Tag: Najwan Darwish

55. Considering the historical linkage made in Darwish’s poem – words frequently shared by Armenian and Palestinian activists – this essay offers preliminary comparisons of genocidal warfare used by Israel and Azerbaijan over the last 18 months. While indiscriminate aerial bombardment was used in Artsakh/Nagorno Karabagh (ANK) and Gaza, both offensives used another weapon of mass destruction – starvation. Admittedly, in the midst of one of the largest global protests in solidarity with Palestine, Artsakh has not been understood as a possible model for Gaza, nor has Gaza been analyzed as a possible model for Artsakh. Darwish’s poem enacts multidirectional memory that opposes competition and instead considers memory to be “subject to ongoing negotiation, cross-referencing, and borrowing.”Footnote⁴ Comparing memories of extreme violence can form a bulwark against genocide denialism and plant the seeds of solidarity within the global struggle against mass violence. Tapping multidirectional memory makes visible the continued use of starvation crime which is gaining new traction in genocidal warfare despite legal prohibitions.