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bookishmillennial's review
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
disclaimer: I don’t really give starred reviews. I hope my reviews provide enough information to let you know if a book is for you or not. Find me here: https://linktr.ee/bookishmillennial
It's not that the Palestinian people exist, but that they existed, and they will continue to exist. And that existence requires not only a home, but a homeland, a state: Palestine. Dirty politics cannot bend the clean reality of existence, nor can it ultimately deny or marginalize it. Existence is not a mask, nor can it be masked, and to deny existence is to deny life: it is a crime. A crime that persists without judge, jury or sentence. This is what these photos recall and affirm. - Pedro Martinez Montavez, Professor Emeritus, Autonomous University of Madrid
I received this as part of my Haymarket book club package for January 2024, and I am so grateful for this book as it makes a point to live up to its name and fight back against the narrative that Palestine was a "land without people" before the settler colonialists started to forcibly take land. It begins with acknowledgements, a short poem, the foreword to the 2024 edition, then moves to the foreword to the 2016 edition, and then three short essays on the history of Palestine (starting with the twelfth century BC when it was under Ottoman Empire rule), the Nakba (1947-1949), context for photography as historical text for reinforcing survival, and notes on the photographs which were chosen for this collection. The 418 Palestinian villages that were destroyed in the Nakba are also named before you get to the ~150 pages of photographs.
I am so incredibly humbled and moved after viewing these photos (they range from family portraits, to pictures at rallies, to a local soccer team), and I urge everyone to read this. I suggested these for purchase at a few of my local libraries and I hope that those copies can get into as many community hands as they can.
Content Warnings
Graphic: War, Death, Genocide, Violence, Colonisation, and Islamophobia
letsgolesbians's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
5.0
“our eyes seldom encounter palestine before the israeli return; a palestine not defined by its ailments but defined by its industries and cultures. yet, it is important to resist the urge to romanticize that era. one must situate these photographs within the proper socio-economic context and ask about what is not represented in these images—who had access to cameras? who was behind these cameras? what can be said of those who lived far from the flashing lights and tape recorders? where do we look for their fossilized legacies?”
an important reminder from mohammed el-kurd in the forward to the 2024 edition of against erasure, and one we should keep in our minds when we look through photo collections. i don’t have answers to his questions, but they stayed in my mind as i studied the photos in this book.
against erasure features photos from palestine before the nakba, and several photos of refugees fleeing their home cities in 1948 and of refugee camps. palestine was very much not “a land without a people” but a land taken from a people who cherished it. there are photos of families in traditional and in modern dress, of the palestine broadcasting services, of visiting dignitaries.
also included are a couple of poems, and six essays/forwards about palestinian history, the importance of photos within history, and the photo collection process for the book. i found the essays to include thoughtful analysis recognizing nuance (imagine that!).
the photo on the cover is a group of girls playing basketball in kalandia, west bank in the 1950s. i included my press t-shirt in the photo as a reminder that photographers like our beloved motaz have been forced to become photojournalists. similarly, the family albums some of these photos came from should have just been family memories but instead have become an important part of a denied history.
against erasure is currently available on the haymarket website. i highly recommend requesting your library purchase this book, and purchasing one for yourself if you can after the strike.
pivic's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
fast-paced
4.25
heresthepencil's review
challenging
emotional
inspiring
5.0
if this collection of essays & photographs doesn’t radicalise you, i don’t know what possibly might. seeing the silly smiles of palestinians captured on film at the beginning of the 20th century? unparalleled.
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