Will the Young Forget. Digital Print. Sepia.
80 x 60 and 110 x 80 inches
John Halaka © 2015

The former Israeli prime minister, Golda Meir, as well as many Israeli leaders and citizens before her and after her, individuals who are directly responsible for the Palestinian refugee crisis, have said on numerous occasions: “The old will die and the young will forget”. 

For Palestinians living in exile as well as those living under occupation, memory is the engine of our return.  Memory allows us to envision and to seek the denied security of our homeland; it enables us to creatively design the re-construction of our shattered society. Memory inspires us to visualize processes to re-assemble the hundreds of thousands of families that have been dismembered and globally scattered in repeated cycles of forced exile, occupation and repression.

Recording the narratives of Palestinian survivors and presenting them through art, literature and films, is part of a critical effort to make the unseen seen, and the unheard heard, so we can never say, “I didn’t know.”

 The Art and literature of survival and resistance are the antidotes to forgetting.  They help to insure that experiences are preserved and that current and future generations are well informed.