If Only People Knew…

Writing from the vantage point of a descendent of Armenian genocide survivors, in this essay, the author juxtaposes her family history with the experience of witnessing the ongoing Nakba and genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. She questions the relationship between evidence and change, and the idea that if only people knew, they would work to stop the violence. Drawing on artist and theorist John Berger, she concludes that archives do more than thwart erasure. They are also necessary for the broader work of anticolonial struggle.