Real RAD Reads

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It’s heavy to spend so much time on one subject. A heaviness of my own making, I know.

After the last weeks’ focus on the history in Palestine, this book hit different. When I finished the book, I wanted to turn back to page one and start all over again. I felt a need to know it – forward and back. To be able to quote it at the drop of a hat. I have felt sadness over what I’ve read and learned – but this was different. I had no room for sadness – only anger.

El-Kurd’s writing is beautiful. It took a minute to get into his rhythm and writing style, but once I did, I felt his urgency and his passion. Ironically, I also enjoyed his humor, which is a feat on such a grave subject. Truly an incredible writer.

I took some time after finishing this book to sit with this feeling. It’s hard to process this anger. I recently saw an interview with a US politician that dismissed what was happening in Gaza and doubled down that the only ethnic cleansing is that of the Jewish people in Israel.

This week, after the murder of a political commentator, social media filled my feed with past debates where he dismissed all Palestinians because ‘There is no Palestine on the map’.

Things that El-Kurd spoke about and knows too well:

Why do we give the authority of narration to those who have murdered and displaced us when the scarcity of their guilt means honesty is unlikely? Why do we wait for those carrying the batons to confess when our bruised bodies tell the whole truth?

In nearly every screen we put in front of us we can see anti-Semitic rhetoric whether it be against Jewish Semite peoples or Arab Semite peoples (there are others who fall under the definition of Semitic, but we’ll stick with these for this post). This rhetoric has no place in civil society. Period.

But we can and should hate and stand up against these actions. Actions that hurt people, actions that take away rights, food, health, and safety. But how? Where do we begin?

I was moved by Mohammed’s own uncertainty with what to do. As a writer, he acknowledged his own limitations on how to help. Knowing that no one person can change the circumstance of so much pain and anguish.

SO HERE WE ARE IN THE FINAL HOUR, if there was ever one. The task is difficult, or difficult to define. And I’m not preaching from a pulpit, but speaking while suffocating under the weight of my own helplessness, trying to understand what I should do, trying to understand what it is that I am doing. I am often asked, in interviews and on university campuses, what role I think literature plays in the Palestinian liberation movement. And though the question itself is not subversive, it certainly feels that way: What is the role of literature? Who does it serve, here, in the English-speaking world, in fancy hotel lobbies and fancy college auditoriums, planets away from the makeshift rifles of the refugee camps? It is hard to say. It is hard to imagine what a poem can do in the barrel of a gun.

The good news is that he is doing that. Sharing what we learn, even in imperfect forms or with small voices is powerful. That ripple can move beyond our inner circle in ways we cannot always see. I know very few people will read this. Maybe that will change and my audience will grow – maybe it won’t. I look forward to reading back over the life of this site to see my own growth.

So what can we do? How can we help? Definitely first and foremost, is sharing as we learn. Having conversations with friends and family about the articles and books we read and learning (sometimes the hard way) how best to share things at different levels. Some might not be ready for the imagery and language found in Perfect Victims – but there might be something better suited for someone early in their journey. Learning is always part of the solution. Always.

One of the other things I am working on is monetary boycotts. I’m not wealthy by any means, but I’m very comfortable; and while I don’t spend much, I do try and make the effort to spend my money ethically. Am I perfect at it? No, but somethings are worth the effort to do in accordance to our ethics and morals.

There are some resources that might help. Both the Guide to BDS Boycott and Who Profits can show which companies are funding the extermination of peoples. It’s worth mentioning that these companies are often unavoidable. It’s full of personal choices that only the individual can make. Leaving the comfort of the Target around the corner (since the 2024 election) has been hard, but we see the effect of a collective boycott and it’s incredible. It helps that I’m a grudge-holding bitch with a great memory. Amazon has been a bit harder cause I’m a sucker for convenience and I hate leaving the house – but it’s been cut WAY down and now it’s only used when I can’t get a need anywhere else. We do what we can with the resources we have.

One last quote from El-Kurd. I read this over and over and felt empowered by it. Maybe you will too.

So deride liars who throw rocks and hide their hands; deride manipulators who exploit taboos and tragedies to maintain a monopoly on violence, who craft their words to extract an urgent, penitent reverence out of you. Derision, in this context, teaches those who share your frustrations that they should not be shamed into accepting an upside-down world. Instead, it acts as a catalyst for critical thinking and intellectual autonomy, empowering the audience to question the status quo, to satirize it, to strip it naked before its yes-men and sycophants.

RAD Rating:

Stay RAD and share what you learn!

Byeeee!