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401639

In ʿishnā lan nansā wa-lan nusāmiḥ: Transitioning from a Necropolitical Today to a Decolonial Tomorrow

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Last updated: 07 Jan 2025

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Abstract

This paper analyzes the temporal and spatial dimensions of Israel's illegal occupation of and “war" on Gaza and argues their continuity with Israel's occupation of Palestinian land and genocide of Palestinian people in the longue durée, at least since 1948. We aim to utilize the words of one of our friends (Yousra) who is currently displaced in Gaza, In ʿishnā lan nansā wa-lan nusāmiḥ (“If we live, we will not forget, and we will not forgive"), to draw a triptych, using each of the phrases, to project the potential afterlife of Palestinian existence in the wake of a genocidal war. We ask how Yousra's gesture to the precarity of Palestinian life invites us to read Israel's ongoing aggression on Gaza since October 7th as a continuing traumatic moment; how the remembrance on which she insists represents Palestinian's prior knowledge of themselves (memory) despite the colonizer's distortion of their time and space; and how the death of forgiveness she projects is a paradoxical survival of memory. Using Achille Mbembe's “reverse reading of our present" as our methodological point of departure, we harness the “present"–both the Palestinian present and the contemporaneity of twenty-first century theories of colonialism and decolonization. It is our aim read the “past"—both the Palestinian past and the past of other colonialisms and decolonization struggles—as articulated in mid to late-twentieth century theoretical pronouncements like Frantz Fanon's and Edward Said's, as well as the creative, decolonial poetics of Andrea Abi Karam.

DOI

10.21608/cse.2024.317131.1184

Keywords

postcolonial, Zionism, epistemology, Palestine, Israel

Authors

First Name

Michael

Last Name

Williamson

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

Binghamton University

Email

michael.d.williamson94@gmail.com

City

Binghamton

Orcid

-

Volume

2024

Article Issue

2

Related Issue

52233

Issue Date

2024-12-01

Receive Date

2024-08-31

Publish Date

2024-12-01

Page Start

130

Page End

150

Print ISSN

0575-1624

Online ISSN

2682-2504

Link

https://cse.journals.ekb.eg/article_401639.html

Detail API

http://journals.ekb.eg?_action=service&article_code=401639

Order

10

Type

Original Article

Type Code

738

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

Cairo Studies in English

Publication Link

https://cse.journals.ekb.eg/

MainTitle

In ʿishnā lan nansā wa-lan nusāmiḥ: Transitioning from a Necropolitical Today to a Decolonial Tomorrow

Details

Type

Article

Created At

07 Jan 2025