Just to be alive on this fresh morning versus the massacre of Gaza

There is a poem from Mary Oliver. 

This poem, called Invitation, has a couple of verses that stayed on my mind. Those verses have re-emerged more and more often, as the anihilation of Gaza goes on with total complicity, not to say military and moral support of so many european and western countries. 

These are the verses:

believe us, they say,  

it is a serious thing

just to be alive  

on this fresh morning  

in the broken world.

Who is they? As typical for a Mary Oliver poem, "they" does not refer to people, but, in this case, to the goldfinches, who appear to be having a "musical battle" "and not for the sake of winning, but for sheer delight and gratitude". 

Mary Oliver "translates" their message to us. Despite the broken world, which must be acknowledged, it is still a serious thing just to be alive. 

I am writing these words at the same time as I scroll through Twitter and see the most recent news of a mother who just lost her twin babies in an Israeli airstrike after spending a decade trying to get pregnant. Or the latest bread massacre in which the Israeli military shot Palestinians who had gathered in crowds to get access to food. Aid which is largely being withheld from entering Gaza as a retaliation for the October 7th massacre that Hamas inflicted on Jewish communities living next to the Gaza strip.

How dare I evoke the gratitude of being alive when so many people are being murdered and massacred?

If indeed, I am alive in this broken world, how should I act? Besides trying to bring up the topic with people I know, re-tweeting, going to demonstrations, sit-ins... 

Last week I went to a theater performance, from Astharo Theatro, based on testimonies of Palestinian artists. They were preparing the play since spring last year, responding to a call for global cultural collaboration, way before Oct 7. The texts spoke of incidents, sometimes decades old, of repression, intimidation, arrest, even torture of Palestinian artists by the Israeli state. But the stories also showed how simply telling the truth, recording, making art, composing music, means to resist, both for Palestinians, and for the Israeli state who for that same reason tries so hard to repress them. The scripts which are real-life stories of Palestinian artists can be read here. A recurring theme was the call to speak out. And I have been wanting to use my voice more. As Audre Lorde wrote, "your silence will not protect you". 

It is unspeakable what the Israeli government and military is doing in Gaza, the near-absolute destruction of infrastructure, homes, hospitals, universities, schools, the induced famine, the merciless impossibility of escape. I cannot understand how so many European governments condemned Hamas for its massacre of civilians, and refuse to condemn the Israeli state for the obliteration of Gaza and its people. 

I cannot fathom that what the German state seems to have learned from the Holocaust is not "the absolute unconditional defense of human rights for everyone". (Citing the courageous words of Deborah Feldman, a descendent of Holocaust survivors, who spoke in a German talk show of what for her is the one lesson that we should keep - here on YT in German.). Instead of that, instead of extending empathy to Gaza and Palestinians, the lesson seems to be to equate any criticism of the Israeli state, or wishes for Palestinian freedom, with anti-semitism. 

How can any democracy deem a state beyond criticism? And as one gets better acquainted with the history of occupation, one needs to ask, why can't Palestinians also live in freedom and have their own state? How can anyone with power pretend to care about human rights, about justice, about international law and let this go on?

I do not know. But I can at least share some voices shedding light. 

The short report from Susan Abulhawa, a Palestinian writer who just spent 2 weeks in Gaza. In her words, what she saw is much worse than the worst videos that we get from there. 

An interview with Amjad Iraqi, a Palestinian from Haifa in the Ezra Klein podcast, where Iraqi speaks of the history of Palestine, and of prospects for a shared future. He speaks also about the life of the about 2 million Palestinian citizens of Israel, so those not living in Gaza nor the West Bank, as in his case.

An incredible speech by Mohammed El-Kurd, a Palestinian poet and writer from Jerusalem. He is at the same time sharp and poetic when speaking about the current genocide and evoking the memory of a friend who had just been murdered in Gaza - scholar and poet Refaat Alareer. Among his last words he invites everyone to, like Refaat, "be a little be more corageous, a little bit more human, a little bit more flawed, to satirize and ridicule and make fun, because there is nothing more precious than laughter. We can't let this storm pass by. We can't just be bystanders in this genocide. We all have an active role to play." 

A moving and thoughtful interview with the Israeli-Palestinian duo (part of a collective) of documentary makers who just won two awards at the Berlinale film festival with the documentary No Other Land, and who dared to speak out for ceasefire and for ending the occupation in their award speeches.

Ziad, (a fictitious name), has been reporting about his daily life in Gaza for the Guardian since October 7th. He and his sister are being hosted by another family, and they are the lucky ones. He shares their daily struggle and the stories of friends and acquaintances with whom he keeps in touch.

I mentioned Deborah Feldman above. In this piece for the Guardian, she elaborates on her appearance on the German talk show. Her speech was directed at Robert Habeck, Germany's vice-chancellor and member of the Green party. His response to her makes her write this: "at that moment, we arrived at a point in German discourse where we now openly acknowledge that the Holocaust is being used as justification for the abandonment of moral clarity."

Gideon Levy, an Israeli journalist, made a speech eight years ago, in which he tried to explain why the Israeli society lives so easily with the occupation. 

Back in November, there was an podcast episode from the Jewish Currents interviewing Naomi Klein bringing a wider perspective to what is commonly known in the west about genocides. The fact that much is known and shared relating to the Holocaust of jewish people in WWII, but little to nothing is acknowledged when in comes to transatlantic slavery, the genocide of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, or the stories of many other peoples devastated by European colonialism and imperialism. 

On this theme, other references are: the documentary Exterminate All the Brutes by Haitian director Raoul Peck, the book The Nutmeg's Curse by Amitav Gosh, and the freely available chapters on Israel and Palestine from Naomi Klein's Doppelganger book. 

Arundathi Roy's short piece back in November(!), full of moral clarity: "for the sake of the living and in the name of the dead, for the sake of the hostages being held by Hamas and the Palestinians in Israel's prisons - for the sake of all of humanity - cease fire now".  She acknowledges as well the longstanding double standards of the west: "If not, then the moral architecture of western liberalism will cease to exist. It was always hypocritical, we know. But even that provided some sort of shelter. That shelter is disappearing before our eyes."

And for now, to remind myself, and whoever reads this, of the importance of not serving silence, I end with another quote from Audre Lorde. From her speech "The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action", written in 1977. The full essay can be read here.

"In the cause of silence, each one of us draws the face of her own fear— fear of contempt, of censure, or some judgment, or recognition, of challenge, of annihilation. But most of all, I think, we fear the very visibility without which we also cannot truly live."