This genocide will be politically correct (and televised)
I sing against the wall
But am building another wall between usI hide my love songs in a drawer
I’ll return to them when my problems are over
—Tamer Nafar
Thought has been cancelled by relentless vengeance. And vengeance has become an end in itself. From whence it arises, and how it is justifiable, these concerns are taboo. Perpetrators of the most unbearable violence now claim the status of victims. And their victimhood is to be made absolute and unalterable. Over the past few months, we have helplessly witnessed the devastation of Gaza on a scale we had not thought was possible. The limits of our politics have become painfully clear.
As the harrowing images pour in without pause, we turn and look at the custodians of the global order, the ensemble that goes by the name ‘West’, with its pretensions of fairness and liberality, and we see them mock us with their high-minded rhetoric even as they stand aside and allow death to consume an entire people. These hypocrisies were not unknown to us. Perhaps, we felt that there was a limit to them. Now we find ourselves utterly abandoned, raging against a machine which feeds on our rage.
With his latest book, Thoughts of Gaza Far from Gaza, philosopher and teacher Soumyabrata Choudhury doesn’t so much shatter this solitude, as intensify it. He enquires into the fantasies of nationhood that haunt both Israel and Palestine. Does the figure of the Hamas ‘terrorist’ allow us to consider the existence of a Palestinian ‘world’? What do the harrowing images of suffering children in Gaza force us to think? How does the flat world of capitalism square itself with the absolute otherness to which Gaza is consigned? What do the Zionists desire? What do they mean when they say Palestine is a land without people? What is it that makes a people? How does the Holocaust relate to the Naqba? How has the media machinery framed our thinking of the catastrophe? What invisible atmosphere surrounds us when we look at a disordered world from our seemingly objective positions? All the emergent paranoias, suspicions and fantasies of identity are analysed.
Thoughts of Gaza Far from Gaza is a clear-eyed reckoning with how dehumanisation and slaughter become normalised and institutionalised, despite the pretensions of civilisation. Bruno Bosteels, professor at Columbia University and author of The Actuality of Communism, calls this ‘a courageous book that seeks to create the minimal conditions for thoughtfulness.’ Independent researcher and activist Vqueeram says, ‘Choudhury offers us not just a practice of thinking about Gaza but a method for thinking itself.’ The writer Githa Hariharan says, ‘Thoughts of Gaza Far from Gaza asks us, How do we face the test of humanity in our times?’
The book’s cover features the painting Al Moulatham (The Masked One, 2012) by the Lebanese artist Ayman Baalbaki. In the wake of the 7 October attack and the subsequent razing of Gaza, the British auction house Christie’s withdrew the painting from its portfolio claiming that the images portrayed ‘distasteful’ themes that were no longer appropriate given the situation in Gaza. After all, the image of a person draped in a keffiyeh automatically signals ‘terrorist’. This is the regime of censorship in place—in the name of civility and benevolence, no questions will be admitted. In the name of political correctness, even genocide will be condoned.
We first announced the book on 4 July this year, the American Independence Day. The book will be launched on 15 August 2024, the day of Indian independence. Often, we look suspiciously at these landmark events, wondering that despite much ado, our freedom still remains a matter of deliberation. The tragedy of Palestine is that for centuries now they have been prohibited from even entering this generic province of alienated freedom. So, between one Independence Day and another, we hope to find a measure of freedom for people so far away, yet so near.
Thoughts of Gaza Far from Gaza tells us that in carrying out its inconsolably relentless attack, Israel wants to destroy all signs of a world that could be Palestine. It wants to make as if the only possible character of such a world could be a terroristic one. Soumyabrata Choudhury warns us of this trap. He asks us to keep reminding ourselves that there is a Palestinian world beyond Israel’s reach. A world that could be as good and as bad as our own.
Listen to this Tamer Nafar and Samar Qupty song from the 2016 film Junction 48, to briefly glimpse into this world:
To get a flavour of Shomo’s take read this essay entitled “War, Aid and Atmosphere: The ‘Compassionate Worsening’ of Gaza” which features themes from the book. It appeared in The Philosophical Salon.
(The above image is another painting by Ayman Baalbaki titled Anonymous which was cancelled by Christie’s London.)