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A review by pushingdessy
Palestine Speaks: Narratives of Life Under Occupation (Voice of Witness) by Cate Malek, Mateo Hoke
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
❌️ CEASEFIRE NOW ❌️
It's nothing short of surreal to be reading books about an ongoing genocide of +70 years that is currently more deadly than ever... and it continues to go largely unpunished; rather, continues to be financially backed by governments around the world. The act of reading about Palestine feels almost silly - why not just turn on the news?
But the battle !srael is waging is also cultural: that's how propaganda takes root. And a lot of us are digging it out; by reading and listening, we're taking up arms against beliefs that would have us justifying the massacre of an entire country.
This is a collection of sixteen stories compiled by Cate Malek and Mateo Hoke between 2011-2014 in Gaza and the West Bank. The stories offer a glimpse at the lives of people from diverse backgrounds: laborers, professionals, homemakers, activists, lawyers, among others.
All of them share the same fears and anxieties of life under occupation and constant threat, but also the same sense of pride and resistance, of community, of love for their land. In their stories, the violence is made flesh in the most basic, daily experiences a person can have. This is a good reminder that, yes, governments set the structures that make settler colonialism possible, but civilians are not innocent insofar as they uphold those structures for personal gain - and that’s also true for people in the West. This is a highly recommended read for me.
*Note: Two of the interviewees are Israeli, a decision that is explained by the editors in the intro. Personally, I was okay with this, as I didn't feel like it shifted the focus from Palestinian voices. One of them is an anti-occupation activist who shares the perspective of being raised in Israeli society and why things are as they are, something I thought was valuable. The other is a proud settler, but even then, reading that story among all the others only uplifted the truth of the Palestinian experience, imo.
⚠️ In solidarity with Palestine, versobooks is currently offering this and other books for free at their website.
It's nothing short of surreal to be reading books about an ongoing genocide of +70 years that is currently more deadly than ever... and it continues to go largely unpunished; rather, continues to be financially backed by governments around the world. The act of reading about Palestine feels almost silly - why not just turn on the news?
But the battle !srael is waging is also cultural: that's how propaganda takes root. And a lot of us are digging it out; by reading and listening, we're taking up arms against beliefs that would have us justifying the massacre of an entire country.
This is a collection of sixteen stories compiled by Cate Malek and Mateo Hoke between 2011-2014 in Gaza and the West Bank. The stories offer a glimpse at the lives of people from diverse backgrounds: laborers, professionals, homemakers, activists, lawyers, among others.
All of them share the same fears and anxieties of life under occupation and constant threat, but also the same sense of pride and resistance, of community, of love for their land. In their stories, the violence is made flesh in the most basic, daily experiences a person can have. This is a good reminder that, yes, governments set the structures that make settler colonialism possible, but civilians are not innocent insofar as they uphold those structures for personal gain - and that’s also true for people in the West. This is a highly recommended read for me.
*Note: Two of the interviewees are Israeli, a decision that is explained by the editors in the intro. Personally, I was okay with this, as I didn't feel like it shifted the focus from Palestinian voices. One of them is an anti-occupation activist who shares the perspective of being raised in Israeli society and why things are as they are, something I thought was valuable. The other is a proud settler, but even then, reading that story among all the others only uplifted the truth of the Palestinian experience, imo.
⚠️ In solidarity with Palestine, versobooks is currently offering this and other books for free at their website.