Statement: Solidarity with the Disposable
This article is a written version of the statement read on June 1 during our “Standing for Palestine: Animal Rights in Action” workshop.
There is no easy way to say this, both because it is so emotionally heavy and also because it is so obvious, but here it is:
We are not ok. You are not ok. I am not ok. We are not supposed to be ok.
I cannot believe how many times I have had to remind people of this in the last eight months, but I will say it once more: in the human context, genocide is the evil above all evils. The crime above all crimes. It is the purest manifestation of absolute and unrepentant hate. It seeks only to erase and extinguish in the name of an enshrined barbarity and cruelty which cannot be adequately named or even comprehended.
Bearing witness to live streamed open air genocide for eight straight months is supposed to take a toll on you. A very heavy and perhaps irreversible toll.
Watching children become orphaned and parents become childless and siblings carrying their dead siblings in garbage bags to mass graves and survivors of bombs and missile attacks standing over the remains of their entire families whose bodies lie below them in row after row after row of body bags is not something we can witness without being forever and fundamentally changed.
Looking at a headless baby in the arms of their father is supposed to crack you open. It must crack you open. It is supposed to hurt. It is supposed to haunt you. It is supposed to break you. It is supposed to make the content of daily life - the family and friends and socializing and work and all other self-oriented endeavors - feel small, meaningless, and insignificant, even when they are not. It must also change you. And this is why we are here.
What does it mean to show solidarity with those whose lives are disposable? What does it really mean? How do we resist this violence? How do we persist as members of a movement that is committed to collective liberation? To total liberation?
I will not pretend to have all or even many of the answers. There are no easy answers to any of these questions. But we are here today to at least light the way forward, to provide some perspective and guidance, so we may glean those answers in the future.
So to the question of solidarity? What does it mean? I will start by saying what it does NOT mean:
It does not mean simply feeling badly for victims of genocidal violence and then taking no action.
It does not mean relegating your efforts to sharing content on social media.
It does not mean contacting your elected officials or government bodies and expecting them to “get it” and then take appropriate action.
It does not mean limiting your actions to participating in corporate boycotts or signing petitions or unfollowing problematic public figures on social media networks.
All of these practices are good in theory, but the result of these practices is often more symbolic than revolutionary. We have been doing them for months now and they have not helped to end (or even diminish) the genocide in Palestine - at least not yet. By all means do them, but recognize that there is limited power in restricting our resistance and solidarity to these individually-oriented practices. They do not undo the white supremacist colonial and speciesist frameworks which enable genocide in the first place. That is where we must put our attention. That is where our focus must go.
So back to the question of solidarity. What does it mean and how do we express it meaningfully when many of us live under occupying governments that make us complicit in this evil?
I will first say that to express solidarity we must first recognize what we are up against. We are not merely opposing the white settler colonial project that calls itself Israel or its primary backer and funder, the white settler colonial project that calls itself the United States of America. We are likewise not simply opposing the moral atrocities of ethnic cleansing, racial apartheid, and the commodification of Indigenous lands and the other animals, earthlings, and flora which call them home.
We are resisting an empire that is centuries old, one that was built on the premise that the bodies, labor, and resources of Black, Brown, Indigenous and nonhuman peoples are for the express purpose of subjugating all that exists for the benefit of one group.
This means that we are up against the very structure which holds up modern human society. And so resistance and solidarity will not be easy or comfortable. They will not feel good. They will not be free of charge. In fact, it will cost you something. It must cost you something.
Solidarity with those being oppressed by this system means you must intentionally and continually divest from the promises that system makes to you, even if you personally benefit from that system. Solidarity means speaking out - forcefully and unapologetically - against genocide even when you are incentivized not to do so.
This will cost you something. It must cost you something. It may cost you a job or a promotion or an internship or a funding opportunity. It may cost you personal and professional relationships. It may cost you your place in a movement to which you have been passionately dedicated for years. It did for me. And while it certainly hurts to feel betrayed by the movement to which I have aligned myself for the last decade, my allegiance is to the ideals of liberation and consistent anti-oppression, and not to the corporate captured social justice spaces that wield such ideals as branding and marketing tools.
Resist the effort to pathologize empathy and to further enshrine hyperindividualism and self-interest. Resist. Resist. Resist!
I know many of you on this call have been contacting myself and APEX for months, expressing horror at the fact that your employers have effectively criminalized expressions of solidarity with the Palestinians by forbidding you from speaking about the genocide in work spaces, even those which are social justice oriented. The West - notably the U.S., U.K., and German governments - have effectively criminalized expressions of solidarity with the cause of Palestinian liberation. It should come as no surprise then that the NGO and nonprofit industries within these countries which are governed by the same system have reinforced this resistance to Palestinian liberation by collectively remaining silent and in many cases echoing zionist white supremacist talking points and even platforming zionists in their campaigns.
To that I would say speak up anyway. Know you will be chided and castigated and called out. Speak up anyway. Know you will be accused of being antisemitic - even though you are exactly the opposite. Speak up anyway. If you are Jewish and decry colonial violence in your name, they will call you self-hating and a terrorist sympathizer. Speak up anyway. Know you will receive threats of retaliation. Speak up anyway. Know you will be told you need to approach the issue with nuance because it is “complex” and “complicated” which is nothing but rank gaslighting designed to deflect from the plain atrocities taking place in front of us every second of every day. Speak up anyway.
Because the power is with us. And they know it. Our acquiescence gives them power, which means that our resistance takes away that power as well.
Every time one of us finds the courage to speak out against what is plainly wrong and evil, it enables another voice to do the same. May we all begin our search for solidarity by recognizing our inherent power and finding both our collective and individual voices.
*APEX's views don't reflect the views of any entities or orgs connected to its teammates and board members. While APEX’s founder endorses this statement APEX's board members consist of numerous individuals with diverse ideologies who may not necessarily endorse this statement".
