Notes on heartbreak and Palestinian Liberation
On Falling out of love/ falling out of like / falling in love .... with you all
As I write generally in this moment, I will be also speaking about my feelings on the most current Israeli/Palestinian violence and heartbreak. If you have been following me on Instagram you may be more familiar with my beliefs, because I post there more often than here. But I support a free, liberated Palestinian people and am devastated by the ongoing occupation, apartheid, and murder/trauma/violence in the name of settler colonialism, ethnic cleansing, and othering that I see at the hands of the Israeli far-right government led by Netanyahu. I grieve for Jewish people that are hurting right now and feel anger towards the root causes of oppression and apartheid which keep none of us safe. I grieve for 6-year old Palestinian-American Wadea Al-Fayoume who is only the most recent victim of this virulent constant othering. This post is not actually intended to be a long form essay on why I feel this way on this issue, I just don’t have the time or energy to write about why these lives should matter, I’m sorry. Others, I have cited in this post, including Fariha Roísín, Tanaïs, and Ijeoma Oluo have written posts like this that are clear and say a lot of what I would say if I had that energy. This post is about how my heart breaks in this moment, but it implies you know my stance on this situation, which I guess now you do. You may not like that stance, and that is your choice. I have Jewish friends that I love and Palestinian friends that I love. I deeply despise any far-right ethno-religious state which advocates violence against another people, whether that be based on race, religion, sexual preference, gender expression, or disability status and whether that’s an Israeli, American, or Indian government. I have never had a love of country, only a deep connection to land and the beautiful humans that try every day to love despite everything terrible that happens on that land.
A poet who has a ton of followers who’s work really spoke to me two weeks ago, is just not getting through to me this week. It’s not just their weird take-no-position, make nobody upset stance against genocide response to the events in Gaza this past week, but then they posted a poem for all the people going through a break-up right now. The poem was fine, the poem was nice. It was the caption that stung. They said “I’m not going through a breakup thank god.” And maybe it was just to clarify their own relationship status, but I didn’t care about the poem after that. Like we who may be heartbroken don’t need your own declarations about how you are thanking god to not be here. Just post the poem and keep it moving. It negated the intent of the poem for me. That’s the thing about art, who we are does in fact make a difference to how we perceive the art.
(They said half the people in their life were going through breakups, and honestly that seems right on my end too. And by break-up I mean all the various kind of breakups and heartaches one can have, beyond just a romantic one.)
I feel sort of similarly about all the hand-wringing online since this latest round of violence erupted. For actual Palestinian people on the ground being bombed in Gaza right now, your handwringing about how bad you feel is not helpful. And if those people being herded into a much smaller part of the open-air prison they were already living in for years, being bombed, dehydrated, traumatized, injured, murdered is too much for you to handle, too stressful on a Tuesday, too complex to know how to feel about… well everyone can feel how they like. But for me, it’s sort of hard to know how to connect with people for whom their own government supporting ethnic cleansing, occupation, and genocide right in front of our eyes, is just something they can turn off. Something they can choose to engage with and choose to post about or worst of all, willingly choose to misunderstand. My heart breaks a little bit everyday because of it all.
Ijeoma Oluo wrote a Substack post titled A letter to the friendships I have lost and will lose that speaks to this moment of collective heartbreak amongst all of us.
Now one thing I know from deathwork, my dreaming and art practice, and my own relationship with my father, is that it’s not over until it’s over. People who disappoint you for many years, can change.1 Sometimes in the last two months of their lives. Sometimes in ways that astound you. So when I say I’m heartbroken by the lack of collective care we as a society have for people whose lives we deem less than, I’m not saying I think people can’t change. I’m rarely hopeless actually. But in the right now, it’s a lot for my heart, which to be honest was already kind of reeling.
For those who can’t post or talk about this because they are intimately connected to the violence for some reason or re-triggered, I have much sympathy. For those who cannot post for fear of work retribution or friend or stranger retribution, I guess my feelings about it are complicated depending on your relative power in society. Because of aforementioned genocide. All I know is it’s so chaotic to open your social media feed and have wall after wall of posts about Gaza and then the odd hot selfie, the odd just feeling cute today, the odd random meme that has nothing to do with current tragedies, the odd ad for jeans or gua shua tools. Again, it’s not a judgment, it’s just the experience of being on the feed these days, the incongruence and vast space between what some people are talking about right now is overwhelming and just heartbreaking. I wonder often about us as a species.
But at the same time, the outpouring of love, anger, rage, and grief by those who will not stop talking/marching/crying/demanding about Palestinians is keeping me going. I’m also falling in love. With all the people who will not stop loving in the face of great heartbreak.
So my heart breaks and falls in love at the same time, over and over and over.
There is no one who says it like Tanaïs’ does and in their latest Substack, Notes For A Free Palestine they said this.
Too many artists and writers today are implicitly aligned with the imperial project of the United States, even as they harp on about their conflicted identities and postcolonial blues. They’re to be one of Obama’s favorite books, ready to celebrate with Kamala Auntie in the White House, or shake hands with a U.S. president or a fascist Prime Minister versed in war-mongering and thirsty for brown-skinned Muslim blood. Not only do these artists and writers lack the shame having their art tied to imperial power and culture, these artists and writers have no right to tell Palestinian people how to fight for their freedom. If you can’t unequivocally and wholeheartedly support the Palestinian freedom struggle, if your imagination does not consider human rights to freedom, love, food, water and shelter and land for all human beings— then why should we trust you, or your art? You’ve got nothing to say.
The only art I feel drawn to right now is the art that cares in moments like this. That reflects on it. I too wonder what the purpose of art is if not to speak up now? Shouldn’t it be to guide the perhaps uncreative war-desperate men (and everyone else who blindly follow them) who lead the world to the brink of despair over and over, towards the open question and heart of an art practice that defies the cruelty of race or ethnic ranking in any form? Shouldn’t art lead us somewhere? Anywhere out of this hellscape?
It’s awkward always to talk about things you are working on, but in my case, I’m working on an offering for all the heartbroken people, so I feel okay posting it here. I’ve spoken about it in my previous post , and it’s called The Art of Endings - Relationships. I don’t know if I could have birthed a more fitting thing in a more fitting time. I guess I followed my heart that way. Relationships are breaking my heart recently. But still I know there is depth of experience, beauty and hope to be found even in these broken spaces. I have to believe that for myself. I have gathered a group of contributors and facilitators that is my dream team. Our first session is Thursday and there are 2 more days to sign up if you were interested. Link to do that is here.
Finally, these are some images which are heartbreakingly beautiful beyond compare. I don’t know why but sometimes you see the most beautiful things you could ever see in moments of tremendous heartbreak. As a death doula I have known this to be true.
I hadn’t heard of the resource “Queering the Map” until today. Queer people log on from all over the world to a map that they post queer things to. These are from Gaza as of late.
Sending the deepest love and care out to you all,
Resham
We ourselves can change. Sometimes heartbreak can bring about greater change than all the therapy and books and meditation.