Texts

A space for my essays and blogs.

Written here, where my pastoral is so protected, so ‘neutral’. This is written through the mud of what I know, with the ever-lens of learning and openness to ongoing conversation and challenge. Algorithms are most likely not poised to support pro-Palestinian writing, I am grateful to all who have continued to share accounts, reportage and works that raise the voices of those imminently erased in Gaza. I am grateful to those who risk these accounts in the face of roles and jobs threatened, livelihoods under siege in our great, ‘liberal’, ‘democratic’ era of free speech. Power to you – I’m always listening.

The way the mainstream UK narratives around Palestine operate to obscure our role and participation in genocide. The narratives pushed deem the Israel state are conducting a justified response. We report ahistorically, without context.

We are a similar model of settler colonial state. A genesis of the model. These are our methods we are witnessing. We trade arms, our tax funds the trade. We are historically pro-apartheid. We ignore the occupied peoples in favour of bolstering the coloniser.

You don't have to look too far to learn the history and see how history has been constructed to justify the genocide of Palestinians.

I will write of what I understand are the methods of colonial settlers and occupiers as someone who descends from displaced Polish diaspora, who, in turn, soon internalised the UK’s narratives on Muslim refugees and peoples, despite being subject to parallel methods of erasure, in their own time. This is not to centre my experience but to speak from what I know to provide the context to how I’ve arrived at my understanding.

In Warsaw '18, I learnt a deeper narrative on the genocide of the Poles. Their land was occupied by Nazis and fascism, those who were Jewish were ghettoised and killed. The occupier used propaganda to isolate the Polish Jews in society so that they were ostracised. Prejudices in the populace were exploited so their fellow man, woman, child could be culled and that would be accepted. Those who were not Jewish believed they would earn mercy. They were wrong. They were next. Their cities were flattened upon resistance, their schools driven underground. Their language was made illegal. Polishness, identity, was eradicated for a time. They participated in their own undoing by martyring their fellow person.

Came the time of Russian occupation, the Polish government and people called on the UK & NATO (the model for the UN) to not allow for the occupation. They feared that what the Nazis began would continue under Russian occupation. They were ignored and occupation reigned for 30 years. It's out of this that Polish State extremes are furthered, that the radical nationalism flares, to a point where they feel they can justifiably zone & segregate their country and enact genocidal measures on the Polish LGBTQIA+ community, in some misguided sense of returning to Polishness, to the root of ‘national identity’. As the history and values of the coloniser are embodied, the occupied perpetuates this cycle of segregation and self-destruction, becomes the oppressor of its own people. The State is what mediates and initiates and maintains this cycle.

It pains me to know that my Babcia, my Polish grandmother, still does not see Polish Jews as her fellow man, woman, child. So effective was the machine of the occupier that she remains convinced and ignorant of their genocide. So ingrained that she extends this view of Muslims, those displaced by our wars and colonial destabilisation across the Middle East and the world.

Propaganda, constructed history, mono-voices, mono-views in the press all damage the listener. Repeat damage becomes belief as it is internalised. This damage designs our prejudice and participation in genocide. The imaginary constructs of the other become real and their erasure becomes justified by the State.

I remember in history class, in secondary school, how the British army were propagandised as saviours of Poland when really, we ignored them, and arguably left them to be occupied and set in motion what is the present oppressive State of Poland.

When we witness an Israeli State discuss Palestinians as non-human, and our UK State sanctions and agrees the measure in which international law is broken, we are living and funding the same cycle and tools utilised to justify the genocide of Palestinians. Once it is them, why would it not be us? Why would we allow for this to continue?

As James Baldwin wrote to Angela Davis:
'If we know, and do nothing, we are worse than the murderers hired in our name.

If we know, then we must fight for your life as though it were our own—which it is—and render impassable with our bodies the corridor to the gas chamber. For, if they take you in the morning, they will be coming for us that night.'

As I was in Warsaw, there was an exhibition on herbicidal warfare in Gaza, Palestine. Measures taken by Israel State to weaponise the pastoral to make the land of the Palestinians unlivable. Crop dusting and altering the very fabric of the soil so that food cannot grow. Weaponising the wind, as the article puts it. You can read the article here.

I’m reading Kurt Vonnegut at the moment, returning to a problematic author who has, despite the problems, given me language for being profoundly disturbed by the actions of a state. Disturbed to unrest. Disturbed to the point where ignorance is not an option. Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse 5 is his account of being caught in the US’ revenge bombing of Dresden in WW2. He, embodied by the character of Billy Pilgrim, steps from a slaughterhouse that managed to shelter him during the bombing onto the ‘moon’. The flattened town of Dresden becomes the moon. Becomes a pastoral image of total annihilation. Of ended humanity. A nothingness. Lonely. Empty.

Warsaw looked the same under occupation. A desert designed from ash and rubble and gone-people. I see this similar desert as Gaza is bombed.

A profound thing I take from the exhibition on herbicidal warfare and Vonnegut is you can witness acts carried out by the state that leave you completely, molecularly disturbed. I have never been the same since witnessing my Babcia condemn a life raft of Syrian refugees, who had been displaced by UN sanctioned air strikes, as the news reported their journey to the UK, whose border would reject them. She was looking at herself, years ago, her parallel life, and choosing the dehumanising view. Why here? she asked of their seeking refuge on British soil. How many had asked the same question of a Polish refugee escaping genocide and occupation? Why here?

How many will ask this question in the days to come?

I have lived disturbed ever since, every artefact of my art, my work, my thought, my love in tension with this moment.

The destruction of people on their land is an endeavour to design their elimination. The occupation of people on their land is an endeavour to design their elimination.

All of this is to say, there is no vacuum in which genocide happens. There is a steady build and linking of strategies to erase people. The act of herbicidal warfare, alone, has been progressing since 2014 and was a measure taken after a long line of measures taken to erase Palestinians.

Since Oct 7th, we are witnessing further measures. Bombings and white phosphorus. The flattening of cities, erasing families, mortally wounding the land. People below the rubble still unfound.

I walk through my pastoral surroundings, currently not a weapon. This soil is claimed to belong to others more than others. It’s safer for me here than others on this island. I am safer than my friends who live on the same island. I can choose to ignore and shuffle through the pastoral and remain in my comfort. And in that is the root of the problem; those would be my small steps to participating in genocide. This soil can just as soon be desert or ash or rubble or the moon, the moment the State deems it and still, I could choose to ignore it. My ignorance weaponises the pastoral. The moment I ignore, I am welcoming the desert, the ash, the rubble, the moon. Ignorance is not an option. I must live, disturbed, walking the pastoral and resisting.

My empathy, my compassion, my anger will not tire. There is no burnout of allyship – that is the path of ignorance. There is only profound disturbance and in that, is my hope.

The State will always weaponise its people to enact genocidal measures. The State will destroy itself, its own people before it will relent to resistance. We are its tool and resistance to participate is the only means to change the course of history and event. Our government and laughable opposition have both agreed human rights can be justifiably waived to enact revenge bombings, the furthering of genocidal measures. If they are so conceited to do this, why would this not eventually be applied to us?

It's misguided by design to believe a state acts on behalf of a people. Most regimes throughout history are evidence enough that this is not the case. It is ignorant and ahistorical to pretend a critique of a state is an attack on a people. Attempts to hush, to fearmonger and quieten. Solidarity to those who are Jewish who are weaponised in this manner and resist despite impending punishment.

Solidarity to my friends who continue to educate me and raise the voices of those erased. Solidarity to all those living in occupation. I will not rest until you are free.

Solidarity to every Palestinian who is resisting. I stand with you, I pray for those you have lost and their dreams, their light. They will never be forgotten for their spirit builds the universe. They should still be here. I will not ignore what crimes have been committed against their hearts. I will not ignore my state's participation in their murder.

#ceasefirenow
Free Palestine.