Culture as Resistance: The Role of Culture in Confronting Colonialism and Genocide
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By Dr. Adnan Bozan
Introduction:
In the vast realm of human existence, where the destinies of peoples and individuals intertwine, culture emerges as a mighty river—unceasing and unfaltering. Through its flowing waters run the currents of memory and experience, carrying the stories, dreams, and sorrows of humanity. Culture is not merely a collection of inherited customs or rituals practiced on specific occasions, nor is it just a language used to convey meaning. It is life itself—a continuous pulse bearing the ever-renewing spirit of the human being, a living reflection of one's existence amidst the complexities and mysteries of the world. Culture is the fortress one seeks when the earth narrows and the walls of time collapse. It is the sanctuary that shields the soul from the cruelty of politics and the treachery of fate.
Culture, in its broader form, is a living space where generations meet—not only to transfer heritage from past to present, but to renew and recreate the self in every era. It is the fertile soil from which hope grows, despite the groans of oppression and the shadows of tyranny. Culture continues to bear the fruits of existence, reminding us that no matter how fiercely tyranny and occupation attempt to erase a people, humanity cannot be fully extinguished. Culture is the music of life, the language with which a human speaks to their own soul and to their fellow beings across time and space.
When we contemplate the meaning of culture, we realize that it is far deeper than external practices or inherited traditions. It is the spiritual, intellectual, and emotional essence that forms our collective memory and is manifested in every human act that expresses selfhood and existence. Through culture, people rediscover themselves, pose the great questions of life and fate, and create their personal narratives in an ever-changing world. Culture is not a commodity to be bought or sold—it is the organic fabric binding societies together, granting them identity. It is the field where forces of domination and liberation clash, where annihilation wrestles with immortality.
This thing we call “culture” carries within it immense potential for resistance. It is not merely a mirror of who we are—it is a weapon in our existential struggle, a platform for shouting against those who seek to strip us of life and dignity. In every word spoken in a banned tongue, in every song whispered by a wounded soul, in every dance or painting shaped by hands embracing pain—there is resistance, pulsing with life and longing for freedom. Culture, then, is not just an expression of being—it is a living weapon, a renewing identity, and an unbreakable voice that tells the story oppression seeks to silence.
Perhaps the greatest tragedy that can befall a human being is to be fought on their own land, to be denied the right to be themselves, and to have their memory erased—reducing their existence to a shadow without a soul. Here, cultural genocide emerges as the most extreme form of violence against the human spirit—a war on the soul before the body, an organized attempt to uproot identity and sever its ties to history and place, so that subjugation becomes easier. And yet, against this darkness, culture remains a shining star in the sky of resistance, lighting paths of freedom and igniting the flame of struggle.
In this study, we will explore this complex and intertwined relationship between culture and resistance—delving into its philosophical and historical depths—to discover how culture can become a revolutionary act challenging all forms of oppression and erasure. In every time and place, culture remains a renewable source of life, hope, and liberation.
Defining Culture: More Than Just a Word
Linguistically, the Arabic root of the word “culture” (thaqāfa) implies the act of tilling the land—transforming it from barren to fertile. This beautiful origin reveals a deep truth: just as one tills and nurtures the soil, so too does the human cultivate their mind and soul to build a civilization teeming with life. Philosophically, culture is the symbolic and intellectual construction that signifies human presence in the world—a way of expressing self and other, and the framework of human experience with all its questions and answers, hopes and despairs, liberation and repression.
Sociologically, culture is a system of values, norms, customs, and symbols that shape collective identity, grant continuity to society, and preserve its coherence. It is the unspoken language, the story passed through generations, the fabric binding one person to another across time and space.
The Concept of Resistance: Between Armed and Symbolic Action
When we hear the word “resistance,” the first image that comes to mind is often one of armed struggle—conflict driven by weapons and fire. Yet resistance, in its essence, is much deeper and broader than that. It is the act of life itself—not confined to rifles or battlefields—but extending to any action that refuses occupation, oppression, or erasure. Resistance is the refusal to bow. It is a cry in the face of the attempt to erase the other—a reclaiming of the self despite all constraints.
In this context, symbolic acts—language, art, poetry, storytelling, even silence—become forms of existential resistance. Every word spoken in a forbidden language, every song sung in secret, every mural drawn in a darkened alley is an act of resistance with a power that can exceed that of a bullet. Here, resistance becomes culture, and wherever culture exists, there lies the possibility of rebellion, liberation, and freedom.
Culture and Resistance: Can Culture Be a Weapon?
Can culture be a weapon? The question may seem provocative to some. After all, culture is often seen as the domain of art, literature, and education, while weapons belong to war and violence. But a deeper look at the relationship between culture and resistance reveals that culture is not merely decorative or leisurely—it is a battleground in itself. It is a silent weapon, unseen yet piercing hearts and minds, liberating thought, and rebuilding the dignity that colonization seeks to destroy.
History offers countless examples of culture as weapon: peoples who used their language to resist erasure and forced assimilation, poets who penned verses that awakened spirits and revived memory, and artists who created works that challenged official narratives and documented suffering with neither silence nor submission. In this sense, culture is not only a weapon—it is a shield, a fortress, and a mirror.
The Question of Cultural Genocide: Meaning, History, and Methods
Yet this cultural weapon faces those who seek to destroy it. Cultural genocide is not an accident—it is part of the modern colonial strategy that seeks to destroy the soul so that the body may be subdued. It is an organized attempt to eliminate identity at its roots—to annihilate a people’s language, history, and customs.
Cultural genocide is not just the burning of books. It is the erasure of memory, the suppression of language, the imposition of alien symbols, the distortion of history, and the destruction of institutions that preserve and reproduce culture. It is a cold war on the soul before the body—an effort to erase the other’s possibility of existing as they are. History is rife with instances of cultural genocide: from the Ottoman repression of the Kurds, to Westernization efforts in Africa and Asia, to settler colonialism imposing Western culture, and today’s “symbolic genocide” in the form of forced assimilation and cultural dissolution.
In this study, we will dive into the dialectical relationship between culture and resistance, uncovering how culture becomes revolutionary action—how resistance is practiced through silent words and colors of art before it becomes an armed struggle. We will chart a historical and philosophical map of what it means for culture to remain alive in an age of death—and how memory becomes an inexhaustible fuel for ongoing resistance.
Culture is not just a preserved past or inherited legacy—it is the living act that reshapes the self and the world. It is the hidden weapon that does not die, no matter how fierce the storms of colonization and genocide.
In the darkest corners of history, where peoples were crushed and stripped of their right to exist, culture emerged as the final refuge and strongest fortress. When the body is slain, the word survives. When flags are burned, songs carry the flame of memory. Cultural resistance is not merely defensive—it is also a creative and continuous act, an expression of the will to live that refuses to be extinguished.
Throughout history, we have witnessed how forbidden languages became secret weapons, how poems, paintings, and folk dances turned into tongues of unrelenting revolution. From intellectual resistance led by philosophers and thinkers to daily resistance in homes and alleyways—culture reveals itself as a deeply interconnected network of unbroken action.
Cultural genocide, in essence, is a war on collective memory—an attempt to uproot the bonds that tie a people to their land and history. But it also provokes a deeper question: Can culture truly be erased? Can the machine of repression eliminate what is rooted in hearts and minds—values, dreams, the longing for freedom? History, despite its cruelty, answers: no. Culture, even when chained or suppressed, continues to pulse through the veins of communities—reborn anew in each generation, flowing like a river that never ceases, even when its sources seem dry.
Across time and through layers of symbolism, culture lives at the heart of every true resistance—not merely as a civilizational backdrop to conflict, but as a latent force, dormant yet powerful, working in the shadows when guns fall silent, calling out from the depths when voices are silenced. In this sense, culture is not an elite luxury or an intellectual commodity—it is the secret workshop where meaning is forged, identity is tested, and the will to endure is sharpened—even in the bleakest moments of collapse.
The revolution that is not declared in the square is declared in the poem. The revolution that is not written in manifestos is etched in the memory of folk songs, in tattoos, in traditional dress, in chants passed from grandmother to grandchild, and in dances that summon the land when it is threatened with erasure. It is a revolution that inhabits the heart, lives in everyday language, and breathes through creativity—refusing to vanish or dissolve—accumulating a power of endurance that transcends politics and militarization.
Cultural resistance, in this understanding, is not merely a reaction to occupation, colonization, or policies of annihilation—it is an existential stance, both preceding and outlasting the political moment. It allows the human being to reclaim the self through meaning, offering tools of resilience by retelling history—not as a victim, but as an agent shaping destiny. It does not merely defend the past—it fights for a more just and humane future. A future not built on the ashes of memories, but on dreams shaped by suffering, stubbornness, and loyalty to identity.
In this study, we will explore the intricate relationship between culture and resistance—not as sentimental attachment or motivational rhetoric, but as a comprehensive structure of tools, symbols, and manifestations that redraw the boundaries of struggle and expand the very meaning of resistance. We will examine how revolutionary songs formed our collective memory, how folk tales preserved meaning under the weight of imposed forgetting, and how language itself became a battlefield—resisting alienation, regenerating identity, and opposing efforts of erasure.
We will trace, through the chapters of this study, the experiences of peoples and nations who fought their existential battles through words, images, and melodies. From exile poetry to prison-born plays, from secret Kurdish songs written under Turkification, to Amazigh poetry resisting the French colonization of Algeria—we will show how culture was never merely a witness to tragedy, but a partner in the revolutionary act itself—its longest-lasting wing.
This is a resistance not measured by rifles, but by the depth of verses. Not by the land liberated, but by the consciousness preserved from fragmentation, alienation, and absorption into the oppressor’s narrative. In an era of overwhelming globalization and cultural homogenization, culture—as a free expression of the self—becomes the last line of defense, and the most vital battlefield, in preserving what it means to be human: one's memory, language, cause, and irreplaceable name.
Therefore, this study is an attempt to reclaim cultural consciousness as a form of struggle, and to approach resistance through the lens of creativity—to discover how culture can transform from an aesthetic discourse into a complete liberation project. One that believes words can unsettle tyrants, that songs can revive nations, and that when a person writes their own story, they can never be erased from history.
When culture enters the battlefield of resistance, it does not merely reflect reality—it becomes a tool to shape and transform it. It overturns imposed equations, shakes the certainties of the oppressor or tyrant. It produces a counter-narrative that challenges the official narrative of the state or the colonizer, exposing its falsehood and giving victims their own language to name things anew. While the colonizer attempts to remold the human being in his image, culture restores to the person their original language, memory, symbols, and place in the world—guiding them away from the abyss of dependency and erasure.
Thus, every cultural act—preserving language, group dance, traditional dress, rewriting history—becomes a definitive act of resistance. It insists there is an identity that cannot be reduced, a dignity that cannot be bartered, an existence that cannot be bypassed. Cultural resistance, in its symbolic depth, eats away at systems built on denial and challenges the authority of their reality—saying: we are here, with our language, our songs, our stories, our sorrows and joys. We are not shadows. We are not numbers in the archives of forgetting.
In this context, culture becomes a form of survival against symbolic extinction—a muffled scream refusing to let peoples become footnotes in others' histories. It is the silent presence that cannot be conquered, the weapon that cannot be confiscated, the memory that survives the gallows. When a people are denied arms, they still carry their language, their song, and their belief—and through these, they wage their battle for survival and dignity. A battle that does not end with the end of occupation—but truly begins when they are told to forget who they are.
Chapter One: Colonialism and Genocide – A Project of Erasing the Other
Definition of colonialism and genocide (physical, cultural, and symbolic).
How does the colonizer perceive the Other? From human to "savage."
Tools of colonialism: killing, displacement, banning language, destroying symbols, enforced ignorance, cultural alienation.
Historical examples of colonialism and both cultural and physical genocide.
Throughout human history, colonialism has never been merely the physical occupation of lands and peoples. It has always been a systematic project aimed at negating the Other, erasing their existence, and dismantling their very being. It is not only a seizure of territory but a conquest of the soul—where war becomes a battle over memory and identity, and the land turns into a stage for a conflict between two opposing wills: the will to suppress and annihilate on one side, and the will to live and resist on the other. At its core, colonialism is the imposition of a singular truth—the colonizer’s truth—upon a fractured and complex reality. It is both symbolic and physical violence, targeting the eradication of the Other as a perceived threat.
Within this framework, colonized peoples are not seen as fully human beings, but are rather reduced and classified as merely “Others,” “savages,” “primitives,” or even “animals”—labels used to justify their murder and enslavement. The erasure of the Other extends beyond direct violence; it involves the destruction of their culture, language, memory, and symbols. Colonialism is, therefore, a cultural genocide before it is a geographic one, crushing every expression of a people’s uniqueness and values.
Cultural genocide is not just a theoretical concept; it is a tragic reality endured by countless peoples throughout history. It is a deliberate policy aimed at eliminating native languages, banning national education, burning books and manuscripts, altering place names and histories, and imposing the colonizer’s culture as the only legitimate identity. In this way, the human being is not only killed physically but is also murdered as a human being—erased from the memory of existence. All these efforts are designed to make the colonized live in a state of disconnection from their roots, broken in identity, and defeated in will.
Yet in the face of this darkness, a resistance emerges—no less powerful than military confrontation. It is a cultural resistance, dedicated to preserving living memory, documenting stories, and reaffirming the right to exist as a distinct self. While colonialism seeks to impose silence, the voices of the Other continue to rise, bearing the legacy of memory and sowing the seeds of the future. Here lies the battle for truth that culture wages against colonialism: a deeply existential struggle—a fight for memory, language, dignity, and identity.
In this chapter, we will delve into the depths of this colonial project of cultural genocide and the erasure of the Other, examining the mechanisms and tools of this negation throughout history, while highlighting experiences and testimonies that prove this is not merely a struggle over land, but a battle for the invisible space of the soul and human memory.
1. Defining Colonialism and Genocide: Multi-Dimensional Violence and Control
At its core, colonialism is a systemic and methodical project of occupation and exploitation of peoples and lands. It is based on the imposition of foreign control that aims to alter the destiny of colonized societies—not only through military and political domination but also through the usurpation of their spirit and identity. It is a form of structural violence that transcends geographical boundaries to invade social and cultural structures, causing a profound disruption in the very framework of human existence.
Colonialism manifests in three interrelated dimensions:
Physical Genocide: The most overt form of violence, using killing, forced displacement, torture, and physical destruction as direct practices to subjugate people or eliminate those who resist. These acts attempt to erase the physical existence of the other so that the land becomes empty of opposition, leaving behind only ruins and graves.
Cultural Genocide: More insidious but with profound and long-lasting effects. It aims to erase language, destroy heritage, alter symbols and rituals, and impose the colonizer’s culture as the only acceptable norm. Cultural genocide is a war on the people’s memory and identity, where every undesired aspect of their existence is erased, leaving them rootless, historyless, memoryless, and soulless.
Symbolic Genocide: The most refined and subtle form of control. It works by distorting cultural symbols and values, diminishing the other through discourse and policy, and redefining them in a way that dehumanizes or depicts them as inferior and undeserving of respect or even recognition. This is genocide in the realm of meaning, where the legitimacy of the other’s existence is stolen, and their rights to representation and self-expression are denied.
Through this lens, colonialism becomes a complex project intertwining material violence with policies of spiritual and mnemonic destruction. It is a struggle not only over land but over the essence of humanity itself—its memory, identity, and its right to remain a free and complete self. Thus, confronting this project requires comprehensive resistance no less important than armed struggle—a resistance rooted in culture and memory, where the will to live and the right to be are preserved.
2. How the Colonizer Perceives the Other: From Human to “Savage”
In the colonial mindset, the “other” is not seen as a complete human being, but is transformed into a different, inferior creature—justifying enslavement and oppression. This process is neither accidental nor a matter of individual bias; it is an intellectual and political project designed to strip humanity from the colonized and reframe them as “savages,” “primitives,” or “uncivilized beings.”
In this vision, the “other” becomes the antithesis of the civilization and humanity the colonizer claims. The colonizer defines themselves through what is “civilized,” “modern,” and “rational,” in contrast to the “barbarity,” “ignorance,” and “primitiveness” ascribed to the colonized. This binary creates a vast chasm in understanding, erasing the other’s agency and reducing them to beings worthy only of obedience, death, or neglect.
This distorted image becomes a powerful tool to justify all forms of violence. Once the colonized are perceived as “savages,” killing, looting, and enslaving them becomes not just acceptable but a so-called “civilizing duty.” The “other” is no longer seen as entitled to human rights but as an obstacle to “progress,” who must be either “civilized” by force or eliminated.
This devaluation is not just a reflection of military supremacy but a deep symbolic construction that reinforces the colonizer’s authority intellectually and culturally. It denies the other’s humanity and strips them of dignity—making cultural and rational resistance a liberating act as vital as armed resistance.
3. Tools of Colonialism: Killing, Displacement, Language Bans, Symbol Destruction, Ignorance, Westernization
The colonial project is not limited to military or political occupation. It extends to a set of systematic tools aimed at total control over colonized peoples, not just physically but also spiritually, culturally, and intellectually. These tools form an integrated network of violence designed to dismantle the human essence of the other and render them a diminished, rootless, and memoryless being.
Killing: The ultimate and most visible form of violence. Physical killing severs the bond between human beings, their land, and identity. It is a direct denial of existence and a way to seize the land by eliminating its original inhabitants. In the colonial context, killing is not just an individual act but a systematic policy targeting mass extermination or racially motivated practices.
Displacement: Forcing indigenous populations to leave their lands, turning them into refugees or displaced people, creates open wounds in the social and cultural fabric. Displacement severs roots and breaks historical ties, making domination and control easier.
Language Bans: Language is the vessel of thought and memory, the means of expressing identity. Banning a people’s language or forcing them to use the colonizer’s language is an attempt to sever intergenerational communication, erase collective memory, and hollow out identity. The banned language becomes a symbol of resistance, which is why colonizers fear and suppress it.
Destruction of Symbols: Cultural symbols—temples, texts, art, or religious rituals—are the backbone of collective identity. Colonizers aim to destroy these symbols as a first step in erasing cultural memory, recognizing that eradicating symbols opens the door to rewriting history in their own image.
Ignorance: A powerful method for keeping peoples weak and unaware, making them easier to control. Denying national education and imposing curricula devoid of native identity and history creates generations with internalized inferiority and dependency. Ignorance becomes a cloak for invisible violence and a tool for cementing domination.
Westernization: Imposing the colonizer’s culture on indigenous populations, whether through force or seduction. Westernization seeks to dissolve local identities and dismantle traditional ties to produce a “modernized” but subordinate being—one stripped of agency, living within a narrow horizon controlled by the colonizer.
These tools, whether used separately or collectively, constitute a system of cultural, social, and physical repression aimed at erasing and usurping the other. Resistance through culture and identity becomes a sacred act and a struggle for life itself. Understanding these tools is key to grasping how peoples endure and how their cultures survive repeated attempts at eradication.
4. Historical Examples of Colonialism and Physical and Cultural Genocide
History is filled with stories of pain and struggle—stories of peoples who rarely tasted freedom but refused to be erased and held the banner of resistance despite all cruelty. These historical examples are not merely accounts of events; they are testimonies to a recurring colonial project meant to eliminate cultures and annihilate nations. But through human resilience and will, the spirit has not been crushed.
• French Colonialism in Algeria: Physical and Cultural Genocide
From 1830, France entered Algeria not just as a military force but as a colonial power reshaping cultural, political, and social realities. A brutal regime targeted the indigenous population, including mass killings, forced displacement, and a systematic ban on the Arabic language and Islamic culture.
French colonialism viewed Algerian culture as a “civilizational obstacle” to be erased. Arabic schools were shut down, French was imposed, and national curricula were abolished. The occupation did not stop at cultural erasure; physical violence was rampant, with hundreds of thousands killed—especially during the War of Liberation (1954–1962). This was an attempt to strip the Algerian people of their historical and cultural identity and impose the colonizer’s culture as the only alternative.
• British Colonialism in India: “Divide and Rule” and Erasure of National Memory
British colonialism in India lasted over 150 years and was marked by a calculated strategy of dividing society through the “divide and rule” policy, fostering sectarian and ethnic conflicts. English became a tool of cultural and political dominance, while many traditional Indian expressions were suppressed, and history was rewritten through a colonial lens.
Britain imposed an education system that served its interests, disconnected Indian youth from their heritage, and created generations dependent on the colonizer. This cultural colonialism weakened the people’s ties to their roots and helped maintain British political and economic domination.
• Turkification in Kurdistan: Cultural and Symbolic Genocide
In the heart of the Middle East, Kurdistan suffered cultural and political genocide, especially during the Ottoman Empire and modern Turkish Republic. The policies of “Turkification” aimed not only at demographic or political changes but sought to eliminate Kurdish identity.
The Kurdish language was banned in schools and public spaces; towns and villages were renamed in Turkish, and all Kurdish cultural symbols were erased. These efforts included forced displacement and massacres—such as the Anfal Campaign of the 1980s, which killed tens of thousands of Kurds.
• Israel and Palestine: Occupation and Cultural-Human Genocide
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict represents a modern model of settler colonialism combining military occupation with cultural control. Since the creation of Israel in 1948, Palestinians have endured forced displacement, village demolitions, land seizures, and a systematic campaign to erase Palestinian identity.
Arabic language, cultural heritage, and collective memory are under constant pressure. Israeli settlements seize the land; Palestinian educational materials are censored; even the Palestinian flag is banned in occupied territories. These efforts represent a form of symbolic genocide aimed at denying Palestinian political and cultural existence.
• The Armenian Genocide: A Historical Crime Against Memory and Existence
In the early 20th century, the Armenian people in the Ottoman Empire suffered one of the earliest modern genocides. Over one million Armenians were killed, and many others forcibly displaced in a systematic campaign that went beyond physical extermination to include the destruction of churches, burning of libraries, and renaming of towns.
This genocide was an attempt to sever Armenians from their land and heritage and to eliminate their existence as an independent people—employing various methods of killing, starvation, forced deportation, and cultural destruction.
• Genocide Against the Kurds: A History of Denial and Suffering
The Kurdish people, long subjected to political pressure and dispersion, have endured multiple attempts at physical and cultural genocide across Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. Beyond massacres, Kurds faced systematic language bans, suppression of cultural and political movements, mass displacements, and demographic manipulation.
The most infamous was Iraq’s Anfal Campaign in the 1980s, which killed around 180,000 Kurds and destroyed thousands of villages. These tragedies aimed to erase Kurds as a nation and erase their political and cultural heritage.
In Conclusion:
These historical examples show that colonialism and genocide are not isolated incidents, but recurring projects aiming to deny the other—physically, culturally, and symbolically. Yet despite pain and suffering, these peoples have preserved their cultural and spiritual fabric and continue to write the story of their resistance to this day.
Chapter Two: Culture as a Tool of Symbolic Resistance
The banned language as an underground cry (Kurdish, Amazigh, Hebrew in the past, etc.).
Folk songs and emotional resistance.
Resistance poetry: Mahmoud Darwish, Cegerxwîn, Nâzım Hikmet, Emre Halki.
Folk tales and myths in resisting oblivion.
Folklore: costumes, rituals, and dances as identity against erasure.
In a world dominated by coercive conflicts between forces of domination and liberation, culture emerges not only as a space for creativity and beauty but as a central tool of resistance—especially symbolic resistance that embodies the struggle of wills over meaning and identity. When peoples are stripped of their means of self-expression and colonial or hegemonic powers attempt to impose narratives that erase the Other, culture becomes the final bastion that protects humanity from being forgotten or erased.
Symbolic resistance, at its core, is the act of insisting on existence in the fullest sense of the word—a refusal to have one’s language confiscated, one’s stories erased, one’s memory assassinated, or the symbols that shape group identity suppressed. Culture here goes beyond practice or tradition; it becomes a deeply political and philosophical act—a struggle for the right to exist and for the legitimacy of one’s narrative and representation.
When people are forcibly alienated from their heritage, culture becomes a silent yet powerful tool of resistance. It pulses through poetry, songs, arts, and spoken language, defying attempts at psychological and symbolic occupation. It is a force that works from within, reshaping reality by reviving the spirit that colonialism sought to destroy.
In this sense, culture is not just a bridge between past and present but a weapon of symbolic resistance as impactful as physical weapons. It creates spaces of resistance that rebuild the self and help craft new stories of freedom and dignity, despite all attempts at symbolic erasure.
In this chapter, we explore how culture has historically transformed into a means of symbolic resistance. We will highlight examples and experiences that show how words, art, and symbols can become revolutionary acts—exposing oppression, reviving hope, and laying the foundation for a renewed existence that defies erasure.
1. The Banned Language as an Underground Cry
Language is not just a tool for daily communication or transferring information—it is the vessel of memory, the home of the soul, and the artery of identity that connects individuals to their roots, their land, and their history. When a language is banned, people are not merely prevented from speaking; they are prevented from being. They are cut off from ancestral stories, denied their historical narratives, and silenced in expressing their worldview. A banned language thus becomes an “underground cry”—a silent but enduring voice whispered in secret, stored in hearts and homes, away from the eyes of oppression.
Kurdish: The Language of Mountains and Suppressed Voices
In Kurdistan, the Kurdish language has endured a long history of suppression and marginalization. It wasn’t just banned from schools and media—it was systematically targeted as a means to sever people from their cultural legacy and expressive identity. In countries like Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria, Kurdish was often deemed an “illegal” or “forbidden” language. It was banned in education, excluded from official institutions, and its songs and poems were censored from public platforms.
Yet Kurdish did not vanish. It became a living form of resistance—spoken in homes, sung in hidden taverns, written in secret notebooks, and passed down orally through generations. It became the underground cry of a people—bearing the pain of history and the hope of future liberation. This imposed silence became a roaring voice of resistance, a symbol of an identity that refuses to die.
Amazigh: Between Suppression and Revival
The Amazigh language, spoken across North Africa, has also faced repeated attempts at cultural and political erasure. In countries like Morocco, Algeria, and Libya, Amazigh communities endured policies aimed at enforcing Arabic as the sole official language, relegating Amazigh to the margins as an unworthy “dialect.”
Still, Amazigh endured—preserved in rural villages and mountain towns, spoken in daily life, told through stories, and sung in songs. Over the past decades, it has become a symbol of the Amazigh cultural movement, which demands political and cultural recognition. The language has thus transformed from a banned tongue into a flag of identity and dignity. Its survival in the face of marginalization proves the strength of language as a tool of symbolic resistance, a way to reclaim selfhood and defy erasure.
Hebrew: From Sacred Tongue to National Language
The case of Hebrew offers a unique example among once-suppressed languages. For centuries, Hebrew remained largely sacred—used only in religious rituals and texts. It faded from everyday life, replaced by Arabic and Yiddish in many Jewish communities.
Yet with the rise of Zionism, Hebrew was revived as a living language. It became a central political and cultural tool in the founding of the modern state of Israel. Revived as a spoken tongue for millions, Hebrew evolved into a national unifier and symbol of rebirth. This transformation illustrates how a neglected or suppressed language can be restored to the heart of collective consciousness, becoming an act of resistance and cultural affirmation.
Other Languages: Global Tales of the Underground Cry
This phenomenon is not limited to Kurdish, Amazigh, or Hebrew. Around the world, the languages of Indigenous peoples and political minorities have faced systemic repression. From Tamil in Sri Lanka to Indigenous languages in Latin America and Australia, language has always been a battlefield between suppression and resistance.
Each time a language is banned, a new form of resistance is born. The suppressed language becomes a means of self-reconstruction and self-assertion. Secret poems, forbidden songs, and orally transmitted stories become codes of resilience—pulsing with life amid symbolic death imposed by colonization.
The Banned Language: Voice of Memory and Existence
Ultimately, these experiences prove that language—even when silenced—never truly dies. It becomes an underground cry, waiting for the moment to return to the light, carrying the burdens of history and the dreams of liberation. Language is a continuous resistance—it tells the story the colonizer wants forgotten and proclaims that memory and identity are not for sale and will not collapse.
Literary and Real-life Examples of Resistance through Banned Languages
A. Underground Poems: Kurdish Resistance through Verse
In the heart of Kurdistan’s mountains and in humble homes where Kurdish poems and songs are hidden from the authorities, poetry has worked miracles. Kurdish poets who wrote under linguistic prohibition became the voices of freedom. Their words turned into folk songs passed down through generations. Their poems were not mere verses, but arteries of life—connecting past and present and silently rejecting the theft of identity.
One tale tells of a young Kurdish man hiding a poetry book beneath his pillow, rereading it in secret after schools banned such books—feeling his heart beat with freedom despite the occupation’s chains. These verses became a secret password among people—a bridge from the silence of oppression to the voice of resistance.
B. Amazigh Tales in the Mountains: From Villagers’ Lips to Protest Squares
In North Africa, the stories of Amazigh storytellers are still told around fires at night, passed from generation to generation despite the state’s attempts to impose Arabic as the only language. In a small village in Morocco’s Rif region, an elderly woman recounted how she secretly taught her grandson Amazigh, fearing neighbors might report them to the authorities.
In recent decades, Amazigh movements have revived the language through poetry, theater, and music, using it in protests to demand cultural rights. Once muffled and hidden, the Amazigh voice has become a clear tool of resistance, proclaiming existence and history.
C. Reviving Hebrew: The Story of a Language Reborn
The revival of Hebrew is a rare testament to the power of cultural will. Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, a pioneer of this revival in the late 19th century, combined his national vision with his passion for the ancient Jewish tongue. He helped transform Hebrew from a dormant religious language into a living, spoken one.
Despite ridicule, Ben-Yehuda persisted—encouraging children to speak Hebrew, writing books and articles, and founding schools to revive the language. This linguistic resistance against cultural neglect was a revolutionary act that rebuilt an entire society.
D. Indigenous Languages in the Americas: Stories of Survival
In Latin America, Indigenous languages faced extinction under Spanish and Portuguese colonization, which imposed European tongues and erased native traditions. Yet in the Andes and Amazon forests, Indigenous communities kept teaching their languages to children—preserving ancestral stories and rituals.
One story tells of a Quechua girl in Peru who secretly refused to learn Spanish in school, instead listening to her elders at home, learning the old words—proving that language can be a living resistance, despite efforts to suppress it.
E. Diaspora Narratives: Language as a Weapon Against Forgetting
In exile, language becomes more than communication—it is a vault of memory preserving identity. Among Palestinian refugees, despite displacement and land loss, efforts persist to preserve the Palestinian Arabic dialect. In refugee camps, families still share stories and sing old songs in their mother tongue.
These simple words recreate the homeland in memory and serve as a form of resistance against marginalization and forgetting—a language that ignites hope and affirms continued existence.
Conclusion: The Banned Language as a Persistent Cry of Life
These literary and real-life examples affirm that a banned language is never just silent words—it is a continuous underground cry, pulsing with life and defying oppression in silence. It creates spaces of hope and freedom in the darkest times. It is living proof of the human capacity for resistance and a declaration that identity cannot be defeated, no matter how ruthless the forces of erasure.
2. Folk Songs and Emotional Resistance
In the collective heart of every nation, the folk song pulses like a beacon carrying its memory and identity, expressing the heartbeat of ordinary people during the darkest times and most difficult moments. Folk songs are not merely artistic luxuries or entertainment; they are the unquenchable voice of collective consciousness—a bridge connecting the past and present of peoples, and a secret fortress that shields the soul from erasure and repression.
When societies are subjected to oppression and colonization, resistance is not limited to battlefields or political rhetoric. It seeps deep into emotions, where the folk song becomes a tool of emotional resistance—expressing pain, hope, and threatened identity. It is the language of the spirit that refuses to be silenced or forgotten. Spoken in simple yet profound terms, it blends sorrow, longing, and dignity.
As emotional resistance, the folk song creates an inner space of freedom under external tyranny. It sings of the land that was taken, the loved ones who were lost, and the wounds that bleed yet never wither. It is a sensory translation of human struggle, where words become fragments of collective memory—silently screaming while preserving hope.
The folk song surpasses linguistic and social barriers. It becomes the voice of the poor and marginalized, the echo of mountain villages and sorrowful cities. It narrates stories of daily struggle and gives meaning to life amidst tragedy. In moments when language and symbols are banned, the folk song remains a means of survival—sustaining cultural presence and stirring the soul, turning pain into energy for resistance.
Throughout history, folk songs have mirrored resistance movements worldwide—from Kurdish songs praising the love of land and freedom, to Palestinian songs documenting the Nakba, to African anthems that awakened the spirit of anti-colonial liberation. This form of emotional resistance is a deep human expression, affirming that resistance is not only in the streets and fields, but also in the hearts and minds, where the song weaves joy and sorrow into a canvas of resilience.
3. Resistance Poetry: The Voice of Freedom and the Rebellious Soul
Resistance poetry is the voice that rises from the depths of pain and injustice, becoming a guiding light for the oppressed on long paths of struggle. It is the language that politics cannot articulate, the power of courageous words to shatter the barriers of silence and repression. Throughout history, poetry has been a refuge for the soul, a mirror of collective conscience, and the voice of hearts that refuse humiliation and defeat.
Many poets have turned their verses into acts of resistance and defiance—lifting their peoples on the wings of words toward freedom, redefining identity and culture in the face of oppression.
Mahmoud Darwish: The Poet of Land and Palestinian Memory
Mahmoud Darwish is the rebellious voice of Palestine, blending sorrow with dignity, national consciousness with universal humanity. In his poems, the land becomes a bleeding, resisting entity, and memory a bridge between exile and homeland. In one of his famous lines, he writes:
“On this land, there is that which deserves life.”
This phrase, which became a slogan of resistance, expresses a deep belief in the human capacity to endure despite oppression, embodying poetry as protest and a call to life in the face of constant attempts to erase Palestinian existence.Cegerxwîn: A Kurdish Voice of Love and Revolution
The Kurdish poet Cegerxwîn combines emotion and revolution, dream and harsh reality in his poetry. His banned Kurdish language meets political suffering to reaffirm Kurdish presence on its land. His poems are both a national and human call for freedom and dignity, proving that poetry is not a luxury but a weapon against injustice.Nâzım Hikmet: The Turkish Poet of Freedom and Peace
Nâzım Hikmet, one of the greatest poets of Turkey and the Middle East, symbolized freedom and justice. He resisted authoritarian regimes with the weapon of the word, voicing the hopes of the oppressed. In his poems, love becomes resistance, and peace a revolutionary act. He once wrote:
“I will not give up my right to life, no matter what happens.”
These words inspired all who refuse silence and humiliation, asserting poetry as a tool of liberation and defiance against dictatorship.
In summary, these three poets—despite differences in language and background—share the conviction that poetry is an act of resistance no less important than political or military struggle. Through their poems, words become a space of freedom and a continuous fight against all forms of colonization and oppression. Resistance poetry is proof that humans are not truly killed unless silenced—and that words can be swords illuminating the path to liberty.
4. Folk Tales and Myth in Resisting Oblivion
At the heart of any people’s collective memory lie folk tales and myths—more than mere children's stories or handed-down traditions. They are beacons that light the darkness colonialism and systems of domination seek to impose to erase the history and culture of the other. Folk tales and myths are powerful tools of resistance that preserve identity, shape shared memory, and challenge attempts at obliteration.
The folk tale reflects the reality of the community, blending truth with imagination, analyzing social and political crises through symbols and characters. It is the space where suffering and hope are restructured, and where the bond between people and their land, between reality and future, is woven. Through it, history remains alive in the people's consciousness, even if occupiers try to forget or distort it.
The myth, in the context of resistance, is not just a fictional story—it is a symbolic field conveying existential and moral meanings, transmitting values of resilience, courage, and dignity. Myth gives a people a sense of continuity and cosmic connection, turning the act of resisting oppression into something not only human but universal. It embeds the self in a sacred fabric extending across time.
When forgetting becomes a policy, tales and myths become an "alternative memory" that reaffirms presence and documents collective experience. They are a silent language more powerful than official documents or written records because they dwell in hearts and stir the soul. Through stories and myths, tragedies become epics, the defeated become heroes, and absence transforms into hope.
In societies that have endured cultural genocide or political oppression—like Kurdistan, Palestine, and Africa—folk tales and myths have become essential tools for preserving memory and identity. They form a resistant fabric that defies erasure and forced transformation. They are emotional celebrations of a self that refuses to die, battling through time to stay alive.
5. Folklore: Dress, Ritual, and Dance as Identity Against Erasure
In a world dominated by policies of cultural erasure and symbolic annihilation, folklore becomes the cornerstone for building spiritual and civilizational fortresses that protect peoples from cultural extinction. Traditional clothing, rituals, and dances are not naïve traditions or artistic indulgences—they are acts of resistance in themselves, carrying deep identity and asserting existence in the face of denial and erasure.
Clothing: The Language of the Body and History
Every piece of traditional attire, every embroidery, every color, is a living testimony of a long heritage passed down through generations. It tells the story of the people and their land, expressing their belonging and dignity. When traditional garments are banned or forbidden in public spaces, it is an attempt to sever the connection between people and their roots. Yet when people persist in wearing them in private or during special occasions, they openly reject these attempts. The clothing becomes a symbol of resistance and a celebration of self.Rituals: Practices of Being and Resistance
Whether religious, social, or celebratory, rituals strengthen ties between individual and community, between past and present, and between humanity and nature. Preserving these rituals under oppression is a revolutionary act—they reproduce and reinforce identity with each performance. Rituals are not just celebrations—they are responses to the forces of domination that aim to dismantle communities.Dances: Movements of Bodily Resistance
Folk dances, in their gestures and rhythms, express joy, sorrow, and hope. They are a form of both physical and symbolic resistance. Every dance embodies the people’s history, vitality, and defiance of oppressive conditions. When dance is banned, or a particular style is prohibited, the movements become a secret symbol of freedom—performed in hiding, reaffirming collective identity.Folklore as a Whole: A Resilient Fabric of Memory and Identity
Folklore is not aesthetic indulgence nor remnants of a bygone era—it is the living fabric that stitches memory to identity, reconnecting communities not as relics of the past, but as breathing, resisting, rising beings.
We preserve our traditions not only out of fear of forgetting but to confront, through those songs, dances, and embroidered garments, the symbolic annihilation targeting entire peoples. It is a declaration of presence that needs no political speech or official document. A Kurdish “Dabka,” a “Horon,” or an “Ataba” might, at a historical moment, be more effective than any constitutional document in affirming belonging and rights.
Folklore, in this sense, is not a recollection of the past but a constant recreation of the present grounded in memory. When language is banned, narratives distorted, and history reshaped through the occupier’s lens, people turn to their deepest wells—to songs that survived the slaughter, to cloth woven with symbols rather than words, to stories whispered mouth to ear in defiance of symbolic death no less brutal than physical death.
Colonialism, in its various forms, was not merely the occupation of land—it was a project to uproot the soul and falsify awareness. For this reason, folklore was not seen as harmless tradition but as a threat. Colonizers saw in folklore a seed of resistance—it reminds people of their roots, gives them tools for self-expression beyond state control, and restores their inner language that the oppressor cannot decode. Thus, it is no surprise that certain dances were banned, songs distorted, and those carrying a drum or wearing traditional attire were imprisoned, as happened to Kurds in Turkey, Berbers in Algeria, and Indigenous peoples in Latin America.
Folklore, then, is not of the past—it is what creates the present in defiance of cancellation and gives the future its deep roots. It is not limited to preservation but extends to creation and renewal, as old stories are retold to suit today’s struggles, and ancient rhythms revived with contemporary spirit, without compromising their core. When today’s youth dance to centuries-old melodies, they are not imitating their ancestors—they are declaring that this land, this attire, this dance, are not of the past, but of now—and of what’s yet to come.
Within folklore lies a resistant memory—sometimes hidden in decoration, sometimes in tales—yet ever-present like stone in a mountain or a scar on a body: unforgettable, indelible by decree or law. It is an alternative language that eludes power, yet frightens it, because it connects people and unites their sense of belonging—even if they no longer speak the same tongue.
Every thread in a traditional garment, every beat in a folk dance, every story passed down by a grandmother, is a political stance—even if not explicitly so. It is a root in the land, a memory intolerant of erasure, and a silent scream saying: We are here. We were here. We will remain here.
Folklore is not static—it is a living being that evolves through everyday life, adapting with time without losing its roots. It proves that silenced peoples do not die—they speak another language: the language of movement in dance, the melody of the song, the symbolism in embroidery. In societies facing linguistic and cultural repression, folklore is not merely cultural substitution—it is a clever code, a channel for messages, a sanctuary for memories. It says: If our words are stolen, you will not steal their meanings. Thus, every element of folklore becomes an indirect but profound act of resistance—more enduring than many armed battles. It is a battle over meaning, over time, over spirit, and over the unseen boundaries of identity that define who we are.
In folklore, symbols condense into a secret language passed down like the land. The embroidery on a traditional garment is not just aesthetic—it may be a hidden map of collective memory: a flower for a city, a color for a tribe, or a geometric pattern resembling a sacred mountain or river. Even how threads are woven or colors arranged is no accident—it is silent code signifying belonging to a silenced community. In collective dances, bodies align as one row, feet strike the ground in unison—as if to say: This is our land, we are part of it, and you will not uproot us. The symbol here is not mere tradition—it is a parallel discourse that escapes control, creating a cultural space of symbolic resistance where the people speak from under the ruins of repression—sending messages through drums, tales, threads, and movement.
Therefore, folklore cannot be reduced to festive appearances or romantic nostalgia—it is an integrated resistance system, working silently and effectively within collective consciousness. When an old song is sung at a wedding or funeral, it doesn’t merely revive rituals—it summons history and connects the present with invisible roots. In this sense, folklore becomes an inner fortress—impervious to weapons, unbreakable by bans—because it lives in memory, is carried in breath, and passed from generation to generation.
Section Three: The Resistant Intellectual
The Organic Intellectual in Gramsci’s Thought
The Role of the Writer and Poet in Times of Repression
Prison as a Birthplace of Monumental Texts
How the Intellectual Engages Politically through Literature and Thought
In times of oppression and occupation, resistance does not stop at military fronts or popular protests. It extends into the realms of thought, language, and consciousness. Here emerges the role of the resistant intellectual—not merely a contemplator or transmitter of knowledge, but a social and political actor bearing the responsibility of defending memory, identity, and the right to exist.
The resistant intellectual is the voice that does not bend before the machinery of repression, but instead shouts with letters of knowledge and freedom in the face of tyranny and colonization. They expose the symptoms of cultural and political alienation and work to dismantle hegemonic narratives, awakening collective awareness and fueling the energies of liberation. The intellectual, in this context, is not simply a conveyor of information, but a living historian and a visionary of a possible future.
Through the work of the resistant intellectual, culture transforms from a passive vessel into a critical act and a force for change. The word becomes a tool of resistance against attempts at cultural erasure. This figure faces intellectual and spiritual occupation with the same urgency as material conquest, seeing in their writing, lectures, and artistic expression a continuous form of struggle.
The resistant intellectual restores dignity to the self the colonizer tried to erase and forges a new discourse that fuses memory with lived experience, history with hope. They present alternatives grounded in freedom, justice, and dignity. They are the faithful guardian of a people’s memory and the witness of an era who narrates the story of struggle with honor and truth.
1. The Organic Intellectual in Gramsci: Between Thought, Politics, and the Making of Hegemony
Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937), the Italian philosopher and political thinker, is one of the most influential figures in redefining the role of the intellectual in modern society through his concept of the “organic intellectual.” Gramsci placed the intellectual at the heart of class struggle, viewing them not as neutral commentators or conveyors of knowledge, but as active participants in shaping—or dismantling—social and political structures.
Who Is the Organic Intellectual?
An organic intellectual is someone who emerges from within a specific social class and articulates its interests. They are not detached thinkers or mere transmitters of ideas but are central to shaping the cultural and political awareness of their class. Unlike traditional intellectuals, who often claim a position of universality or neutrality, organic intellectuals are deeply embedded in the material conditions and struggles of their communities.
Gramsci emphasized that hegemony is not achieved solely through coercion or force but through cultural dominance that convinces subordinate classes to accept the existing order as natural or inevitable. The organic intellectual, then, is the one who either helps to construct this hegemony—or resists it.
Organic Intellectuals and Cultural Hegemony
According to Gramsci, every major social class needs its own organic intellectuals who craft a cultural and ideological framework that justifies its existence and mobilizes its followers. These intellectuals are responsible for producing the “ideology” that preserves the interests of a given class, whether it be the ruling bourgeoisie or the working class seeking liberation.
Thus, the organic intellectual becomes a key player in the cultural class struggle: either reinforcing the dominant hegemony or working to dismantle it.
The Organic Intellectual as a Liberating Figure
Gramsci also acknowledged the potential for organic intellectuals to emerge from marginalized or revolutionary classes, working to build an alternative consciousness and counter-culture that challenges the existing order. This intellectual is deeply connected to their community, aware that their role is not just to produce knowledge but to turn that knowledge into a transformative force.
They strive to build new social alliances, expand political awareness, and galvanize collective action to disrupt dominant systems of control.
Key Characteristics of the Organic Intellectual (per Gramsci):
Class Embeddedness: The intellectual is materially and ideologically rooted in their social class, expressing its goals and worldview.
Intertwined Political and Cultural Work: Their intellectual labor is inherently political, aimed at achieving societal transformation.
Shaping Mass Consciousness: They create a new cultural discourse that fosters class identity and turns culture into political engagement.
Reproduction or Resistance to Hegemony: They may either serve as tools of hegemonic power or architects of counter-hegemonic resistance.
On-the-Ground Engagement: They do not reside in ivory towers but are actively involved with their communities and responsive to their needs.
Gramsci’s concept underscores that culture is not neutral—it is a battlefield. It also challenges intellectuals who support authoritarian regimes and elevates those who use knowledge to fight for justice and emancipation.
In short, the organic intellectual is not just a thinker or writer, but a revolutionary consciousness builder—an essential agent in shaping the collective destiny of a people, either through reinforcing domination or resisting it. Understanding this role is essential to grasping how culture can evolve from a mere receptacle of ideas into a force of genuine social transformation.
2. The Role of the Writer and Poet in Times of Repression
In moments of oppression and injustice, the writer and the poet become far more than artists crafting verses or stories. They become witnesses to silenced truths, guardians of collective memory, and ambassadors of freedom. In a world where voices are stifled and speech is censored, the writer and poet stand as the final line of defense for human dignity and cultural identity.
The writer, through narrative, reconstructs a reality that the oppressor seeks to erase—unveiling hidden injustices and speaking for the voiceless. The poet, with sensitivity and symbolism, transforms pain into beauty, and suffering into a creative power that pierces indifference and stirs sleeping consciences.
Writing and poetry acquire an existential and political dimension during times of repression; they become means of nonviolent resistance and proclamations of dignity. Words are no longer mere signs, but seeds planted in the soil of suffering, destined to bloom into freedom and hope.
Writers and poets do not merely document reality—they confront the oppressive rewriting of memory and identity. They offer counter-narratives to the myths of tyranny and occupation. Their texts create free spaces amid fear and confinement, capturing the heartbeat of the people and giving voice to the silenced.
Through literature and poetry, symbolic resistance is born. The word becomes a revolutionary act, mapping new lines of confrontation between liberty and subjugation. In doing so, the writer and poet affirm that culture is the unbreakable stronghold, and the word remains mightier than all instruments of oppression.
3. Prison as a Birthplace of Monumental Texts
Prison is, on the surface, a place of deprivation and silence—a space where the body is confined, rights are stripped, and hope is often extinguished. Yet paradoxically, it has often served as a fertile ground for the emergence of powerful creative works. In conditions of oppression and solitude, prison becomes not only a place of confinement but also a crucible of the soul—giving rise to profound texts that transcend space and time.
Within the prison walls, where the sound of freedom fades and horizons darken, the voices of writers and poets often grow louder and more defiant. The physical and material limitations imposed on them push them inward, prompting deep introspection and engagement with memory and identity. Solitude becomes a space for contemplation, inner excavation, and ultimately, creation.
In the silence of confinement, thoughts accumulate, and words are spun into webs of meaning that safeguard the self from collapse. The act of writing becomes an inner rebellion—a form of resistance that preserves hope and affirms the capacity to dream beyond imprisonment.
Texts born in prison are rarely mere chronicles of confinement; they are existential testimonies of the human capacity to rise above constraints and proclaim freedom amid chains. They carry within them the echo of pain and the shimmer of resilience, acting as torches that light the path of future resistance.
The legacy of resistance literature is filled with works penned in cells—poems, memoirs, novels, and letters that became landmarks of human dignity. These works prove that even within prison’s harsh walls, literature can soar, and a pen can wield power more enduring than the sword.
4. How the Intellectual Engages Politically Through Literature and Thought
At their core, intellectuals are not simply knowledge producers or analysts of reality. They are political actors, capable of reshaping collective consciousness and forging new societal visions. In this context, literature and thought are not decorative tools, but active arenas of political struggle—where values collide and ideas ignite transformation.
The intellectual exercises political agency by crafting literary and philosophical discourse that exposes injustice, challenges authoritarianism, and reconstructs threatened identities. Literature becomes a platform for the marginalized, a mirror reflecting hidden suffering, and a lamp illuminating the paths to freedom. Critical thought, in turn, liberates the mind from dominant narratives, deconstructs myths perpetuated by oppressive regimes, and reveals mechanisms of exclusion and exploitation.
Through writing and theory, the intellectual creates new spaces for dialogue and representation. They build cultural and social alliances that lay the groundwork for resistance. They ask forbidden questions, cross red lines, and imagine alternatives for societies submerged in darkness. The word becomes revolutionary, and the idea a battleground that penetrates not only political discourse but the fabric of everyday life.
Crucially, the true intellectual does not merely produce texts or echo ready-made slogans. They act as a historical agent—carrying the weapon of memory and advancing a liberatory project aimed at dismantling the symbolic and mental structures that sustain domination. They do not write for mere beauty or reflection, but to expose falsity and discredit the grand lies of political, religious, and colonial powers.
They rewrite history—not as the victor’s tale, but as the people's suppressed narrative. They resist the monopoly of documentation by the state and challenge official accounts crafted by paid historians, manipulated curricula, and propaganda machines. In doing so, the intellectual becomes a resistance fighter against erasure.
Their invocation of the past is not nostalgic but strategic—an instrument of struggle that reclaims identity and empowers collective memory with dignity and justice. They raise fundamental questions about identity, belonging, citizenship, and symbolic sovereignty, and lead a battle to reclaim the human from the rubble of long oppression.
While the state seeks to manufacture a “docile citizen” through the taming of memory and imagination, the intellectual performs the opposite function: they liberate the imagination, give voice to memory, courage to language, and power to critical thinking. They open new perspectives through which society can rediscover itself beyond imposed images. This is what makes their role inherently political—even when performed within a poem or a classroom.
Ultimately, the intellectual’s political engagement may not always be populist or immediate—but it is deeply transformative. It aims at the roots: the symbolic and mental foundations of the existing order. It shakes these foundations from within by questioning assumptions, dismantling narratives, and illuminating the silenced and forgotten.
They build a form of cultural resistance equal in importance to armed resistance—one that plants the seeds of awareness, reclaims the human as a free being capable of dreaming, protesting, and transforming.
In times of symbolic annihilation, the intellectual becomes the bearer of memory’s torch, the banner-holder of language, and the guardian of meaning. Their role is not to console the victims—but to unsettle the oppressors. Not only to document what happened—but to proclaim that it shall not happen again, for there are those who will stand—in the strength of thought alone—against the tide of forgetting.
Fourth: Theater, Cinema, and Visual Arts as Acts of Resistance
• Awareness Theater and Popular Mobilization
• Documentary Cinema: Documenting Crimes and Safeguarding Memory
• Visual Arts: Murals, Photography, Calligraphy, and Painting as Tools of Defiance
• Examples: Zygmunt Bauman on Art and Memory, Algerian Resistance Films, Kurdish Paintings in Exile
In the realms of artistic expression, theatrical and cinematic works, alongside visual arts, transcend the boundaries of aesthetic indulgence to become arenas of intellectual and spiritual struggle. These forms of art, which delve into the depths of human consciousness, do not merely reflect reality—they become potent tools to dismantle the constraints imposed by oppressive regimes and to deconstruct authoritarian narratives that claim a monopoly on truth.
Here, theater is not simply a reenactment of tales or scenes, but a living platform that reconstructs reality in ways that ignite the audience’s awareness and invite them into the collective experience of resistance. Through live performance, the stage becomes a field of freedom where ideas clash and silenced voices converge, sparking both thought and emotion.
Cinema, with its ability to capture moments and invoke memory, becomes a visual archive that gives voice to suppressed truths and tells the stories of peoples striving to uphold their dignity amid political and social turmoil. It opens a window to the outside world, serving as a voice for justice and humanity.
As for visual art, it is the language of colors and forms that pierce through silence, embodying pain and rebellion through symbols and concepts that resist erasure and denial. A single painting or sculpture can defy oppressive machinery and leave an indelible mark on collective memory.
Through all these art forms, resistance emerges as a comprehensive creative act—where artistic expression becomes a weapon against tyranny, and art turns into the language of freedom and dignity that refuses to yield to oppression.
1. Awareness Theater and Popular Mobilization: Art as a Space for Transformation and Rebellion
In the socio-political landscape, awareness theater emerges as one of the deepest artistic spaces where culture intersects with struggle, and thought converges with collective action. This kind of theater is not merely a display of stories, but a living space pulsating with communal spirit, where audience and performers engage in a shared experience that transcends entertainment to reach realms of awareness and transformation.
Awareness theater redefines the individual's relationship with reality by opening wide windows onto communal concerns, illuminating paths to understanding and consciousness regarding identity, justice, freedom, and resistance. Here, the audience is not a passive recipient but an active participant in meaning-making and even in mobilization for political and social change.
Through its symbols and direct dialogues, awareness theater interrogates power structures and oppressive social systems, exposing the falsity of official narratives and revealing the exploitation of power. Thus, theater becomes not only a mirror of society but a critical tool for reshaping collective awareness, bridging memory and lived experience, and linking the present to the future.
Within the context of popular mobilization, theatrical performances become vibrant moments of struggle that awaken the emotions of the masses, feed political enthusiasm, and activate collective consciousness as a force of resistance. Awareness theater becomes a space for collective learning and free expression of injustice—a stage that defies the enforced silence of authoritarian regimes.
This type of theater creates "in-between spaces" that blend art with politics, and the individual with the collective. Ideas flow, experiences are exchanged, and strategies of resistance are woven together, making the arts tools of life that reshape reality from within.
Awareness theater goes beyond words and performance; it encompasses every cultural and public act that contributes to the development of critical awareness, the strengthening of participatory spirit, and the empowerment of culture as a force in social and political struggle. Here, theater reveals itself as a tool for transformation and a genuine revolutionary act that redefines art as a liberated form of expression that refuses submission and believes in human liberation.
2. Documentary Cinema: Documenting Crimes and Preserving Memory
In the dark corners that authoritarian regimes seek to obscure, documentary cinema emerges as a vigilant eye that fearlessly observes events and records reality. It is more than a visual art form—it is a true act of resistance aimed at preserving collective memory and protecting the truth from distortion or erasure. In a time when official records fade and testimonies are lost, the documentary camera becomes an honest mirror of pain and struggle, exposing the crimes of tyranny and occupation.
Documentary cinema expresses a human and ethical commitment, refusing to let history be erased or truth buried under the weight of official silence. By capturing critical moments, it challenges global indifference, amplifies oppressed voices, and recounts the stories of peoples who faced genocide, displacement, and repression. It becomes a living testimony that cannot be silenced, opening pathways to global awareness and providing analytical clarity.
Its role goes beyond documenting events—it stirs human conscience and provokes solidarity and a sense of justice. It is a key player in building collective memory, linking past and present, and reviving forgotten narratives through a blend of documentation and human emotion.
The power of documentary cinema lies in its ability to balance truth-telling with artistic impact. It’s not a cold account of facts but a deeply emotional visual experience that explores the heart of reality and moves minds and hearts alike. Thus, documentary film becomes a tool of change and a cultural act of resistance against memory erasure and deliberate distortion of truth.
3. Visual Arts: Murals, Photography, Calligraphy, and Painting as Tools of Defiance
In cityscapes and streets where daily life intersects with the voice and silence of power, visual art emerges as a bold cry that embraces walls and pierces through silence. Murals, images, calligraphy, and paintings are not merely aesthetic elements—they are tools of resistance that give voice to public spaces and transform them into political and cultural arenas of defiance.
Murals: The Living Voice of the Walls
Walls, often seen as static barriers, are transformed into expressive canvases that carry political and social messages. Murals are acts of visual liberation that break through fear and interrupt urban silence. Each mural encapsulates a people’s story, speaks of hope and defiance, and reflects the struggle against injustice and marginalization. It’s a medium that reaches the masses beyond elite cultural circles, resonating deeply in collective consciousness.Photography: Freezing the Moment and Delivering the Message
Whether photographic or illustrative, the image captures a moment of truth, loaded with symbolic depth. Seemingly simple, the image can shake hearts and awaken minds. It confirms the occurrence of events, records pain and rebellion, and becomes a powerful counter to media distortion—an essential tool for truth-telling.Calligraphy: Language of the Soul and Identity of Script
Calligraphy is not just a mode of written expression—it is a cultural extension of the self and a marker of identity. Arabic calligraphy, for instance, transforms letters into artistic compositions that affirm heritage against cultural alienation. In the context of resistance, calligraphy becomes an encoded message that symbolizes defiance against colonialism and re-establishes ties with original identity.Painting: Free Expression and Revolutionary Imagination
Painting provides artists with the freedom to express their stances and ideas, visually portraying the struggle between oppression and freedom, pain and hope. Through color and form, the artist weaves visual narratives that defy repression and document resistance. The act of painting becomes not just aesthetic but a political statement that raises awareness and fosters a counter-cultural discourse.
In essence, visual art is not cultural luxury but a vibrant act of resistance that rejects oppressive realities and creates free zones within the public sphere. Murals, images, calligraphy, and paintings form a visual dialogue with authority, carrying messages of hope and endurance. They affirm that art can be a powerful weapon against injustice and erasure.
4. Examples of Art and Resistance: Zygmunt Bauman, Algerian Resistance Films, and Kurdish Paintings in Exile
Throughout humanity’s journey through pain and resistance, art has remained a constant companion—documenting, historicizing, and defying. It forms a living memory that challenges forgetfulness and erasure. This power is embodied in Zygmunt Bauman’s philosophical insights, in the cinema that chronicled the struggles of nations, and in the paintings created in exile by Kurdish artists.
Zygmunt Bauman: Art as a Memory Reservoir in an Age of Fluidity
The sociologist Zygmunt Bauman argues that collective memory is not fixed—it is fluid, continuously reshaped by shifting social and political conditions. In a world of rapid change and globalizing forces that dissolve identities, art becomes a crucial tool for preserving memory and forging identity.According to Bauman, art is not a luxury but a symbolic act of resistance. It confronts the erasure of history and serves to anchor a people’s experiences in emotional and visual forms that resist cultural annihilation. Every artistic work—be it a painting, a text, or a film—is an act of self-preservation and defiance against marginalization.
Algerian Resistance Films: Cinema as Witness and Compass of Struggle
During Algeria’s war of liberation from French colonialism (1954–1962), cinema became an essential medium for documenting events and broadcasting the voice of resistance. Films like The Battle of Algiers (1966) by Gillo Pontecorvo and others were not mere historical records; they were national projects of consciousness-raising and breaking the media blockade.These films faithfully portrayed the sacrifices of the Algerian people and exposed violence and repression. They became voices of resilience and dignity, stirring viewers’ solidarity and mobilizing political action. In this context, cinema was not entertainment but a visual act of resistance—refusing to let truth disappear beneath the lies of power.
Kurdish Paintings in Exile: Colors of Displacement and Visions of Memory
In the face of forced displacement and exile, Kurdish paintings created abroad became mirrors of longing and dreams of return. Through their colors and forms, Kurdish artists preserved memories of their homeland and defied the erasure of cultural and political existence. These works bear both tragic scenes and symbols of hope, conveying stories of siege, resistance, and dignity.Kurdish art in exile not only documents pain but also visualizes a resistant consciousness. It redefines the bond between people and their land, their past and present, and resists obliteration. It expresses the spirit of an unbreakable people, a visual challenge to efforts of cultural erasure.
In conclusion, Bauman’s sociological lens intersects with the lived experiences of peoples under the weight of colonization and genocide—times when life was shaped by ash and silence, and identity was threatened not just by bullets, but by the forced forgetfulness imposed on memory. Art, in this context, is not an aesthetic accessory but a tool of survival—a weapon carried in exile, prison, forbidden fields, and cities where song, language, and dance are banned.
In Algerian resistance films, where soil mixed with martyr’s blood and songs blended with gunfire, cinema becomes more than image—it is a reclamation of dignity and a confrontation with the void colonialism left in the soul. These films do not merely recount the past; they reshape the present and rewrite the Algerian narrative from within, stripping the colonizer of the power to define history, language, and image. The camera becomes a symbolic rifle, the frame a popular archive, rooting the people back into themselves after an attempted cultural uprooting.
In Kurdish paintings born in exile, we don’t just see nostalgia—we see a map of collective pain. The mountain is not mere geography, but a living memory. The colors are not decorative—they are existential codes. The Kurdish artist, facing banned language and silenced names, draws as though the brush were a forbidden mother’s voice, and the canvas a cry against the distortion of an entire nation’s history.
Bauman’s vision of “liquid modernity” and the dissolving of identity in the age of consumerism is countered here by resistance through art—resistance not only for survival but for meaning, to keep memory alive even when homes are demolished, schools shut down, and native names prohibited. In this sense, art becomes the collective memory bank, the one way individuals can bear witness to what must not be forgotten.
In the face of regimes that pursue cultural cleansing and spiritual exile, art stands as the final sanctuary of identity—a symbolic frontline that cannot be bombed, yet profoundly unsettles the tyrant. It doesn’t beautify reality—it wounds it open, uncovers what the regime seeks to bury, and leaves the door open for questioning, hope, and return.
Thus, the Algerian and Kurdish experiences, though geographically distant, intersect in proving that art born of pain becomes a means of survival, a reclaiming of meaning, and a reconstruction of collective identity in defiance of forgetting. Through this lens, Bauman’s reflections on modernity, fragmentation, and transformation push us toward a deeper understanding of art’s role as resistance to fluidity, erasure, and the imposition of meaningless existence on oppressed peoples.
Fifth: Journalism and Media as a Cultural Front
Banned press, underground journalism, and publications printed in the shadows
Resistance magazines: intellectual approaches against colonialism
How is media used as a means of protecting language and identity?
In a time when material wars intersect with cultural battles, journalism and media become more than tools for reporting news or recounting events. They transform into key fronts in the struggle for awareness and identity. The importance of media lies not only in delivering the truth but also in shaping meaning, forming visions, and crafting discourses that safeguard culture and defend collective memory.
In this context, journalism and media are vital cultural weapons that can be used by systems of repression and occupation to spread propaganda and distort reality. Yet, they can also serve as platforms of resistance, voices for the marginalized, and instruments for reviving neglected causes. Through them, official narratives are challenged, lies exposed, and the public mobilized to adopt a critical consciousness capable of countering erasure and domination.
Free and conscious media create civilizational frontlines that protect cultural diversity, reinforce national and human belonging, and open paths for dialogue and understanding. Thus, the journalist and media professional become cultural resisters, bearing the heavy responsibility of guiding the struggle through words and images, and through precise, unforgettable information.
In this modern cultural conflict, journalism and media are no different from traditional battlefields, for control over minds and consciousness is the cornerstone of domination—and controlling media is the key. Hence, the significance of transforming media into a tool for intellectual liberation and rebuilding society on the foundations of freedom and justice.
1. Banned Press, Underground Journalism, and Publications Printed in the Shadows: The Voice of Freedom in the Darkness of Oppression
In times of oppression and occupation—when the curtain of censorship falls over free expression and official media shuts its doors to truth—banned journalism emerges as a scream of resilience, a symbol of peoples' determination to resist injustice. Underground journalism and publications printed in secrecy are not mere vessels for news, but sparks of light piercing the thick darkness, digging tunnels beneath the walls of tyranny to deliver the voice of truth to those yearning for freedom.
This clandestine press, born in secrecy and spread through hidden networks, acts like the lifeblood of resistance. The written word becomes a revolutionary act, a force that shakes the thrones of tyrants and reignites hope in the hearts of the oppressed. Within these publications, stories of victory and grief are written, tragedies are documented, and defiance is declared—thus shaping the identity and resilience of nations.
Banned journalism demands exceptional courage from those who write, print, and distribute it. These individuals operate in the shadows, facing daily risks, and making profound sacrifices to preserve the people's right to knowledge and awareness. This type of journalism is not merely about sharing words—it is about building mutual trust, sparking the flames of consciousness that can lead to change.
In the past, underground publications disrupted the fog of media blackout and created networks of interaction and solidarity among resisters. They redefined cultural and political struggle outside the reach of censorship and authority. These are living proof that the human will to express itself freely cannot be defeated, and that words, no matter how chained, remain free in their essence.
2. Resistance Magazines: Intellectual Frameworks Against Colonialism
At the heart of the struggles of nations against colonialism and domination, resistance magazines emerged as vital intellectual and cultural arenas. They were never mere containers of news or literature; rather, they became strategic platforms for shaping comprehensive intellectual frameworks aimed at liberating the mind, restoring identity, and constructing a resistant national consciousness. These magazines carried a deep emancipatory dimension, opening windows to new ideas and blending theory with practice—philosophy with politics—to build a strong intellectual foundation for struggle.
- Resistant Thought in the Face of Colonialism
Resistance magazines were not limited to the realm of language—they served as cultural laboratories for critical dialogue, future visioning, and analyzing the mechanisms and impacts of colonialism. History was read through the eyes of the oppressed, and colonial systems were critiqued on multiple levels—economic, political, and cultural. These magazines placed resistance thought at the center of intellectual discourse, emphasizing that cultural liberation is just as crucial as political liberation.
- Tools for Building National Consciousness
Through the pages of these magazines, the experiences of resisting peoples were shared, forgotten heritage was revived, and discourse was directed at younger generations to instill values of resistance and dignity. The magazines built bridges between intellectual elites and the masses, bringing ideas together and promoting narratives that strengthened national spirit, encouraged struggle, and fostered unity in the face of occupation.
- Diverse and Evolving Intellectual Approaches
Resistance magazines offered diverse, ever-evolving intellectual approaches—combining liberatory philosophy, social critique, human rights, and political theories that reinforced the concept of popular sovereignty. These magazines stood out for their boldness, depth of analysis, and their ability to link theory with activist practice. They became arenas for testing ideas, exploring alternatives, and promoting debates that contributed to building a new society based on justice and equality.
In Conclusion
Resistance magazines have been—and continue to be—living symbols of cultural liberation, indispensable tools in the struggle for intellectual and political decolonization. Through these magazines, history is rewritten—not as the victors tell it, but as lived by the exiled, the crushed, the martyrs, and the displaced. They are platforms from which the light of truth breaks through the fog of misinformation; fields where ink clashes with gunpowder; where the voice of freedom and justice echoes against all attempts at erasure.
These were never just periodicals to be read and forgotten—they were and remain advanced frontlines in the battle for awareness, true laboratories for the making of identity, and free spaces for the growth of resistant thought. They don’t merely document events—they reshape time itself through their discourse. Words become weapons, articles become trenches, and headlines rise as banners above the walls of oppression and silence.
In resistance magazines, the chains of silence are shattered, memory is reclaimed, and the collective narrative of undefeated peoples is written—peoples who, despite their wounds, refused to disappear. These magazines do not simply record what happened—they reveal what was meant to remain hidden, summon what was meant to be forgotten. In doing so, the resistance magazine becomes a tool not only to confront colonialism as a land occupation, but as an occupation of language, identity, and meaning itself.
Every issue of these magazines is a chapter in the open book of freedom, and every article an arrow aimed at the heart of cultural imperialism. Through these pages, the collective self is rebuilt, the structure of hegemony is dismantled, and the culture of the oppressed is restored—not as a reaction to aggression, but as a proactive force of resistance.
These magazines do not merely speak for colonized or oppressed peoples—they are cries of consciousness that transcend borders, calling for liberation from all forms of domination: political tyranny, cultural alienation, and beyond. Thus, they carry a mission as vital as armed resistance or political struggle, waging the battle of ideas, redefining the enemy, and restoring to humanity its awareness of its own freedom.
Through resistance magazines, history is written anew—not as the victors wish it to be, but as it was truly lived by the displaced, the crushed, the fallen, and the survivors. These platforms shine with the light of truth amidst deception, where ink and fire meet—ensuring that the voice of justice and freedom lives on in the face of every attempt at erasure, and that the written word remains a bridge between the wounds of yesterday and the hope of tomorrow.
Section Six: Language as Identity and a Front of Resistance
Language as the last refuge of identity
Policies of language erasure and the imposition of colonial languages
Examples: banning Kurdish, the Frenchification of Algeria, Turkification, etc.
Language revival: a project of survival and resistance
At the core of human existence, language is more than a tool of communication—it is the pulse of the soul and the eye of the heart through which one sees oneself and the world. Language ties the individual to their community, the present to the past, memory to history. It is not merely words and sounds; it is the living body of identity, the banner of cultural and political belonging, and the mirror of a people’s emotional and psychological depth.
In a world riddled with conflict and domination, language becomes more than identity—it becomes a battlefield of resistance against erasure and cultural-political subjugation. It transforms into a powerful weapon defending identity, resisting cultural genocide, and rewriting hope in the face of intellectual and social colonization. When a language is banned, the occupier seeks to erase a people’s very existence. But when that language is spoken again, a new history of resilience and defiance is written.
Language as resistance is an act of life and presence. It is a daily struggle to uphold human rights—expression, comprehension, recognition. In this space, words become revolutionary energy, and stories become shields that protect collective memory from oblivion. Thus, language is not just an identity preserved—it is a vital battleground where the chapters of the fight for freedom and dignity are written.
1. Language as the Last Refuge of Identity
In a world where everything fades—borders erased, landmarks lost, memory dismantled—language remains the last harbor where identity docks, the final fortress that shields the self. Language is not merely spoken or written words; it is the soil where the roots of existence grow, the space where history is recalled, the mirror through which individuals connect to the depths of their selves and communities.
When land is lost, and people are forced into exile and diaspora, language becomes the lifeline to their origins. It preserves memory, culture, and tradition. It is a place of safety in rootless times, a reflection of exile that echoes the dreams of return and the refusal to surrender identity to erasure and distortion.
Language, then, is more than communication—it is the final refuge from self-forgetting, a living memory carrying myths and stories, and a space where collective spirit is rebuilt each time the language is spoken. In it, a sense of belonging is born, the future is reimagined, and stories are told that preserve hope and endurance.
In this final domain, language becomes action that grants meaning to existence, continuity to identity, and dignity to humanity. It is the place where life is celebrated against all odds, and where resistance to cultural genocide rises with unwavering strength.
2. Policies of Language Erasure and Colonial Imposition
Within colonial and domination projects, military conquest was never the sole objective. Control reached deep into consciousness and memory, and language became one of the most critical fronts of struggle. Colonizers understood that to control a language was to control thought, identity, and the capacity to resist domination. Thus, systematic policies were enacted to erase native languages and impose colonial ones as a primary tool to dissolve cultural specificity and assimilate populations into the new power structure.
Strategies of Language Erasure
Colonial regimes employed various strategies, including banning native languages in schools, prohibiting them in official institutions, imposing the colonial language as the sole medium of education and administration, and outlawing publishing in any language other than the imposed one. They also launched campaigns to devalue the native tongue, labeling it uncivilized, backward, and associating it with poverty and ignorance.
Imposing the Colonial Language: A Tool of Cultural Domination
The colonial language functioned not just as communication, but as a potent tool of power and dominance. It became the language of administration, education, economy, and culture. Through it, the colonial narrative justified its presence, demonized indigenous cultures, and promoted dependency. It created a local elite, educated in the colonizer’s schools, who internalized and reproduced this hegemony from within.
Consequences of Language Erasure
The erasure of native languages devastated cultural and social identities, eroding vast portions of historical and cultural heritage, fragmenting social fabric, and weakening communal spirit. Individuals lost the ability to fully express themselves or connect with their origins, often resulting in a crisis of identity—torn between the colonizer’s language and their own suppressed heritage.
In summary, language erasure and the imposition of colonial tongues were not mere administrative acts—they were core to a comprehensive colonial project aiming to erase peoples and transform them into submissive entities. In response, native languages became vital fronts of resistance, expressing the will to preserve cultural existence and assert the right to be seen, heard, and remembered.
3. Examples of Language Suppression and Colonial Imposition
Modern history is filled with colonial and state policies aimed at erasing indigenous languages and enforcing dominant ones, forming a central component of broader political and cultural control. These examples reveal how language became a key site of conflict and resistance.
The Suppression of Kurdish: Erasing National Identity
For decades, Kurdish communities across Turkey, Iran, Syria, and Iraq faced systematic suppression of their language. In Turkey, Kurdish was officially banned in education and media, and public use was criminalized. These policies sought to assimilate Kurds into Turkish nationalism, turning them into “silent Turks.” Yet, Kurdish persisted as a form of cultural and spiritual resistance, surviving in homes, private gatherings, and oral traditions.
The Frenchification of Algeria: Language as a Colonial Weapon
During French colonial rule in Algeria (1830–1962), the French language was forcibly imposed as a tool of cultural and political domination. Arabic and Amazigh languages were excluded from schools and official institutions. French was framed as the language of progress and modernity, while local languages were depicted as ignorant or inferior. French served to sever Algerians from their cultural roots. Yet, Arabic became a symbol of resistance and national unity, regaining prominence after independence.
Turkification: Imposing Turkish on Minorities
The Ottoman Empire and later the Turkish Republic implemented "Turkification" policies to unify national identity by enforcing Turkish on minority groups such as Kurds, Armenians, and Greeks. Other languages were banned in schools and institutions, and Turkish became the sole language of official life. These efforts aimed to erase cultural diversity and reshape national identity within a narrow nationalist framework. Minorities, however, preserved their languages in homes and community spaces, continuing their struggle for cultural recognition and freedom.
In summary, these examples show that language suppression and forced linguistic assimilation are not neutral acts, but deliberate political strategies meant to erase histories and identities. In the face of such policies, language remains a vital resistance front, expressing the enduring will of people to exist and preserve their humanity.
4. Reviving Language: A Project of Survival and Resistance
When a language is killed or marginalized, it is not just words that die—entire memories, cultural lifeways, and even national existence risk extinction. In the face of cultural erasure and symbolic genocide, language revival becomes more than a linguistic or educational initiative—it becomes a national, existential act of resistance, a declaration of life and refusal to be forgotten.
Language as Lifeline for Cultural Survival
Reviving a language restores living memory—the songs, stories, sayings, and folk literature that nourish the collective spirit. When a language returns, the soul that was lost to foreign tongues returns as well. It affirms that identity is not just past—it is a living present and a future built on words.
Resistance through Education and Documentation
Language revival often begins in schools and cultural centers where children are taught their mother tongue, stories and traditions are documented, and new generations are encouraged to take pride in their heritage. This education goes beyond linguistics—it becomes a site of resistance against cultural dispossession and a foundation for a sovereign, yet globally aware, national identity.
Media and Arts as Catalysts for Revival
Media and the arts play crucial roles in reviving language—through television, film, literature, and creative expression in minority languages. These efforts return the language to everyday life, giving it voice and presence, breaking the isolation imposed by repressive policies.
In conclusion, reviving a language is not merely about restoring forgotten alphabets or sounds—it is a historical act tied to survival and selfhood. It is not just a return to words, but a return to the self, to memory, and to the cultural breath that revitalizes the spirit of a nation.
Language revival rebuilds the symbolic home of a people—the space where stories are told, wisdom is passed on, songs and prayers are preserved, and dreams are spoken in their original form, free from imposed dominance or forced translation. It is often a silent resistance, but more powerful than weapons, because it reconstructs from within and protects what is invisible yet essential.
Ultimately, language is not just a marker of identity—it is a condition of freedom and a vessel of dignity. Peoples who fight for their language are fighting for their right to be, to be seen, to be respected, and to write their history in their own voice—not in the language of others. For this reason, language revival remains an open-ended project of resistance and renewal, and living proof that true identity never vanishes—it rises from the ashes of erasure and speaks again.
Seventh: Culture in Exile and Exile as a Culture of Resistance
How is national memory rewritten from exile?
Diaspora culture and transnational identity
Exilic literature and resistance beyond geography
Exile is not merely a geographical map devoid of homeland; it is a complete existential state that infiltrates the soul and reshapes memory, transforming absence into a different kind of presence. Exile is not a place left behind but one that inhabits the individual, speaks through them, and redefines their identity, reality, and language. Amid the ruins of burned cities, sealed borders, and refugee camps, exilic culture emerges not as a faded shadow of a lost homeland but as a loud cry that preserves what remains of life and rebuilds the homeland through words, paintings, songs, and dreams.
Culture in exile is neither an intellectual luxury nor an elitist practice. It is a vital necessity that prevents internal collapse in the face of displacement, offering the displaced, migrant, and refugee a tool for cohesion and survival. In the absence of land, language becomes a homeland, stories transform into new geographies, and memory becomes a substitute home made not of clay and stone, but of meaning and recollection. Thus, exilic culture becomes another form of resistance: resistance against forgetting, against dissolution, against spiritual defeat.
In exile, words become trenches, poems turn into symbolic rifles, and songs become acts of protest no less significant than political statements. Exilic literature and art, born of the scent of the land, the pain of departure, and the dream of return, carry a relentless longing. Exile produces a hybrid culture—faithful to its wounds, resilient against estrangement, and eternal, because it was written under the sun of absence and with the tears of the displaced.
If a homeland is made of land, history, and sovereignty, then exile creates a symbolic homeland out of meaning, longing, the language that remains uncensored, and the belief that people cannot be defeated as long as they continue to tell their story, write it in their own tongue, and pass it on to their children. Therefore, exile becomes a grand school for intellectuals and artists—a place where unique poetry is born, philosophies rooted in pain blossom, and concepts like identity, belonging, and time are reimagined.
In this chapter, we will explore how culture in exile produces a new kind of resistance and how the exiled individual transforms from mere victim into message bearer. We will look at poets who wrote from refugee pavements, painters who drew their homeland’s mountains in cold hotel rooms, and secret newspapers distributed in the dark as an indomitable beacon of hope. We will come to understand that exile, despite its cruelty, is not the end—but a new beginning of resistance, where culture becomes a compass for return, a mirror of memory, and a guide to survival.
1. How is National Memory Rewritten from Exile?
When a person is uprooted, they leave not only their home or city but are also forced to abandon a living archive—the memory nourished by place, customs, and sound. Yet exile, with all its pain and alienation, does not mark the end of memory. On the contrary, it can become a space where memory is reconstructed and rewritten—this time in a different language, from a place of greater clarity and reflection, from the ache of separation and the unrest of longing.
In exile, memory is freed from the surveillance of authority, from the fear of censorship, and from the constraints of the official state narrative. It begins to be told in collective terms, not individual ones. Instead of a single, state-imposed national story, alternative narratives emerge—restoring the forgotten details, the deliberately erased tragedies, and the silenced voices. In this way, exile becomes a laboratory for memory, where experience is purified from indoctrination and rewritten as an act of free will in resistance to forced forgetting.
The exiled person writes memory not only for the past but as ammunition for the future. Poems of exile, memoirs, and migrant folk songs bring back scenes of defeat, massacres, resistance, and forgotten celebrations. Events are re-narrated not as the occupier or the ruler intended, but as people lived them, and as they were stored in wounded memory.
Memory written in exile acquires a resistant character. It is not just a record of the past but a legal document against erasure. It is not only a narration but also a symbolic trial of those who stole the homeland, erased the martyrs, and redrew maps with new names. Thus, rewriting national memory from exile is also rewriting the homeland as it should have been: free, diverse, dignified, and alive.
Exile does not just grant the distance for contemplation—it grants the freedom to name things clearly, to break a long-imposed silence. Exilic writing becomes an act of salvaging identity—a resistance not with weapons, but with words that rebuild home, land, and time through language.
This is why memory in exile is not written as naïve nostalgia but as a conscious act of reclaiming what was stolen or forcibly forgotten. It is not a mirror of the past, but a roadmap of return—drawn with words and shaped by the experiences of exiles who carry their homeland in their suitcases and plant it in their poems, images, and letters to future generations. In exile, the homeland ceases to be a dream and becomes a linguistic and spiritual project rebuilt piece by piece in defiance of forgetfulness—the most brutal form of defeat.
Thus, exilic memory becomes a subtle form of resistance—slipping through stories, songs, and old vocabulary to keep the pulse of the homeland alive. It is not just remembering but reforming identity, healing the torn image of collective self, ensuring that who we are, where we were, and what it means to have a homeland that speaks our name are never forgotten.
2. Diaspora Culture and Transnational Identity
In the postmodern era, where traditional geography fractures and the idea of a singular homeland and fixed identity is challenged, diaspora culture emerges as one of the era’s most striking expressions—not merely a condition of forced dispersion, but a cultural and identity system born of displacement, uprooting, and re-rooting in estrangement. Diaspora, at its core, is not just the movement of people across borders, but the movement of memory, language, symbols, and ways of life—carrying with it fragments of lost homelands and giving rise to new experiences that transcend political and cultural boundaries.
Diaspora culture produces what could be called “fluid” or “composite” identity. The exiled, refugee, or migrant is no longer confined to one self-definition. Their identity is formed in the gap between homeland and exile, between mother tongue and adopted language, between nostalgia for the past and engagement with the present. This transnational identity is not always a crisis—it often becomes a renewed creative force, capable of bridging cultures, dismantling nationalist narratives, and generating a cosmopolitan vision that moves from the particular to the universal.
Diaspora culture feeds on pain—the loss of land, home, and dialect—yet it simultaneously regenerates itself through determination to exist. In poems written in two languages, music that blends native rhythms with foreign sounds, and novels set between capitals, a transborder culture arises—resisting erasure, forced assimilation, and total loss. It preserves memory without isolation, remaining open to others while remembering where it came from.
In diaspora, the homeland is redefined—not as geography, but as a feeling, a set of symbols, relationships, language, and collective imagination. Homeland is carried in songs, food rituals, bedtime stories, and the family photos hung on distant walls. Identity becomes untethered from rigid national boundaries—transcending, evolving, yet not vanishing. It is flexible but rooted, hybrid yet authentic, mobile without being lost.
Diaspora culture goes beyond nostalgia or documentation. It forms a critical cultural discourse that challenges concepts like “pure identity,” “singular belonging,” or “original homeland,” offering alternatives based on plurality, adaptability, and shared experience. It rethinks power, borders, center and periphery, and produces literature, art, and thought that defy local taboos and speak in the name of wounded and displaced humanity.
Moreover, diaspora culture carries a clear political dimension in its refusal to be erased, and in its silent or vocal protest against exile, colonialism, and expulsion. Palestinian, Kurdish, Armenian, and African diasporas, for example, are not just spatial dispersions but resistant cultural projects. Refugee camps became writing workshops, exiles’ suitcases became traveling libraries, and children of exile became poets, historians, and novelists—writing about homelands that still exist in language, longing, and imagination.
Thus, diaspora culture is not a tale of loss alone—it is testimony to the human ability to rebuild selfhood in estrangement, to find meaning in exile, and to transform fragmentation into creativity. It is a culture that does not die in uprooting, but grows new roots in exile—turning shattering into a mosaic of experiences and identities that prove a simple truth: no matter where one goes, a homeland can live in the heart and be reborn each day in a new language and an undying voice.
3. Exilic Literature and Resistance Beyond Geography
At the moment of exile, when one is torn from their land, a distinct genre of literature is born—unlike any other. It is not written from within the homeland, but from its periphery, its shadows, its trembling reflection in memory. Exilic literature is not merely a reflection of alienation or nostalgia, but an existential and resistant practice. It transcends borders to rebuild the homeland on paper—with words, not bricks; with memory, not maps. It is written outside of geography, yet it never leaves it; the body dwells in exile, but the spirit remains rooted in the land.
Exilic literature, with all its pain and anxiety, is essentially a symbolic act of resistance. Through it, the writer rearranges their relationship with homeland, language, and both personal and collective history. Exile forces the writer to view their country from the outside—with sharp critical distance and eyes clouded with longing. From this vantage point, a new literature is born: freer, more transparent, and deeply painful—because it is written in the absence of the land and under the tyranny of memory.
The exiled writer is not just a witness to exile but an active resistor. Their poem is a declaration, their article a scream, their novel a carving of threatened memory. In exile, language is renewed, and an alternative discourse emerges to the state’s narrative—one that gives voice to the marginalized, and rewrites history from below, from the core of human suffering rather than from political towers.
Exilic literature often intersects time, language, and culture. It is frequently written in the language of the “other,” but with the soul of the self—borrowing the techniques of a new land’s literature while never abandoning the rhythm and scent of the original. It is an act of internal translation: translating feelings and concepts between two places, times, and identities—without melting one into the other.
Examples of such literature abound across nations: from Mahmoud Darwish, who wrote Mural in Paris as if mourning a closed homeland; to Cigerxwîn, who preserved Kurdish from Damascus, Beirut, and Sweden; to Edward Said, who reimagined Palestine as idea and identity from New York; to Armenian poet Silva Kaputikyan, who wrote of exiled Armenia from Lebanon. All of them wrote from outside geography—but their words clung to the land more than the tanks of occupation.
Exilic literature, at its core, refuses defeat and denies disappearance. It is cultural resistance—keeping the homeland alive in language, liberating memory from oblivion, and granting the exiled an unquiet voice. It proclaims: we are not here because we lost, but because we carry the homeland in our bags—and rebuild it each time with ink, tears, and hope.
Thus, exilic literature is not merely personal lament or emotional alienation—it is a collective narrative speaking in the name of an uprooted nation and a memory under siege. It is an alternative archive, retelling a story the authorities tried to bury, opening cracks in the official narrative to let out what was hidden, exiled, or silenced in prisons, camps, and borderlands.
Its greatness lies in retaining the clarity of longing without idealizing the past, remembering the homeland not as a lost paradise but as an ongoing struggle. The distance between writer and homeland yields painful clarity—but also deeper insight, greater freedom, and emancipation from censorship and taboos. Often, exilic literature is more honest and expressive of a cause than much literature produced under regimes of fear or compromise.
Ultimately, exile becomes not merely a place literature is written from—but a space where an entire culture of resistance is formed. Words become political acts, novels become documents, poems become symbolic weapons, and images become testimony. This literature does not just search for a lost homeland—it makes language a homeland, transforms text into a tent, and memory into a map.
In this way, exilic literature is the noblest form of cultural survival—an expression of humanity in its struggle against erasure, displacement, and symbolic annihilation. It is the cry of peoples who refuse to die—who still dream, narrate, write, and resist, even from beyond geography.
Eighth: Cultural Genocide: From Forgetting to Living Memory
How is the battle against forgetting fought?
Popular education, documentation, alternative museums, digitization.
The battle against official history.
When the word "genocide" is mentioned, minds often turn to physical destruction—killing, bloodshed, mass graves, bullets as the forced end of a life. But there is another face of genocide, slower, more hidden, yet no less deadly: cultural genocide. It does not kill the body but aims to kill the soul, erase memory, obliterate symbols, strangle language, uproot a person from their roots, transforming them into a being without identity, history, or the capacity to resist.
Cultural genocide is not an instantaneous act but a long-term project that operates through time, infiltrating schools, media, dictionaries, archives, women's dress, children's songs, and street dialects. It is a forced re-shaping of human memory to reconstruct it within a fake identity imposed by authority, occupation, or totalitarian nation-states. It is the most insidious face of colonialism: colonization of consciousness.
In the world of colonialism, empires, and modern centralized states, domination aimed not only at land or resources but also required comprehensive cultural engineering to produce "the other" as a distorted copy of the victorious self—or erase it entirely from historical and linguistic records. Thus, indigenous peoples were transformed into "minorities," their languages into "dialects," their myths into "fables," and their memories into "inaccurate narratives." Cultural genocide fulfilled its role: it left no corpse but created silence.
Yet, in the face of this silence, living memory rises as resistance. Living memory is not merely a romantic remembrance of what once was but a deep political and cultural act that resists oblivion and retells the story from the victim’s perspective, not the executioner’s. It is counter-writing against official history, restoration of culture from its cracks, and revival of what others tried to bury intentionally. Living memory pulses in poems written in exile, stories told to children, rescued words, and songs whispered in secret.
Here, culture is not a luxury or mere entertainment but a defensive act, a battle against erasure, a front against imposed silence. Poems are written as witnesses, paintings drawn to expose, songs sung to reclaim names buried beneath the rubble. Culture, in this sense, does not only preserve what was but protects what remains and prepares what is to come.
In this chapter, we will examine the concept of cultural genocide from its roots, as both term and practice. We will uncover how colonialism and tyranny became tools to kill cultures without bullets. We will review vivid examples—from the banning of Kurdish, to prohibiting Amazigh, to the assimilation policies against indigenous peoples in America and Australia, to the "Israeliization" policy in Palestine. We will also explore modes of resistance: in language, art, documentation, and counter-archives.
Because what is not written is forgotten, what is not remembered is erased, and what is not told dies… living memory is not a cultural luxury but an existential necessity, an ethical battle, and an act of survival challenging oblivion.
1. How is the battle against forgetting fought?
Forgetting is not merely the absence of memory or a void in consciousness; it is a complex act that can be voluntary or forced, individual or collective, subjective or objective. In the context of cultural genocide, forgetting becomes a deadly weapon used by dominant powers to erase the cultural existence of entire peoples. It is the ultimate goal of colonial and genocidal projects: that the other be forgotten, their history erased, their identity obliterated from collective memory.
Therefore, the battle against forgetting is fought on multiple fronts and through varied methods, beginning with reclaiming storytelling, through historical documentation, artistic and creative expression, and culminating in building cultural and intellectual institutions dedicated to protecting identity.
Restoring oral storytelling
In societies subjected to cultural genocide where many official institutions like schools, books, and libraries have been destroyed, oral storytelling becomes the primary means of preserving collective memory. Grandmothers’ and grandfathers’ tales, folk songs, proverbs, and stories told within families and communities all serve as living vaults that safeguard the history of peoples and retell it for new generations. In this context, gatherings, popular celebrations, and religious rituals become platforms of unforgettable cultural resistance.Historical documentation and archiving
Documentation is one of the most crucial tools in the resistance against forgetting. Intellectuals, historians, and researchers collect testimonies, record events, preserve documents, and create transparent, independent archives that reflect the experiences of marginalized and threatened peoples. These archives are not mere repositories but instruments to reconstruct history from the victim’s perspective and reject domination over memory. Modern technologies are used to document oral histories, photos, videos, and media materials that preserve collective experiences.Education as a field of resistance
Curricula are a primary battleground in the fight against forgetting. Colonial or oppressive authorities try to replace true history, native languages, and local culture with official curricula aimed at erasing identity. Conversely, intellectuals and educators in the diaspora or inside communities strive to develop alternative curricula that teach new generations their true history and encourage the study of their language and heritage. Education becomes an act of resistance, renewing awareness of the necessity to cling to memory and identity.Art and creativity as tools to revive memory
Art in all its forms—poetry, music, theater, painting, cinema—is one of the strongest means of resistance against forgetting because it expresses grief, hope, and longing, transforming pain into beauty that awakens consciousness and ignites action. Resistant poetry, for example, not only expresses harsh reality but also turns words into cultural weapons that attack attempts at erasure and revive communal memory. Documentaries spotlight exile stories, and murals symbolize threatened identity; all artistic expressions reject silence and scream presence.Alternative media and journalism
In the age of globalization and social media, independent media plays a vital role in resisting forgetting. Free media, websites, and digital platforms can publish stories, documents, and images ignored by official media. These platforms rewrite collective memory from different angles, create new spaces for dialogue and discussion, and enable communities to express themselves without censorship.Collective celebrations and rituals
National celebrations, cultural occasions, religious and traditional rituals offer opportunities to renew living memory and embody identity against the threat of forgetting. These moments bring people together around shared remembrance, reaffirm communal bonds, and turn memory into an ongoing, active practice rather than a static recollection.Political and legal struggle
Sometimes the battle against forgetting is part of a broader political struggle aiming at recognizing historical crimes, securing minority rights, and protecting endangered languages and cultures. International legal mechanisms, specialized courts, and official condemnations are used to compel governments and societies to acknowledge events and open the way to rebuilding national collective memory.
In summary, the battle against forgetting is a struggle for the survival of identity, memory, and the human self. It is an ongoing conflict that cannot be resolved instantly but requires patience, determination, and unbreakable will. Every poem written, every story told, every preserved image, every taught word is part of this battle. Because living memory is not only a remembered past but a present and future being built—the only guarantee against repeating the tragedy of erasure and genocide.
2. Popular education, documentation, alternative museums, digitization
In the context of resisting cultural genocide and striving to restore living memory, a set of tools and practices play vital roles in fighting oblivion and consolidating identity. These tools include popular education, documentation, alternative museums, and digitization, which together form an interactive network that complements one another and enhances communities’ capacity to protect their memory and cultural heritage.
Popular education: building awareness from the grassroots
Popular education is the cornerstone in recovering memory, especially in societies subjected to systematic erasure policies. Instead of waiting for official education—often subject to state narratives—popular education transmits knowledge and historical memory through workshops, seminars, community gatherings, and lessons provided by intellectuals and activists in diasporic neighborhoods or marginalized areas.
This type of education is not limited to information transfer but encourages critique, analysis, independent thinking, and supports participants in recording family stories and personal experiences. It also contributes to reviving and teaching original languages, turning language into a living tool of resistance and identity preservation. Popular education creates a cooperative environment that revives memory and nourishes resistance from within.
Documentation: recording history to prevent erasure
Documentation is the first step towards building sustainable memory. It involves recording oral testimonies, preserving written documents, collecting photographs, and documenting historical sites and political/social events. This work is not merely about preserving information but is a political process aimed at confronting erasure and denial attempts.
Activists and NGOs often create independent archives that serve as safe havens for collective memory, especially when official institutions are distorted or complicit in genocide. Accurate recording of experiences enables future generations to access an authentic history that refuses falsification and forgetting.
Alternative museums: new spaces for memory
Alternative museums fill the void left by official museums, which often adopt state-sanctioned narratives. These museums go beyond displaying artifacts; they create interactive experiences that retell history from the victims’ or marginalized peoples’ perspectives, fostering dialogue and collective healing.
Such museums may be mobile, hosted in unconventional venues like camps, community halls, or even online, expanding awareness and including a wider audience. Visitors in these museums become participants in the act of remembering rather than passive observers, strengthening the power of living memory and cultural resistance.
Digitization: preserving memory in the modern age
With technological advances, digitization has become indispensable in preserving memory and fighting forgetting. Digitization converts documents, photographs, films, audio recordings, and cultural materials into electronic formats that protect them from damage or loss. It also allows dissemination via online platforms, making them accessible to broad audiences, including diasporas and migrants.
Digitization helps create digital archives with easy access, builds virtual communities maintaining cultural connections, and provides tools for language teaching, storytelling, and cultural awareness campaigns, making it an essential part of contemporary cultural resistance strategies.
In summary, popular education, documentation, alternative museums, and digitization are not only technical or educational tools but tools of struggle and creativity. They enable peoples to reclaim their memories, rebuild histories, restore identities, and preserve cultural existence in an ongoing battle against forgetting and genocide.
3. The battle against official history
Official history is a produced narrative, often crafted by the state or ruling authority and promoted through school curricula, media, museums, and national celebrations. This history does not necessarily reflect the full or multiple truths of events but reduces them to a framework serving the interests of power and legitimizing its actions. Often, it marginalizes and excludes the voices of the oppressed and victims, reproducing a singular, biased image of national identity.
For peoples subjected to colonialism, genocide, or cultural and political repression, the battle against official history becomes an integral part of memory resistance and identity preservation. This battle is not merely a rejection of the official narrative but a project to rewrite history from below—from the perspective of those who suffered, were marginalized, and tasted the bitterness of erasure and distortion.
Reasons for the battle
Official history is often a tool of control and politics, enabling ruling elites to legitimize their existence, justify policies, and unify the population under a single narrative. Simultaneously, it erases or diminishes the experiences of various groups within society, such as ethnic or religious minorities, conceals violations, and distorts facts. Therefore, these elites face resistance from intellectuals and activists who reject this erasure.Tools in the battle against official history
Re-narrating suppressed stories: By documenting oral testimonies and preserving individual and collective memories that contradict official narratives, intellectuals create counter-histories affirming the existence and importance of excluded groups.
Resistant literature and art: Novels, poetry, documentaries, and plays depicting the oppressed’s experiences break the silence and revive rejected histories. Art here mirrors the truth ignored by official history.
Alternative curricula and independent education: Establishing schools, universities, and cultures that teach generations a history different from the official version, highlighting popular resistance, state abuses, and fostering critical awareness.
Protests and political activism: Demonstrations against educational practices, demands for recognition of historical crimes, and organizing collective commemorations are all forms of resistance against historical domination.
Outcomes of the battle
This battle is difficult, often prolonged, and opposing voices may face repression, imprisonment, or defamation. However, it produces growing awareness, deepens collective understanding, and sometimes leads to official acknowledgments, apologies, or policy reconsiderations.Importance of the battle
The struggle against official history is not merely a conflict over facts but a fight for memory, identity, and the future. History shapes people’s understanding of themselves and their relations with others, determining policies and rights. When official history dominates the narrative, it controls the keys to power and political and cultural existence.
In summary, the battle against official history is a struggle to reclaim dignity and existence. It is a rejection of identity erasure and forced forgetting. It expresses peoples’ will to say "Enough," demanding their full story told—with its pain, hope, struggle, and victories—beyond state manipulation and distortion. It is a fight for historical justice and a key to understanding a better present and building a more just and honest shared future.
Thus, resisting official history is not an intellectual luxury but an ethical and existential necessity because it opens the path for many peoples to reclaim their stolen voice and tell their stories as they lived them, not as the victors imposed. History, when written from below, becomes a tool of liberation, not a weapon of domination.
Ninth: Critique of the Culture of Submission and the Culture of the "Silent Victim"
How does silence become a form of complicity?
Arming oneself with culture instead of surrendering to the oppressor.
Resisting Western cultural hegemony or nationalist centralism.
In the face of colonialism, occupation, genocide, and domination in all its forms, the struggle is not limited to physical or political arenas alone but extends to the realms of consciousness and spirit. Here, the culture of submission emerges as a psychological and social condition that infiltrates oppressed societies and constitutes one of the most dangerous obstacles to liberation and rebellion. The culture of submission, in its broad sense, is not merely forced surrender or a lack of resources but a deeper issue related to how the victim internalizes their situation and interprets their reality and place in history.
The culture of submission creates from the victim a "silent victim" — a being who confines their pain within, transforming into a state of psychological, social, and cultural brokenness, withdrawing behind walls of silence. This culture is born not only from external oppression but also grows internally, becoming part of the psychological and social survival mechanisms, yet at the same time it undermines the victim’s own potential for resistance, feeding the oppressive system with the calmness that allows it to persist.
In this chapter, we will conduct an in-depth critique of this culture which may superficially appear as a way to preserve the self from collapse but in reality forms a cultural and psychological constraint on rising and liberation. We will ask: How does the victim transform from an active agent in resisting their existence to a silent spectator of their suffering? How does this culture take root in minds and hearts? What roles do institutions, discourses, and history play in reinforcing or dismantling this culture?
We will also discuss how the culture of the "silent victim" is nurtured by multiple factors: from fear and anxiety about survival, to repeated experiences of repression that exhaust the spirit, to its reproduction within families and communities, where it may turn into a model promoting submission as the only option or the practical solution. From here arises a deep paradox: between the necessity of patience to preserve life, and the danger that patience turns into surrender that kills hope and stifles the capacity for action.
But this critique does not mean minimizing the victims’ suffering or ignoring the harshness of their reality; rather, it is a call for deeper understanding and creating critical awareness that enables individuals and groups to free themselves from this psychological constraint and move toward a more conscious and effective culture of resistance. A culture that refuses to let victimhood be merely a label for weakness but rather reshapes it as a title of struggle and resilience, redefining the relationship between power and weakness, pain and freedom.
In this context, we will review intellectual and literary models addressing this issue, along with popular experiences and psychological and social frameworks that have contributed to critiquing the culture of submission and promoting an effective culture of resistance. True critique begins when we reconsider our relationship with the self and dismantle the inherited constraints that bind us, to rewrite anew the story of peoples who refused to remain silent and refused to submit.
1. How Does Silence Become a Form of Complicity?
Silence, on the surface, may be understood as a defensive choice or a means of self-preservation in times of repression and danger, but often it turns into a central element in enabling the very system of oppression, becoming an indirect form of complicity. This complicity does not mean explicit participation in unjust acts but implicitly grants these acts cover through refraining from speech, action, or even explicit rejection.
In contexts where societies face colonialism, genocide, oppression, or torment, silence transforms from a human protective response into an implicit justification mechanism that reinforces the oppressor’s authority. Silence in the face of injustice creates a void in which violence expands and oppression becomes entrenched. Thus, silence becomes a barrier to any possibility of change or confrontation and facilitates the reproduction of the oppressive system. In this way, silence is not neutrality but an active stance contributing to the continuation of domination.
Psychologically and socially, silence sometimes becomes a form of "passive acceptance," where victims or witnesses do not dare to express themselves out of fear of consequences or feelings of helplessness and despair. This fear may deepen and spread, enveloping the entire society in a suffocating state of terror that silences dissenting voices. Thus, silence becomes a cover for repression and lowers the levels of anger and rejection.
Symbolically, silence can be interpreted as a sign of complicity, where injustice is allowed to continue because no one denies or objects to it. It erases the distance between oppressor and victim and creates an ethical ambiguity that implicates society as a whole to some degree. The history of oppressed nations is full of stories about the silence of groups, which enabled oppressors to carry out their plans without real resistance.
However, it is important to understand that silence is not always a conscious choice but often the result of overwhelming pressures and multiple forms of repression that trap individuals and groups. Therefore, breaking this silence and turning it into a critical discourse is a real act of resistance that restores human dignity and breaks the cycle of hidden complicity.
In this context, speech, storytelling, artistic and political expression become necessary spaces to break the wall of silence and end the implicit complicity that reinforces the culture of submission. When silence is broken, it does not only liberate the self but reactivates the entire society toward new awareness and the capacity to face history and rewrite the future.
2. Arming Oneself with Culture Instead of Surrendering to the Oppressor
Facing repressive and colonial forces that seek to erase identity and obliterate memory, peoples have essentially two options: surrender or resistance. Surrender means falling into the trap of submission, where will is besieged and freedoms shackled, and culture becomes a faded memory or is replaced by artificial identities that erase human roots and history. Resistance, on the other hand, begins from within, from rebuilding the self by arming oneself with culture.
Arming oneself with culture does not only mean preserving language, customs, and traditions but extends to critical and intellectual awareness, and the ability to use culture as a tool to liberate thought and mobilize communities. Culture in this context becomes a weapon, no less important than physical arms, because it targets the mind and soul, creating a resistant identity that does not easily break before colonialism or oppression.
This arming with culture restores the human’s status as an actor rather than a silent victim, giving them the power to narrate their own story rather than having an external narrative imposed by the oppressor. Culture reveals the human depth and unique specificity of every people and preserves collective memory from loss, keeping peoples alive in the face of attempts at uprooting and genocide.
The history of resisting peoples is full of examples showing how culture can become a fortress and a field of resistance through resistant poetry, folk songs, tales, visual arts, and even religious rituals and social traditions. All these elements form a cohesive network of cultural action that rejects submission and embodies an existential refusal that cannot be overcome.
More importantly, arming oneself with culture reshapes the relationship with the future, making the past and history tools for revival and renewal, not merely prisons of memory or daggers in the present’s side. Through this arming, humans generate their own resistance and prepare the ground for collective liberation projects based on reclaiming action and dignity.
In conclusion, arming oneself with culture is an act of life, affirming that no matter how intense oppression is, it cannot eliminate the human essence nor their dream of freedom and dignity. It is a revolution that begins in thought and conscience, then moves to action and change, making the culture of resistance an invincible force and a shield against all attempts at genocide and erasure.
Thus, culture is not just a repository of the past but the pulse of the present and future, where words, colors, and sounds meet to create a space of freedom and resistance. It is the bridge over which humans pass from brokenness to rising, from silence to scream, from surrender to action. By arming themselves with culture, peoples become capable of reclaiming their dignity, deciding their destiny, and writing their history by their own hands, far from the narratives of oppressors and their projects of erasure and containment.
3. Resisting Western Cultural Hegemony or Nationalist Centralism
In a globalized world governed by unequal power relations, culture becomes a continuous battlefield between centers of cultural influence—Western hegemony or nationalist centralism—and peoples and minorities trying to preserve their particularity and subjectivity. Western cultural hegemony or nationalist centralism represents a form of new colonialism that goes beyond political or economic domination, penetrating deeply into consciousness and identity, attempting to impose a system of values, ideas, and lifestyles monopolized as the sole standard of correctness and modernity.
Mechanisms of Cultural Hegemony
This hegemony manifests in imposing language, culture, history, education, and media as unified frameworks that exclude diversity and pluralism. For example, dominance of Western languages (English, French) in educational institutions and media marginalizes local languages and diminishes their presence, leading to erosion of cultural identities. Curricula promoting exclusively Western historical and literary models alienate youth from their roots and encourage adoption of Western narratives that reinforce feelings of inferiority toward their heritage.
Nationalist centralism, in turn, practices another form of hegemony within multiethnic and multicultural states, imposing a single national culture and ideology that erases or marginalizes minorities. These policies distort collective memory, cancel cultural and political rights, and entrench social exclusion.
Forms of Resistance
Resistance to this hegemony appears in cultural and political projects aimed at reclaiming sovereignty over identity and memory. Resistance may include reviving local languages, producing literature and art expressing local experiences, establishing independent educational and cultural institutions, and using alternative media to disseminate counter-narratives.
Intellectuals play a pivotal role in critiquing Western hegemony and nationalist centralism by rereading history from local perspectives, analyzing the impact of cultural globalization, and advocating cultural diversity that respects differences rather than assimilating them into a single mold.
Importance of Cultural Resistance
Resistance against cultural hegemony is not merely a battle to preserve diversity but a struggle for justice and human dignity. Imposing a single culture on peoples constitutes subjugation of consciousness, erasure of self, and obliteration of rights, perpetuating oppression and inequality. Hence, culture becomes a field for liberating awareness and reconstructing collective selfhood in a way that ensures pluralism and diversity.Tenth: Culture as an Alternative to the Absent Political System
In the absence of the state: Does culture become the "symbolic state"?
Culture as a value-based and organizational system for the colonized society.
In societies suffering from the absence of a political system capable of achieving justice, representing the people, and safeguarding their rights, culture emerges as a vital alternative space, taking creative action and collective expression as means to build a vibrant civil society full of awareness. In the absence of effective political institutions, or when these institutions erode under the weight of tyranny, corruption, or occupation, culture transforms into the arena through which identity can be reshaped, belonging reinforced, and an alternative project for the future formulated.
In this context, culture is not merely a secondary activity or social luxury but becomes an informal political force playing a role in mobilizing the masses, organizing the self, creating communication channels among different groups, and offering new visions of freedom and dignity. Through literature, art, music, alternative media, and popular cultural movements, societies practice a form of symbolic self-governance that fills the void left by the absence of formal political authority.
Cultural spaces turn into laboratories for social and political experimentation, where innovative alternatives are formulated in thought and behavior, and new models for coexistence, participation, and resistance are tested. In these laboratories, people rediscover their self-power and redefine the relationship between individual and society, and between ruler and ruled, away from bureaucratic complexities and political repression.
In this chapter, we will discuss how culture can transform into an alternative system that fills the political vacuum, producing intellectual and behavioral outcomes that enhance societies’ resilience and capacity for change. We will also review local and global examples illustrating how culture has played a pivotal role in protecting national identity, organizing social movements, and demanding rights in the absence or weakness of official institutions.
In the absence of a political system capable of guaranteeing justice and representing the popular will, culture becomes a vital platform enabling individuals and groups to express their aspirations and pains, and to shape shared visions for the future. Culture’s role is not limited to expressing identity but extends to producing alternative knowledge that probes political and social realities and dismantles official power discourses. In this sense, culture becomes a political act in itself, redefining the concepts of governance and sovereignty through collective participation and continuous creativity, opening horizons for new possibilities to build societies based on justice, equality, and freedom—even amid the absence or weakness of political institutions.
1. In the Absence of the State: Does Culture Become the "Symbolic State"?
When an effective political system that represents the people and protects their rights is absent or threatened with weakness or collapse, deep voids grow within the social fabric, imposing themselves on the social and spiritual reality of the people. In this critical moment, culture emerges as a vital and effective entity that transcends being merely a field of arts and traditions to become a symbolic authority through which collective existence is re-established. Culture in this context becomes what can be called the "symbolic state"—a moral entity that compensates for the absence of the real state and provides people with their shared identity, unwritten laws, and symbols that protect their unity and solidarity.
This symbolic state does not rely on official legal or political authority but on the power of cultural representation, which reproduces belonging and identity, linking individuals within a network of values and practices that give them a sense of dignity and membership despite the absence of real political protection. It reconstructs the collective self-awareness and functions as a practical substitute for political dominance that is absent or aborted.
Within this space, language, art, heritage, myths, and rituals become symbolic institutions carrying out the roles of the state in organizing social relations, strengthening internal solidarity, and ensuring the continuity of collective memory. Cultural action thus becomes a field for simultaneous political and symbolic struggle, where entire communities practice a form of informal self-governance.
This concept raises important questions about the nature of power and sovereignty, re-examines the limits of the traditional state, and highlights the central role culture can play in sustaining communities during moments of political collapse or absence. How is this symbolic state formed? What are the limits of its power? How does it interact with the political reality? These fundamental questions will be explored in this chapter.
2. Culture as a Value-Based and Organizational System for the Colonized Society
Under colonialism, which is not limited to political and economic control but extends to domination over social and cultural life, culture plays a central role in shaping a value-based and organizational system for the colonized society. This system is not just a network of customs and traditions but a moral structure that weaves human relations with society, defines the rules of social interaction, collective identity, and patterns of resistance and adaptation.
Culture in colonized societies forms an internal framework that provides means for survival and continuity, where values and traditions are employed to unify the group, consolidate bonds among its members, and strengthen feelings of belonging and identity in the face of colonial attempts to dismantle the social fabric. In this sense, culture becomes an integrated system of values, practices, and symbols that organize daily life and define individual and collective behavior.
Through this system, feelings of solidarity and resistance grow, turning culture into an organizing factor that enables society to endure and maintain cohesion despite oppressive pressures. Festivals, rituals, language, and folk arts all become tools used to preserve collective memory and transmit it across generations, making culture a platform for reclaiming dignity and rejecting domination.
However, culture is not only a defensive response but also a space for creativity and renewal. Colonized societies develop innovative strategies for adaptation and resistance through their culture, by producing new artistic forms, modifying traditional symbols to keep pace with changing times, and reflecting political and social realities. Thus, culture becomes a dynamic system aligned with the community’s need for continuity and development despite all marginalization and erasure attempts.
Therefore, culture in the colonized society is an integrated system linking individual and community, and the primary means through which the group expresses itself, organizes its relations, resists domination, and builds the foundations for the future. It is not merely a spiritual or aesthetic refuge but a political and social act manifested in daily practices that reproduce collective existence.
Conclusion:
At the conclusion of this study, a fundamental truth crystallizes: resistance is not a transient moment or a temporary act in the history of peoples but a continuous mode of existence stemming from the essence of humanity and its culture, expressing the will for life and dignity. Cultural resistance in this sense is not a negative reaction to oppression but an authentic act of freedom that reconstructs the collective self and constitutes the pulse of life in the consciousness of peoples, no matter how intense the forces of erasure and oppression.
History has confirmed to us that cultural memory, with all its languages, stories, myths, rituals, and arts, is stronger and fiercer than the bullet, for the killing machine cannot annihilate the human spirit or rob him of his true identity. The living memory transmitted by culture transcends the limits of time and space, preserves experiences of suffering and struggle, and plants in future generations the flame of hope and rebellion, becoming a solid foundation for a renewed resistance that triumphs each time injustice tries to strike it.
Accordingly, culture transforms from a mere tool for protecting existence and resisting domination into a permanent liberation project, opening wide horizons for rebuilding society on new foundations of freedom, justice, and equality. This project requires rethinking the relationship between culture and politics, where culture is not only an expression of reality but an active force capable of changing it. Culture as a continuous act of liberation imposes on us the responsibility to preserve it, develop it, and possess critical tools to reshape our selves and societies in facing renewed challenges.
Ultimately, culture remains the fortress protecting humanity from uprooting and distortion, the space that restores human dignity, and the force empowering progress toward freedom. At the heart of this space lies an undying will, an invincible spirit, and a continuous act that makes every word, every song, and every artwork a new victory over tyranny.
Let culture always be a continuous act of freedom, emerging from the depths of collective and individual consciousness, nourishing the spirit and strengthening will against all forms of oppression and tyranny. Culture is not merely a heritage to be preserved or art to be displayed; it is a renewing movement of reflection, challenge, and creativity enabling humans to reclaim their stolen existence and grant them the power to reshape their reality and future. In culture lies the true spring of life, where memories and hopes meet, and freedom and dignity manifest in their finest forms, like a river that never dries no matter how severe the drought or how hard the rocks. It is the fortress that protects humans from currents of oblivion and marginalization, the weapon that breaks the chains of injustice and despotism, and the refuge of conscience affirming the humanity of individuals and societies amid the storms of harsh times. When humans practice their culture freely and consciously, they do not only resist—they create the future, build hope, and forge a new reality where the sun of justice and dignity shines upon all.
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