Palestinian trauma, healing and olive trees: MEMO in Conversation with Ashira Darwish

Palestinians aren't suffering post traumatic stress disorder, there's been no 'post' for them as they continue to live under occupation and colonialism. 'Ongoing stress disorder' is what they experience daily, says the executive producer of Where the Olive Trees Weep.

In this week's MEMO in Conversation we speak to Ashira Darwish, one of the producers of 'Where the Olive Trees Weep', a powerful documentary offering a searing look into the struggles and resilience of the Palestinian people living under Israeli occupation. The film has captivated audiences worldwide, winning awards at seven film festivals and inspiring viewers to contribute to the planting of 1,000 olive trees in the occupied West Bank, a project headed by Treedom for Palestine.

Darwish, a motivational speaker and creator of Active Meditation, brings a unique perspective to the film, having personally experienced and overcome severe trauma, including full-body paralysis from a severed spinal cord in 2012. Our conversation explores the depths of Palestinian trauma and resistance depicted in the documentary, which weaves together the stories of Palestinian activists, journalists and survivors of torture in Israeli prisons.

We delved into the concept of 'ongoing stress disorder', a term used in the film to describe the constant state of trauma experienced by Palestinians, and discuss how this continuous stress shapes the collective Palestinian experience. The conversation also touches on the importance of non-violent resistance, the role of journalism in revealing truths about the occupation, and the film's significance in portraying not just individual stories, but the broader narrative of a people striving to maintain their culture and identity in the face of erasure.

Darwish worked for 15 years as a TV and radio journalist and researcher in Palestine for the BBC, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW). She is the founder of Catharsis Holistic Healing, a trauma therapy project pioneering a type of Sufi active meditation which draws its roots from ancestral and indigenous knowledge