sun 12 nov
A day of rest.
And restless thoughts.
I load my bicycle with loads of stuff – from jam pans to buckets, camera and monopod and head up the road to a patch of land next to a bus stop, behind the now closed Wilko in Walthamstow. This is one of the sites where some of the 1000s of sunflowers I loved and tended and that grew and were cared for in the local community found a home after our midsummer solar celebrations (https://www.power.film/sundance).
It is the new community garden of a reinvigorated Transition Walthamstow and today is a day of preparation for winter - planting bulbs and gathering the last of the sunflower seeds. A small, committed team have big plans for this space in-between carpark, road and school and I’m happy to see Mick, busy organising compost and sharing banana bread after meeting him at his home and witnessing his meticulous process of harvesting and sorting the sunflower seeds by type - hard black and stripy seeds, containers of potential.
Today I invited natural dye enthusiast Anna Kasmir to come and experiment with these seeds – attempting to move from ‘50 shades of brown’ (however beautiful) to the illusive purple black tone that we’ve seen images of and know the sunflower seed is capable of creating. Etta and Maren join the tests, adding remaining sunflower petals to silk, placing hands on steaming pans of darkening water. The sky too darkens and our results are on the beige scale but in this shared experiment there is space to be and breath, focusing in on learning a craft…. something, anything, to stop the whirling motion.
Planting bulbs, planting seeds. Planting as an act of trust, of belief and care. A radical act.
Packing away jars of seeds I think of Octavia Butler’s ‘Parable of the Sower ‘–where, navigating a brutal world, Lauren Oya Olamina creates her own religion - ‘Earthseed’. Each chapter in her journal of seeding and survival begins with a mantra: ‘We are earthseed, the life that perceives itself, changing’. ‘To get along with God. Consider the consequences of your behaviour.” In this talk of God and consequences my mind turns to ideas of promised lands and chosen people. To olive trees on fire. In Butler’s dystopian parable Lauren suffers from a form of deep embodied empathy – the fact that she literally feels the pain of others is a weakness used against her.
I struggle to breath. Thinking of occupied breath. Cessation of breath. Of ICU monitors failing. New born babies dead.
Norwegian Doctor Mads Gilbert makes desperate a plea - “President Biden, Mr. Blinken, can you hear me? Prime Ministers and Presidents of the European countries, can you hear me? Can you hear the screams from innocent people?
As Israeli officials express their genocidal intent for all to hear it seems impossible not to see and hear and feel this. Major general Giora Eliand writes in the daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth ‘the State of Israel has no choice but to turn Gaza into a place that is temporarily or permanently impossible to live in.” Labelling everyone as not only human shields but pushing home the idea that no one is innocent, that, in effect, all are combatants and therefore legitimate targets. 102 UN workers have been murdered. Also labelled legitimate targets /Hamas symphathisers. Journalists and their families slaughtered. It is evident in every word and action that the aim is for a final destruction and expulsion. Yet still it is denied and excused.
As Joe Glenton notes “Cancel culture is a thing it turns out. It’s the ultimate cancellation - that of the Palestinian people and I think anyone that’s remotely fair minded can see that.” Norman Finkelstein goes further- accusing anyone who still can’t make up their mind whether or not what’s happening in Gaza is in accordance with international humanitarian law as being a moral idiot.
This is a colossal moral collapse implicating us all and what do many focus on? A deliberate attempt to conjure forth a culture war, to make the debate about placards and slogans. ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free’ has become the discussion/distraction point of the day. More of an affront to some than the literal bombing of children. It is not a call for the destruction of Israel. It is a liberation chant addressing directly the fact of Israeli domination in what is an apartheid system. As human rights lawyer Frances Awaritefe says using words like domination is not a ‘trope’ – it is a fact of international law. Scholars, human rights lawyers and organisations and are not being unclear in their use of words like ‘genocide’ – they do not use them lightly - they are just not being listened to.
Meanwhile Jewish woman Irish Hefets has been arrested for the second time for carrying a sign saying ‘Stop Genocide’ in Berlin where those marching for a ceasefire are faced with police announcements that certain phases are banned including the adapted ‘from the river to the sea we demand equality’ lest it be purposefully misunderstood. Whereas, in contrast, it’s pretty obvious the feelings and intention of those chanting “Allah Allah who the fuck is Allah” to those marching in London on Sunday.
This is what the government and media are inciting through calculated twists of language and meaning. Where peace marches become ‘hate’ and hate marches become ‘counter protests’. There will be more Islamophobic and antisemitic attacks on the back of this stirring of division. And not because people are calling for a ceasefire.
Quoting from 1984 may also have been hijacked by the far right ‘free speech’ warriors but I need to hear Orwell’s words on ‘freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two makes four. If that is granted, all else follows.” And this is not being granted.
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. His heart sank as he thought of the enormous power arrayed against him, the ease with which any Party intellectual would overthrow him in debate, the subtle arguments which he would not be able to understand, much less answer. And yet he was in the right! They were wrong and he was right. The obvious, the silly and the true had got to be defended. Truisms are true, hold on to that! The solid world exists, its laws do not change. Stones are hard, water is wet, objects unsupported fall towards the earth’s centre.”
Bombs are bombs. Death is death. Genocide is genocide.
