Active Realignment

How are you resisting the normalization of horror? And other questions I ask myself.

Today is day 959 of genocide. Tomorrow is day 960 of genocide. And next week will be a larger number and next month an even larger number.

But of course this didn’t start in 2023 - here is a picture of Gaza City from 2014

Somedays it feels impossible not to give in to despair. Today was one of those days.

Yesterday The Sameer Project posted this update on Twitter:

Updates from The Sameer Project team in the last two weeks:

- 13 year old relative of team member hung himself and died, may he rest in peace
- The cousin of a team member was killed by a drone, may he rest in peace
- One of our team members got injured yesterday with shrapnel in his arms and hit his head from a car bombing in Gaza City
- One of our bus drivers got hit with a metal rod on his head today because there was no space in the free bus we provide

When our team member went to the police station to report the bus incident, the station was full of boys from age 11 to 15 years old who were accused of stealing.

Levels of desperation are high and the mental health of Palestinians in Gaza is extremely low from a genocide that surpassed the 2.5 years.

On top of all this, mutual aid groups are closing or significantly decreasing their distributions.

Nothing to say but Hasbi Allah wa Nema Alwakeel (Allah is sufficient for me, and He is the best Disposer of affairs).

A thirteen-year-old child ended his own life because of the trauma of almost three years of ongoing genocide and a lifetime of living under Israeli siege.

How does life go on anywhere amidst such horror? How do we do anything, knowing what is being done every hour of every day by Western imperial forces in Palestine (and Lebanon, and Iran, and, and, and…..). I’m not trying to make a point or an argument with the ashes of a young person’s life. So I’ll just sit here in a moment of grief for this young person and for everything and everyone that has been destroyed by the Zionists and their allies. Hundreds of thousands of worlds.

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I originally wrote a draft of this post from the place of absolute despair but then realized that I do not have the right or the luxury to spend too much time in that place. Instead, these are moments, at least for me, of active realignment.

Most of us are not on the front lines of the movement (including me). There are, of course, people who are risking their lives, safety, and health everyday to make this stop - Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, who are trying to survive amongst the monsters, the Sameer Project Team (and others engaged in mutual aid work), the Pal Action crew who are helping to destroy Elbit and are now being charged as terrorists, the hundreds who have sailed with the various flotillas (say what you want about the efficacy of these actions, these folks are doing a hell of a lot more than I am. Also, look at how they are being treated by the demon entity). But for the most part, people go about their day. I go about my day. What are we doing as we go about our day?

Today I am thinking about how a thirteen-year-old ended his life because living for another moment in Zionist hell was unimaginable.

This is just one of so many stories. Last month, Al Jazeera reported that:

An estimated 1.1 million children in Gaza now need mental health and psychosocial support, as a growing number lose their ability to speak due to trauma and injuries from Israeli attacks.

Doctors at Gaza City’s Hamad Hospital are noting that many children experiencing intense trauma (so, all children in Gaza) not only stop speaking, but they also stop interacting with friends and family, they stop engaging the world, they stop learning. What kind of life is this?

According to many young people in Gaza, no life at all.

I read these stories and realize that my sense of despair is the point of Power (and those who wield it) and I cannot give in. Instead, I ask myself a series of questions each day - how are you resisting this normalization? What are you doing to fight back against Zionism, capitalism, fascism, and all other forms of imperial and supremacist violence? What do you need to stay focused and fierce?

Some days feel quieter than others. But in case it’s helpful, every day I ask myself these questions and every day I ensure I have at least one answer, whether it be donating to mutual aid, writing something that contributes to the paradigm shift we desperately need right now, having a conversation in which my world view is shifted towards liberation, or reading something in which I unlearn at least a small part of the violent structural framework. I know it’s not a big thing. But what if these were the baseline of all of our days, collectively?

Fortunately, my brilliant comrade and teacher, Lara Sheehi is here to help with this last point in a major way: I highly recommend you buy her new book (out yesterday!), From the Clinic to the Streets: Psychoanalysis for Revolutionary Futures. We all need this book and it’s Lara’s gift to us. How lucky to live in a time of such clarity and vision.

I’m tired. I imagine you are tired. But we do not have the luxury of giving up - for those of us in the West, we owe our perseverance to everyone in Palestine, in Lebanon, in Iran, in Congo, in Cuba, in Sudan and we need support and guidance and clarity so that we can continue to show up every day and do the fucking work without completely losing our minds.

Lara has first given us language to understand what is being done to us:

The process is what I refer to as psychic intrusions: a psychic invasion that intends to make retaining access to material reality difficult, derailing us from the political commitments needed to sustain revolutionary fervor and psychic militancy (p. 41)

And then provided the context and tools we need to continue forward with that work:

Psychic militancy is a daily political practice. It is not a practice of liberal mindfulness but of radical consciousness, Psychic militancy aligns is with the precondition of liberation, a precondition based on an irrefutable knowledge of material reality (p. 73 - buy the book to read the rest of this incredible paragraph, and book!)

I was feeling hopeless and then I read a bit of Lara’s book. Now I don’t feel hopeless anymore. So if you are feeling hopeless (or hopeful! Or powerful! Or determined! Or committed! Actually, if you are alive and feeling anything at all) I highly recommend you read this book.

(You can also watch/listen to Lara’s podcast, Psychic Militancy, here.)

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Unfortunately, this was not a great fundraising/crowdfunding week:

But we did send $25 USD to the Sameer Project’s Medical Campaign.

If you can’t make these links work, other ways to donate include:
http://paypal.me/mahertali

http://account.venmo.com/u/Maher-Ali

(Paypal or Venmo option, please make sure to add a message saying “Food” or “Medical,” depending on where you want your donation to go)

Please keep donating to the Sameer Project.

Thank you for being here. And thank you for doing the work. We get through this together, it’s always been the only way.