Watching a Breakdown

The Wire

6 days ago

Should we be glad that France has finally announced that it will recognise the state of Palestine in September, at the United Nations, after 21 months of steadfastly supporting Israel's carnage in Gaza? That Britain's Parliament has, at last, called for a ceasefire in probably the most brutal one-sided 'war' the modern world has seen? Should we be relieved that India, too, has called for a ceasefire, after studiously abstaining from any such demand in every international forum?
I suppose we should, even though it is too little, and almost too late.
A great deal has been written about the world having lost its moral compass with regard to Gaza. But what morality are we talking about? The morality of international law? Despite its impeccable intentions it has never been enforceable, and as the eminent Palestinian writer and human rights lawyer Raja Shehadeh says, '...it has never been Palestine's salvation.' The old Christian moral order, based on a clear articulation of good and evil, right and wrong, sin and redemption, ceased to exist a long time ago. A secular morality, whose bedrock is humanism, its creed respect for the other's dignity and, yes, humanity? That seems to have broken down completely. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres's cry from the heart about the international community's 'lack of compassion, lack of truth, lack of humanity' is a painful, helpless acknowledgement of that breakdown.
But what we are also seeing is the breakdown of language; both, the cynical distortion of meaning and deliberate subversion of words, as well as the exhaustion of vocabulary to render the unspeakable, to communicate the enormity and wanton cruelty, of what we are witnessing. Most writing on Gaza now is a blur of words, robbed of any real value. Indeed, as the poet Meena Alexander says, when violence becomes so appalling and overwhelming, we enter what she calls 'a zone of radical illiteracy'.
And yet, perhaps it's only the poets who can now recount this breakdown of humanity, mourn its death.
What words can I offer?
What words can explain the
Sound of a child's tongue scraping
Against rust for a taste of flour?
writes a doctor in Gaza, as he looks at children scrabbling for rotten remains in a food truck.
Remember those images of the Biafra famine, when the world rushed to send food to children who were more skeleton than flesh? The same images of Israeli-made starvation in Gaza, of ghost-like children, have seen a world mute.
Also read: 'Not a Side Effect of War': Israeli Human Rights Groups Say Israel Committing Genocide in Gaza
I have read so many reports, so many insightful accounts, so many political analyses of what the last 21 months signify in terms of full-spectrum hegemony and the assertion of control over West Asia, with Gaza as the battlefield. Intent, or should one say, malintent, has never been clearer or so openly stated. There is no doubt that, as the writer Suad Amiry, author of Menopausal Palestine, says, 'The Israelis, they say peace, peace, peace but what they mean is land, land, land.'
I have no quarrel with any of the above.
But I think what we are witness to is also the ascendance of intrinsically patriarchal states across the world, that are either in conflict or collusion with each other. Hamas is no less patriarchal and attuned to violence than Israel; the US today is no less patriarchal and repressive than Iran.
And what of Europe? A long time ago, the Croatian writer Dubravka Ugrésic recounted a western European acquaintance describing her inner map of Europe:
'This is where I am. Around me are Germany, Belgium, France, England, down there is Italy, and, yes, there are Spain and Portugal as well, and here is a line. Beyond that line is nothing, a great blank...'
On her inner map, the great blank stretched eastwards from Berlin. Ugrésic gave this great blank an identity: feminine Central Europe as distinct from masculine West Europe, and characterised their relationship as, 'Me Tarzan, you Jane', with Jane forever subordinate and submissive.
In a supreme irony, West Europe now is the feminised Other of America, unable to bargain with a patriarchy that is adamant.
Rada Ivekovic, (former) Yugoslavian political philosopher, writes from Paris,
'You say Europe has been silent for too long. But Europe's words have no value... Europe is no longer a political subject (meaning the EU, not individual countries)... there is no European position... Europe will not, and cannot, oppose the US or Israel at all. Do not expect anything from Europe.'
As a strategic choice, it might opt for what feminists have called 'the convenience of subservience', a choice made in return for concessions, some privileges, and protection.
Also read: Gaza Is Starving and Israel's Allies Can do More Than Just Watch
But patriarchy's desire for domination and control are predicated on violence, and its stance is hypermasculine, at all times. All these traits and practices are manifest not only with regard to its alleged adversaries and opponents, but with its own (feminised) populations as well – dissenters and protestors, who need to be disciplined and browbeaten into submission. Internal patriarchies within countries do the same – Germany, Britain, France, the Netherlands, Iran, Israel, India... Gaza has blown open the lid on civil liberties everywhere.
If violence is the overriding fact and the moral order has collapsed, where does that leave Palestine, a body – and body politic – that has been systematically battered and abused for close to 50 years? If ordinary – and yes, compassionate – people everywhere have risen in its defence in the hundreds of thousands but been beaten down by their own states, how will the phoenix rise from the ashes?
And yet, in the ultimate analysis, it is only Palestine's humanity that has the capacity to redeem the world.
Ritu Menon is a feminist publisher and writer.