really valuable little piece from a 17 year old poet and writer in gaza about the reality and indignity of relying on foreign aid solicited online. this has been the reality for gazans since the beginning of the genocide when a lot of people lost their jobs. while a lot of discourse around online fundraising understandably centers the necessity of this aid (or, less sympathetically, the feelings of westerners who object to the knowledge of our position of power that gazan fundraisers reveal) i really think the perspectives of the palestinians who do the e-begging has been lost.

notice how his post never once suggests you should /stop/ aiding gazans through donations or even deprioritize it. what he is asking is explicitly solidarity, not charity. while it cannot undo the hierarchy inherent to the practice, radical charity is a thing and i think we owe it to people like yazan that we do not see gazans as a helpless population (or a horde invading our attention) but people in their own right using the tools available for them, as we use the tools available to us to help keep them alive.

this post was taken from @abolishtheusa on instagram, and yazan's instagram is @yazan._.mohammd. here is his chuffed fundraiser.

here is the linktree for the sameer project, a which also relies on donations and is running seriously low on funds

mutual aid means no hierarchy between givers and receivers

a new mutual aid org, Bridge of Solidarity, has been established in the gaza strip by 17 year old poet yazan mohammed in response to the exploitative practices conducted by some charities and encouraged by the existing charity-based model of fundraising for gaza. according to BoS: "the western attention economy and pity economy plays a large role in who lives or dies in gaza." essentially, people need to make themselves marketable in order to receive lifesaving aid; people who are not marketable die. yazan himself wrote about the damage this can do to one's self image, which you can read here.

after trying for a year to respect his own privacy, my friend siraj was also pressured into posting images of his son's emaciated body in order to gain sympathy from westerners.

we cannot keep forcing people to do this anymore.

here's a declaration of their values from bridge of solidarity's most recent post:

Our organization is against the Western gaze. We refuse to humiliate people. We refuse to force people to take photos. We refuse to force people to take photos with our flyer or logo. People will receive aid freely without being forced to pose. We will respect people's privacy completely. Our principles include autonomy, dignity, sovereignty, mutual respect, and mutual aid.

this org will prioritize giving aid to people without phones or social media, who do not speak english, and who do not have outside support or living parents. these are the people who are not palatable to westerners but who deserve to live with as much dignity as everyone else

as of five days ago, BoS are working on a water truck delivery

Un p’tit mardi dans la vie d’une calico!