"symbolic violence, a gentle violence, imperceptible and invisible even to its victims, exerted for the most part through the purely symbolic channels of communication and cognition (more precisely, misrecognition), recognition, or even feeling" (Pierre Bourdieu, Masculine Domination 2001 pp. 1-2).
"Exilic in my own self/
belonging to the state/
of paradoxes"
A displaced Palestinian queer, I was born in north of Palestine, to internally displaced parents (since 1948). I lived in what the Western powers call “The State of Israel”. I was forced to hold a shameful Israeli ID written on it “Aravi” in Hebrew or in English an Arab, so I was only an Arab for the state since Palestinians do not exist anyways. I moved to live in Jerusalem in 2000 to witness the everyday violence of the Israeli state, through its police, army, checkpoints, apartheid wall, ID check-ups and transfers. My political consciousness was crystallized in Jerusalem, precisely after “The Monster” was built turning Jerusalem (and all Palestine) into a Ghetto.
“I lost myself/
when the wall was erected,/
leaving me with memories of/
how heavenly it used to be/ before.”