Scholasticide; on olives and life

Abstract

Scholasticide is the term coined by Professor Karma Nabulsi to describe the systematic and deliberate destruction of the Palestinian educational system by the Israeli army, which has intensified since October 7, 2023. Education, crucial for a society marked by the lack of fundamental freedoms and existential threat, has become a military target in recent months. This brutal fact is the starting point of “Scholasticide; on olives and life,” an installation that invites the university community to reflect and even to participate, at least symbolically.

Located indefinitely in the hall of the Faculty of Education of Albacete at UCLM, the intervention incorporates infographics created by the organization Scholars Against the War in Palestine, printed and suspended from the ceiling of the building's main entrance, and spatially oriented towards an object-based piece made with books, soil, wire mesh, and a live olive tree. The olive tree, a key element of Palestinian economy, culture, and resistance, is also the main symbol of the concept of Sumud - in Arabic firmness, perseverance - and a slogan in Palestine since the massacre or Nakba - catastrophe - that occurred in 1948 [since then, more than 800,000 olive trees have been burned or uprooted by Zionist colonial forces]. The olive tree that structures this installation, decontextualized, uprooted from the land, and supported by damaged books, is presented here in its symbolic condition but, above all, as an ethical appeal to anyone who passes by it, will we let the olive tree die?