Suspending Humanity from Humanitarian Crises: A Case of Testimonial Injustice

Abstract

In conditions of humanitarian crises, self-recorded testimonies are recognized as valid narratives, empowering the voice of the colonized. The paper argues that these testimonies can be taken as speech acts that form a narrative in oral history. These testimonies aim at inducing an obligation of solidarity and change on the end of the hearer. Oral history in crises holds a unique ethical value, serving as a form of epistemic and discursive salvation for individuals and their communities. This paper examines the epistemic and discursive aspect of oral testimonies, in order to denote two different ethical challenges that give priority to the narrative of the colonizer over that of the colonized. These ethical challenges are based on the authoritative discourse's dehumanizing terminology that reduces the native's ethical subjectivity on the one hand and the distortion of narrator's uptake that gives power to the colonizer's narrative on the other hand. The analysis in this paper employs qualitative method in analyzing oral testimonies, conceptual critique and argumentation grounded in speech act theory, focusing on how illocutionary forces are shaped and distorted by ethical, discursive, and historical factors.

Introduction

“Omens, prodigies and apparitions are now being sent back to the regions of fable. History stood in need of being enlightened by Philosophy” (Voltaire)

In 1948, the United Nations established the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, formally proposing it on December 9, 1948, and bringing it into effect on January 12, 1951. This convention includes 19 articles that outline a comprehensive set of rules to be upheld by all signatories and enforced under international law in alignment with the United Nations General Assembly. Article II defines genocide as follows: “Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.” ¹ Genocide is regarded as a humanitarian crisis and a series of events that presents a critical threat to the health, security, and safety of a targeted group of people.

Two months later, on March 10, 1948, Zionist leaders finalized a plan for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, issuing orders for the systematic expulsion of Palestinians. This operation, known as Plan D, was put into action. “Israel's 1948 Plan D contains a repertoire of cleansing methods that one by one fit the means the UN describes in its definition of ethnic cleansing, and sets the background for the massacres that accompanied the massive expulsion” (Pappe, 2007). The methods employed included bombardment, setting fire to the native's homes, intimidation, and ensuring that the expelled displaced homeowners could never return. “From planning stage to final execution, what occurred in Palestine in 1948 forms a clear-cut case, according to these informed and scholarly definitions, of ethnic cleansing” (Pappe, 2007).

Today's events in Gaza reveal a continuous violation of principles that, according to United Nations conventions and international law, were meant to be protected and enforced. Fast- forwarding to October 17, 2023, Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah asserts that “Israel's war on Gaza ended, and the genocide began” ² following the deaths of 483 civilians seeking refuge in Al Ahli Hospital.

In the age of social media and public news outlets, individuals can access and engage with events occurring far beyond their immediate surroundings. This paper focuses on archives, reels and videos shared by Palestinian activists on social media platforms, alongside testimonies from Gaza's citizens amidst genocide, treating these as acts of oral testimony.

The central aim of this work is to examine the discursive injustice that distorts the illocutionary force of such testimonies, undermining their intended meaning and impact. To achieve this, in the first section I introduce the field of oral history to emphasize on the benefits of the discipline in giving voice to the indigenous nations in the time of colonization. In the second section, I analyze oral testimonies as a form of speech act with a dual illocutionary force. First, these testimonies aim to construct a narrative that contributes to oral history. Second, they seek to elicit an uptake that fosters solidarity and triggers change in the face of oppression. In the third section, I identify three key ethical challenges that obstruct proper uptake, thereby severing the attempts of solidarity with the oppressed. The paper concludes by proposing solutions that integrate historical, discursive, and psychological approaches to recalibrate the hermeneutical framework, allowing the native to reclaim agency over their narrative and secure the intended uptake.

Oral History

Recording the Voice of the Silenced

Until the nineteenth century, historians relied on eyewitness testimonies to document events.

However, with the development of history as an academic discipline, the availability of archives and documentary sources gradually replaced the oral accounts of eyewitnesses with written documents (Thompson, 2000). The prioritization of written archives and documentation has contributed to the marginalization of substantial groups within society— those who played a role in experiencing history, rather than in documenting it. Oral history is the medium throughout which one can bring back the silenced voice of those who did not participate in building monarchies and reigning peasants, but those who participated in living under the conditions of the socio-political circumstances forced on them. Raw reality can be taken from the mouth of those who lived rather than those who reigned.

In oral history, narrators are not figures of political or social prominence; but individuals devoid from any form of political and social titles. They are people who have lived through and survived significant events—those who endured monarchies, the Rwandan genocide, Armenian genocide etc. These individuals did not influence the geopolitical circumstances that shaped their conditions, but their voices are essential. They shared their lives with neighbors, friends, family, and their communities. Although they did not actively shape history, they embody the very foundation that makes historical documentation possible. When oral history brings forth the perspectives of those from the underrepresented— individuals without privilege or titles—it enables a more realistic reconstruction of the past.

Building on the preceding points, the power of oral history lies in its ability to amplify the narratives of the oppressed, challenging the dominant discourse of the oppressors. On a microscopic level, oral history serves as a vital tool to privilege the voices of marginalized communities, providing a means to articulate the struggles of indigenous nations within colonial and post-colonial contexts. Linda Tuhiwai Smith states in Decolonizing Methodologies, oral histories are not only repositories of knowledge but also acts of resistance, that allows indigenous communities to reclaim their narratives and challenge the frame imposed by colonial powers (Smith, 2012). On a macroscopic level, these testimonies contribute to the reconstruction of the collective identity of the oppressed, enabling them to decentralize the hegemonic narratives imposed by their oppressors. Elizabeth Jelin's work in State Repression and the Labors of Memory, emphasize the importance of memory work in shaping collective identities, particularly in societies recovering from repression (Jelin et al., 2003). Thus, oral history has been the mean through which the colonized resist and counter discursive and epistemic violence.

Oral History in Colonization: The Case of Palestine Between Past and Present

Based on the previous subsection, oral history gives voice to the narrative of indigenous nations and has been a powerful tool throughout history for the natives to reclaim power over their discourse. In this subsection of the paper I will redirect the discipline of oral history in the time of colonization and contextualize it by applying the former to the experiences of Palestinians, particularly during the 1948 Nakba. My focus on the testimonies of the survivors, through public news, interviews and social media outlets. Their voices offer an unfiltered reflection of life in Palestine in 1948. Palestinian oral history archives contain over 1,000 h of oral testimonies from both first-generation Palestinians and displaced Palestinians now living in Lebanon. In studying the testimonies of first-generation Palestinians, I have observed the raw portrayal of lived experiences often missing from the narratives provided by news outlets and history books.

One example is the interview with Fatime Abd al-Salam al-Hanafi, recorded on July 16, 1997, ³ recorded in the Palestinian Oral History Archives (POHA), in which she recounts her experience in Haifa at the onset of the conflict. Her testimony about the bombing of her home and subsequent displacement to A’akka draws the image of resilience. Despite the bombing, she refused to leave her home until she had retrieved all the corpses buried under the rubble. When pressed to evacuate due to increasing danger, she responded ﺑﯿﮫ أﻗﻮم ﻻزم واﺟﺑﻲ ھﺪا (“This is my duty, and I must fulfill it”). She further explains that she felt empowered by God to carry the injured from beneath the rubbles. Her oral testimony is marked by the warmth of her voice when she describes how life was before the occupation, the courage in her voice when she restates the targeting of her house and the anger in her voice when she was retelling her story of displacements. These different layers presented in Fatime's story cannot be portrayed by a written narrative. They provide data for a new epistemic background in understanding the lived experience of Palestinians under the Nakba.

On a broader level, the tradition that prioritizes the voices of witnesses enables a more equitable reconstruction of history. The history derived from such testimonies is more realistic, closer to lived experiences, and, crucially, free from sociopolitical hierarchies. By extracting testimonies, we free ourselves from the social categorizations that fragment societies and privilege certain lives over others. These testimonies do not only reincarnate the personal but also the collective identity.

An example of this is the story of Nayfah Abd al-Tayih, found in the Palestinian Oral History Archives’ Al Jana collection. In her testimony, Nayfah recounts her father's observations as a Palestinian shipper witnessing the influx of foreign ships arriving at the port.

She goes on to describe the reaction of the people in Old Haifa as the battles began, saying, ﺑﺘﺰﻛﺮ ﻟﯿﻠة ﺑﯿﻦ اﻟﻌﺸﻰ واﻟﻤﻐﺮب, ﺑﺎﻟﺠﺴﺮ ﯾﻠﻲ ﻛاﻦ ﻓﻲ رزق أﺑﻮي اﻟﻮ ﻋﻠﻘﺖ اﻟﯿﮭﻮد ﻣﻊ اﻟﻌﺮب (I remember the night between evening and night, on the bridge)—referring to Rushmiyeh bridge—“where my father's business was located; this is where the battle between the Arabs and the Zionists began”). She describes how Palestinians gathered and prepared their weapons, even collecting money to buy arms for self-defense. Reflecting on the imbalance of power and military support, she concludes with, علينا نترك بلدنا ﻋﺎر “Shame on us if we leave our homeland”. Nayfah's testimony not only conveys her personal experience but also captures the collective attitude of the people she was surrounded by back then. Thus, for a fairer representation of individual experiences within a specific historical period and a deeper understanding of the emotional reality of the past, oral history offers a uniquely privileged means of reconstructing history.

On Self Recorded Testimonies

Back to the present, social media and news outlets serve as vital platforms for individuals affected by humanitarian crises to document and share their experiences. Numerous examples demonstrate how these personal testimonies provide the world with an accurate reflection of specific situations. In the ongoing genocide in Gaza, figures like Plestia, Motaz and Bisan, ⁴ along with many others, have used their platforms to convey their lived experiences. Through reels, videos, and photographs, they have documented the atrocities they have endured, using social media as a means of informing the world. To analyze this content, I employed a narrative and thematic analysis approach, focusing on how these testimonies construct a collective narrative of resistance and survival while challenging dominant discourses. By examining recurring themes, such as calls for solidarity, expressions of loss, and assertions of resilience, I sought to highlight how these self-recorded testimonies function not only as a means of communication but also as acts of defiance against epistemic erasure.

These testimonies, much like those preserved in oral history archives, offer data that enriches the field of oral history. As discussed earlier, these data in question are crucial for a fairer reconstruction of the past, as it mirrors the reality of those who lived rather than those who reigned. Self-recorded testimonies, however, provide a perspective that formal interviews may not capture, as the immediate display of emotions—tears, anger, and despair—emerges in the spontaneous recording of their experiences. This unmediated portrayal grants the audience a direct and unfiltered interaction with the individuals in question, delivering a raw authenticity that surpasses any secondary narrative.

The value of oral history lies not in recounting events exactly as they occurred, but in revealing how these events were experienced and interpreted by those who lived through them. Other than the archives that address the past, oral history in portraying the present in humanitarian crisis, is particularly impactful in self-recorded testimonies, where individuals document their own narratives without the mediation of an interviewer. The act of preserving and sharing these testimonies offers invaluable data. Here, the narrator is on the ground, independently capturing their experience. No set of questions could elicit the unfolding truth as effectively as their autobiographical memory a memory that is fresh, immediate, and capable of conveying the direct impact of their experience.

The phenomenon reinforces the reliability of memory as a historical source, supporting the prioritization of self-recorded testimonies over mediated ones, in times when mediated interviews need to be postponed. As noted, “our discovery was prompted by survey findings that highly memorable events tend to be told soon after the event occurs and on multiple occasions thereafter, presumably to clarify the emotional meaning of the event” (Thorne & McLean, 2003). ⁵

In the midst of a humanitarian crisis, researchers who focus on conducting interviews or building theories are often not effectively aiding those affected by the crisis. In such conditions, the primary role of researchers should be to listen to the voices of those directly impacted, rather than approaching them solely as subjects of study. Any fieldwork involving interviews during a crisis not only is unproductive but also risks being inconsiderate to the lived experiences of individuals enduring such suffering. Therefore, when documenting history in times of war, particularly concerning individuals affected by a humanitarian crisis, one of the ethically permissible sources is self-recorded testimony. Any attempt to construct theories by interviewing people currently in distress could be viewed as morally insensitive. While archival records are essential tools for understanding past humanitarian crises, self-recorded testimonies are crucial for understanding crises in the present.

In the previous section, I established the significance of oral history, particularly during times of humanitarian crisis. I identified the unique approach of prioritizing self- recorded testimonies over interview-mediated accounts in the times of present crisis. This choice is rooted not only in the ethical limitations of conducting interviews in crisis contexts but also in the fact that the subject's memory, immediately following an event (and sometimes while it unfolds), is a reliable source. While oral history holds the potential to drive a radical shift in events, I argue that the audience that is, the ones on the receiving end, play a crucial role in either enabling such change or, conversely, aggravating this crisis further. I categorize the audience into two groups: first, those who responded to the force of the testimonies with solidarity, engaging in protests and acts of support; and second, the complicit audience, who align with the colonizer's agenda and uphold existing systems of power. Throughout this paper, whenever I refer to the “audience,” I am specifically referring to the latter group. In the following section, I turn to the role of the audience within this dynamic. To support this, I contend that oral history functions as a form of speech act, where distorting the uptake of this act leads to misrepresenting of the historical memory of the individuals involved and the discrediting of their testimonies. Such distortion presents the world with an altered version of the story—one that not only justifies but also reinforces the humanitarian crisis, effectively diminishing any hope for change for the oppressed.

Oral History as Speech Act

Sentences that function as a performance of an act rather than a description of a fact is referred to as speech acts. J.L. Austin in How to Do Things with Words, famously defined the force behind a speech act as the illocutionary act “the utterance of the sentence is, or is part of, the doing of an action, which again would not normally be described as … merely saying something. The action which is performed when we say something is an illocutionary act; for example, informing, ordering, warning, undertaking” (Austin, 1975). For the connection between saying and doing to be effective, certain rules and conventions must be invoked. Since a speech act has a normative function—that is, a function intended to produce normative changes—it requires both a normative input and output.

On the one hand, the conditions under which the words are uttered must be appropriate; the speaker should have the authority to make such an utterance. This set of entitlements and circumstances is known as the input of the speech act. On the other hand, the output of the speech act consists of the normative changes the speech institutes. The uptake of a speech act, however, depends on how the audience interprets the act's force. As Austin notes, “it seems clear in the case of many illocutionary acts that the performance of an illocutionary act involves the securing of uptake. Roughly, we may say: the audience must understand the meaning and the force of the utterance” (Austin, 1975). Crucially, the meaning of the utterance resides in the uptake—that is, in the hearer's recognition of the normative change the speaker intends to create. Thus, it is the uptake that determines the force of the speech act. “The illocutionary force of an utterance determines the type of illocutionary act being perfomed. A single sentence can be used with varying illocutionary forces; for instance, the phrase ‘it is raining’ may function as an assertion, a conjecture, or a question” (Searle, 1969). The uptake given by the hearer is that which determines the force of the utterance.

This framework applies to my study as follows: oral history, which is grounded in oral testimonies, can be examined through the lens of speech acts. The input of a testimony involves the set of entitlements and circumstances that qualify the subject as an eligible speaker. Meanwhile, the output refers to the normative changes the speaker intends to establish through their testimony.

To illustrate, consider Bisan (Wizard_Bisan1), who records her experiences during the ongoing genocide. She is fully entitled to recount these experiences, as her entitlement stems from her firsthand encounters with the events. Bisan's testimony has a dual function: on one hand, her statements carry a descriptive, factual quality, detailing and narrating the events unfolding around her. More significantly, however, her expressions are aimed at instituting normative changes. By sharing her experiences, she hopes that global recognition of the atrocities she and her community endure will lead to a shift in the status quo. One would expect that to describe an ongoing genocide should be enough to expect a normative change. If I simply describe that someone is in a terrible avoidable pain, that should be enough to expect normative changes. Since the output is seen as the conventional consequence (Speaker: avoidable pain-Hearer: act to elevate it) of the input irrelevant of the speaker's intention, we would want to say that the conventional response of the avoidable suffering of innocent civilians would require a line of action from the hearer. Thus, the conventional output of her speech act aligns with her intention to evoke a sense of obligation within the audience. Bisan assumes, reasonably, that when individuals become aware of the avoidable suffering of their fellow humans, this awareness will compel them to take action to alleviate the pain and resist the ongoing injustice. The solidarity protests in various cities and in University campuses presents a proper response to the testimonies in question. Thus, the response of the first category of audience mentioned earlier aligns with the normative output of the testimonies shared.

The force of an uttered testimony should be understood as an obligation—a call to urgency directed at the listener. The intent behind this obligation is to inspire the audience toward any constructive action that might alleviate the suffering of the individual in question. This normative aspect of self-recorded testimonies holds greater significance than their descriptive component. For this reason, oral history serves as a lifeline for individuals affected by humanitarian crises.

The self-recorded testimony is therefore crucial to achieving the outcome the speaker intends. In this context, we see the necessity of the oral nature of these testimonies, as it preserves the sense of obligation that the speaker seeks to evoke in the hearts and minds of the audience. These self-recorded testimonies are not only essential for documenting the events but are also vital for altering the conditions of the crisis. In this view, history should not merely serve to recount and comfort; rather, it should amplify the voices of oppressed individuals and compel the audience to change their attitudes by presenting the impact of humanitarian crises from a firsthand perspective.

Oral Testimonies: On the Uptake

These self-recorded testimonies can be regarded as valuable data for constructing a narrative. However, since I treat these testimonies as instances of speech acts, the tripartite ought to be illustrated. On the one hand, we have discussed the input—namely, the set of conditions that establish the speaker's credibility. On the other hand, we have examined the normative output, the conventions which follow a cry for help. Thus, assuming the input is fulfilled and the output should conventionally follow. If these conditions are met, we can argue that the uptake should align with the intended output (Grice, 1989). ⁶

Certain conditions can justify a listener's failure to provide the intended uptake that the speaker aims to elicit because of the ambiguities pertaining to the set of entitlements. In the context of a humanitarian crisis, however, the transition to this output is facilitated by the speaker's memory, empowered by the immediacy of her lived experience.

This autobiographical memory grants her a proper input. These testimonies are not only verbal but are also visually documented through reels and videos. The combined power of imagery and the speaker's voice creates the ideal conditions that should, in theory, align with the conventional output and the proper uptake.

Yet, despite the inherent power of these testimonies, the genocide in Gaza has continued unabated for over a year and has even expanded to impact Lebanon. In this time, internationally banned weapons have been deployed, and Zionist soldiers have targeted paramedics, used phosphorus weaponry, demolished hospitals, and set fire to refugee camps. Bisan's post from October 19, 2024, marking a year since the ongoing genocide began, carried a caption expressing her disappointment: “I don’t know if this post is to ask for your solidarity. We tried it, and nothing stopped Israel's thirst for the blood of my people, or it was not enough for that. But this is to show how horrific our world is, and how alone my people are in the face of the monster.” ⁷ The expected uptake from her testimony is a collective expression of solidarity and a call to unity against the oppressor which has been received by the first category of audience which I have referred to earlier. However, the complicit audience which is inherently built on the systems of power that are hindering any real change render the uptake of solidarity less efficient than it should be. The rest of the paper will analyze the different reasons that makes the distortion of the uptake by the hegemonic power possible.

Ethical Challenge: On Testimonial Injustice

Language functions as the invisible force that shapes the power dynamics inherent within discourse. Granting or denying uptake is a form of authority that the hearer exercises over the speaker. We have discussed how violating uptake creates a distortion between the intended output, which normatively follows from the input, and the way the expression is perceived by the audience. Such a violation may stem from an innocent misunderstanding, in which the hearer is genuinely confused about the speaker's intention. However, this violation can also be intentional, thereby exerting control over the discourse. When the audience deliberately distorts the speaker's intended uptake, we may refer to this phenomenon as a discursive abuse of power. In such cases, the hearer leverages authority to redirect the semantic value of the utterance to align with their own agenda. For this manipulation to occur, the audience must occupy a higher level within the power hierarchy, holding a position of political superiority over the speaker. For the purposes of this paper and its relevance to the humanitarian crisis in question, I will refer to the speaker as the native. In this framework, the colonizer—having greater political power than the colonized native—can engage in multiple forms of abuse. This paper focuses on discursive abuse of power, defined as the distortion of the native's uptake to justify the atrocities inflicted upon them.

Violating the Right of Input

“The derealization occurs in language as well, and specifically in the use of certain kinds of descriptors that work to produce the dehumanization of the target population” (Butler, 2009). Language is often viewed as a tool for describing the world, yet it also possesses a performative function, where uttering a word equates to performing an action. Applying both of these functions alongside Butler's insight, we see that in the colonizer's discourse about the native, these two functions intersect.

On the one hand, the colonizer describes the native, but this description is normative and carries normative consequences. When the colonizer's lexicon draws from zoological terminology, the power of this language is to dehumanize the native. Such descriptions produce profound normative consequences: once the native's humanity is stripped away, their moral standing is similarly eroded. As Frantz Fanon observes, “at times this Manichaeism goes to its logical conclusion and dehumanizes the native, or to speak plainly, it turns him into an animal. In fact, the terms the settler uses when he mentions the native are zoological” (Fanon & Philcox, 2004). Descriptions that invoke animalistic characteristics erase the native's humanity, facilitating a suspension of ethical values and thus rendering the native as morally insensible. This deprivation removes the native's status as a being with intrinsic moral worth.

Here, we witness the emergence of new terminology such as “enemy combatant” or “human animals” to describe the native. This language, as Butler observes, “discursively suspends the conventions of humanness, construing a figure whose ‘destruction’ is deemed necessary” (Butler, 2009), Israel fired a missile into the courtyard of Al Ahli hospital, killing 483 people instantly. ⁸ How could such cruelty be justified? This is achieved by characterizing the victims as “human animals.” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant stated in October 2023, “We are fighting against animals and we act accordingly”. ⁹

This framing allows the perpetrators to justify war crimes by ethically suspending values in their treatment of Palestinians. Terminology such as “collateral damage” further obscures the reality of these actions. The deaths of innocent civilians, including children, the elderly, and individuals with disabilities, are portrayed as the necessary “collateral damage” in an operation supposedly directed at Hamas. The power of this language lies in its ability to discursively legitimize this abuse of power. An invader equipped with material advantages and pursuing self-interest wields significant discursive authority. This discursive weapon is used to strip the native of moral standing, thereby excluding them from full participation in linguistic and ethical discourse.

In this instance, we see that it is not the uptake of the native that becomes distorted; rather, the colonizer's act of reducing the native to “human animals” strips them of the entitlements that grant them the right to make an expression. This can be understood as suppressing the voice of the native by depriving them of the fundamental rights necessary for legitimate input. As discussed earlier, input refers to the set of entitlements that enable the speaker to produce a meaningful expression. The most basic input and precondition of speech is the recognition of the speaker as a proper participant in linguistic practices—someone capable of engaging in the normative, inferential aspects of language and effecting normative change within social practices.

However, if the native is alienated from their humanity, they become incapable of possessing the fundamental entitlements required to produce an expression. In this context, their testimonies are reduced to a mere sequence of words lacking any semantic value. The force of the speech act is thus removed from the speaker; although they may still use utterances, the colonizer perceives only a syntactically ordered expression devoid of meaning and therefore incapable of instigating normative change within the situation.

Language, therefore, plays a critical role in shaping the hermeneutical approach to the speaker's testimony. If the speaker is described solely through animalistic characteristics, their testimonies are stripped of value. The colonizer's power, effectively removes the speaker's right to proper input and excludes them from the realm of inherently normative discursive practices. Consequently, these testimonies lose their function as a means of conveying information and raising awareness of the suffering endured by the native. Their speech is reduced to mere words without illocutionary force. Another form of uptake distortion occurs not only at the hands of the colonizer but also through those who are complicit in advancing the colonizer's agenda.

Violating the Right of Uptake

“The native discovers that his life, his breath, his beating heart are the same as those of the settler. He finds out that the settler's skin is not of any more value than a native's skin; and it must be said that this discovery shakes the world in a very necessary manner (Fanon & Philcox, 2004). After years of violence and oppression, Fanon describes the process of decolonization as leading the native to reclaim the humanity that was stripped from them. Upon recognizing the equal worth of their own human skin, the native is compelled to restore their status within the moral community, seeking to shake the world that once degraded their moral standing. At this stage, the native realizes their equal worth with the oppressor and is driven to reclaim that which was taken from them: the right towards input.

This recognition motivates the native to record their testimony, affirming their set of entitlements and their knowledge of a history marked by cruelty under colonial rule. In doing so, they revive their collective memory—a memory embedded with trauma and oppression.

With this restored right to input, the native now establishes their voice as a participant in discursive practices, a voice that deserves to be heard. This is why we observe a rise in self-recorded testimonies, especially amidst the recent genocide, as the native seeks refuge in these testimonies with the conviction that their voice must resonate.

Having established their entitlement to speak, they anticipate an uptake that aligns with the normative output. Through these testimonies, they bring their suppressed voices to the surface, creating credible narratives that meet the conditions of genuine expression. At this stage, their speech is infused with an expectation that a corresponding normative change will follow. Those who are complicit in the colonizer's agenda may not actively dehumanize the native. Instead, they might regard the native as a credible speaker, while justifying the colonizer's cruelty as a necessary means to suppress resistance. Despite this justification, they still treat individuals such as Motaz, Plestia, and Bisan as legitimate testimony givers. As credible witnesses, these individuals meet the set of entitlements that validate their expressions. These entitlements include their participation in discursive practices, their direct experience of events, and, as noted earlier, the self-recorded nature of most of these testimonies. The immediacy of their fresh memory further reinforces their status as speakers.

However, distortion arises in the level of the uptake. The complicit audience fails to grant a proper uptake to these testimony givers—an uptake that should align with the intended output. Through their testimonies, these speakers seek to alert the audience to the atrocities they endure, with the goal of prompting constructive action to halt the colonizer's aggression. As Fanon writes, “at the very core of the oppressing nation voices are raised, and listened to, which draw attention to the gravity of the situation” (Fanon & Philcox, 2004). While the voices of the natives are indeed raised, as proved by social media and news outlets filled with their testimonies, these voices are, tragically distorted by the hegemonic power.

To genuinely listen to the expression means to provide it with the proper uptake. If a call for solidarity and action is dismissed, the speaker's right to proper uptake is denied. For decades, since the Nakba, the native's agency has been dehumanized by the colonizers and their discourse through the exercise of discursive and epistemic violence.

Testmionial Injustice as a Result of the Previous Distortions

The ethical implications of a speaker's inability to convey meaning—whether through the violation of input conditions or the distortion of uptake—render the narrator vulnerable to testimonial injustice. Miranda Fricker in Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing introduces this concept, defining testimonial injustice as occurring “when prejudice causes a hearer to give a deflated level of credibility to a speaker's word” (Fricker, 2007). When examining testimonies, we consider the dual function inherent in them: Testimonies aim to convey knowledge to others by recounting the speaker's experience.

Om Ahmad Radi, a survivor recounting her experience to Al Jazeera, illustrates this function: “What happened was that we woke up to smoke, flames, fire, and burning pieces falling on the tents from every direction. The explosions terrified us in our tents and outside where we live behind Al-Aqsa Hospital.” She continues, “The fire trucks couldn’t get here. There were so many burned and charred bodies all over the place. The amount of fire and explosions was enormous. We witnessed one of the most horrible and brutal nights.” ¹⁰ We have seen images of individuals confined to hospital beds, connected to IVs, unable to escape the surrounding fire, destined to perish. The primary aim of such testimony is to convey to the world the reality of the genocide.

In the phenomena of testimonial injustice, social prejudice and identity power influence the speaker's credibility as a legitimate source of knowledge. Identity power in this context operates as an invisible social force shaped by the construction of specific social identities aiming to maintain certain power dynamics (Fricker, 2007). Terms such as Arabs, Palestinians, and “Refugees’ serve as concepts that inherently reinforce specific power structures. The genocide in Gaza has managed to evade international laws designed to uphold the ethics of war. If similar circumstances were inflicted upon people from other regions, the global response would likely differ. Thus, the labeling of these individuals as ‘Arabs’ plays a critical role in defining the boundaries between what is deemed permissible and impermissible.

These prejudices, which ensure the domination and subordination of certain groups, stem from specific biases that have shaped social conceptions of particular identities. This bias impedes the subject's ability to convey accurate knowledge. When Palestinians share their testimonies about the genocide and receive a distorted input or uptake, it demonstrates how they are being denied recognition as legitimate subjects of knowledge. Such prejudice on the hearer's part reduces the credibility granted to the narrator—less than would otherwise be accorded. The narrator's testimony becomes subject to a systematic force that devalues its credibility, creating a gap between the speaker's utterance and the intended meaning of their expression. This intended meaning should uphold and protect the normative output of the testimony. Thus, the prejudice and social power at play violate the speaker not only ethically but also epistemologically. The narrator is not only hindered from achieving proper uptake to resist the forces of oppression but is also fundamentally undermined in their capacity as a knower.

This initial act of depriving the narrator of their right to proper input strips them of their humanity. Suspending ethical considerations within the discourse surrounding the native reduces her intrinsic moral value to that of a lesser, beastly status. Conversely, recognizing the narrator's right to proper input while distorting their output becomes possible through power dynamics that diminish credibility by suspending conventions due to the narrator's social position. This testimonial injustice harms the narrator on an epistemological level: Testimonies aimed at asserting facts about the status quo and urging action to halt the genocide fail to achieve full credibility and, consequently, are not fully actualized. The testimonial injustice at hand is systematic, rather than incidental. These prejudices persistently target the subject through layers of social conceptions related to ethnicity, religion, economic standing, and educational background. They identify the subject within a marginalized social identity, thus distorting the voice of anyone who identifies with this identity and undermining their right to preserve their historical narrative.

Tentative Solutions

Our narrator is subjected to a dual-layered discursive oppression. The first layer is imposed by the colonizer, who denies the narrator's role as a legitimate participant in the linguistic realm. The second layer involves certain complicit audience members who subject the narrator to discursive injustice by distorting their uptake. To prevent such distortion, a deeper understanding of history is essential. Given the focus on the humanitarian crisis in Palestine beginning on October 7th, it is crucial not to view this event in isolation but as part of a continuum of historical events.

The non-complicit audience's responsibility is to recognize the history of the indigenous people, understand the native's life before the arrival of the colonizer, comprehend the reasons behind the colonizer's presence, and account for events dating back to the Nakba, if not earlier. The Nakba of 1948 must serve as a foundational point in the understanding of Palestinian history, providing a temporal framework for approaching the subject. A proper understanding encompasses the life of the native before, during, and after 1948, extending to the present day. To claim that the humanitarian crisis only emerged after October 7th is reductive, as it compresses a long and complex history into a single moment. Plestia mentions in a reel posted on November 25 2024 “how to get away with genocide? -Believe that history started on October the 7th-Congratulations your genocide is now self-defense.”

One of the ways to attain a proper understanding of the events in question is to listen to testimonies preserved in archives and those currently being voiced. Oral history plays a crucial role in understanding the lived experiences of the native population. As noted at the beginning of this paper, oral history is indispensable for historical reconstruction; it amplifies the voices of marginalized individuals and brings to light what has been silenced.

Recognizing the mechanisms behind such silencing involves understanding that silencing a narrator is not limited to preventing them from speaking. One might allow another to speak yet silence them by denying the tools needed to fully own the meaning of their speech. Denying the proper uptake that conventionally follows a speech act constitutes an act of silencing and can be referred to as a form of discursive injustice (Kukla, 2014). ¹¹ To counter this, testimonies should be approached with an unbiased perspective. A clearer grasp of the history involved helps to avoid interpretative distortions. It is vital to recognize the influence of biases in interpreting speech, and the path to achieving this lies in ensuring that the hermeneutic framework provides a version of events as close as possible to a clear and authentic representation of what has been uttered.

Another approach involves fortifying the self-mastery of the narrator's narrative. Avil Thorne and Kate McLean's experiment on adolescents recounting traumatic events demonstrated that the primary factor enabling subjects to recall details accurately and master their narratives was the level of acceptance received from a large group of listeners (Thorne & McLean, 2003). When listeners offered acceptance, the narrator's capacity to command their own narrative strengthened. Thus, for self-recorded testimonies to effectively convey the narrator's experience, they must be accepted by a wide audience. In this paper, such acceptance is interpreted as the audience's duty to grant proper uptake to the narrator, thereby supporting their historical narrative. The benefits of granting uptake extend beyond normatively responding and creating pressure to end the crisis; they also empower the narrator by legitimizing their authority over their own discourse. Treating the native's testimony as an authoritative narrative works to decentralize the hegemonic discourse of the oppressor, recalibrating linguistic priorities to elevate the voices of the oppressed above those of the oppressor.

Conclusion

Language plays an essential role in the power dynamic between the oppressor and the oppressed. When the oppressor refers to the native in the zoological lexicology, the native finds themselves alienated from the ethical framework that they very much belong to. When the audience on another hand distort the uptake of the native, the quest for solidarity becomes nonreciprocated. The native find themselves alone fighting the colonizer. The resolution of the struggle and the propriety of the native's discourse on her narrative can be understood through giving her the power over her hermeneutic scheme, and thus allowing her mastery over their own narrative by providing them with the proper uptake. Solidarity, resistance, protests, assistance, donation, prevention all can be seen as different responses that properly listen to the voice of the colonized.