Vanishing Past in Contemporary Syria.” 

Funded by the European Union. Views and options expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Execute Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

The post Our time is tomorrow appeared first on Untold.

Syrians had barely emerged from the “intoxication” of their global celebrations over the fall of a regime that had displaced them to various countries. On the morning of 9 December, they were abruptly confronted with a startling decision: several European countries, including Germany, announced they would halt the processing of Syrian asylum applications. This development placed an uncomfortable and premature question squarely on the table: What does this mean for me? Will I have to return?

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser acknowledged the uncertainty surrounding the evolving situation in Syria, stating that it would be unwise to speculate about the possibility of Syrians returning under such volatile circumstances. However, she defended the decision to suspend consideration of approximately 47 Syrian asylum applications, arguing that it was the correct course of action until the situation becomes clearer (previous asylum decisions would remain unaffected).

Instead of sharing in their Syrian compatriots’ joy, politicians from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and the Christian Democratic Union (CDU)—a leading contender to head the next government in the upcoming elections this February—have rushed to capitalize on the moment by envisioning mass deportations of hundreds of thousands of Syrians. Former Health Minister Jens Spahn proposed chartering planes to send Syrians back to their homeland, even suggesting a €1,000 incentive for those willing to leave voluntarily. In a follow-up proposal, Spahn recommended that Germany, Austria, Turkey, and Jordan convene a conference on return and reconstruction by next spring. Meanwhile, Jürgen Hardt, the CDU’s foreign policy spokesperson, urged Chancellor Olaf Scholz to quickly engage Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for cooperation on this matter. Andrea Lindholz, deputy chair of the Union bloc, called for an immediate cessation of Syrian admissions altogether.

The German Green Party politician of Syrian origin, Lamia Kadour, condemned these “extremely shameful” proposals, questioning how they align with the “Christian values” that Christian Union politicians often invoke. She argued that, for these politicians, the issue is not about people or their plight but rather an election campaign tactic. Kadour emphasized that “the situation in Syria is still very unstable and unsafe,” adding that more time is needed before serious discussions about returning Syrians can take place.

Leila Al-Zubaidi from the German Heinrich Böll Foundation criticized these calls as disrespectful, pointing out that “Syrians all over the world are still afraid for their missing loved ones, and efforts to rescue survivors on the ground are ongoing without any external assistance.” Hiba Zayadin, a Syria investigator at Human Rights Watch, described the decisions by France, Germany, and Austria to halt temporary protection for Syrians as premature and irresponsible. “Syria is still in a fragile transitional phase, and the future of governance, safety, and stability are far from guaranteed,” she noted. Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock urged caution against rushing to conclusions. She argued that those exploiting the current situation in Syria for partisan purposes have lost touch with the complexities of Middle Eastern realities, which remain subject to change.

The number of Syrians residing in Germany is estimated at around one million people, of whom approximately 5,000 have been granted political asylum, around 321,000 have been granted refugee status, and around 330,000 have been granted so-called temporary subsidiary protection. Syrians were the largest group among asylum seekers this year, numbering around 72,000. Those who have obtained German citizenship remain a minority, totaling around 175,000 since 2010.

The scenes of queues of cars returning Syrians from neighboring countries to Syria seem to make Western politicians salivate. They appear not to take into account that this return is not solely driven by passionate feelings, rightly so, about returning to their homeland. Instead, it is also influenced by the disastrous living conditions Syrians face abroad. Living under a roof and four walls, without fear of destruction by missiles, is considered acceptable compared to a tent that offers no protection from the cold or heat. Furthermore, blatant racism, which has sometimes escalated into frightening persecution campaigns in Turkey and Lebanon, pushes many Syrians to prefer returning to a homeland with dire economic conditions. 

Anyone familiar with the decision-making process for granting asylum or extending the residency status of hundreds of thousands of Syrians—decisions that will necessarily hinge on a new assessment by the German Foreign Ministry of the security situation in Syria—understands that this will involve a long waiting period.

Anyone familiar with the decision-making process for granting asylum or extending the residency status of hundreds of thousands of Syrians—decisions that will necessarily hinge on a new assessment by the German Foreign Ministry of the security situation in Syria—understands that this will involve a long waiting period. The German Foreign Ministry cannot base its assessment on the events of a single week in a country where the future behavior of the next government and its treatment of religious and ethnic minorities remain uncertain. This is especially true amid early expectations in Germany of a potential wave of migration from Syria’s coastal regions.

A spokesman for the German Interior Ministry stated that revoking the protection granted to Syrians would only be possible if the situation in their homeland improves “permanently,” clarifying that short-term changes would not suffice. “We must be able to rely on these changes being permanent,” he explained.

However, no matter how much this discussion is postponed, more than a million Syrians in Western Europe, particularly in Germany, will eventually face a new reality in which politicians strip them of the freedom to decide whether to stay in Germany or return. In the years following the revolution, the fallen Assad regime forced them to flee the country and press the “restart” button on their lives, which meant changing their professions and spending years trying to adapt to a country whose language and lifestyle they did not know. The question now postponed is: Is there room for another “restart” at this stage—starting over and attempting to adapt to Syria, a country they haven’t set foot in for more than a decade? How will their children cope with the removal of the German state from their lives and their relocation to a country they only know through pictures and their parents’ stories? And, if this German government insists on such a move, should it negotiate with Turkey regarding the Syrians?

However, no matter how much this discussion is postponed, more than a million Syrians in Western Europe, particularly in Germany, will eventually face a new reality in which politicians strip them of the freedom to decide whether to stay in Germany or return.

If the Syrians have truly brought down the regime, they must feel the consequences of this in their lives; otherwise, the scenes of toppling the statues of the Assad father and son will lose their significance. If the Syrians have really overthrown the regime, they must experience, perhaps for the first time, that their government prioritizes their interests over pleasing donor countries.

The “former” opposition must be bold enough to take the initiative, step out from under the shadow of supporting countries, and, from this moment on, ensure that any return of Syrians is decent and safe. They should start by directing the Syrian Foreign Ministry and the embassies that are still operating as usual to support Syrians rightfully.

Syrians have the right to expect that the former Foreign Minister, Ghassan Sabbagh, who is still in office and was, until a few weeks ago, trying to save Assad’s position, will first direct the ambassadors to issue Syrians passports free of charge for at least a year, as compensation for the astronomical sums of money they were robbed of by his former president, Bashar al-Assad.

Syrians have the right to expect that this interim authority, until the transfer of power, will work to communicate with European governments and European Union institutions, providing an updated picture of the situation on the ground: the destroyed homes that are simply uninhabitable, the need to establish a fund that offers reasonable grants to support reintegration into life in Syria, exceeding the ridiculous amounts that German politician Spahn is offering to Syrians. This fund should be part of several funds that any future government should establish, such as a fund to compensate detainees and displaced persons.

If the Syrian state is truly a state, it must compensate its citizens for the crimes of one of its former dictators. The German state compensates prisoners for every day they spent unjustly behind bars if they are proven innocent.

The “former” opposition must be bold enough to take the initiative, step out from under the shadow of supporting countries, and, from this moment on, ensure that any return of Syrians is decent and safe. They should start by directing the Syrian Foreign Ministry and the embassies that are still operating as usual to support Syrians rightfully.

What Syrians in Germany and the rest of Western Europe will also need is greater activity from civil society organizations and human rights activists, offering a different, clearer vision of Syria than the one presented by the country’s populist politicians in the media. There is also a need for activists to engage with European politicians on this matter, an effort that should be supported by any future interim Syrian government.

It was striking that former Green Party politician Tariq Al-Aous, who works for the refugee rights organization Pro Asyl, appeared on Germany’s second channel, expressing his shock, like many Syrians, at the fall of the regime. He also explained that a worrying future is emerging, with a religious leader, formerly linked to Al-Qaeda, now dominating the scene, and voiced his recent lack of confidence in his open and measured speech. Can one trust him in the long term? Can a broad spectrum of people living an open life in Europe imagine themselves living in a religiously strict country? Al-Aous also explained in a radio interview with the public broadcaster NDR that, in this German political debate about the urgent return of Syrians, there is a risk of exposing the Syrian community in Germany—who has already suffered from the security services—to new trauma, as they fear sudden deportation.

“It is ridiculous to ask people who have probably worked hard to build a home for themselves in Germany to simply disappear. Politicians who demand such a thing should go through the same situation themselves. Then they might just stay silent forever,” SPIEGEL says in its daily email.

Because we know that German politicians will never imagine themselves in the place of Syrians, we need a future Syrian government that is truly supportive of its citizens, and efforts by Syrians in Germany like Tarek to make the decision to return or stay as safe and dignified as possible.

The post European politicians rush to expel Syrians appeared first on Untold.

Despite the rejection of your visa application thrice and the considerable effort you put in to obtain it you were eventually granted the right to come and perform here in Europe. What is the significance of coming to Europe at this particular time and performing here in light of the genocide, the rise of fascist rhetoric, the banning of pro-Palestinian demonstrations and the silencing of their voices?

There are several levels to answering this question. Professionally, concerts in Europe are more organized and significant in terms of logistics and revenue, thus opening doors to larger networks and projects. On the other hand, even before the Gaza massacre, as musicians or artists from the “underground” world we constantly find ourselves tied to the conditions and funding from government-affiliated institutions, which makes our journey very challenging. Therefore, being outside this system and achieving this breakthrough means a lot to me personally and it can be an inspiration for many other artists who think of different ways to voice their thoughts beyond imposed paths.

Also, given what we have been experiencing in Gaza, South Lebanon, and anywhere in the world where protests are suppressed, it is crucial that our content reaches people in Europe, to make them feel connected to what is happening there. The interaction with the audience through these concerts gives them a sense of not being isolated from the events in their home countries. This emotional connection is very important. Our concerts are not just musical events; they are demonstrations with significant interaction and political slogans. In the European context, when concerts like these gather expatriates, migrants, and “people of color” under these slogans, it obviously does not please these countries’ governments. It is thus a multi-level victory. Finally, my mother is very happy to see me perform in Europe, which adds another personal but nevertheless significant dimension for me.

In general, it is important for me to perform these concerts now, especially since I’ve been living in Turkey and fully understand the value of connecting with any event from afar. Being the one who facilitates this connection in other countries and alleviates the burden of exile is, moreover, a significant achievement. I went to Switzerland at the beginning of this month, without knowing anyone; yet, the interaction with the production team and the audience was so wonderful I now consider them family. Performing two concerts there made me realize the importance of this kind of interaction.

The situation in Lebanon is difficult and in Turkey, the paperwork is daunting. Traveling  to Europe is almost impossible due to the complexities of obtaining a visa. I have a long history with visa issues, having had mine rejected twice by the German embassy and once by the French embassy. Recently, and  through friends’ mediation, I succeeded in obtaining  a three-month visa from the Swiss embassy,  which however only allows me to stay in the country for 45 days in a row, forcing me to go back and forth. In contrast, there are people in Europe who can travel easily, hold concerts in our countries, or come to eat shawarma and return without any trouble, thanks to the privileges inherited from their bloody colonial history.

Therefore, for me, not playing gigs in Europe has become a sensitive issue, one that repeats the Beirut scenario, where I put all my efforts into the city, but then ended up being told I couldn’t continue. Now I try to live off my music and to fulfill my responsibilities towards those I am accountable for. I cannot do this with a few gigs which wouldn’t cover the costs. So, it’s not just about having a gig in a European city but also getting a visa that allows me to move and work and tell the world ‘we are here’.  

In 2020, you wrote an article titled “Strangers” about your ambiguous relationship to Beirut, stating: “We truly loved Beirut, but we couldn’t access it.” You also mentioned in interviews that being in Turkey was conducive  to productivity and “peace of mind” despite the difficulties of exile. On the other hand, your songs about Beirut, such as “Beirut Disappointed Us,” “Beirut Strangled Us,” “The Era of Change,” “Revenge,” and finally “BiliBalid,” reflect changes in our relationship to the city over time. 

Despite the personal and collective grievances against it, there is something dear and complex in our relationship to Beirut, as we constantly seek places that resemble it despite its hideousness and cruelty. This was evident, for example, in the gratification you felt after your last concert in Beirut less than a year ago. Do you still think, as you wrote in the song “Hexaphobia,” “a thousand exiles are better than dying once in my country“? How has the image of Beirut evolved for you today? How do you deal with the reality of exile and the continuous feeling of displacement and detachment? 

We speak a lot in rap and the song is filled with texts that document the many traces of our past experiences. I started at 19 and I am now 37. I have been recording songs this entire period and overtime, the subjects I tackled  have changed significantly. Initially, Beirut was a place we had to go to, from the village, to look for job opportunities and better options than joining the army or Hezbollah. It was also a place where we faced rejection. Beirut was our enemy.

After a while, I lived in Beirut and its suburbs and I finally understood its relation with the peripheries and the surrounding poverty belts. Then I began to experience living within this belt, under the influence of the de facto parties, and felt the sense of estrangement that starts from home and the surroundings before it becomes an estrangement from the entire country. It is a similar estrangement I might feel when having to change my appearance or clothes before going back home. Estrangement is relative and not tied to geography and distance but rather to the sense of safety and to having the minimum rights. Thus, “a thousand exiles is better than dying once anywhere.” I don’t want to die but to survive, and to survive through music, the only thing I succeeded in.

When I left the city at the end of 2018 and came to Turkey, I was angry and eager to escape. I considered myself a surviving migrant. But moving to Turkey affected my expression and opened different perspectives. I learned a new language and got to know a new musical culture, allowing me to develop my personality and to understand things from a new angle while further freeing me from the constant pressure I felt in Lebanon. 

With time and distance, the affection for that place returned, the anger diminished, and the blame became meaningless. Unfortunately, after the Beirut explosion and successive crises, I began to feel that I belonged to this place for the first time while in Turkey. It wasn’t easy to reassess myself, especially since, at that time, I was accompanying my sick father, witnessing how things go in hospitals, and facing the daily crisis struggles. This made me realize that the problem is not just with the city and social relations, nor only with Hezbollah or the government, but it is bigger than that. We create imaginary enemies and engage in futile conflicts. We must start by fixing ourselves. I therefore no longer associate myself with the image of the Baalbek or Lebanese rapper, but as a person who expresses themselves in a certain way and who bears a message. This alleviates my estrangement; we are strangers from the moment we are born, constantly searching for a place to belong to.

Being away from Lebanon and living in Turkey, how have the themes you address in your music changed and have they intersected with other global struggles? What musical relationships have you been able to build? 

Having been in Turkey for a relatively long time, the local musical horizon has become clear to me. Most of the people I work with are based in Turkey. With those who aren’t, I communicate remotely over the internet, which is much easier compared to Lebanon. In Turkey, things have been good for me as a transitional station; it is not purely a European country nor purely an Arab country, but a suitable place to be. The music here resembles the music I work on, with its Eastern elements, which we try to mix with Western music in a way that makes sense, without straying too far away from our identity. I have learned a lot and built good relationships. Despite all this, I face some difficulty working with the Turks because my content is deemed not suitable. In addition,  as an Arab person, I enjoy a limited  level of freedom.

My stay in Turkey gave me a chance to see things from another angle. Instead of being immersed in the country’s problems and trying to vent anger, I can now understand them and seek solutions through my works. In 2022, I worked on a track titled “Safari,” which addressed white supremacy and colonial history in the third world, linking the slave trade from Africa and the genocides in Canada, Indonesia, and Australia with what we’ve been experiencing in our  struggles in Lebanon, Palestine, and the region. Despite some initial criticism back then, people reconnected with the content I was discussing after the Gaza war and widespread calls for the extermination of our people. 

I realized that music is not just a tool for venting anger but it can be a serious research project that raises important questions and encourages people to think. This gives me a push to continue on this path.

How do you see the role of music and rap in times of genocide, amidst the dehumanization of Palestinians and the exposure of global, particularly European, hypocrisy regarding human rights? Can music and concerts be a means of resistance, healing, and collective therapy in such times?

There are two aspects to the role of music. The first is a very personal one where I can express what I can do and what my role is. At least, I can say that I have done something, whether through the words I say or the energy I give in the concert. Of course, this is not enough, but at least it gives me the feeling that I am not just a passive witness to what is happening. On the other hand, music, especially rap, carries a lot of words, without being a newspaper or conference article but it has the power to last for a long time. In my current concerts, I sometimes go back to old songs I made in 2015 during the height of the Syrian revolution. These songs are used as testaments to certain events, so they are not forgotten. At a time when we are constantly being brainwashed and our priorities rearranged, I can use this music as a means to recharge people and raise their awareness of certain issues.

Currently, there might not be a need to charge people towards the Palestinian cause, but maybe in five or ten years, these songs will bring the issue back to the forefront of our memories and awareness, and influence our decisions. 

On a collective level, music brings us together and makes us feel our value as a group. In concerts, a person feels a sense of belonging and safety, knowing he/she is not alone in the face of what is happening. Their voice is multiplied by the number of people around them, enhancing trust as individuals and as a group, charging the anger within and creating a space for expression. Music has always been a fierce catalyst for struggle. Artists and poets have always been repressed because of their significant impact in the short and long term. For example, music played a crucial role in laying the foundations of liberation for African Americans as well as in the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, Iran, and Syria, hence the intersectionality of these struggles. 

Rap is not really an alien art form to our region, as it can be linked to traditional forms like Zajal and the local musical and poetic traditions. How do you describe the type of language you wish to present through rap? What language might the current moment impose whilst allowing you to imagine a different future?

In the nineties, we imported certain music to understand rap. I officially started my musical production in 2009, but before that, I worked on various musical experiments and released songs informally. I listened to previous experiments from the region, for example, from Algeria, where there were artists working on rap since the 80s and early 90s. 

The local identity has always been present in my music, as in my latest musical work, “Melatonin,” where it can be heard in the drumbeats. But the rap I prefer to listen to and create is direct rap, an unembellished rap without metaphors or poetic imagery, like Keny Arkana, Immortal Technique, and Dead Prez. These artists speak about politics directly, as if they were writing journalistic articles, but the difference is that they do it musically. 

I grew up listening to this type of music, so this is the direction I write in. Last year, when I held a concert in Beirut, it was the first time I collaborated with Beirut Records who organized the event. This collaboration was different from previous rap concerts in the country. Most of the audience wasn’t the usual crowd but people who connected with the content I presented and wanted to listen to it. This makes me feel comfortable when I write, as I realized I do not need to manipulate words to reach the audience. There is an audience that wants to hear the story as it is, which gives me a safe space.

As for what is happening now, it makes sense to me, and I did not expect otherwise. I only see live examples of what I previously talked about, when people said my music is dark, depressing, and violent. After the crisis and the changes of times, many of those who were part of the middle classes and were bothered at the time by this content now understand and engage with it. 

The misery was there but it has expanded to include more people, and those who spoke about this struggle will not change their language, it will only become blunter and more intense. We no longer need to explain; the current events speak for themselves. We witness horrifying stories, images, and videos, and read comments about who is responsible, and in the end, we are always blamed for our own death.

It’s dreadful that in our music, which is supposed to have a bright face, we have to constantly talk about attempts to prevent our killing with such brazenness, not just about our survival, without being given any other choice.

The post Rap in times of genocide. A conversation with Bu Nasser Touffar appeared first on Untold.

Can you tell us what’s happening in US campuses and particularly in California where you are? 

In the past two months over 150 universities in the whole United States have seen the establishment of encampments as a more sustained and engaged form of protests against the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza and the settler colonial project in Palestine. It is hard to provide numbers on student participation in the movement: this is a very large mass mobilization, and it sees the contribution of students from different communities and socio-economic backgrounds. It is a movement that is reaching other sectors of society and enjoys the support and solidarity of these communities. 

The escalation in student dissent builds on the harsh repressions that they have faced in the past seven months in their attempt to express support for the Palestinian people and in denouncing US complicity with Israeli genocidal practices of settler colonialism and the decades-long project of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. The encampments are a concrete way to reclaim educational spaces and criticize the cooperation of educational institutions with the Israeli military, economic and cultural system. This complicity manifests itself through economic partnership, shares in military industries and academic cooperation that contribute to the development and expansion of the Israeli military machine, the technological tools of surveillance as well as the exploitation of other  resources (agriculture, water, etc) within a colonial framework. 

In California, just like everywhere else in the US,  the encampments are meant not just as visible, radical expressions of dissent but also as efforts and initiatives of decolonial pedagogy: a liberated space of knowledge that breaks with the neoliberal approach to education that dominates the knowledge production and organization of universities not just in the US, but globally. 

These encampments are actually called Popular Universities. They challenge mainstream pedagogy and centralize a transformative, liberatory understanding of knowledge, of the teaching-learning process, a pedagogy that is shaped around, and is an expression of the critical thinking of students and masses. Popular universities centralize the relevance of a decolonial knowledge and decolonized institutions that are not asserved to the neoliberal interests of political and economic actors. Students challenge the current system that looks at them, approaches them, and wants to form them, as consumers of a capitalist system rather than as agents of social changes and critical thinkers.   

“Disclose, Divest” are the two key words that summarize student demands at the national level: students want to know how their universities are partnering with Israeli economic, military and cultural institutions and ask to divest from them. To these overall demands, each campus also adds specific requests typical of their own context.They are asking for a full academic boycott of Israeli institutions that contribute to the development of the Israeli war machine. A third fundamental demand is “amnesty” for protesters: they reclaim the freedom of expression and the freedom to protest that should be guaranteed to students and all other sectors of society. They denounce the brutal repression that has been imposed on them by institutions as well as anti-Palestinian racism, intimidation and harassment that they have experienced in the past 7 months.  

 How does this students’ solidarity movement intersect with US history of anti-war protests and other kinds of protests like Black Lives Matter? Are parallels with Vietnam, or Black Lives Matter,  misplaced, or is there a link? 

Parallels and comparisons with the anti war movement of the 1970s and the movement that opposed the war in Vietnam have been made since day one. The first to make these comparisons and trace the parallelism were the same professors who were students back in the 1970s. They understand this moment as another moment of rupture with the system, as it happened back then. We can surely see the continuity in the contentious practices of social movements and we can trace the common roots that they share: history  is making clear that the imperial and capitalist system is not sustainable. 

The cyclical reemergence of movements that oppose the structural oppression of the economic, social and political order, globally, attests to the crisis of empire and its capitalist drive. Anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist analyses that used to inspire the anti-war movement in the 1970s are now inspiring this new generation: Gaza and Palestine, have unveiled in a powerful way the historical contradictions of the world order. 

The Black Lives Matter movement is another fundamental moment in the waves of protests that keep emerging at the heart of the empire and it has contributed to a better awareness of the limits and crises of this system. It confirmed that equality and all the values that are considered foundational to the neoliberal order are instead an illusion, a privilege guaranteed to few, while systematic discrimination remains the reality for many sectors of society. The current movement is capitalizing on all these previous experiences and taking the struggle further. 

What is the Popular University for Gaza? What are you teaching? How do you frame this wave of student protests in the history of the Palestinian youth movement in the diaspora?

As I mentioned earlier, the Popular Universities are a radical expression of rupture with the current education system and the articulation of an alternative pedagogy. Courses that are taught in these popular universities reflect the interests of the students in an in-depth critical knowledge and analysis of the society based on people’s history and experiences. It is a liberatory pedagogical experiment that centralizes anti-colonial literature: people like Franz Fanon or Ghassan Kanafani are taken as starting points for contemporary history analyses. While bell hooks or Angela Davis provide the reference for articulation of critical classes on decolonial feminism and liberatory ideologies. 

Classes on Third World movements, internationalism and joining struggles populate the program of the popular university. A lot of attention is paid to class and social struggles within the anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist critique that characterize the movement.  Of course, the main focus remains Palestine, Gaza, and courses on Palestinian literature, history, art, culture, economics etc are provided everyday. The aim of these classes is to reinforce awareness on the significance of the current moment and develop a strong critical understanding of the ongoing settler colonial project, drawing parallels with the struggle of other indigenous populations in the past, the struggle of  other colonized peoples in the South of the world, as well as the centrality of Zionist colonialism in contemporary imperialist policies. 

The encampments also strongly denounce the dramatic impact of the Israeli current massacre and long-term violence on the Palestinian and particularly on Gaza’s educational system -with all universities bombed, schools destroyed or heavily damaged- and Palestinians’ access to education: a violent “scholasticide” that will affect current and future generations. Many popular universities have at least a library named after the Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer who was killed by Israel during the current war and professors often give their lectures at the encampment rather than in classrooms in support of student mobilization for Gaza and against an educational system that privileges profits and wealth extraction rather than justice.

I try to contribute to these efforts of alternative pedagogies by engaging in conversations that allow for a critical understanding of current international political, economic and socio-cultural dynamics building on an historical analysis that emphasizes people narratives and the voice of the subalterns. I am often asked to provide the historical framework within which current developments can be understood and analyzed, to stimulate a discussion on the different phases that have characterized the political history of the Palestinian liberation movement and that could allow newer generations to comprehend and critically assess previous transformation to articulate strategies for the future.  

We discuss the anti-colonial vision and the revolutionary strategies of the Palestinian liberation movements since its emergence and throughout the 1970s with particular attention to internationalism and joint struggles as main practices of liberation. We look at the political crisis of the late 1980s and 1990s crystallized by the Oslo accords and analyze  the so called “peace process” and state-building framework that emerged from it, within a critical assessment of neoliberal and imperialist discourse that allowed for an even more brutal form of colonialism and oppression over Palestinians, paralyzing all sectors of Palestinian society especially in diaspora. We look at how this crisis is being overcome by newer generations, how new expressions of resistance are emerging on the Palestinian ground, and how youth in diaspora are mobilizing transnationally around a revitalized understanding of the global dimension of the Palestinian struggle and its anti-colonial, internationalist nature. 

 What about the interaction and shared struggle with anti-Zionists Jews?

Anti-Zionist Jews are an integral part of this movement. They participate at the encampments with all the other students and often find themselves in the position of having to deconstruct all accusations of antisemitism. In this sense, several anti-Zionist Jews pointed out how anti-semitic it is in itself to assume that Jews are a monolithic community that inherently support Zionism and its implementation in Israeli genocidal colonial practices. 

It is often anti-Zionist jewish students who reaffirm that labeling the expression of support of Palestinian liberation as antisemitism is an attempt to shift the understanding of the Palestinian cause from its political dimension, anti-colonial, liberation and justice-based character to an a-historical religious-inspired narrative. Anti-Zionist Jewish groups such as Jewish Voice for Peace or Jews Against White Supremacy have been at the forefront of the protests against Israel and in solidarity with Palestinians for the past 7 months and are contributing to the growth of student mobilization. 

Wafa Abdelrahman, a journalist from Falastiniyyat, said: “No hope from governments, no hope from international justice, no hope for a ceasefire, the only hope comes from students.” Why is hope coming from students all around the world? And do they really have a chance alone or do they need others to intervene to support them? 

Of course, as Wafa Abdelrahman notes, justice will not come from governments. Justice is not going to come from any kind of international institution because these institutions are actually the product of colonial dynamics, they are the expression of a colonial system that keeps reproducing itself,  but manifests in different forms. A colonial system that was never overcome, a colonial system that still shapes power relations in the world. So these institutions, their international laws, their courts and humanitarian agencies cannot, by their nature, dismantle the oppressive system, because they are the system. And this is a system that needs, and at the same time feeds, structural oppression and exploitation, such as the Zionist colonization of Palestine, to preserve itself. 

The emphasis on a global order aiming at peace and equality guaranteed through international bodies is just a rhetorical effort that gives the illusion that justice could be achieved, that equality and rights are at the basis of state interests and actions. But  this is not the reality we experience daily. International laws and institutions remain controlled by the most powerful and are even used to legitimize the injustice they commit. The harsh repression on peaceful student protests and encampments in the US attest to this reality, of a political establishment that does not take the will and interests of its constituency as its guiding principle, rather, it is guided by the interests of multinational corporations and their political elite in the capitalist order whether they are financial, military, pharmaceutical or others. 

It might sound demagogic, yet the change can only come from the people, and students have a fundamental role in planting the seeds of the revolution. Students can play the role of what I define as the “organic vanguard” that inspires other sectors of society to organize. It is this political action that can lead to the end of the genocide; that can lead to the liberation of Palestine; that can allow us to imagine a different system and a different future. 

I believe that the global movement will be central in amplifying the voices and efforts of Palestinian liberation, in building on the historical example of revolutionary struggle that Palestinians are still providing, in order to articulate new coordinated strategies of popular mobilization globally. In this sense, this movement is freeing Palestine, but it is also Palestine that is freeing the movement, showing that a different understanding of the world is possible, and worth mobilizing for. 

The post The Popular Universities for Gaza: how students are reclaiming their spaces appeared first on Untold.

As my family now lives in the United States, I can’t help but feel a pang of disappointment as I witness the erosion of those once-cherished habits. While the safety and peace of their new home are priceless, I struggle when seeing how some of the sustainable practices of the past have given way to new, less eco-friendly routines. Food remains might end up discarded, single-use plates and cups have become commonplace, and bottled water in plastic containers has replaced the simplicity of tap water. The constant hum of air conditioning stands in stark contrast to the careful energy use of our past. Though I’m deeply grateful for the daily absence of bombs, I still wonder if, in the process, we’ve lost touch with something valuable and profound.

Perspectives from Environmental Psychology

These reflections have guided me in building an academic research career at the intersection of environmental sustainability, behavioral psychology, and socioeconomic development. I find it ironic that, while my work constantly exposes me to the worrying realities of looming ecological catastrophes and I strive to share my findings and writings with loved ones, this knowledge hasn’t necessarily translated into more sustainable habits in my surroundings. Meanwhile our ancestors, who were often perceived as “ignorant” or “uncivilized” by colonists and western powers remain a model example of living in harmony with nature. This realization has spurred me to delve deeper into the psychological factors that contribute to the knowledge-behavior gap in environmental action. While institutional and political powers remain major shapers of environmental outcomes, we must also examine the inner workings of our minds that shape our actions and behaviors beyond that. Unraveling these complexities is a crucial step toward bridging the gap between environmental knowledge and action, moving from passive awareness to active impact. So where does the gap come from? Here are some answers based on my own research in the fields of behavioral and social psychology:

• The Search for safety

Many existential threats to nature today are gradual and long-term, requiring strategic thinking rather than immediate reactions. While rational thinking and data-driven actions are crucial for human success, our brains are often wired for quick, emotional fight-or-flight responses as these have (historically) helped us survive immediate threats, such as escaping predators. Exposure to trauma, such as conflict or displacement, can reinforce such emotional responses and limit the brain’s capacity for reflective and energy-intensive decision-making. Additionally, change may be perceived as risky and trauma may induce long-term risk-aversion. This in turn can make changing behavior quite challenging, especially for those who have already experienced significant life changes. A high sense of insecurity can also stand in the way of developing empathy and caring behavior for living beings that we may not personally identify with subconsciously (e.g. animals, trees or strangers in general). 

• The Finite Pool of Worry

When attention for one risk increases, focus on other risks often decreases, as if humans only have a limited capacity for worrying at a given time. For example, when the mind is primarily concerned with an issue such as conflict, poverty or injustice then it would automatically focus less on issues such as the environment or climate change.

• Pluralistic Ignorance

Many people for whom environmental protection is important underestimate how much their views are shared in society. As a result, they also underestimate how many other people are prepared to act in an environmentally friendly way. This misjudgment is a psychological phenomenon known as pluralistic ignorance among researchers. This misperception can create a cycle of silence, where people hesitate to voice their beliefs, thinking they are in the minority. This lack of discussion can lead to decreased motivation to act. Additionally, we often base our actions on others’ behavior, especially when the benefits are collective rather than individual. No one wants to be the only one contributing without seeing others’ efforts, as this can lead to feelings of naivety or foolishness. This fear can lead to imitating others’ behavior to avoid social rejection, particularly when significant effort has been invested in integrating into a new society.

• Social Norms

Collectivist cultures often prioritize societal expectations and traditions, which can make it difficult for individuals to adopt practices that deviate from the norm. Within families, these pressures can be especially strong, causing fear of disapproval or disappointment. For instance, individuals who wish to adopt a vegetarian diet in meat-eating families may face resistance and skepticism. Similarly, those who choose a low-waste lifestyle, such as purchasing second-hand clothing, may feel conflicted between their beliefs and the desire to avoid upsetting family when their norms center around high fashion standards. This cognitive dissonance may be resolved by compromising and conforming to norms that contradict one’s own beliefs, merely to alleviate guilt and gain approval, particularly when individuals feel that their loved ones have already been through difficult times and don’t want to cause additional stress.

• Avoidance and Defensive Denial

After a lifetime of confronting threats and crises, finally achieving a sense of safety can lead to an aversion towards new narratives of catastrophe and danger, particularly if they seem distant or abstract. This tendency can be especially strong when these narratives, such as warnings about environmental crises, evoke feelings of hopelessness or low self-esteem, strengthening the desire to disconnect from the topic and focus on maintaining personal peace and stability. This avoidant behavior may be a self-protective mechanism that allows individuals to preserve their mental well-being by limiting their engagement with potentially distressing information.

Why Gender Matters

In Arabic societies, among others, women are seen as the safety and comfort providers for their families. As caregivers, women are socially conditioned to worry about their children and loved ones, deprioritizing whatever else might happen in the world. Additionally, they often face patriarchal pressures to conform to norms and limited freedom to explore and engage in worldly topics compared to men. This may lead to a vicious cycle of low self-esteem and disempowerment. Additionally, pluralistic ignorance may be associated with gender, as women are often excluded from decision-making positions. This may lead them to believe that their ideas or concerns are not valued or heard, hence conform with the perceived dominant (masculine) perspective as they underestimate how many others indeed share their thoughts. 

Despite the challenges they face, women in Arab societies do play a critical role in driving sustainability. Their traditional roles as teachers, cooks, and shoppers provide them with unique opportunities to educate and raise awareness about environmental issues, prepare sustainable meals, and make eco-friendly purchasing decisions. Furthermore, traditional notions about masculinity may discourage men from engaging in “feminine” activities such as gardening or recycling, while women’s involvement in activities such as farming gives them a deeper understanding of local ecosystems and environmental challenges. Additionally, the association of women with emotionality can lead to fewer social stigmas around seeking mental health support, allowing them to enhance their psychological well-being and develop the mental capacity to adapt to new behaviors outside their comfort zone and break down barriers.

Bridging the Gap

While systemic reforms, policy measures, technological innovations, and environmental education are crucial components for promoting environmental action, true change cannot be achieved without individuals adopting more sustainable practices, which necessitates a combination of top-down and bottom-up strategies. Behavioral change is highly dependent on narratives and storytelling approaches. Effective communication is crucial for changing people’s behavior and promoting environmental engagement. Stories and facts that evoke emotional responses and align with social norms are more impactful than pure statistics that require intensive cognitive effort. 

Additionally, focusing on communicating some of the “wins” in the sustainability transition might prove powerful. For instance, shifting from narratives of  “climate change will destroy us all” to success stories of eco-innovations, inspiring grassroots initiatives and role models, particularly women, may help combat feelings of avoidance and powerlessness and enhance environmental engagement. By understanding what others know, individuals can also overcome pluralistic ignorance and recognize that they are not alone in their concerns, which may translate into more action taking.  

Access to mental health support, particularly in post-trauma situations, is also essential for enhancing emotional stability and empathy, which in-turn may translate to higher pro-environmental behavior, as well as the mental capacity needed for rational and calculative decision-making. This is essential now more than ever given the rapidly changing world in which we live, thanks to digitalization and the associated information overload, communication speed, and lifestyle changes, pushing us more and more into reactive situations and rash decision-making. Improved psychological health and wellbeing promote reflection and long-term orientation beyond mere focus on immediate gratification and band-aid problem-solving, while enhancing one’s self-esteem and confidence to practice behaviors that may not conform with the norm. Although this is relevant for all genders, initiatives targeting women may be particularly necessary to enhance their agency in male-dominated societies. Finally, changing social norms is key to promoting environmental sustainability, but this requires individuals to take initiative and lead by example. Empowering women is particularly important in this endeavor, as their unique perspectives and experiences can bring about meaningful change. 

As I reflect on the journey from the humble yet sustainable practices of my Iraqi upbringing to the complexities of environmental behavior in my current context, I am reminded of the profound connection between our past experiences and present actions. I now realize that the eco-friendlier behaviors of my family in Iraq were out of solidarity and gratitude, and perhaps even necessity, rather than an environmental mindset. They serve as a poignant reminder of the interconnectedness of resource conservation and community support and the double-edged sword of social norms. I see it as a prime example of the intersectionality of social and environmental sustainability; social justice and ecological health. I also know now that transforming our individual habits and actions requires collective effort, rooted in effective communication, fostering empathy and mental health, and the empowerment of marginalized voices. Therefore, even if my research has not entirely succeeded in helping me reactivate family’s past behaviors, I certainly accept and understand them more profoundly, which is a stepping stone towards healthier communication and learning amongst each other. I will strive to honor the memories of the past while embracing the possibilities of the future, even if that means that I might have to eat dolma out of a disposable plate, accept a drink of water out of a plastic bottle, or put on a sweater to tolerate excessive air conditioning in summer months whenever we get together.

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