Ghiwa Sayegh

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Date of interview: 30th January 2024

Content notes: genocide, ideological warfare, racism, borders, PTSD, migration

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Jet Moon  

I am just going to sync the recording. So I’m going to say 123.

Jet Moon  

And, yeah, let’s have a go and see if we can do this. All right. Um, it is Tuesday the 30th of January, and I am interviewing Ghiwa Sayegh. And you are an anarcha-queer writer, independent publisher, an archivist with your MA in Gender Studies from the University Paris. I don’t know how to pronounce this maybe I’m gonna ask you to record this part…And you’re passionate about queer theory, transnational circulations, and imagined or unknown histories. And it says your interests are Audre Lorde and Sarah Ahmed. 

I, you know, have this whole thing where my access assistant has also helped me with research. And I kind of look at things sometimes and I think, you know, I wonder about…when people look at other people’s bios, find things on websites, and I think about like my own material on the web, and how in date or out of date I feel that is or what it…who it’s created for? And so it always feels a little bit like, well, what is this you know, that we’re kind of introducing ourselves as? 

So maybe I’ll kind of go back to my own context. And obviously, you’ve seen the questions and I just wanted to ask you, if you feel comfortable saying briefly how you feel survivor writer applies to yourself. And the focus is on yourself as a writer and editor and a publisher who is a survivor. So just however you feel comfortable to encompass that in a way that introduces yourself within this context.

Ghiwa Sayegh  

I mean, I think the way it comes together for me, I would have to go back a bit in time, and think about the journal Kohl and how it was started. And often, we think of it as the beginning, but it wasn’t quite the beginning. Because, like, Kohl itself belongs to a history of survivor writing, which meant that, at least to me, at the time, and to the community I belong to in Beirut, it meant that we took roots in a history of wanting to write our own stories as queer people. And with a particular route in the LGBTQ movement, and how that came to be at that time when internet was just starting. And there were no spaces that were very obvious aside from the digital space. 

And why do I call it “survivor writing” because it had to do particularly…at least at the time, because that has shifted quite a lot with, you know, political events. But at least at the time, it was quite focused on the notion of not being the writers to our own stories and being subjected to this kind of Orientalist view of what queer people look like, or how queer people live their lives in other parts of the world. And this came at a time where, you know, like, we’re at a time when it was like, literally the aftermath of September 11 and what was called “The War on Terror”. So this kind of changed quite a lot the landscape of what queer life looked like, because it became kind of the symbol in a way of the Global South and particularly, the Arabic speaking countries, you know, so called backwardness coming from the West. Can you hear me all right? Yeah, yeah. Okay.

Jet Moon  

Yeah, I mean, there’s a bit of a horrific sound going on, but um, let’s just see how we’re doing. I’m gonna just backtrack a little bit because what I’m aware of is that we’re already in a group context. And in a way, we’re talking about the beginnings of the journal. But I kind of wanted to step back a little bit. And it’s more like, you know, like, how…where do you place yourself? You know, or is that the same thing?

Ghiwa Sayegh  

Yeah, that I mean, that’s a good question, because for a long time, it was the same thing. And now we get to a point where, when it’s not, and, and that was such a big thing for me that I became an entity that’s separate from the journal. And this is where, you know, the history of, or the story of migration comes in, in the sense that I left Beirut and, and therefore, in some ways, I am still part of that community, but no longer part of its present. And it makes a big difference in how I see myself and how my writing is then transformed. 

And in terms of, you know, what has shaped this trajectory, I always go back to August 4th 2020, which was the explosion of the Beirut port, and how this you know, like, it literally became, like a before and after moment, because of, you know, the implication of it, and what it was and how it’s changed my writing. And in my personal story, I left Lebanon 20 days after the explosion. And my leaving was only made possible because the explosion happened, which is very, a very strange cycle, you know. And, at that point, I did feel that there was a definite shift in the way I was approaching writing, and what writing was meant to do for me, because I was no longer writing from a place of wanting to bring to the world…I know, it sounds vague, but like, that’s literally what we were imagined ours…what we were imagining ourselves to be doing, bring to the world the stories of a queer radical community from, you know, a part of the Global South. Yes?

Jet Moon  

I mean, I wonder if I could just read the introduction, because I feel that it would be a good point, because when it describes the journal, Kohl, it says: “a journal of body and gender research”, that you’re the founding editor, and it’s “a journal for gender and body research, an open access journal printed in English and Arabic, which covers issues of gender and sexuality in the Middle East, Southwest Asia and North Africa”, the journal describes itself as “an archive that maps our political lives as theory”. It aims to “question what and whose knowledges and sexualities are legitimate, challenging the means of production and historicize (some of) our struggles in their multiplicity”. 

So I think it’s good we can just drop it in there, because it I understand, you’re talking about…there’s um…you know, an ideal, and, you know, a way of like, placing yourselves…not even on the map in a different map, you know, like creating some kind of map for yourself, but then through those real historical events, that impacts on life in a very big way. So maybe you could pick up there about how that then changed, you know, how you were thinking about writing or collecting work together? In that…after, you know, I suppose really kind of being in the process of leaving Beirut and moving.

Ghiwa Sayegh  

Yeah…I think the priorities change. Like first, I will talk about politically what has changed in terms of the priorities of who are we writing for…and this had already started but there was a definite moment where we were like “maybe we no longer want to entertain this relationship of…we want to speak back or offer stories from a specific part of the world” and we started exactly like you were saying a moment of ideal despite the circumstances at that point to be like, how, how, what if we turn towards each other rather than towards, you know, the centre of power. 

And this is when we started to do the writing circles in terms of you know how collective writing comes to be. And in the journal sense – because my writing is also a bit different, but I’m talking about the journal and collecting writing – what this has done is, well, first we created community, even though we were at a time when, you know, I mean, it was the beginning of the pandemic, everybody was in lockdown. It was 2021, which meant that there were moments where the pandemic hit, especially hard parts of the Global South, like India, where we saw like bodies being burned, you know, like this kind of imagery. 

Also, there was a war on Gaza, which is, you know, Gaza, just change my pronunciation. So there was a war on Gaza at the time, it was May 2021. And we all came together queer writers from the Global South for eight weeks, we met one day online, one day per week, full day Um, and there was this sense of really like, doing magic together, that it was literally it and also like just being there together. And it’s changed significantly, how at least, you know, at Kohl, we do publishing because it’s not about just collecting those pieces of writing and entertaining this relationship between editor-author that’s like very isolating, because it’s like the editor is the sole centre. So the idea was to create many centres so that the issue itself becomes a collective issue, because we’re writing from a place of shared political vision. So that’s one thing. The second thing was we actually…

Jet Moon  

I’m trying really hard not to say anything about rhizomatic theory. Holding my mouth shut, so I couldn’t…anyway I’ve stopped now.

Ghiwa Sayegh  

No, please do. I want to hear.

Jet Moon  

Well, I mean, I’m listening to you and obviously I have the questions, you know, I’m thinking about this whole peer-to-peer, and writing and community. And this thing of turning towards each other, rather than the centre, I think, is something that I have had as a practice for quite a long time. Because I don’t believe that in this thing, that it’s like preaching to the choir, more that we’re constantly in a state of exhaustion, having to advocate all the time, having to explain all the time having to endure different kinds of aggressions. 

All of this different stuff, and that what is often needed is a space where we build strength with each other, mirror each other’s experiences in a very positive way, affirm reality. Uh, you know, we’ve, we’ve talked about this thing before, we’re speaking in some contexts, people are like “What the hell are you talking about?” Speaking in other contexts, people are like “I know exactly what you’re talking about”, you know, and I think that there really, for me, I have needed a lot those spaces where we’re telling our stories to each other, because we’re feeding each other.

Ghiwa Sayegh  

And, and also, what I’ve come to realise is…which I kind of knew before, but I think it’s like, it’s really like an in-your-face kind of thing with the economic crisis of Lebanon, and also like other countries around Lebanon, and also all these migration laws and racism in Europe, you know, that are complementary, they’re not, you know…I don’t think it’s a question of the centre needing to be educated, like, I think it’s really an ideological war. 

It’s not that, you know, “if they know better, they’ll do better”, it’s not going to work because otherwise we’re falling into the trap of, you know, the promise of inclusion that then never really happens. Simply because, you know, it works because we’re excluded in many ways. So for me, it really is a question of ideological war and, and it’s about resisting that rather than trying to negotiate with that, so it’s a very…like, even in writing this plays out I feel Um, in the same way that it would play out if we were doing state politics, for instance, or refusing to do state politics. 

So that’s kind of, you know, this decentring and focusing on how is it that we can create, you know, interlinkages that would not be possible otherwise, has really been at the centre of what we’ve been trying to do, at least with the journal. So, in addition to the issue being seen as this collective, you know, coming together, that is very political, we also did try, we attempted some pieces of collective writing. 

And it’s always a beautiful exercise to do, because then we don’t know who’s writing what anymore. Sometimes, you know, people finish each other’s sentences or just add stories. And at the end, it’s just, you know, like this chaotic, but you know, we edited, so eventually, like, a more organised piece of writing that comes out of the collective and sometimes, you know, some of the pieces were really just incredible, and like, it’s hard to tell that they were written in this way. So it’s also about, you know, that was also a way to speak with each other in the stories, because, you know, at the end of the day, people were sharing very intimate stories in that small paper space that they had, and how it resonated with others. 

So even in the way that we write, I feel that there’s a lot to be done in terms of, you know, this idea of resisting because we’re told that if we’re from certain places in the world, or if we belong to certain communities, or, you know, if we’re at the margins in any way, or like in any way, then there are, our knowledge is not good enough to fit the model that’s out there. And I think this is really like saying “actually, we don’t want to fit the model and we are trying to think about other models and how these models can speak to people who do want to do this kind of political work with us.” So yeah, I could go on for hours, but…

Jet Moon  

I mean, I feel like it has a lot of levels, you know, when I mentioned this rhizomatic theory, one of the things that they’re talking about, you know, is breaking away from the hierarchical idea of like the tree or the branches, you know, and going into this, you know, mycelium, you know, decentered power. But I feel that it’s not as simple because I feel that there are many forms of decentered knowledge and action, writing, all of this different kinds of stuff happening but often they don’t have any access to visibility, or as you say, they’re like, kind of dismissed. 

And so it’s like…I think I think it’s not a yes or no, I think it’s complex, you know, and I think I have this thing where I say “oh, you know, could you speak about why it’s so important to acknowledge a broader idea of survivorship as a form of social care and change?” And why I asked that is because I think that’s about a reconfiguring of thinking and care. And that in itself, you know, does create change. Does that make sense?

Ghiwa Sayegh  

 Yeah absolutely. 

Jet Moon  ]

I think, you know, that’s kind of that’s kind of what you described, you know, it’s like, we’re kind of running a bit out of order. And I…but I just wonder, you know, like at the moment what your biggest need would be in terms of solidarity via recognition and being heard at the moment?

Ghiwa Sayegh  

As a journal?

Jet Moon  

No, you’re not a journal. You’re a person, you are a writer and you know?

Ghiwa Sayegh  

So what my personal solidarity need would be?

Jet Moon  

Because if we’re talking about having…being able to acknowledge survivorship as a form of social care and change, then what is your need? In terms of that, of being heard.

Ghiwa Sayegh  

I have lots. I do, I mean, the first thing that comes into my mind is the inability to have the mental space so I could get to my writing. And that’s a very big thing for me. And I do realise that the not having the mental space is not just out there, you know, floating, it’s very much has to do with, you know, our material conditions of existence. Namely, if I want to look at what’s happening now, the genocide, the ongoing genocide in Gaza, in Palestine, what that means in terms of resourcing for us, and how that then affects me as a writer, because once, you know, the resources for the journal are threatened, my own resources are then threatened. And also, generally, you know, the state of the…I would say….can you hear me all right? 

Jet Moon  

Yeah, but you’re getting a little bit quiet.

Ghiwa Sayegh  

Okay, I was, I was just thinking, it was the state of the economy today, you know, and how, you know, of course, it has many factors, but also, you know, the whole link with migration, which is, you know, linked to me and my trajectory. And how that, you know, makes up for conditions of uncertainty. So, like, really like this lack of stability, that is political and economic, and also having, you know, looking at yourself as a body that’s killable and disposable, in the place where you live is, I mean, it’s not the best, these are not the best conditions for saying, you know, “I want to put everything on the side and focus on my writing”, which is how I function, I’m sure people have different ways of functioning. So that’s really on a very material level, in terms of needs, which are also about bigger questions. 

And I think I also have immediate community needs, because whether I wanted or not, at least, politically, and in terms of my writing, because that’s not the case, in all my areas of life, I do feel quite isolated in France. So I do have other communities – which I link to sex work, BDSM, etc – I also have a community of migrants and people who are working on, you know, activism around Palestine, but this intersection of all of that with writing is missing here, for me, at least. Which makes it, you know…yeah, I’m alone, I work with people, you know, other writers online, but…and it helps, but it’s not quite the same.

Jet Moon  

So I’m gonna take another step back a little bit further. You know, I’m interested in writing as a method of survival and a way to consolidate and transform experience. And speaking about your own writing. I wonder if you want to talk about the process of academic writing when you’re in Paris, post-Beirut, and what your goals were at that time? You know, maybe, and maybe it’s not so separate from like, fulfilling the academic commitment, because this could refer to borders. But I think I, you know, just want to talk a bit about what you’re writing at this time, when you land in Paris.

Ghiwa Sayegh  

Okay, so, this is a very interesting question, because the reason why I was able to come here…I mean, the initial reason, right, was to pursue a Master’s in Gender Studies at the university Paris VIII St. Vincennes-Saint-Denis and…so there’s this whole story, it’s a bit of a tangent, but I feel like saying it anyway. So the thing is: I got accepted, I applied for a student visa, and then the visa would not come because we were told that the borders are closed because of COVID. So I kind of got stuck in Beirut and I had lost my apartment because I thought I would have left by the time. So I was 30. and almost 31 back to my parents house, feeling like my life is over. And then the explosion happened and I was in Beirut at the time, and I’m like “Okay, so I’m being, you know, uselessly tortured”. And then the borders were open in solidarity, because the explosion had happened. 

So I was given my visa and solidarity, my student visa. And this is how I ended up in Europe. So I was actually doing my Masters and I completed my Masters. And what was interesting about it was that…I mean, to be very honest, at first, I was like, “Okay, I’m just gonna see how this goes and, you know, do what I can”, but then I really got into it, because it’s meant I had space to do my writing, which I hadn’t been able to do for so long, whether by, you know, writing short essays for class says, or eventually writing this huge thesis, because…so in the UK, a thesis would be 10,000 words, whereas here, it would be at least 40,000 and mine was 45,000, which is like, you know, two thirds of a PhD almost like, it’s quite a big piece of writing, you know. 

And I had my reservation about academic writing, because it’s not that I don’t like theory, on the contrary, I’m, I love theory, I just think that the way we think about theory is very supremacist, ableist and, you know, like, it has to do with like, very specific sense of what is theory and the question of who and which parts of the world can theorise. So I love theory, I just don’t love this particular theory. And my way of doing theory is quite different. So what I did in my Master’s thesis was that I really pushed the boundaries of what this academic format can do, whether, you know, with the content of what I was talking about, but also with form. 

And I was like “okay, like, it’s either gonna be, you know, great, or it’s gonna suck”. And I took that risk. And what was significant was, during my defence, I remembered that I had prepared a presentation, and I was telling the jury that my initial plan during the defence was to play a card game with them, which would be like tarot or whatever, and then let the cards decide how the defence would go. And I explained why I would not be doing that. I told them that their decision on that day decided also whether I could stay in Europe or not. So my stay and my possibility of changing my visa from a student visa to a work visa was directly linked to the jury’s decision on that day. Which is quite interesting, because then how can we talk about, you know, the writing without thinking about all of these dimensions, you know, that these 45,000 words, were my…potentially an entry point to stay, or it could get me, you know, sent back home

Jet Moon  

Now, we’re both laughing. And I…

Ghiwa Sayegh  

I mean, that’s what academic writing is for…you know, when we think about migration really.

Jet Moon  

Yeah, but I mean, you know my opinion on all of this some institutional power. I don’t think that there’s any argument going on here. But I think again, there’s um, you know, I mean, I remember speaking with a friend who is um, was doing academic studies in Linz in Austria. you know, they’re also a migrant. And um, you know, I mean, for them, they were like, “well, you know, for me to be in the institution is a really big deal”. 

Ghiwa Sayegh  

Yeah. 

Jet Moon  

You know, “I want to be here”. So I think again, it’s always like not simple. And I think that there’s also this enormous growth. I mean, what would the institution be without all of the external knowledge that comes from, you know, Crip Studies, Trauma Studies, Women’s Studies, Queer Studies, you know, all the BIPOC… you know, it’s so vast that what actually would there be? You know, this…I feel like the all or nothing came up somehow in the last conversation. And I wanted, you know…we talked about writing, but I also wanted to talk about like not writing, because we’ve spoken about it before. But if you wanted to say something about being affected by trauma, I don’t want to like re traumatise you. But this thing of being someone really deeply identified with words, of reading and writing, of this whole community of writing, and then being faced with the change in that relationship and what it’s been like to process that. Maybe if you could say, you know, what that was this thing of like, not being able to write.

Ghiwa Sayegh  

I think…funnily enough, there was this moment when it’s like I had left  – or so I thought, at the time – I had left the traumatic environment, which was for me, the combination of economic crisis, COVID, explosion and I was somewhere else so it felt like “okay, maybe this could be different”. And so I spent that first year reflecting and processing through writing. Except once I was done with that project, it became very difficult for me to go back to writing space, almost impossible. And I think that part of it is because as I settled into this new reality, I realised that trauma is ongoing, and it’s not something that I just left in the past. 

Even though, in many ways, yes, I have more economically stable conditions than I used to, in other ways there’s always this kind of, you know…it’s much more disciplined, or at least, I have to be much more disciplined in the way I am here. And also work much more than I used to, I work much more, I have much more jobs than I used to have which means that writing, you know, becomes very difficult. And, and it’s not easy to say that, because then, you know, there are all these feelings of, you know, on top of everything else, I’m also unable to get to anything that has to do with writing and feelings of personal failure that are really broader than that, but one can’t help but you know, internalise all of that. 

But I definitely think that this inability to write in addition to, you know, some conditions out there not being, you know, the ones that are optimal, also have to do with continuing to live through trauma, but trauma that has different faces. At the same time, I do realise that we can’t just wait for an after trauma, right? So I mean one can always hope but I think that I do want to get to a point in my life where I have found the strategies and the community resources to be able to be like “okay, I know all of this is happening. But this is a lifeline and this is the writing that I need to do”, and I don’t think I’m there now, I definitely was there when I came to France. But yeah, maybe it’s one thing. Yeah,

Jet Moon 

I mean, obviously, I’ve been working with this writers group and have worked with writers groups in the past, which is about, you know, encouraging people to find a voice, be able to get words down on the page or trust that they have a story, that they have something to say that they have the right to say it, you know, and like, all these different problems that people struggle with. But I also have been able to listen to people talking about the times when we don’t write. And that sometimes the pause is really important.

Ghiwa Sayegh  

The what?

Jet Moon  

The pause 

Ghiwa Sayegh  

Jet Moon 

The pause, yeah. You know, and I’m thinking of, like um so Peachy, I would have written the first pages of that in the early 90s. So that took decades to get past this, you know, two and a half-typewritten pages. And then, to write several different… many, many different things in between but to write this particular thing, it took a long time. And so I’m always…I feel that urgency to write, but at the same time, I say a lot about the time being right. For particular things, and that I couldn’t have written that at a different time then when I completed it, you know, say that, two years ago, when I finished writing, I just had no tools to be able to do it, you know? But going a little bit broad, but I think it really makes sense to ask, you know, how the writing of other survivors, you know, people that you’d identify as survivors has been important to you, and whether you could say who those people are, and how that’s been important to you, and why? 

Ghiwa Sayegh 

I mean, first, yours. No, really. I’m very serious. I think that at least in the past few months, just being able to have those conversations, about writing in general and what it means also to write through trauma, which is not something that you know, those are not just conversations that, you know, you go to university, and you have this conversation, it’s just not gonna happen, you know, like, just having the privilege of engaging in those conversations. At least, even if…you know, it’s not…it hasn’t made me like go and, you know, finish writing my book, at least, it’s helped me centre the conversation of writing back into my life, which sometimes, you know, it’s like, in the back of my mind, but I have too many things, and I can’t really think about it. 

And I think that this has been a kind of anchor. And also reading your work and thinking that it is possible, you know, to the work that’s from the margins, that’s radical. And that brings together…which is, you know, so my big focus, bringing together you know, politics with the big P like big politics with sexual morality and deviancy and yeah, so that’s one. 

Um, I would say also, like, you know, I could name big names, of course, you know, I was influenced by the people that you mentioned at the beginning, in my old bio, like Audre Lorde and Sara Ahmed. Like, I mean, sure, it’s been very valuable to think with those works. But I think, you know, my community of authors as an editor, I don’t think that I’ve been pushed to think about writing and publishing in general the same way I have with these people. Because it’s, you know, one thing to engage with a work piece of writing that’s already done and out there and that’s published like from, you know, people who are considered a bit like, you know, superstars at least in the decolonial feminism, you know, world. And it’s another thing to engage with, you know, the everyday of writing and what people go through to eventually come to produce something like that. 

And, you know, as an editor for a long time, I was like “Okay, I’m not just an editor, you know”, I also listened to people like, “what’s making them not write or not be able to finish?” And that’s a big part of my job actually, just listen to where are people stuck. And in a lot of ways, it’s also where I’m stuck. And I think, you know, there’s a kind of…in many ways, we create community based on that rather than “Oh, look at us. We’re doing like those amazing writings that we’re producing”. It’s really about the process itself, I would say. I don’t know. That’s a very simple way of answering the question but…

Jet Moon  

Okay, well, but I think that I mean in with these big names, obviously, they have struggles, but it’s like that maybe we’re not hearing about them so much. 

Ghiwa Sayegh  

Of course, definitely

Jet Moon  

You know, in our groups, like when we’re talking about the obstacles of writing, that it is, in my experience, it has very much been about, as you say, that kind of big P politics, because it’s like okay, well, you know, how is disability ruling another person’s life in terms of their access needs being me, them having access to any kind of social or community outlet or visibility? you know? Who can leave the house? As you…all of this economic pressure, I think the thing of people being continually shamed, and told that they’re kind of worthless people. It’s quite a crushing place to write from, and yet still people do it, you know, so I don’t, again, I don’t think that there’s any disagreement in terms of the value of these conversations. Yeah, otherwise, we just living in an Instagram post. 

I’m gonna jump and just say, you know, again, it’s something that we’ve talked about, over, you know, in the time that all of this has been happening, about this um genocide continuing and, you know, we, we’ve talked about that for months. But I wonder about, if you had something to say about the role of creative writing at this time, because I read the poems that had been part of the recent podcasts project that you were involved in, and you spoke about a particular editorial decision in their curation. Do you want to say something about this?

Ghiwa Sayegh  

I think that when…when we’re faced with things like genocide…yeah, when we’re faced with something that big, and that incomprehensible, I think the first impulse is to say, you know, let’s put create creativity on the side. Like, that’s really the first impulse I feel. That’s in the first days, it feels so daunting, because it is that it’s like there’s no more there’s no place for words almost. They there’s no words to describe the enormity of what it is that we’re going through, the horror, and also the horror of realising that, you know, how banal it is, to some again, going back to the ideological war. 

And so it feels like writing is in suspension, a suspension at that point, because we want to bring a truth out desperately…except what words do you use for that? Which is why I think that this, you know, creative writing curation that we did was interesting because it was specifically about: how is it there yet that you then use creative writing to talk about something for which you do not have the language? I don’t know if my sentence is making sense, but you know. And oftentimes, it requires not only like, thinking about what you’re saying, but how you’re saying it, as well. And I think this is why, you know, poetry is very…can be very powerful. And, you know, in times, like, like this. But I definitely felt this moment where, you know, it’s like, we stop and say: do we even have words? And I think recovering language is then the process of, you know, dealing with the trauma, as well. 

You know, from silence to –  again, Audre Lorde – transforming, transforming silence into action and words. And language. Like, that’s really what happens. Like, I can’t say that I found my language and in moments like this one, but, um, I mean, historically, people have and I’m…and I know that people are right now. So, yeah,

Jet Moon  

Yeah, I found I mean, when I read the poems, I suppose that for me, what I was thinking about was how I don’t always process immediately everything that was the meaning of the poems, but it was about a resonance and sometimes like sitting with the language. And which was why I also found it nonsensical that then a funder had asked you to explain the poem. Because this seemed to not even take in kind of what was going on in the process of reading and reaching for understanding and you know, that that is something that is a relationship and event or a process.

Ghiwa Sayegh  

I mean, are we talking about that, because then I can talk about that.

Jet Moon  

I think it’s better that we just kind of don’t, really, because maybe you need money in the future, but um, I mean,

Ghiwa Sayegh  

I just want to talk about this one day, you know, I think it is very important.

Jet Moon  

I’m gonna just rephrase it. Okay. So, I mean, obviously, artists and writers have found a creative route to say things that couldn’t be said in other contexts. You know, like, sometimes you can say stuff in the gallery, or in the museum that maybe you can’t say somewhere else. And creative productions provided the vital space for words and witnessing to exist, which is, of course, vital and great. However, something we’ve spoken about before is how government policy informs the actions of NGOs and funding bodies. So I wonder if you want to talk about how your projects and funding relationships have been affected recently and why. Probably it’s not good to like name names but yeah, so there you go. Let’s talk about that.

Ghiwa Sayegh  

Yeah, no, I won’t name names. But let’s say that Um, so, you…you have a project, and you are very clear about your politics. And it’s never been an issue, except something happens, which is, you know, a genocide. And suddenly, there’s this whole policy change, which makes your project suddenly unfundable. Although, like the politics were there before, but it was easier to turn the blind eye quote, unquote, especially, you know, from Western based funding, let’s say, and suddenly what becomes the problem is not the genocide, your politics become problem. So as a journal, we’ve struggled with the funding from Western based funders, particularly some who had a particular form of historical guilt that they’re trying to transpose on to Palestinians. I don’t understand why they’re supposed to pay the price for, you know, European discrimination and anti-semitism. But what happened was that yes, suddenly our project became outside of these new lines of politics. Because apparently there’s a moderate position to take when a genocide is…which meant that – yes?

Jet Moon  

I mean, I think it’s okay to say that what has happened is that, you know, Germany in particular has had, for some years now a process of divestment, so it doesn’t support anything to do with Palestine. And then since this genocide has been happening, that has become a state wide, very censoring of the arts policy, and that that has had a direct impact, you know, like, you had your funding cut

Ghiwa Sayegh  

Yeah absolutely. And as a journal, we were very clear from the start that we would not accept funding from bodies that support the occupation of Palestine. And we were absolutely clear about where we stand politically. So it’s not something that you know, you know, where we…I don’t know, like it….I don’t understand what was so surprising all of a sudden, but I mean, even from our side, I think we would rather have less resources, and work with funders who would not have this line, then, you know, accept money that, that is like that. It’s just that it happened mid-year, and we were caught by surprise. 

So we had to adjust some of the things and I think this is where I can find back the conversation about creative writing, because in times of censorship, creative writing allows you to say things that you could not say otherwise. And, in many ways, this is the request of, you know, “tell us what that poem means”. Because, you know, poems carry meaning, and meanings that are not, you know…you don’t need to say “I’m against Palestinians being genocided”. You can write a poem about it. And it’s scary, it’s always been scary, I think, for regimes and power if we look historically, you know. What’s ironic is that those same regimes don’t see how they repeat their own history of oppression, except that it’s a different target every time.

Jet Moon  

Yeah. Okay. Now (laughter) all right. I know but seriously, I am going to ask a question. So: could you say something to survivors who wish to write? Words of encouragement, anything about why writing in private or public is important? And, you know, it’s I think it’s really for those people who are like “How can I begin? Or how can I find the way? Why should I?” Yeah.

Ghiwa Sayegh  

Well, you know, being in the publishing world, in some ways, I would say that I see how many challenges and obstacles there are institutionally when it comes to publishing. And I think that a lot of authors kind of get stuck, because of how many challenges there are from the moment of writing to the moment of publishing. What I would say, however, is that, yes, of course, if you know, a work is made public, it’s fantastic. It’s, you know, this is what you know, a lot of writers want, but that is not the only way. Um, I mean, as I can give Kohl as an example: we don’t print anything, we exist online and we have a really big readership. We also have a readership…we are taught at universities and sometimes I’m like, I had no idea how we did this, you know, like, because it’s like, we’re completely bypassing everything that’s known to publication. So it’s not impossible, there are so many ways to just put work out there, maybe not in the way that we imagined it. But you know, like, everything’s possible. And I would say that rather than let this hinder a process of community, like for it to actually foster community, because then when we turn to other writers to other communities, of writers, what we’re doing is thinking about how the writing itself can become a political tool and not the end product.

Jet Moon  

This really reminded me of conversations that we’ve had about, you know, prison abolition and different ways of transformative justice. And the idea not being like “oh, you know, we’re gonna destroy this, you know, the prison industrial complex”, you know, this thing of like, when you said “oh, there’s always action, you know, in the now, what can be done now, or can be done now”. That’s what it made me think about. Um, before we start talking about prison abolition, which could go for five hours (laughter) I know, I know, I want to ask you what writing you’re dreaming of making in the future?

Ghiwa Sayegh  

I mean, it’s all idealistic and a bit sad. I have many dreams. One of them is really to continue publishing other writers, I would love to do that. I mean, I’ve always dreamed of running a publishing house. I’m not sure I have the energy to do that anymore. But it’s something that had always been on the back of my mind, like having a publishing house for people to write from the margins. So that’s one, that has more to do with writing in general, rather than my own. My own writing um I think I’m, I’d really like it if I could, I mean, I’m gonna start small. Like, eventually finish a book that’s hybrid in the sense that it’s both theory and personal history. And personal being political, right? So I always like to write in a very hybrid way, combining theory and my own trajectory, which means also my pol-, the politics around me and around my life. And I, I wish to finish a project, like a book that is all like that one day. 

And eventually, I would really like to write fiction one day, I think, that’s, you know, I’ve always wanted to do that. But with research and academia…I don’t know how we call it in English, but it’s like, you know, you become stuck on this mode of writing. And I feel that writing fiction would be a liberation in some way of the imagination, which (recording cuts out) liberate our political visions, and aspirations.

Jet Moon  

I want to say…can I ask you to say the thing about liberation because we got a glitch.

Ghiwa Sayegh  

Yeah, I was saying that…so for me fiction would be…by liberating my writing through fiction, it would be a way to liberate my imagination, which is also a way to liberate our political visions and aspirations for the future.

Jet Moon  

I’m going to just end the recording at this point

Ghiwa Sayegh  

I’ll do that with mine as well…oh it’s one hour that’s perfect!