mon 6 nov
On Friday night we teetered into mild despondency. Of the world but also the work. A run of funding rejections, of negotiations, of doubts. We took a too rare trip to the pub to escape but unavoidably mulled over this and a Guinness. We talked - of how it sometimes feels like we’re calling out into the void. We argued, admonishing each other for negative talk, attempting to keep spirits up whilst feeling down. Interrupting the flow of a mini lecture on stamina a man came over to our table, introducing himself and saying he appreciates all that we do. ‘Keep going!’ It felt a blessing and a message. An intervention in despair.
There is a stubbornness in hope. In not giving up. A recent missive came in quoting Salman Rushdie: “A poem cannot stop a bullet. A novel can’t defuse a bomb. But we are not helpless. We can sing the truth and name the liars. Stories are at the heart of what’s happening… we must work to overturn the false narrative of tyrants.. by telling better stories.”
We are committed to that but right now so many are singing the truth and naming the liars and still the bullets and bombs reign. Poets and stories die with generations.
Our story here is entwined in song. Rising up to at least weave narratives that bring people together in shared humanity and care. As we plot in more recording sessions for ‘Bread and Roses’ I’m reminded of the caution to avoid sounding like a football chant. As we organise recordings with actual football teams, food coops and youth groups I think this might actually be our aim. An arena filled with thousands of voices reverberating across time in a cry for justice. That’s the plan.
Oh god. As I write, the neon pink ‘Optimistic’ sign behind me falls dramatically and all too prophetically. Agnes is twitching and frightened and Dan asks ‘are there bombs going off somewhere?’ – the season of fireworks and genocide. It feels wrong to even write or think or do anything else.
We carry on.
Today we are beginning to work on mapping what has been done and what our next steps are. How the street is manifold. How the street is microcosm. How the community is here and beyond. An exercise in reflection and communications. How many solar panels are installed? how many are next? Which houses will be first for early steps insulation? Where did the sunflowers grow? Where did they end up? Where will the seeds propagate? What other streets are interested? I plot an alternative form of evaluation in which impact is found in how many bees, how many smiles, conversations, full squirrel’s stomachs, bluetits survival, slugs and snail fed, questions asked? Who fell in love with the sunflower? Who felt soil on their hands for the first time? who thought about power in a different way?
Mapping is critical. And it is essential now in a process of holding to account in the face of ‘the false narratives of tyrants’ – the violent erasure, amnesia and twisted remembrance. It is a form of archiving, gathering words and actions deleted or rearranged before our eyes. It is crucial to capture the statements of those who enabled this before proof disappears in denial. We see and hear you.
The Accountability project @archivegenocide is a crowdsourced record of journalists, politicians, and public figures endorsing or encouraging ethnic cleansing of Gaza and defaming pro-Palestinian Activists. Researcher Phillip Proudfoot states “I work on archive genocide because of an alarming fact of the digital age. We feel we are watching war crimes in real time and there is information everywhere. However digital data is not durable. Videos are removed and twitter accounts are suspended. We must document every instance of complicity. It is imperative, for all of us that we know exactly who allowed humanitarianism and multilateralism to fail; how they participated in genocidal dehumanising rhetoric: and how they demonised all those who oppose it as ‘terrorist sympathisers and anti-semites. Future researchers and god willing, future lawyers will need this archive.”(https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdYBrNzp77ivaNXcojTUy7R4YER4k7FnrOgXi3tl5OM5iJ27g/viewform)
Communications blackouts. Losing connection in all senses. Journalists and their families targeted and murdered. Information deleted. Wikipedia adapted. Outright lies. Or most shockingly - outright declarations of genocide. The iron dome of the complicity of the West shielding them from accountability. Countering this, the detailed investigative work of teams like Forensic Architecture (https://forensic-architecture.org/) has some power. At a time when Netanyahu even cared about optics, their work (with Al Haq human rights organisation and Earshot NGO sonic investigations) on the bombing of the Al Alhi Hospital cast doubt on the IDF’s claims it was a rocket from within Gaza in the midst of propaganda and disinformation.
Now hospitals are just an acceptable target. ‘When people show you who they are believe them the first time.”(Maya Angelou). Forensic is “relating to or denoting the application of scientific methods and techniques to the investigation of crime”. These are crime scenes on a massive scale. It cannot be that the only thing possible is to chase those complicit after the fact. A forensic pathology of so many bodies when we see clearly the cause of death. Cease Fire Now.
