edwordsmyth

[edwordsmyth]

"Positioning Palestinians as racially and ontologically inferior and as ones held captive in ever-evolving zones of nonexistence and in geopolitically (in)visible spaces of annihilation where the world bears witness yet turns a blind eye are made possible by the definition of Palestinian children as 'born terrorists.' ... This phenomenon ... is not only produced and reproduced in state cabinet meetings and global politics, but also staged and repeated in media outlets. What I am speaking of is state-sponsored terror on the 'terrorist' Other, the 'terrorist' child. The so-called War on Terror and its corresponding values allow the phenomenon of what I call unchilding to flourish despite the viciousness of violence and unending genocidal attacks, such as in Gaza in April 2018 as I write this conclusion. The targeted shooting of children, women, men, and journalists and the mutilation and injury of thousands of Palestinians protesting in the Return March in Gaza were defended in the words of military officer Zvika Pogel who stated that 'anyone that threatens the border of Israel will be killed.' When the reporter questioned the shooting of a fourteen-year-old child, he responded, 'Anybody that threatens the borders of Israel is sentenced to death.' Producing the state’s mandate to sentence children to death is an incremental genocidal unchilding. Settler-colonial ideology hopes that Palestinian children can be kept in spaces of incarceration ... and thus forever evicted. The universal logic of colonization requires the colonizers to continually produce newer and more refined technologies for further articulating and justifying the use of force, violence, and the wounding of children."

Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, Incarcerated Childhood and the Politics of Unchilding (2019)

#nadera shalhoub-kevorkian #palestine

[edwordsmyth]

#student intifada #rune agerhus #palestine

[edwordsmyth]

Five Flower World Variations, Yaqui

From Shaking the Pumpkin, Traditional Poetry of the Indian North Americas by Jerome Rothenberg

#yaqui #jerome rothenberg

[edwordsmyth]

Wilfredo Lam

#cuba #wilfredo lam

[edwordsmyth]

Violent Israeli settler attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank have skyrocketed ever since October 7. Before that, 2022 and 2023 were already setting record highs in settler violence, but the nature of settler attacks today is on an entirely different level. Settlers are now expelling entire Palestinian communities from their villages for the first time in decades. According to the UN, Israeli settlers expelled about 1,200 Palestinians from some 25 rural communities across the West Bank, including seven communities that have been completely depopulated. To say that this is historically unprecedented since the 1967 war would be an understatement.

#qassam muaddi #palestine

[edwordsmyth]

#lebanon #palestine

[edwordsmyth]

Israeli bombing near the displaced persons' tents

#palestine

[edwordsmyth]

"We are with Gaza and Palestine. Not with Israel. So let the war in Gaza stop first, and then it will stop in Lebanon. The threats that Israel will attack Lebanon make us more convinced of the righteousness of our confrontation and further bolster our position."

29 April 24

#lebanon #palestine

[edwordsmyth]

I have believed that there is no before and no after in poetry, that all poems are being written simultaneously, and that they are answers to questions that even now have not been formulated. The central theme of poetry is time, and that one of those times, just one of them, is what we call history. Poetry is the most vast and desperate effort to say with words from this world things that no longer make up this world. We die there, in that radical defeat and failure, because the work never was to write poems or paint pictures; the work was to make of the world something decent, and the pulverized remains of that work cover the world as if they were the debris of a battle atrociously lost. --Raúl Zurita (interview)

#raúl zurita

[edwordsmyth]

"The language of the children is replete with the effects of colonization, as also apparent in Lila’s narration: You see, I live suffocation, but I tell myself, 'No Lila, you are not suffocated. You are breathing. Others have lost even their ability to breathe.' I have to live with burned legs and a broken heart – a severe burn in my body and ghassa [anguish] in my heart. But I’m the twelve-and-a-half-year-old big sister, and I must show the younger ones how strong I am. I have to act like all is well, thank God, and that everything will be OK. But when I go to sleep I remember my loss, I remember my pain. I remember the lies I tell my sisters, that the world is aware of Israel’s crimes, that the world can see their crimes, that the world will find a way to save us because we are children, and have rights. Alia, Lila’s fourteen-year-old cousin, confirmed Lila’s perspective when she spoke to me: See, there are children in this world who have rights, and other children who beg for their rights. Lila with her two burned legs, and the many other injured and dead children who go unacknowledged, they are calling for the world’s attention. Gaza’s children are beggars; they have to beg for their rights. We might get some of those rights if we keep begging, screaming, dying, getting injured, losing family, losing hope. It is truly ghassa. While the testimonies these children and young adults offer are eloquent, we might note that their words reveal a different childhood experience, one in which they have become wizened and embittered beyond their years because of their experiences. In the aftermath of continual war, the bodily and psychic trauma and the political theatre of violence perpetually looms over the physical, social, and psychological dimensions of Palestinian life – as Lila so expressively explains. Palestinian children such as Lila and Alia, with their burned legs and pervasive suffering, give evidence of being stripped of their rights as children. They also give evidence of a regime that turns childhood into a space of collective punishment and that transforms children’s bodies and lives into laboratories of a 'combat-proven' weapons industry."

Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, Incarcerated Childhood and the Politics of Unchilding (2019)

#palestine #nadera shalhoub-kevorkian

[edwordsmyth]

“The essential element [of philosophical life] is in fact, one could say, non-discursive, insofar as it represents a choice of life, a wish to live in such and such a way, with all the concrete consequences that that implies in everyday life.”

— Pierre Hadot

[edwordsmyth]

Student protesters at Cal Poly Humboldt redecorated the University President’s office after occupying Seimens Hall, renamed “Intifada Hall”.

#student intifada #cph commune #palestine

[edwordsmyth]

I understand that there have been talks about an Israeli invasion of Rafah and I understand how absolutely catastrophic that would be for what is potentially the most packed area in the world, but I just want to point out that it feels like everyone is anticipating with fear a potential assault on Rafah whereas attacks and airstrikes are already happening and in fact they never even stopped for over 6 months now.

Keep talking about Rafah and keep talking about Gaza. There are absolutely no "safe zones" in Gaza and there never have been.

#palestine

[edwordsmyth]

Naomi Shihab Nye, Transfer; "Morning Birds"

#naomi shihab nye #palestine

[edwordsmyth]

#yusef lateef

[edwordsmyth]

Juniper against the wind, Sardinia by u/ZannaSmanna

#sardinia

[edwordsmyth]

Bottomless grief. The kids who survive this genocidal campaign will have to carry this trauma in their bodies for the rest of their lives.

💔

The tanks are now surrounding Rafah, where as many as 1.5 million Palestinian civilians are sheltering. A ground invasion is likely imminent.

All eyes on Rafah.

#palestine