What does witnessing genocide in real time do to our collective psyche?
a zine based on The Fire These Times #201
by @Lizar_tistry
2 August 2025 (read | print)
“I have a certain special anger as an Armenian whose people have also gone through genocide. The whole concept of ‘Never Again’ failing, again, is hard to witness.”
—Karena Avedissian
Most days are just trying to balance between ANGER…
at IDF troops confiscating baby formula from doctors going to Gaza to treat starving babies
at justifying a genocide on the back of another
…and DESPAIR…
at the specters of whatifs: what if, when my grandfather was exiled from Haifa in ’48, he went south instead of north?
at the replication and normalization of violence and destruction
…and ANGER
at the commitment to ignore history
at the complicity in and enabling of genocide.
* * *
Fascism thrives through disorientation. Looking at reality with groundedness and refusing genocide’s narrative of inevitability is an act of resistance.
Lives will be lost. It’s going to be too little, too late, regardless. But to what degree? We have to try.
It’s getting worse. It’s almost paralyzing. There is no way around the fact that life is going to continue to be destroyed in the near future. Even with those truths existing…
* * *
Matsutake mushrooms only grow in places where soil is completely eroded.
We must get creative, like Palestinians have been since day one. We need forms of solidarity we may not be able to understand or imagine right now, but will be indispensable to having a world worth holding together.
To sow seeds in hopes that it will burst something new.
There will be life at the end of this.
* * *
Send mutual aid funds to the Ibrahim Community Kitchen.
* * *
This zine is based on episode #201 of the podcast The Fire These Times, an affiliate of the From The Periphery media collective (Antidote Zine is also an FTP affiliate). It was designed by @Lizar_tistry and features the voices of FTP members Karena Avedissian, Leila Al Shami, israa’, Daniel Voskoboynik, and Elia Ayoub. Support From The Periphery on Patreon.
Download PDFs to print, read, and share:
