i think so much of that knee-jerk intellectual need to rationalize what's going on, to bring it down to quantifiable "ok so like what am i supposed to do about it? are you saying i, progressive liberal, am responsible for this? are you saying i, really sweet zionist who donates to UNICEF, am complicit in genocide? are you saying i, american, am a colonizer deserving of death?" is just a complete shutdown at the thought of sitting with guilt and sadness, a fear of recognizing what's happening to palestinians as something that is happening to real humans like you or me, because it is not something easy to sit with
the truth is personally, as an egyptian, i feel complicit in the genocide in gaza. as a bystander, i feel complicit. i feel a deep grief i will not be able to unseat for the rest of my life. it's okay to feel a degree of shame to be alive in a world that allows this to happen. i don't understand how it's possible not to and i feel impatient with the need to be defensive. i am not defensive of this feeling. i feel like we are letting an entire population down, beyond my nationality, beyond the palestinians i know and love in my personal life, beyond anything else, as a human being i feel this because people are dying right in front of us in the most systemic, bureaucratic and barbaric method imaginable and we are helpless to stop it. so why would i be defensive? just accept the feeling and move on. there's a genocide happening.
