hi lol, i really don't know what i'm doing. this is literally just some stuff i found and hey guess what, now i've also made some of it. shocker right? anyways. (they/them) [ps please ignore my uncentered profile picture; i have no clue how to fix it]
A video I saw on Oren Ziv's Twitter, this is a protest in Tel Aviv, in front of the Israeli Ministry of Defense.
I'm translating the signs from Hebrew:
Entering Rafah = a crime against humanity
There are human beings in Gaza
Stop the massacre in Rafah
Stop bombing Rafah
Don't look away
Stop the genocide in Rafah
Stop the massacre
Enough!!! Stop the war
Stand against the massacre in Rafah
As for the things they're chanting, I have a bit of an auditory issue so I might not be able to catch all of it. Not even enough to figure out if what I can't hear is Arabic or Hebrew. But what I did hear sounds like:
Enough with the destruction, enough with the death, the occupation must fall.
The signs in English, in case anyone can't see the video, read:
Please, please constantly challenge and reject the narrative that any region is naturally more prone to war than any other, like that's a characteristic inherent to its make-up, like that's geographically assigned risk the same way an area can be earthquake-prone or hurricane-prone.
There has never been a utopia on Earth and nowhere is entirely free of conflict, but this disastrous scale of violence inflicted upon the SWANA region is a deliberate and calculated effort of destabilization by Western powers who want to bleed the region dry. It's not an immutable part of the contour of the land that its people must adapt to and live with. It can be stopped and should be stopped. These people were once free and can be freed again.
Every time you see someone hand-waving a crisis at this scale as "conflict in the Middle East" it is an abominable tool to dehumanize Arabs to the point where nobody bats an eye at the death of their children.
Examine what that phrase means. What is a "conflict in the Middle East"? What happens in Yemen isn't what happens in Morocco isn't what happens in Palestine isn't what happens in Iraq, but this catch-all term is meant to translate in your mind into "problems are happening where problems are always happening", because of course they are! Conflict in the Middle East? What else is new, clouds in the sky? Fish in the sea? It lulls you into apathy; Arabs are dying - but that's what they do, don't they?
And so three goals of the perpetrators of this violence are achieved. First, they wash their hands from it; they didn't set the place on fire, it was already like this when they got there! Second, does it even matter whose fault it is? Who cares about a dead brown child anyway? Who's counting the death toll? Third, since this is an unchangeable quality of their region, and has nothing to do with the West, why protest it? Why fight for them? Why demand anything out of Western leaders?
This is the same thing over and over again. Palestinians die every day, but it gets a lukewarm headline from mainstream media because death and destruction is inherent to Arabness. Then an aid convoy with white workers is obliterated, and now both the president of the United States and the president of Israel are making statements apologizing for “the poor protection of aid workers.” At one point we were seeing multiple reports a day of paramedics from the Palestine Red Crescent Society dying, but nothing. Crickets. Because they don’t care. And even in these “remorseful statements” there is a strategic reminder that white lives hold more weight than brown lives.
This is the same thing over and over again. Palestinians die every day, but it gets a lukewarm headline from mainstream media because death and destruction is inherent to Arabness. Then an aid convoy with white workers is obliterated, and now both the president of the United States and the president of Israel are making statements apologizing for “the poor protection of aid workers.” At one point we were seeing multiple reports a day of paramedics from the Palestine Red Crescent Society dying, but nothing. Crickets. Because they don’t care. And even in these “remorseful statements” there is a strategic reminder that white lives hold more weight than brown lives.
a comic for tdor featuring lyrics from “famous last words” by mcr. that song hits different today.
this trans day of remembrance, remember not only those we have lost, but our trans brothers, sisters and siblings that are here with us, struggling along side us. we are each other’s family; we are each other’s home.
honor the dead. fight for the living. stay safe.
[image ID: a digital comic set to lyrics from the song “famous last words” by my chemical romance. the comic starts drawn in white on a black background, and gradually shifts to being drawn in white, pink, and blue.
it begins with a hand next to the text: “now I know;” followed by a bust of a short haired person next to the text: “that I can’t make you stay;” then a partial bust of a person with long hair in a jacket covered in patches and pins, one of which is a heart patch with a trans symbol in it, next to the text: “but where’s your heart?” then it shows the tops of some powerlines with the text: “and I know there’s nothing I can say.”
next it shows a memorial site with a poster and flowers at the bottom of a lamp post with the text: “to change that part;” then there are a large collection of lit candles with the text: “so many bright lights that cast a shadow;” next, a person in a puffy coat holding a piece of paper with the text: “but can I speak?” where the word speak is scribbled out; next shown in a group of transphobic protestors holding anti-trans signs and yelling with the text: “is it hard understanding.”
next shown two figures with hatched wrists and ankles reaching out to each other with the text: “why I’m ‘incomplete’?” where the word “incomplete” is in quotation marks; next is a panel of a mourning crowd, with three crying young people at the front, paired with the text: “I see you laying next to me;” then there is a picture frame with a portrait next to a burning candle, where the face of the portrait is replaced with the words “rest in power” and paired with the text: “with words I thought I’d never speak.”
next shown is a line up of five silhouettes in blue, pink, and white with the text: “awake and unafraid, asleep or dead;” next is a drawing of a thin person with brown skin and a shaved head dressed in blue and pink holding up a large trans flag and shouting, shown next to a transparent figure with curly hair wearing a dress, who is also shouting and supporting the first person’s wrist as they hold up their flag, wrapped with the text: “I am not afraid to keep on living.”
next shown is a bust of a person with tan skin and chin-length blue hair smiling and crying the stripes of the trans flag down their cheek and rubbing their other eye with the text: “I am not afraid to walk this world alone;” next, the background fades from a starry sky pattern to a blue sky with pink clouds showing the text: “honey if you stay you’ll be forgiven, nothing you can say can stop me going home.” at the bottom of the page, a silhouette looks up into the sky at the final lines of text. end ID]