On the last day of 2023, I wrote out a long thread on X in which I anticipated the spread of the war to all of Lebanon. “I walk around Beirut,” I wrote, “trying to memorize all its beloved details. I have no idea how long my city will stand. Every time I feel horror over this, every time I think, no, this could never happen to Beirut, it could never be allowed, I realize how profoundly stupid this is. How is Beirut better or more deserving than Gaza? How is any Lebanese different from the people of Gaza who have watched their entire universe get wiped off the map while the world allows it? And what have I ever experienced in or from the west that allows me to labor under the delusion that Lebanon, that any country in our region besides the Zionist entity, is perceived any differently than Palestine?”- Now that this is a reality, now that my beloved Beirut is being sadistically pulverized, and I’m forced to see the repetition of the same justifications and excuses that were used — are still being used — to justify and excuse the wholesale destruction of Gaza, I’m finding it more and more difficult to figure out what to even say. I know only that I’m not interested in translating myself anymore. I’m not interested in “writing for the West” the way I was before, or for seeking out places based on the prestige of their platform. “Do they see us as human?” This is the only litmus test I’m interested in at this point. I don’t want to have to try and convince anybody.
…I can no longer declare some sort of unified theory of belief in writing. I used to think it was a way in which we asserted our rights to life and joy. In which we appealed to our fellow humans and tried to form community. But at this point in the genocide, it has become clear that we aren’t appealing to human beings but to systems. You cannot plead with a system. You must topple it.
Continue reading at https://themarkaz.org/a-year-of-war-without-end/