The Industry of Silence: The Ongoing Nakba and the Racialization of Palestinians

ABSTRACT What does it take to silence the voices of, and for, a people enduring genocide? In this article, I find the answer in the wisdom of black feminist writings by Audre Lorde and bell hooks. I denounce the oppressive structures that perpetuate the silencing of Palestinians, hiding the ongoing process of their erasure. I critique the global industry of silence—a web of racialising organizations—that actualizes colonial narratives, dehumanizing Palestinians as a monstrous other. The industry of silence seeks to ensure that Palestinians are always watched and surveilled but never seen in their suffering and never heard as humans. The paper investigates racialization as the mindset underpinning the Nakba, the ongoing process of dehumanization, demobilization, fragmentation, and ultimately, erasure of the Palestinian people. By analyzing racialization as a historical process rooted in the Zionist settler–colonial project, it also explores how this extends beyond Israel into the “Western” world, to organizations in Europe and the U.S. The industry of silence then becomes part of the Nakba. It is through the silencing of dissenting voices that the Nakba lurks amongst us, fed by the mental structures of racism, which live on in the Western “colonial amnesia,” influencing how Palestinians are perceived and treated. The industry of silence masks this systemic violence, enabling the genocide. Speaking out becomes then an act of resistance, and affirmation of humanity. I argue that voice is life, and silence is death—collective courage to break the silence will liberate us, by freeing us from the fear that is collectively choking us.