Solidarity with a Free Palestine
Saturday October 7th was already October 8th in Tel Aviv. I wrote my boss a text “Just checking in. The NY Times is freaking out”.
She was fine. The kids had their first experience in a bomb shelter, but everyone was mostly coping.
Of course, we in the West have been bombarded with information since then. At the beginning I tried to listen to the mainstream news to get a bit of a map of at least what other people want you to think is happening. Then the Democracy Now and Al Jazeera to widen that perspective. Mostly what I found helpful was The Spiral Times and their August 30, 2023 program about returning to Palestine with the Radio Lajee group and Sounds of Sumud Pt I and Pt II. In these radio shows “you will hear lots of different kinds of Palestinian music, noise and opinions, and the sound of life going in a place where everything is being done to try and crush it.”
The Spiral Times radio sentiments were a comfort to me, reminding me of the long history of repression and resistance that I first came across in the graphic novel Palestine. Joe Sacco was in Gaza and the West Bank Dec 1991 - Jan 1992. His art was my first exposure to the people of Palestine and the way that they were as people, not as a state or a government. The comics told of the personal experiences of how the Palestinians were living under occupation. I also learned more about the Palestinians through the Palestinian Sound Archive. Massive thanks to Brioni for this article.
There is a Telegram Channel called “Eye on Palestine” which makes about 50 posts a day of images of bombings, hospitals, photos of people from before this genocide started and the individual stories of what happened and what is happening to these people. As of October 18th at least 20 Palestinian Journalists have been killed.
As the horrors continue, I try to keep up, but I do know that my role in the Social Change Ecosystem Diversity of Tactics is as a storyteller, weaver, builder. I appreciate that it takes all kinds to make a world, and thank you all for posting, for marching, for making art, for talking to people with patience or rage, and for those who are going to survive this horrendous experience and tell the stories.
I’m trying to sum it up but there’s no summing it up as the death toll rises and the lies are flying and we’re all screaming for help in some way. I have a hard time believing that the US politicians are going to do anything because I call them, but I’m doing it anyway. There are things that I’m not doing, too. Little bits from an imperialist nation who’s funding another genocide. Think and listen globally, act and listen locally. It’s all I’ve got
