Nine To Noon Palestinian scholar on identity and generational exile
Mar 23, 2026
Tareq Baconi, Palestinian scholar and author known for work on Hamas and Palestinian identity. He reflects on writing a multigenerational memoir, growing up dispossessed, and the tensions of being public about Palestinian and queer identities. He discusses love and loss, migration to London and facing racism, and how regional politics shaped his turn to scholarship.
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Three Generations Of Dispossession
- Tareq Baconi traces three generations of dispossession from Haifa to Beirut to Amman, showing how family memory shaped daily life.
- His grandmother's silent faith and his mother's angry activism created contrasting legacies he inherited.
Growing Up Between Rage And Faith
- Baconi describes growing up in al-Abdali where Palestine was felt viscerally but not intellectually explained.
- He absorbed his mother's rage and his grandmother's faith, inheriting emotional politics without historical clarity.
Secret Friendship That Became First Love
- As a boy in Amman, Baconi hid his queer identity amid tight heteronormative expectations and bullying.
- He lived a double life, exchanging letters with his neighbor Ramzi that became intimate refuge and later heartbreak.
