Founder, The Climate Propagandist | Co-founder, Dubai Climate Collective | ?? Climate communications & pollution propaganda
This past week, I was in South Lebanon ????, shooting a short film on indigenous resistance with X Vendetta and Earth Preservation Project for Icarus Complex Magazine. It was just the three of us—Aya, Sarah, and I—meeting communities who, despite being forcibly displaced by war, continue to resist through return. We passed through the towns of Nabatieh, Marjaayoun, Kawkawba, Kfarchouba, and Chebaa, some of which were under occupation just a couple of weeks ago. What we saw… ?? Animals left behind in war—burned, injured, or lifeless on the roads ??? A lot of destruction ?? The occupier on the other side of the mountain (so close that Aya’s phone operator welcomed her to Israel) ?? Scorched farmland—people told us their lands were burned with white phosphorus, their olive trees uprooted and taken What we heard… ??? Israeli drones—loud, terrifying (a tool of psychological warfare) ?? Nature, animals, and "Jnoub" already waking into early spring What we learned… ★ Resistance is rooted in the land ★ The necessity of return, of repopulation before rebuilding ★ There is no environmental justice without liberation One line from our conversation with Dr. Rami Zurayk stayed with me: "The goal is not reconstruction, it's repopulation." The people we met have endured so much—displacement, destruction, grief—but their return is a living act of resistance, defying erasure and the attempts to uproot them from their land. More soon.