Are Israel’s allies really adjusting their language? They insist that Israel treat Palestine according to the rule of laaaaaaw. But this is no clear condemnation to speak of. Also, is there any enforceable law here? And, if law there is, will it be followed?
Tuesday morning, at the Creative Sync, I could not resist. When my turn came to check in, I denounced repressive violence. It is universally used, so what? I would not give one inch on the particular barbarity of Israel’s treatment of Palestine + the full responsibility of any government, anyone who does not speak up against it in these terms. In terms of barbarity that is.
I asked for one minute of silence.
Obviously, I chose the word barbarity in reference to Castoriadis’ essay: Socialisme ou Barbarie. The consideration and respect (or lack thereof) governments – elected or not – show for their people, measure the distance they keep from barbarity. That simple.
At this juncture, a conversation about non-violence is indispensable, unavoidable. Because it can be set in the same universal frame of reference as barbarity today. Not a notion but today’s reality, today’s unrolling history – unbearable as it is. Unacceptable as it is … Sometimes, or rather at times like now, my catholic subconscious education emerges! I wish some pope would appear on a white horse of glory, gallop through the minefields and ruins of Ukraine, Palestine, Armenia, Guatemala or Xin Jian and show how courage can transform barbarity into … not socialism yet! Into respect for ‘Others’?
Not love yet either! Empathy?
Maybe, to start with, into more green spaces!
Meaning that the way Earth is mistreated – this massive, vile violence – compares with the way populations are slaughtered.
I am a serious follower of the cohort of Latin American women writers which is shaking up the status quo in their Spanish-speaking, ex-colonial, territories! An other one of them is Argentinian writer Maria Cabezon Camara. She cannot foresee any progress in the humanitarian field without progress in the climate sector.
“It is not possible to consider the social without considering the ecological”, she affirms in an article (read in French):
At this point I have read the cohort’s work in French, because I could not find it translated into English, particularly the book by Cristina Morales ‘Lecture Facile’. I still have scheduled-to-be-read titles to get to. Then I will read Cabezon-Camara! The politico-literary art form these artists practice is very close to what I would like to achieve with this diary and, in sculpture, with ‘a Tale for Reparations’. It is a form of activism which I highly value. It is fully contemporary and contextual. Actually, in turn, it creates context, powerful as it is.
As a matter of fact, one of the two unrelated titles I refer to above is Angela Davis’ autobiography! Who would say that I am not focused on seeing the end of supremacy and the colonial mindset? In reality, Angela Davis is fully related with Maria Cabezon Camara.