Elie Wiesel's Night

Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky.

Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my Faith forever.

Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.

-Elie Wiesel, Night, 32

[Wiesel] had seen his mother, a beloved little sister, and all his family except his father disappear into an oven fed with living creatures. As for his father, the child was forced to be a spectator day after day to his martyrdom, his agony, and his death.

It was then that I understood what had first drawn me to the young Jew: that look, as of a Lazarus risen from the dead, yet still a prisoner within the grim confines where he had strayed, stumbling among the shameful corpses. For him, Nietzsche's cry expressed an almost physical reality: God is dead, the God of love, of gentleness, of comfort, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob, has vanished forevermore, beneath the gaze of this child, in the smoke of human holocaust. . . . On that day, horrible even among those days of horror, when the child watched the hanging of another child, who, he tells us, had the face of a sad angel, he heard someone behind him groan: " 'Where is God? Where is He? Where can He be now?' and a voice within me answered: 'Where? Here He is--He has been hanged here, on these gallows.' "

And I, who believe that God is love, what answer could I give my young questioner, whose dark eyes still held the reflection of that angelic sadness which had appeared one day upon the face of the hanged child? What did I say to him? Did I speak of that other Jew, his brother, who may have resembled him--the Crucified, whose Cross has conquered the world? Did I affirm that the stumbling block to his faith was the cornerstone of mine, and that the conformity between the Cross and the suffering of men was in my eyes the key to that impenetrable mystery whereon the faith of his childhood had perished? Zion, however, has risen up again from the crematories and the charnel houses. The Jewish nation has been resurrected from among its thousands of dead. . . . We do not know the worth of one single drop of blood, one single tear. All is grace. If the Eternal is the Eternal, the last word for each one of us belongs to Him. This is what I should have told this Jewish child. But I could only embrace him, weeping.

-Francois Mauriac, foreword to Night

I read Elie Wiesel's Night for the first time this past week. The autobiographical account of his survival (or destruction) in the Nazi death camps. Winner of the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize.

Once more, I am shaken and undone.

For the first time, in a long time, I begin to believe that maybe, maybe, the Holy Land is a gift. A miracle. Where else would we have had them go, the survivors, those turned to ash, yet still breathing? What else would we have had them do? I have always wished them peace, but maybe peace is more fervent than that. Do I wish them well-being? Life, and laughter, and happiness, in their own land? Away from fear and torment? Do I wish it as fervently as I wish it for the Palestinians? -- those who wear the star today, made of identification cards, ghettos, and violence ["'The yellow star? Oh well, what of it? You don't die of it. . . .' (Poor father! Of what then did you die?)" (Night 9)]. My heart can maybe feel two kinds of pain (the Holocaust has always torn my soul apart), but can it breathe two kinds of joy? The Arab earth of olive trees; the Jewish homeland. My foundations shift, crack, crumble. And I long for peace. An end to humanity's destruction of itself. An end to our continual murdering of God. The Eternal may not be held by any grave, but that does not make the death any less real. The death of God. On a tree, a cross, a gallows. In the ovens. How many times have we killed the Divine? How many times will we do it again? When will we stop?

tabula gaza back up

Philip Rizk's blog is back up.
Gaza, he reminds us, is still dying.

During those raids Raed lost his house for the second time. The Israeli soldiers ordered him and his family out of the house, blew it up with dynamite and then bulldozed his and his father’s taxis- their only source of income.

His 15-year old daughter- the top of her class- refuses to return to school.

We must not forget.

tabula gaza: the veil of normalization

Philosophical Inquiry

At its core, peacemaking is about presence. About two people encountering each other as human.

This is a reminder of why we live. And what we live for.

Philosophical Inquiry

I just want to know how
you are doing, my love—
how time, a distant relative,
has sketched your face
in lines and circles,
how you see the world
when your eyes are shut
and you are sleeping,
consciousness only memory,
or how you fill space
with your body, moving
past wholes and halves
of steps towards me,
this moment a justified belief.
-Kohleun Seo

Gandhi and the Dialectic Process of Nonviolence

"I am prepared to die, but there is no cause for which I am prepared to kill. I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent."
-Mohandas Gandhi

I was reading something recently that discussed different ways of knowing truth, or coming to an understanding/decision about what one will believe to be true. The article looked at several different "truth finding" techniques or mediums. One such technique was rhetoric—not the art of rhetoric, but the setting/environment. The idea being that when rhetoric clashes with different rhetoric (in a courtroom, for instance) the truth comes into focus (at least to a greater degree): "skilled adversaries trying to be persuasive will generate powerful light on the truth." This process is, of course, an example of dialectic discourse: a thesis opposed by an antithesis, merging into synthesis (which, hopefully, is closer to truth than either the thesis or antithesis on its own).

The reason I bring this up here (as random as it seems) is that the author used Gandhi as an example of this technique. He argued that Gandhi was a proponent of active nonviolence because he viewed reconciliation as a way to achieve synthesis between the two sides of a conflict. In other words, it was the most "truthful" way to resolve difference — a path that would actually lead humanity forward into greater reality: "Gandhi advocated nonviolence in large part to avoid succumbing to the temptation to destroy one's opponents and thus remove the creative tension so crucial to the dialectic process."

I find this interesting, for though I'm incredibly committed to nonviolent resistance for multiple ethical reasons (and believe that Gandhi was too), I like the idea that it's also the path for those of us seeking intellectual integrity. Those of us searching for the truth amidst the madness.

(The article, which was part of a larger work, was "Knowing the Truth: Rhetoric" by Ron Mock)

"The Novelist in Wartime"

Japanese author, Haruki Murakami, recently received the Jerusalem prize, Israel's highest literary prize for a foreign author.

In "The Novelist in Wartime," Murakami's reflection on the experience, the author wrestles with his decision to accept an award from a country so mired in controversial military tactics. He states that he does not support any war, and yet, he does not believe that disengaging from communication is the answer: "I chose to come here rather than stay away. I chose to see for myself rather than not to see. I chose to speak to you rather than to say nothing."

However, Murakami goes on to give a passionate plea for the downtrodden and oppressed. For the egg thrown against a wall:

Please do allow me to deliver one very personal message. It is something that I always keep in mind while I am writing fiction. I have never gone so far as to write it on a piece of paper and paste it to the wall: rather, it is carved into the wall of my mind, and it goes something like this:

"Between a high, solid wall and an egg that breaks against it, I will always stand on the side of the egg."

Yes, no matter how right the wall may be and how wrong the egg, I will stand with the egg. Someone else will have to decide what is right and what is wrong; perhaps time or history will decide. If there were a novelist who, for whatever reason, wrote works standing with the wall, of what value would such works be?

What is the meaning of this metaphor? In some cases, it is all too simple and clear. Bombers and tanks and rockets and white phosphorus shells are that high, solid wall. The eggs are the unarmed civilians who are crushed and burned and shot by them.

This is not all, though. It carries a deeper meaning. Think of it this way. Each of us is, more or less, an egg. Each of us is a unique, irreplaceable soul enclosed in a fragile shell. This is true of me, and it is true of each of you. And each of us, to a greater or lesser degree, is confronting a high, solid wall. The wall has a name: it is "the System." The System is supposed to protect us, but sometimes it takes on a life of its own, and then it begins to kill us and cause us to kill others -- coldly, efficiently, systematically.

I have only one reason to write novels, and that is to bring the dignity of the individual soul to the surface and shine a light upon it. The purpose of a story is to sound an alarm, to keep a light trained on the System in order to prevent it from tangling our souls in its web and demeaning them. I fully believe it is the novelist's job to keep trying to clarify the uniqueness of each individual soul by writing stories -- stories of life and death, stories of love, stories that make people cry and quake with fear and shake with laughter. This is why we go on, day after day, concocting fictions with utter seriousness.

I have only one thing I hope to convey to you today. We are all human beings, individuals transcending nationality and race and religion, fragile eggs faced with a solid wall called the System. To all appearances, we have no hope of winning. The wall is too high, too strong -- and too cold. If we have any hope of victory at all, it will have to come from our believing in the utter uniqueness and irreplaceability of our own and others' souls and from the warmth we gain by joining souls together.

I find it hard to believe that the metaphor of a wall, in a country that has surrounded itself with concrete and barbed wire, is just coincidence.

American Muslims Speak Out

To quote my dad: "Check out this cool music video. It communicates something I'm always trying to share with my American friends - Muslims are real people just like any of us."

TERRORIST: The Dehumanizing Power of a Word

Being a student of literature (and therefore language), I'm fascinated (and horrified) by the way that war/conflict is perpetrated and encapsulated in the way that we speak and write. In the way that we use words. Perhaps the most powerful contemporary example of this practice is our use of the term "terrorist." I've commented on this fact (or at least hinted at the idea) in a few of my different postings (Belfast Murals, Domestic Violence, Iraqi Deaths).

What's so deeply disturbing about the label "terrorist" is that it robs a human being of all legitimacy (whether of action, cause, or ideal). Sometimes this is done innocently enough (someone commits a "terrorist" act and is labeled accordingly), but I think it is always a harmful practice. After all, what truly separates a terrorist group from a militia? You may say, "killing innocent civilians," but that's rhetoric, not truth. In this war on Gaza, where one side was so clearly labeled a legitimate force, and the other was a "terrorist" army, it was the Israelis who killed hundreds of civilians. Likewise, when Israel attacks Lebanon (which it seems to do periodically), they are waging a legitimate war, sanctioned by our government, even though the casualties are civilians and the Lebanese government is not even involved. However, when Hezbollah attacks Israel, regardless of the status of the casualties (whether soldier or civilian), Hezbollah is not waging a war, but engaging in terrorist action.

Anyway, what sparked this rant was the Christianity Today article about Philip Rizk's detainment. In that article, Rizk mentions that he was accused of working for Hamas, and that another university activist, currently being held without trial, has similarly been labeled a terrorist. Because, obviously, if they're terrorists they have no rights, no need for a trial, and no legitimacy on the world stage (America has effectively proved that point). They have been silenced, irrevocably, by a label.

Interview with Philip Rizk

Today is Philip Rizk's 27th birthday. Before celebrating with family and friends, he met with journalists to describe his four days in Egyptian detainment.

The full transcription of the interview can be found here.

He was threatened with torture, and informed that if he “continue[d] on this track” (his activism in regards to Gaza, assumedly) he would be “visiting [his interrogators] quite often.”

However, Rizk maintains that this is an insufficient reason to cease acting on behalf of Gaza: “I always knew there was the risk living in Egypt . . . to be involved in these kind of activities,” he said. “So you know there's a risk if you speak out too much; you know there's a risk.”

C.S. Lewis once claimed that those who would make peace in non-violent ways (the so-called "pacifists" of the world) were ultimately cowards at heart. I must humbly (but passionately) disagree. If it's courage that we need, I want the courage, not to point a gun at my enemy (or my friend's enemy), but to suffer at thier hands, and still speak on behalf of justice. To risk recrimination, to risk violence and suffering, and to never be silenced. I want the courage of Jesus, and Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

And yes, I want the courage of Philip Rizk.

The Release of Philip Rizk

Philip Rizk has been released.

While this is wonderful news, he asks that focus remain on ending the struggle in Gaza, and that all protests continue as planned.

Two other pro-Gaza detainees were sentenced yesterday to a year in prison.

The struggle isn't over.

Petition for the Release of Philip Rizk

Add your name to the petition to release Philip Rizk. It's a VERY easy process. Click on the link, click "sign the petition," add your name, and you're done.
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/release-philip-rizk.html

Here's what you're signing:

To His Excellency President Hosni Mubarak,

On February 6, 2009, Philip Rizk, a German-Egyptian activist and a graduate student at the American University in Cairo, was arrested north of Cairo while participating in a protest against the Rafah border closure into Gaza. Rizk, who blogs about relief work in Gaza at tabulagaza.blogspot.com, has been working to get medical and relief supplies into the Gaza Strip.

Philip Rizk was separated from his fellow protesters, placed in a van, and whisked away by Egypt’s security police. Rizk has been detained and no information of his whereabouts has been released to his lawyers or family.

In the early morning of February 9, 2009, the security police came to the home of Philip’s parents and proceeded to search the house, without a warrant, for evidence against Philip. They attempted to take Philip’s father and threatened to search his office as well.

The Egyptian government is well-known for its torture of political detainees.

Petition:

Please join us in protesting Egypt’s repressive practices and preventing further detention of Philip Rizk.

We, the undersigned,

- Call for the immediate and unconditional release of Philip Rizk;

- Call for the release of any information regarding Philip Rizk’s whereabouts to his lawyers and family;

- Call for the end to harsh treatment and lack of due process to political detainees in Egypt.