One way to view the emergence of transnational anticolonial solidarity in the era of Three Worlds is as an extension of the religious myth of a common language-- as an attempt to achieve a shared revolutionary consciousness by way of shared (or at the very least, translatable) representational forms.

In this talk, I look at the formation of anticolonial solidarity with the Palestinian liberation struggle through the expressions and impasses of this mythic promise, arguing that the failure to arrive at a common language-- perhaps, a restatement of the failure of Pan-Arab and Third World liberation projects at-large-- is seen in Lebanese author and painter Etel Adnan's poetry for Palestine. Adnan’s politicization alongside the New Arab Left in the late 1960s and early 1970s involved a deepening awareness of and attention to the Palestinian condition. Yet, her solidarity poetry both holds open and forecloses upon the promise of a common language with Palestinians exiled and alienated from their land, language, and culture. Historical failures to achieve a common anticolonial language demand scholarly attention today in light of the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza still underway.

Laila Riazi is a postdoctoral fellow at the ERC project Entangled Freedoms housed at the Amsterdam School of Cultural Analysis at the UvA. She completed her PhD in the department of Comparative Literature at UC Berkeley.