“Freedom in Palestine is intertwined with the global struggle against racism and imperialism. These forces stand between us and a world in which all peoples can exchange information and ideas. As information workers who strive to foster dialogue and learning, bringing down these barriers is our highest calling.” – Librarians with Palestine
Excerpt from forthcoming article tentatively titled: From Turtle Island to Palestine: the ongoing genocide, epistemicide and scholasticide of Indigenous knowledges and the enduring solidarity between Indigenous peoples (2025)
On May 23, 2024, an image circulating on social media shows an Israeli zionist soldier in front of books set aflame at Al Aqsa University’s library in Gaza City. The soldier in the image sits in a chair, flipping through a book with a sinister grin on his face.
Months before, the university’s facilities were destroyed by the Israeli Occupation forces. On February 6, 2024, it was reported that the IOF had shelled two university buildings and opened fire on displaced Palestinian civilians who had taken shelter on campus. In addition, academics, such as geographer Dr. Wiesam Essa, was killed in Gaza in the first week of January 2024, when his apartment block was badly damaged by Israeli bombs.
I showed the image above alongside another one below side by side to a class I teach in Spanish, but added dates and context to the second image from the 16th century in Guatemala. The class was silent then a student raised their hand in tears and said: “I never correlated what is happening in Palestine is the same thing they [colonizers] did to us and our knowledge.”
The burning of libraries and universities is a colonial tactic aimed to erase Indigenous heritage, culture, and history. Genocide is one side of the coin while epistemicide the other. Historically, both happened here in the Western hemisphere and in many ways continue, embedded within the structure of our settler society still seeking to erase and replace Indigenous peoples, cultures, and histories. Settler colonialism has inserted itself into North America for 532 years and its tentacles of imperialism stretch globally to Palestine.
One of the earliest documented examples of epistemicide in the Western hemisphere can be traced back to July 12, 1562, in Maní, a small city in the central region of the Yucatán Peninsula, in the Mexican state of Yucatán. It occurred during the invasion and colonization by the Spanish in the Americas:
“On July 12, 1562, hundreds of Maya prisoners crowded around a large bonfire in the central plaza of the town of Mani. Serving as the local Franciscan provincial, [Friar Diego de Landa Calderón] forcibly gathered the Maya to receive punishment at this official auto de fe. The Maya watched as the provincial ordered more than 20,000 idols and other ritual paraphernalia tossed into the fire. Along with the idols went forty Maya codices, or books, “written on bark paper and deer hides.” With one single bonfire, centuries of Maya culture and religion perished forever. Landa himself later wrote, “Finding in these books nothing more than the deceit of the devil, we had them burned…”
Friar Diego de Landa Calderón, led a campaign against “idolatry” during the 16th century in the Yucatan. In doing so, he burned Maya manuscripts (codices) which contained knowledge of Maya culture and history. To Landa and the other Franciscan friars, the very existence of these Maya codices was proof of diabolical practices.
In references to the books, Landa said:
“We found a large number of books in these characters and, as they contained nothing in which were not to be seen as superstition and lies of the devil, we burned them all, which they (the Maya) regretted to an amazing degree, and which caused them much affliction.”
The mission of burning of knowledge production is tied to the erasure of people i.e. getting rid of their knowledge while also the people too so it’ll be as if they never existed:
As Palestinian scholar Jehad Abusalim said during an interview for Al Jazeera, “Just as Israel is destroying the official memory and records of Palestinians in Gaza through its destruction of Gaza’s archives and landmarks, it is obliterating Palestinian personal lives and private memories, histories and futures, through bombing and bulldozing graveyards, destroying family records and photographs, wiping out entire multigenerational families, and killing, maiming and traumatizing a generation of children.” As a Palestinian man, in a video by UNRWA, succinctly sums up: “These are all our memories, our entire lives… Now it’s all gone; everything has turned into ashes.”
The erasure of Palestinian culture and history has long been an Israeli tactic of war and occupation, a means to further limit the self-determination of the Palestinian people. In 1948, during the Nakba, 30,000 books and manuscripts were looted from Palestinian homes; in 1982, during Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, Israel looted and confiscated the library and archives of the Palestine Liberation Organization; libraries and archives were damaged during the Second Intifada, and have been repeatedly targeted in Gaza. Furthermore, the intentional destruction of cultural heritage has been recognized as a war crime and prosecuted in the International Criminal Court.
Since October 7, 2023, almost all archives, libraries, and museums in Gaza have been destroyed, damaged, or looted by Israeli armed forces. The destruction of cultural heritage in Gaza impoverishes the collective identity of the Palestinian people, irrevocably denies them their history, and violates their sovereignty just as it did and continues to do to Indigenous people on Turtle Island.
Terminologies:
Epistemicide is the systematic destruction, silencing, or devaluing of knowledge systems. It can also refer to the oppression of certain ways of knowing.
Scholasticide, often used interchangeably with the terms educide and epistemicide, refers to the intended mass destruction of education in a specific place.
Raphael Lemkin coined and defined genocide as both vandalism (cultural destruction) and barbarity (mass slaughter). Vandalism includes the destruction of religious, intellectual, and artistic institutions, “because they represent the specific creation of genius of such groups.”
Sources:
Archives and Rare Books – Central Archives of Gaza City, Gaza City Hall (Gaza City)
Description of damage: Complete destruction from direct shelling, causing a fire which fully destroyed the archives. The archives contained 150 years of records pertaining to Gaza’s history. Date of damage: Unknown, first reported November 29, 2023
- “‘Israel destroyed Central Archives of Gaza City’: Head of Gaza Municipality,” Middle East Monitor, November 29, 2023.
- Majed, Mohammed. “‘Israel destroyed Central Archives of Gaza City’: Head of Gaza municipality,” Anadolu Ajansi, November 29, 2023.
- Crean, Rosabel. “Gaza heritage at threat as Israel bombs municipal buildings, old city,” New Arab, November 30, 2023.
- “Gaza’s Central Archives building lies in ruins after Israeli air strike,” Middle East Eye YouTube, November 30, 2023.
- Palestinian Ministry of Culture. The Second Preliminary Report on the Cultural Sector Damage, December 6, 2023, pg 35.
- Osman, Nadda. “Israel-Palestine war: Israeli forces destroy central archive of Gaza City,” Middle East Eye, December 7, 2023.
- Akkad, Dania. “100 days of war in Gaza: More than 23,000 dead and a society in ruins,” Middle East Eye, January 13, 2024.
Omari Mosque and Library (Gaza City)
Description of damage: Mosque was completely destroyed, likely including the library. The mosque was built in the 7th century, and contained one of the most significant collections of rare books in Palestine, including works dating to the 14th century. Over 200 manuscripts from the library’s holdings were digitized in 2022. Date of damage: December 8, 2023
Sources:
- Saber, Indlieb Farazi. “A ‘cultural genocide’: Which of Gaza’s heritage sites have been destroyed?” Al Jazeera, January 14, 2024.
- Mulder, Stephennie. “Gaza’s oldest mosque destroyed by Israeli airstrike,” Business Insider, January 21, 2024. (Also published in The Conversationon January 17, 2024).
