I Returned to My Stolen Home in Palestine | Ghada Karmi
Palestinian doctor, scholar and research fellow Ghada Karmi offers powerful, truthful and hard-hitting words on Palestine's past, present and future. She sheds light on a common experience amongst Palestinian diaspora: that of blocked memories, suppressed as a result of trauma. She shares wise words of advice on dealing with friends and family who – especially in the wake of October 7th – have stayed apathetic and silent, or refused to take a moral stance.
We talk in depth about the cognitive dissonance and lack of popular memory of the Nakba or the Palestinian lived experience as compared to that of the Holocaust. Dr Karmi emphasizes her belief in the power of words, stories and personal memories in not only eternalizing the Palestinian cause, but in infusing it into popular discourse. We hear her extraordinary story of being invited to her family home in Jerusalem by the New York Times bureau chief to face its then current inhabitants, and the visions she has for a future Palestine.
This episode of This Is Not a Watermelon podcast was recorded on the 25th July 2024.
Ghada Karmi is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter. She was born in Jerusalem and forced to leave her home during the Nakba of 1948. Her family moved to England where she later practiced as a doctor working as a specialist in the health of migrants and refugees. She later held a number of research positions on Middle Eastern politics and culture at London's SOAS and the Universities of Durham and Leeds. She is also the author of the books: "In Search of Fatima," "Return: A Palestinian Memoir," "One State: The Only Democratic Future for Palestine-Israel," and "Married to Another Man".
Connect with Dr Karmi 👉 https://www.instagram.com/karmighada/
Hosted by:
Mikey Muhanna 👉 / mikey_mu
This Is Not a Watermelon
This podcast series is a celebration and documentation of Palestinian history and culture. We interview experts from various disciplines to help us better understand the facts about Palestine – the land and the people.
