Your Silence Will Not Protect You
“What are the words you do not yet have? What do you need to say? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence? Perhaps for some of you here today, I am the face of one of your fears. Because I am woman, because I am Black, because I am lesbian, because I am myself – a Black woman warrior poet doing my work – come to ask you, are you doing yours?” – Audre Lorde, The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action.
The following resources in Stuart Hall Library is a small but growing list of materials that speak to Palestinian thinkers, activists and artists. This includes stories of Palestinian life, the struggle of colonised people, voices of solidarity, love, liberation, queerness, survival, women voices, the media, joy and the future.
Staff Highlights
28 February 2024
From Tavian Hunter, Library Manager:
Funambulist, no. 50
Nakba, sumud, intifada : a personal lexicon of Palestinian loss and resistance by Rana Issa (The Funambulist; no. 50, pages 34-39)
[Journals Section]
In this article featured in the Funambulist magazine, Rana Issa interrogates the vocabulary used to articulate the loss and conditions of Palestine through the lens of a personal narrative around three significant words used by Palestinians: nakba, sumud, intifada. The article also reminds us that the sacralisation of political concepts is full of traps and that it is necessary for them to evolve through their practice to remain potent instead.
Dreams of a nation: on Palestinian cinema.
Dreams of a nation: on Palestinian cinema. Edited by Hamid Dabashi with preface by Edward Said.
[ESS DRE]
In Dreams of a Nation, is the first anthology devoted to Palestinian cinema. Nine filmmakers, critics and scholars discuss the emergence of Palestinian cinema as a major artistic force on the global scene as well as the social significance rooted in historical struggles of self-determination and anti-colonial resistance movements.
Freedom is a constant struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the foundations of a movement
Freedom is a constant struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the foundations of a movement by Angela Y. Davis and edited by Frank Barat.
[ESS DAV]
Activist and scholar Angela Y. Davis is known for her advocacy for the liberation of Palestine. She reminds us that ‘freedom is a constant struggle’ and in this book illuminates the connections between struggles against state violence and oppression throughout history and around the world.
Reflecting on the importance of Black feminism, intersectionality, and prison abolitionism, she highlights connections between Black freedom struggles and today’s struggles against state terror. In the speech, ‘On Palestine, G4S and the Prison-Industrial Complex’ given at the School of Oriental and African Studies in 2013 draws connections around militarised police power in Palestine and protests against police murder in Ferguson.
Made in Palestine
Made in Palestine: Station Museum, Houston, Texas, May-October, 2003. Preface by Tarif Abboushi; introduction by James Harithas ; essays by Tex Kerschen and others.
[569.4 MAD]
Made in Palestine is one of the first museum exhibitions in the US devoted to the contemporary art of Palestine. It features twenty-three Palestine artists living in Syria, Jordan, Germany and the US, some of which live in exile or under military occupation, depicting a historical story of the Palestinian people from the Nakba of 1948 to their dream for a homeland, through painting, sculpture, video, textiles, ceramics and photography.
Librarians and archivists to Palestine: DS128.4 Library of Congress call number for ‘intifada’ created through struggle by the librarians at Birzeit University
Librarians and archivists to Palestine: DS128.4 Library of Congress call number for ‘intifada’ created through struggle by the librarians at Birzeit University (Read online)
[ZIN LIB]
In the summer of 2013, sixteen librarians and archivists travelled to Palestine to explore issues of access to information and cultural heritage and issues of colonial struggles, sharing ideas with colleagues in Palestine, offering expertise and learning from theirs. The delegation offers a unique voice in support of the Palestinian-led movement for boycott against Israeli apartheid in the form of a zine.
3 October 2024
From Charlotte Mui, Assistant Librarian:
Throughout history, stories have taken form as protest and dialogue; recording, understanding, and shaping moments of desolation. These writings, poems, and drawings evoke emotion in their readers — allowing us to connect and empathise with their experience — and in the process, we find solidarity and hope.
Rifqa by Mohammed El-Kurd; with foreword by Aja Monet.
Rifqa by Mohammed El-Kurd; with foreword by Aja Monet.
[ESS ELK]
Each day after school, Mohammed El-Kurd’s grandmother welcomed him at the door of his home with a bouquet of jasmine. Her name was Rifqa — she was older than Israel itself and an icon of Palestinian resilience. With razor-sharp wit and glistening moral clarity, El-Kurd lays bare the brutality of Israeli settler colonialism. His poems trace Rifqa‘s exile from Haifa to his family’s current dispossession in Sheikh Jarrah, Jerusalem, exposing the cyclical and relentless horror of the Nakba. El-Kurd’s debut collection definitively shows that the Palestinian struggle is a revolution, until victory.
Palestine in black and white by Mohammed Sabaaneh
Palestine in black and white by Mohammed Sabaaneh
[AS SAB]
An intimate and powerful portrayal of life under occupation from one of the most talented cartoonists working today. This first collection brings together one hundred of Sabaaneh’s most striking works, including cartoons that portray the experience of Palestinian prisoners, drawn while Sabaaneh himself was detained in an Israeli prison. The drawings do not flinch from revealing the reality that confronts Palestinians, from Israel’s injustices in the West Bank to their military operations on Gaza.
Before the next bomb drops: rising up from Brooklyn to Palestine by Remi Kanazi
Before the next bomb drops: rising up from Brooklyn to Palestine by Remi Kanazi
[ESS KAN]
Remi Kanazi’s poetry presents an unflinching look at the lives of Palestinians under occupation and as refugees scattered across the globe. He captures the Palestinian people’s stubborn refusal to be erased, gives voices to the ongoing struggle for liberation, and explores the meaning of international solidarity. In this latest collection, Kanazi expands his focus outside the sphere of Palestine and examines the meaning of international solidarity.
Captive Revolution: Palestinian women’s anti-colonial struggle within the Israeli prison system by Nahla Abdo
Captive Revolution: Palestinian women’s anti-colonial struggle within the Israeli prison system by Nahla Abdo
[ESS ABD]
Nahla Abdo’s Captive Revolution seeks to break the silence on Palestinian women political detainees, providing a vital contribution to research on women, revolutions, national liberation and anti-colonial resistance. Based on the stories of the women themselves, Abdo draws on a wealth of oral history and primary research in order to analyse Palestinian women’s anti-colonial struggle, their agency and their treatment as political detainees.
Voices of the Nakba : a living history of Palestine edited by Diana Allan
Voices of the Nakba : a living history of Palestine edited by Diana Allan
[ESS VOI]
During the 1948 war more than 750,000 Palestinian Arabs fled or were violently expelled from their homes by Zionist militias. The legacy of the Nakba – which translates to ‘disaster’ or ‘catastrophe’ – lays bare the violence of the ongoing Palestinian plight. Voices of the Nakba collects the stories of first-generation Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, documenting a watershed moment in the history of the modern Middle East through the voices of the people who lived through it. The interviews, with commentary from leading scholars of Palestine and the Middle East, offer a vivid journey into the history, politics and culture of Palestine, defining Palestinian popular memory on its own terms in all its plurality and complexity.
Light in Gaza: writings born of fire edited by Jehad Absalim, Jennifer Bing, and Michael Merryman-Lotze
Light in Gaza: writings born of fire edited by Jehad Absalim, Jennifer Bing, and Michael Merryman-Lotze
[ESS LIG]
Imagining the future of Gaza beyond the cruelties of occupation and Apartheid, Light in Gaza is a powerful contribution to understanding Palestinian experience. Gaza, home to two million people, continues to face suffocating conditions imposed by Israel. This distinctive anthology imagines what the future of Gaza could be, while reaffirming the critical role of Gaza in Palestinian identity, history, and struggle for liberation. Light in Gaza is a seminal, moving and wide-ranging anthology of Palestinian writers and artists. It constitutes a collective effort to organize and center Palestinian voices in the ongoing struggle. As political discourse shifts toward futurism as a means of reimagining a better way of living, beyond the violence and limitations of colonialism, Light in Gaza is an urgent and powerful intervention into an important political moment.
29 September 2025
From Charlotte Mui, Assistant Librarian & Communications Coordinator:
In the past year, we focused on highlighting the work of community and organising through our Global Resiliencies project that highlighted and called for submissions of activist zines. The selection below features several zines and publications that highlight the many international self-organising activist movements towards Palestinian liberation.
Until Palestine is Free: Lessons from a Student Intifada edited by Zissel Aronow and Tessnim Tolba
Until Palestine is Free: Lessons from a Student Intifada edited by Zissel Aronow and Tessnim Tolba
[ESS UNT]
Initiated by iniva for the Global Resiliencies project, Until Palestine is Free: Lessons From a Student Intifada is a student-led publication that documents the historic resurgence of UK student organising for Palestine since October 2023. With Gaza and the Palestinian resistance as their compass, students have been holding UK higher education institutions accountable in their complicity in the zionist settler-colonial project and in the broader imperialist infrastructure that enables genocide. Created by those directly involved in campus organising, it offers a living archive and practical toolkit shaped by frontline experiences, strategies, and political clarity.
Palestine Solidarity among Indonesian Music: Basic Solidarity to the Ideological Approach by irfan popish
(Read online)
[ZIN PAL]
Highlighting the Indonesian support for Palestinian liberation, this zine is a presentation of how the Indonesian music scene stands in solidarity with Palestinian independence.
Zine of Interest : issue 1 by Irish Bloc Berlin.
Zine of Interest: issue 1 by Irish Bloc Berlin
[ZIN ZIN]
Zine of Interest is created by the Irish Bloc Berlin, and contains songs, illustrations, and historical information about Ireland-Palestine solidarity and the genocide of Palestinians. Formed in February 2024, Irish Bloc Berlin is a community of activists from different backgrounds, equally open to people who are not Irish or European, but who share the common commitment to Palestinian liberation. We foreground international solidarity and collective organisation, and seek meaningful and practical ways to support our Palestinian and international comrades wherever possible. We aim to resist Germany’s systematic and racialised silencing of pro-Palestinian voices.
Ranganathan’s five laws in the shadows of genocide : burning knowledge, shattering lives by Abandoned Affair
Ranganathan’s Five Laws in the Shadows of Genocide: Burning Knowledge, Shattering Lives by Abandoned Affair
(Read online)
[ZIN RAN]
S.R. Rangathan’s (1931) Five Laws of Library Science emphasise accessibility, preservation, and the continued growth of knowledge and information. In stark contrast, the physical and cultural genocide in Gaza and Occupied Palestine demonstrates a systematic effort to erase Palestinian history, culture, and education through targeted destruction of libraries, archives, and academic institutions — as documented in reports such as the Librarians and Archivists with Palestine (LAP) – Gaza Report 2024. Created by Abandoned Affair, the zine introduces S.R. Ranganathan’s (1931) Five Laws of Library Science, and demonstrate how each law has been violated in Gaza and Occupied Palestine and why this is relevant.
Please note this is an ongoing blog that will continue to be developed. A much longer list of books, articles, zines and journals is featured in the Stuart Hall Library catalogue. We hope this will serve as a means to use for education, critical dialogue and collective care.
Last updated: 29 September 2025
