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https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-a-future-of-dust-jeff-sparrow-on-gaza-and-why-in-evil-times-writers-have-a-responsibility-to-take-sides-244285>
We must ask for no references to Gaza/Palestine/Israel as it’s a very
sensitive topic in our area. If these topics are included it drastically
changes our risk management plans for events. Thus for safety and harmony we
kindly ask the guest speakers avoid these topics and any questions about it
that come up.
"Sam Wallman and I received this message from our publicist, one day before an
event at a suburban library about our coauthored book.
“Did they even read the damn thing?” Sam joked, as we strategised our response.
Twelve Rules for Strife discusses grassroots social change. It celebrates the
creativity of the people historian Studs Terkel described as the world’s
“etceteras”. It contrasts the power of collective solidarity with what we dub
“smug politics”: a liberalism that treats the masses as irredeemably backward,
and so requiring careful management by the clever few on whom progress
supposedly depends.
We had been invited to discuss the political agency of ordinary people – and
then told our audience couldn’t hear about the world’s most significant crisis.
But Gaza is all I think about.
In January, six-year-old Hind Rajab fled the fighting in Gaza City alongside
her extended family. An Israeli tank targeted their car, killing almost
everyone inside. Amid the wreckage and the blood, Hind’s 15-year-old cousin,
Layan Hamadeh, phoned the Palestinian Red Crescent, crying and pleading for
help.
“They are shooting at us,” she said. “The tank is right next to me.”
The dispatchers heard Layan scream as a machine gun again raked the vehicle.
When they rang back, Hind, the only person now alive, answered.
“I’m so scared. Please come. Come take me. Please, will you come?”
She stayed on the phone for three hours, while the Red Crescent transmitted her
location to the Israeli army and dispatched an ambulance – and then the line
dropped out again.
Twelve days later, Hind’s surviving relatives found the wreckage of a van with
two dead paramedics sprawled inside. Nearby, they located the car in which
Layan, Hind and their family lay. An investigation by the US-based Forensic
Architecture team established that 355 bullets had hit the vehicle. The
researchers concluded that the shooters must have realised the vehicle
contained civilians.
“They were small,” writes W.H. Auden in
The Shield of Achilles,
And could not hope for help and no help came:
What their foes liked to do was done."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
