We turn our attention to trauma's profound imprint on political movements, its role in shaping collective memory across generations, and the ways it is seized upon by those in power to justify their actions and wield memory as a tool of control. For this MEETUP, we focus on the ongoing genocide in Palestine to highlight a region where historical trauma intertwines deeply with present-day struggles. Generations marked many times over by the traumas of a near-century of settler colonialism, layering with each new wave of Israel’s genocidal project.

Together, we confront the narratives deployed by fascist regimes and democratic states alike to instrumentalize historical trauma, and secure the consent and complicity upon which genocide, dehumanization, and states of exceptionalism are normalized and allowed to continue. In this series, we ask: How can we move toward healing and repair in a world underwritten by pain and suffering? How can we draw from memory, history, and the stories of the past to build solidarity in the present and lay new foundations for imagining the future? And what role might art, poetry, and humor play as forces of change and liberation in atrocity’s ongoing hour?