Mariposa Rhythms -- Creative Dissent

Some readers of my open letter to Amos Oz have been posing questions to me regarding how to deal with a group that calls for the destruction of Israel. They tell me they are sick of Israel being described by the Left as inherently evil.

I do not believe there is “inherent evil” in Israel, not in its government, not in the IDF, and most certainly not in Israeli civilians. Nor do I believe there is inherent evil in Hizbullah or in Hamas. But evil has a way of growing, even if that was not the intent of seeds that were planted. One of the most powerful lessons for me in anti-racist work has been that you do not need racist intentions to have racism when it is built into the system. The same is true for colonialism. There is a system that has been set up. And we can look long and hard at how it got there, what actions people took, what intentions they did or did not have, but regardless of the answers we come up with, the fact remains that the system is there. Calls for the destruction of Israel pain me. Deeply. Calls for the destruction of Israeli colonialism, however, can not be loud enough.

Readers have asked me: “How can war be avoided? Walking away from a confrontation is not a ready option because, as we have learned, the attacks will return and the arming will continue unabated. Should Israel show further weakness by not responding again?”

I answer: no, Israel should not walk away from confrontation. Israel should respond, but if it really seeks to avoid war, it needs to take seriously the question of why there are people that want to destroy it. It needs to take many actions that go much, much further than the nature of the recent Gaza withdrawal, it needs to commit to decolonization. This, I believe, is the only response that will ensure its long-term survival as well as the long-term survival of its neighbors.

But the response from readers I have been struggling with the most is the insistence that one must criticize Hizbullah and Hamas with every breath that also criticizes Israel and the U.S. I have written a piece that tries to explain my resistance to this request. I hope you understand.

Love Poem for Hizbullah from a Non-Violence Lover
Some of my friends who trust my politics and believe in my soul have been approaching me cautiously lately. In nervous whispers they put a question mark at the end of what should be a statement: “You wrote that you’re learning to have hope in Hizbullah?” The question mark begs me to take it back, to brush it off as a moment of hotheadedness, to please, PLEASE remove it from my blog. But I replace the question mark with a period, repeating, yes, I’m learning to have hope in Hizbullah. The lectures begin. Reminding me of my commitment to non-violence. Appealing to my sense of pragmatism: “Cecilia, you will never get anyone to listen to you by using such inflammatory language.” I wonder, how is it that we have learned how to muster up so much more outrage for inflammatory language than for the flames burning where people used to be? Yes, I am learning to have hope in Hizbullah and it is just that: a learning process. And an un-learning process. Because the inflammatory language of “terrorist” – even for someone like me who has an ingrained reaction of ‘who’s causing the most terror here?’ – has burned its way into my psyche, its dehumanizing smoke filling my ears and blinding my eyes.

The un/learning has not been made easy. My question-mark friends are frustrated by my increasing unwillingness to decry Hizbullah and Hamas each time I open my mouth about Israel and the United States. I, too, am frustrated. Frustrated by the insistence on symmetry where there is none, frustrated by terms that oversimplify like “cycles of violence,” frustrated by my own tendency to retreat into these terms when the question-marks pry at me.

But I am making progress, seeking and finding new information, clearing some of the smoke. I am coming to terms with something that I’ve tried to deny, something I’ve been taught to deny. And so I have written a love poem. For Hizbullah. Like love that inspires poems often is, this love is not all rosy and sweet. It is complicated, tortured, frustrated, somewhat inappropriate, certainly scandalous, sometimes hesitant. It is irrational and overly rational. But still, it is love. A dear friend told me today, “Nobody ever really learns something without feeling something.” So, to Hizbullah, I offer this poem.

I Don’t Want to Love You, But I Do

You were born out of death to a life in a cage

Where bombs are not the only reason people die

Fed by the violence of hunger and homelessness

Raised by colonialism

Your heart and your will still grew strong

You scare me

Not just because they tell me to be scared

Not just because they repeat, repeat, repeat

The story of 1983

Begging me to understand

Americans are worth more than Lebanese

Why do they never tell me about Jihad al Bina

That you have created so much

Saved so many lives

Improved so many more

It scares me

When I admit to myself

That I would be more scared without you

If I still took the time to see

To see the violence

that does not just fall from the skies

that exists in hunger and homelessness

in colonialism

It scares me

That my hope is tangled up

In actions I would never want to commit

But I don’t sleep much these days

And I’ve tried hard

But I haven’t found

Anything

to give me hope that they will listen

They repeat, repeat, repeat

The story of Gaza withdrawal

Hoping we won’t see

The violence that continues

That kills in so many ways

Hoping we will now support it

Or at least stop looking

They insist talk does not work

When there is no one to talk to

It is hard to find an interlocutor

When you’re not willing to listen

To see

To feel

How do you keep faith that talk will work

When even they are insisting it won’t?

I am learning to have hope in you

I am learning to see you as so much more

Than those actions I would never want to commit

You amaze me.

Born out of death to a life in a cage

Raised by colonialism

You did not accept imprisonment as natural

You did not accept hunger as justice

You did not accept

the ceaseless killing in so many ways

Of those next to you

Or those farther away

I love you

But I will never be yours

I don’t want you inside me

You are too male for me

And I cannot, gratefully, fully silence the voice that insists:

Some deaths you did accept

Including of some who were listening

That is why the full statement that the question-marks pry me with reads:

It is sad, but I’m learning to have hope in Hizbulla

Maybe it is the naivety

of one whose life has never been directly threatened

I still believe:

Be the change you want to see in the world.