Everything is on fire,
but everyone I love is doing beautiful things
and trying to make life worth living,
and I know I don’t have to believe in everything,
but I believe in that.
- Nikita Gill
There are few feelings more gratifying than reading the exact right book at the right time. The past week has been a very community- and people-centred one for me, and conversations of a similar nature have arisen with people from various walks of life (perhaps an indicator that my little world is one giant echo chamber, but I have no complaints). I’ve finally succumbed to the virus that had been lingering yet dormant in my system for two weeks, and it’s a Sunday, so being forced to slow down is probably not the worst thing – lots of time for processing and reflecting, though we’ll see if I manage to stay somewhat coherent.
Anyway, literature and people and conversations – and the state of the world – because all are inextricably linked, and you’d be a fool to believe otherwise. My September book reviews are a work in progress but I’d be remiss to not mention Evenings and Weekends in the context of what I, and so many, have been feeling for the past year.
At an event at the London Irish Centre on Thursday, Oisín spoke about his fascination with the way that the sociopolitical fabric of a place shapes the interiority and sociality of its inhabitants, and let me tell you, he explores this swimmingly in the book. (Side note: I need ‘all I want is a corbyn government and a fat ass’ on a t-shirt, because they are indeed the two great dreams of our time, even if we’re now five years down the line x).
International Political Economy grad here: the political is and always will be personal, and there are few categories of people who jar me more than self-proclaimed apolitical bitches, full offence. The whale in the Thames as a symbol of collective consciousness can be translated to so many shared experiences — if you’re a Brit and currently in your mid-20s, your formative years (adolescence and early adulthood in this conversation) will have been lived through several major events: the Brexit referendum, actual Brexit, covid, a barrage of unelected PMs, 10+ years of austerity and all that’s entailed; the list goes on. It’s impossible for the profundity of these circumstances to leave us and our psyches unscathed (those who reside in ivory towers are excluded from any discussion where I talk about society as a collective).
Most recently, it’s a live-streamed genocide that our spineless leaders fail to call what it is — instead, attempting to tarnish us by saying that as a nation, we stand with the aggressor. Keith can shove his platitudes up his arse.
The second case of Right Book, Right Time was Isabella Hammad’s Recognising the Stranger: On Palestine and Narrative, published last month — a lecture that she delivered at Columbia University in September of last year. The timing could not have been more… timely; both a sobering and inspiring body of work. Though I found myself itching to underline almost every paragraph – that woman can write – the observations and analyses that stuck with me the most, with one year of the current massacre approaching, were those that spoke to turning points, faith and hope. I mentioned recently that I keep finding myself falling into spirals of despair, but attending the 20th National March for Palestine yesterday was the morale booster I desperately needed – as community demonstrations of solidarity always are. Early in the lecture, when applying narrative structure to how we interpret history, Hammad observes that ‘we hope for resolution, or at least we hope that retrospectively what felt like a crisis will turn out to have been a turning point.’ Though a year on, with the brutality escalating both in scale and intensity, the ‘self-defence’ façade is undeniably crumbling. This doesn’t feel like history becoming history only after the fact, as noted in Time Shelter; it’s a tangible (albeit protracted) event that we’re aware of in real-time.
The sentiment that spoke most to my current state, and that of many people I’ve spoken to, is the notion of ‘pessoptimism’, a term coined by Palestinian novelist Emile Habibi, which ‘refers […] to the inseparability of hope and despair, of desire and knowledge under untenable historical conditions’, or more simply, ‘pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.’
I guess the point of all this is to say that it’s all shit at the moment and it feels like there’s no end in sight but desolation is inextricable from optimism in this context, and we owe it to those who are directly affected to stay steadfast in our efforts to bring about change. Though a year of taking to the streets has fallen on deaf ears in terms of policymakers, the tide of public opinion has undeniably shifted, and that in itself is a beacon of hope. Though we’ve seen time and time again the failure of ‘democracy’ – because if it were real, public opinion would have a tangible impact on policy decisions – the very least we can do is continue to raise our voices and show up in any and all ways that we can. Anyone who knows me personally knows my feelings towards France/the French, and for me to be in alignment with Macron, of all people, is demonstrative of just how tits up the world has gone.
Every narrative has sone sort of turning point. This may be a drawn-out one; we may not know in which direction it’s headed, but there’s no denying that we’re at a critical juncture. Hammad closes Recognising the Stranger with a statement gracefully delivered by Palestinian journalist Wael Al-Dahdouh, whose family were murdered by the Z— entity: ‘One day this war will stop, and those of us who remain will return and rebuild, and live again in these houses.’ If somebody who’s experienced devastation that you and I can’t begin to imagine is able to remain so resolute, what right do we have to feel defeated?
Until next time x
If you’re able to, please consider donating to one of the following:
- Medical Aid for Palestinians
- Operation Olive Branch
- Palestine Children’s Relief Fund
- Lebanese Red Cross
- Beit el Baraka
- Lebanese Food Bank
Steadfast 🇵🇸
It's like I'm experiencing the opposite of pessoptimism, "optessimism," where the mind knows that even the smallest of actions matter, that not everyone will champion the cause of liberation to the same degree and that's normal (liberation was always won like that), but the heart feels like nothing matters if it isn't directly reducing the suffering of the oppressed right this moment.
I really like the word psseoptimism, and my own opposite for it. I might just use it in the title for my new post about this whole coneference I went to.