But do not worry.
From a young nation which holds old memory to its breast but does not care to step back and see, quick planes are no replacement for grey trains. Attempts to be balanced, attempts to find two sides will be as effective as prying a coin apart to compare heads to tails side by side (though our best reporters hammer restlessly at the centre until they are left with a pulpous sound-bite). Maybe this “fairness” is nothing less than a tried response to the slow and sawing discomfort of whatever empathy still penetrates from behind a red screen – a final, desperate call to order.
But do not worry.
I assure you this mangled meat is not your brother.Is he even human? He prefers a different song, his skin absorbs more light (or less I forget which, but I assure you this is significant and proven), and what of that odd place he goes to look up to the stars. And look at how he bleeds so, all red and yellow like an animal.
‘What need in passing bells for those who die as cattle?’
The last farce: realities on the ground – is that reality?
‘No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells’
Speaking of Violence from the U.S and Europe to the Palestinians is an approach towards the centre of a moving balance between two opposing worlds. In this democratic liberal politics as means, where the gods rest in constitutions laws and castrated economics, the invisible hands place a stable grounds and violence is a potential for the uncertain.
But we are deluded alienated bombing drones – building walls, policing streets.
And to this my Palestinians friends tell me “This is all very beautiful, but we have been born into uncertainty – violence is not an event it is the status quo. Memory stories prisons checkpoints tear gas burning communities have been the case, and so we reply, we fold the situation we know; we are artists writers film-makers rock-throwers. We are mothers fathers sisters brothers and we swim in a violence you know nothing about, we learned to transcend barriers in the second breath of our birth… so is it also proper? Should he not even think of tomorrow?”
International Law the American’s say? When it is truly International they reply. Human Rights the European’s say? When we are all Humans. So no wonder they smile at last, as a recognizing family member, a human one when Black Lives Matter vindicates the rights of the oppressed.
Here is something we know, here is a true solidarity.
And from this they even have the heart to say, they may even see “Je suis Charlie” and reply fine, you have made, we have made ourselves us the experts of identity, we have become comfortable with the unknown, so figure yours out and we may begin a true dialogue.
As Fanon writes “If we are to rise above the levels that Europe have demonstrated to us, we must invent and make new discoveries” and we, we are already there, we have seen the impossible – and it has made us hospitable, you are welcome in our home.
From two experiences of fear and violence we must rise up, ari se, re-rise.
And for the moment, to take the traces of this emancipating common community, we’ll listen one last time to an older dream:
‘The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin’
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’
Oh buildings and mountains,
protect my love wrought resistance.
This growth engulfing our pens,
planting our swords
who will cry “Halt!”
“Not by me nor my brothers
shall your apathy pass”
Who rings the bells?
Is this our time declared?
We lost the cave
where we were once safe
from shadows ticking our toks.
When the verdict was vengeance,
victory made pleasure
our favourite whore
we baptized war
Plunge to sea, or not, to see
hallowed reason drown amused
We have run out of rhyme
and in due time
we mourn in mime
You see the crime
yet wait your time
You don’t understand
You don’t understand
why beauty is truth
and truth is bland
You don’t understand
You don’t understand
when violence is truth
Yet still we Stand
