Therapy During Genocide Is a Western Luxury
How colonialism fractures us first, then sells us therapy as a consolation prize.
©Eman Mohammed
6:30 PM — I sit in Istanbul, phone in one hand, Gaza in the other.
The hour strikes the same in both, but only one of them is bleeding.
Western therapists say: “Be tender to your younger self.” I hear: “Be tender to your Arab self.” Because I’m Palestinian, and the therapist is Western. Their values, their silence, maybe even their ballots helped shape the trauma they now get paid to treat. They come in after the bombs.
They destroy us first, then rush in to fix us, like colonialism was a trauma care package. I know because they tried it on me. A “rebellious” woman photojournalist from Gaza. Truth I was alone, exhausted, hunted, and they offered me protection from the very demons they armed, trained, and launched my way. That’s not aid. That’s abuse dressed in empathy.
7:45 PM — The world tweets condolences. Gaza counts bodies. Since 1948, then again when Gaza’s resistance tore down the fence, not just the metal one, but the psychological one that separated mere existence and defiance, the world pretended to pay attention.
Some of us channeled our pain through art. Others self-medicated with defiance. We posted, we filmed, we screamed online. I get it. I’m doing it too right now. I hate it and wholeheartedly support it. Maybe it sounds hypocritical. But here’s the thing: I’d rather be a walking contradiction than a silent witness.
They say the conquerors write history. Not this time. Not after this genocide.
8:35 PM — Sunset in Gaza. Sunset in Istanbul. One city grieves, the other dines.
Will there be an “after”? Yes, because just like joy, misery doesn’t last forever. Pain lies and says it’ll never end. But joy does the same. Our parents taught us that, not with words, but with their wounds. They feared joy would be stolen, so they never fully embraced it. That wasn’t weakness, that was survival logic. But if we want to break the cycle, we have to stop flinching when happiness walks in.
Genocide will end too. Not because the killers will stop. But because we will outlive the silence, the war crimes and those who supported it. We will tear through their kingdom like a rightful hurricane. I know it. I am it. You are it too.
9:55 PM — Istanbul sleeps. Gaza doesn’t get to.
Zionist soldiers have raped Palestinian children in prison cells for decades. That horror was ignored, until a Western accredited organization like Save the Children UK broadcasted it. Even then, they kept the colonizer’s signature in their name. United Kingdom? What’s united about stolen Welsh land, stolen Scottish land, and the occupied North of Ireland? Terrorists in suits.
The West doesn’t know how to do good without centering itself. So it does it halfway. Half assed peace. Half hearted aid. Full scale hypocrisy.
11:10 PM — My body’s tired, my mind won’t shut up.
I’m wired and worn. My emotions spin in a blender. I write until my eyes beg for sleep. But not because I feel safe. Because I need to stay human.
12:00 AM — Gaza midnight. The silence isn't peace. It's exhaustion.
They say history is written by the conquerors. Not anymore. History will be written by our permission. By the free people of Palestine, Sudan, Lebanon, Syria, Iran and their unapologetic, noble allies.
By our permission, but not if we write it first.
Because genocide isn’t just mass graves. It’s the songs we forgot the words to. The dabka we no longer teach. The jokes that don’t land anymore. The recipes that died with their creators and never got to be passed to the new generation.
12:33 AM — I'm still here, are you?
When we say “we’ve run out of things to say,” we’re not empty. We’ve just moved into the hardest part of witnessing, where the world stops looking, and we’re left inside the echo.
The Israeli regime has stolen lives, joy, food, safety, love and land from Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and tried Iran, until the people smacked them to the ground.
But they’ve also stolen something bigger from the world: its dignity.
They’ve exposed how weak the UN really is. They’ve made a mockery of international law. They’ve set the blueprint for every future colonial project to brutalize people, just because they can.
12:58 AM — Still awake for the love of Gaza.
But history? History is ours now. Not fragile. Not broken. Not begging.
Ours, because we wrote it in real time, with unshaking hands, in dust, in blood, in languages and dialects that survived empires.
We are not only the aftermath. We are the authors. We are the future they tried to erase. We are the joy they never saw coming. And we will arrive, louder than grief, and longer than their lies.
We are the present that won’t fade away. Long live the resistance. Long live the Intifada.