“They try to silence us, but Palestine is everywhere, it’s even in the silence.”
— Lucia Sorbera
On 7th May, there was an invitation to participate in collective witness-bearing at the University of Sydney. Lucia Sorbera, chair of the Discipline of Arabic Language and Culture, as well as Professor of History, Michael McDonnell, hosted a panel on The Nightmare Sequence in conversation with Safdar Ahmed and Omar Sakr. The Nightmare Sequence is a collection of poems and artworks that bears witness to violent injustices; it is a testament to truth, a refusal to succumb to an erasable digital and cultural memory as well as the continued attempts to dehumanise Palestinians, and a collaboration that is committed to detailing the necessity of continued decolonisation across transnational bounds. It is a work that documents the insidious span of the Western empire beyond Palestine, alongside the cruel impacts of such: the collective grief, the destruction of an ideal of common humanity, and the dislocation of communities across the globe. It is truly devastating and a necessary read that ensures the violence of the Zionist entity and its Western allies will never be forgotten. Reading The Nightmare Sequence is a powerful punch to the gut, and it has never been more urgent to engage with works that continue to bear witness to violence mercilessly inflicted, on a scale never before seen in human history, against an innocent population.
Ahmed has emblazoned many of his artworks with the stamp ‘Genocide Culture’ as a term that both explicitly refuses the narrative of 7th October 2023 that decontextualises over 75 years of Israeli occupation, and holds to account Australian and broader Western continued complicity in the colonisation of the so-called Middle East. One jarring image in the book, imprinted with the term, references the Sufafend Massacre. In 1918, occupying Australian, New Zealander and Scottish soldiers committed a massacre against the citizens of the Palestinian village Sarafand Al-Amar, killing between 40 and 137 civilians. Speaking to the term, Ahmed said: “On one hand, it’s bad enough to see a genocide on our phones in such an unprecedented way, often by people filming [the horrors of] their own deaths. It’s shocking and horrifying. But, as an artist, a deeper horror came from feeling the inertia of our leaders and our media to tell the truth. The indifference in Australia’s political and media [landscapes].”
Contextualising the work, Sorbera noted the tradition of poetry across the Arab world, particularly elegies to commemorate the prophet Mohammed, and located the book as following “[the] footsteps of this long tradition.” In response, Sakr commented on the role of the Arab poet to lament and the value of cultural resonance beyond borders. He said that “[The Nightmare Sequence] is a continuation of my work, not an aberration”, that continues to discuss the violence reaped by the Western empire on Arab lands. Sorbera then probed the utility of art in the face of genocide, to which Ahmed responded that art constitutes “[an] informal counter discourse to the way Palestinians are commonly framed, [that is] through a dehumanising lens.” He notes that alongside horrifying images of genocide, there persist such powerful images of compassion. Directly referencing Hind Rajab, Ahmed said that “millions of people are sharing these [humanising] images, which is an important re-interpretation. Many of my pictures were in the spirit of those images.”
This too has manifest political implications in the domestic Australian context, as Ahmed noted the collapse of “every institution in our society due to the silencing of what is happening.” He directly referenced Antoinette Lattouf as an accomplished journalist unjustly penalised over support for Palestine. Ahmed further said that “the [media] cowardice is appalling because what is [the job of the media] if not to talk about [genocide]. If you can’t connect inequality here to the more global context of colonisation, genocide, and apartheid in Palestine, then what worth is it? Art has some help in opposing that. I’m sick of light installations that say fuck-all about this historical moment.”
To the same question, Sakr spoke to his own craft, bringing the question to the broader global context, where “poets are imprisoned around the world. In the global south, they are among the first to be imprisoned. One reason is because of the immediacy and reach to the masses, [as well as being] easily memorisable, aimed at the power of dictators and the ruling class.” To the audience he said that “all of us have a responsibility. We are using art in this way because we are artists. Whatever you do, use your leverage.” Sakr had his own poetry workshops cancelled last year following a Zionist smear campaign. Speaking about the experience, he said that “safety was the context for the cancellation of my workshops. It’s frightening to be gaslit every single day, by authorities using authoritative language. One day they will pretend that they weren’t saying these things, but we can prove it.”
In this realm of the imaginative future, Sakr and Ahmed expressed a cautious hope. Sakr was quick to acknowledge “we still have Nazis. A significant proportion of the population is celebrating [genocide]. [We can be] deliriously hopeful”. He continued, “The entire [human rights] framework has been pushed to a point of crisis. Race is being the thing that has cracked it open… We need decolonisation. This genocide cannot be forgotten. We have to fight from here.” He reminded the audience that “student resistance for Vietnam was not quick. It happened over several years.” Ahmed also urged the necessity of activist collaboration, and the marriage of scholarship and academic grounding in literature with activism to all students in the room. If nothing else, heed these words and let them spur you to act.
Sakr and Ahmed have crafted an incredible book that is truly horrifying and necessary. It is a potent reminder of the power we all possess to counter violence and dehumanisation through the act of bearing witness and acting in solidarity. All proceeds from book sales go to Palestinian charities. Honi urges all readers to support The Nightmare Sequence or donate directly.