Heresthelinguine - Spasfon

i've said this before but i suppose it bears repeating and clarification. it is arabs and palestinians who have suffered the most under islamist rule. we (middle easterners, revolutionaries, religious minorities, gender and sexual minorities) as people, understand what hamas represents better than israelis do, better than anyone does. we understand what the entire spectrum from political islam to outright jihadist extremism does. we understand dictatorship. we understand theocracy. we understand fascism.

the repression israel has created is so absolute, has destroyed civil, diplomatic, intellectual and peaceful avenues so absolutely, that it leaves no avenues for anyone to condemn hamas anymore. even the representative of hamas's ideological and political opponents, the PLO (which oversees the West Bank), is openly frustrated at the request to condemn hamas. and it's not because he sympathizes with them. he has absolutely no political, personal, ideological or economic reason to.

israel has bombed gaza in 2008, 2012, 2014 and 2021, each and every time with the declared intention of targeting hamas and instead murdering civilians en masse. everyone familiar with israel understands that 'hamas' is meaningless, that israel has no real interest in defeating them (and that defeating militant resistance to an occupation with military force is not possible), that they went so far as to fund them as their choice of preferred enemy. when palestinians hear 'hamas' they correctly understand that israel intends to kill everyone. it is, to use the lingua franca of this period, a dogwhistle. on october 7th, israelis were horrified to see this dogwhistle suddenly become an actual whistle, but nothing else changed except for the intensity and savagery of their attacks on gaza. instead, the more they say hamas, the more they murder civilians en masse, just as they always have. everyone in gaza has said "this is not new, just worse." they have always understood that they are the target. no amount of condemning hamas, being a good palestinian, a good civilian, or even a newborn will change that.

this includes all of hamas's ideological opponents and so-called victims as well. peace activists, intellectuals, palestinian christians, and queer palestinians alike are not condemning hamas right now. they can't because they are busy fighting for their lives and homes against the israeli occupation. if you understood the personal toll this takes on them, if you understood how deeply their trauma runs, you would understand just how evil the israeli narrative on hamas is for all palestinians.

if you want a plurality of palestinian opinion, get rid of the israeli apartheid state. if you want tolerance, get rid of the israeli apartheid state. if you want israelis to be safe in their homes from the threat of hamas militants, get rid of the israeli apartheid state.

the truth is, there is a base and deeply evil racism at the core of asking to condemn hamas, especially by those who would never condemn israel or the violence it requires to maintain itself. it presumes that they have the right to ask for a condemnation of child murder, without ever giving an apology for child murder or the promise to stop murdering children. ghassan kanafani once called this "a conversation between the sword and the neck."

it is absurdity in full display, a macabre delight in impunity disguised as moral superiority. more than treating every palestinian as a terrorist in interrogation, more than its dehumanization and islamophobia, it is at its core asking "do you agree our children are more important than yours?"

and lest you forget, Israel's current minister of national security has already said it directly. as he famously once told arab-israeli reporter mohammad magadli, “Sorry Mohammad, my right to life precedes yours, that is the reality.”

in many ways, that's far more honest than asking "do you condemn hamas?"

It's a full time job, being a bird like us. 

Have I ever told you guys the true story of the Revolution Christmas Tree?

This one absolutely 100% happened (unlike the drunk zombie geese story which likely only 35% happened, but maybe I’ll tell you about it one day). It happened to my family when I was 4 y/o. 

So imagine Evil Commie Land in the late ‘80s: severe food shortages, no heating (seriously, people slept with their stoves on for heat and sometimes the gas was cut off and came back randomly during the night and carbon monoxide poisoning was a thing). Also large, beautiful, historical chunks of our capital city were being bulldozed into oblivion because our megalomaniac shithead supreme leader wanted to build the biggest fucking thing there was. Anyway, it sucked. 

On top of that we were also technically not supposed to celebrate Christmas, because religion is the opiate of the masses etc. etc. But we did anyway, every year and with great enthusiasm, running as we did on the sweet fuel of go ahead and tell a motherfucker they’re not allowed to do something.

So. Christmas. The way we did Christmas back in the day was to make it as secular and proletarian as possible: officially no church services, no religious carols, no Jesus thingy, no calling Santa Claus Santa Claus (we called him Old Man Frost idk)

The only thing we did exactly the same as regular Christmas, in the privacy of our homes, was the Christmas tree. This is how you got a Christmas tree:

you went to the marketplace where Christmas tree sellers were

these were not like, official, state-sanctioned commercial workers, but people with the capacity to somehow provide you with 1 pc. coniferous for Proletarian Christmas celebrating purposes

I have no fucking idea who they were or how they got them

anyway, you went to the marketplace where Christmas tree sellers were and you talked to one of them and you told them what kind of Christmas tree you wanted (options were: fir/spruce, medium-ish/small)

you paid them in advance and agreed on a date where you’d come by and pick your Proletarian Christmas tree

you picked up your Proletarian Christmas tree, brought it home to the family and decorated it with stuff you inherited from your great-grandmother or your mom made out of candy wrappers like 15 years before

you celebrated Christmas. Proletarianly. 

So along comes 1989. Shit boils over and by December 21st, we have a violent revolution right on the streets of our capital city. 

Now, I was 4 and my brother was 6 months old and our parents decided that we absolutely cannot go without a regular Christmas in our house, especially now that the world is about to go to shit. We didn’t have anything, presents or nice food or. Anything? Basically. The one thing we had was dad had arranged to get our Christmas tree on the day. So he tells my mom that he’s going to pick it up, and instead of knocking him cold and chaining him to the radiator, like the sensible woman she usually is, my mom goes ok just put on an extra sweater you don’t want to catch a cold haha right?

Let me break this down for you in case there’s any misunderstanding as to what we’re talking about. Outside:

violent riots

army

snipers

tanks

plainclothes secret police randomly shooting people dead in the street

I seriously cannot stress the snipers enough

So off goes my dad to pick up our Christmas tree. And he’s gone for five hours, on a trip that normally takes like 30 minutes at a casual stroll. And the more time passes, the deeper my mother sinks into an all-out nervous breakdown. She’s barely keeping it together, my grandmother is trying to comfort her, while my brother is sleeping quietly, which is a good thing, because at some point there’s a weird rumbling outside our building. 

'What’s that?’ say I, 4 years old and desperate for some straight, no-bullshit answers

'Nothing,’ says my mom. 'Nothing’ is the second stupidest thing to say to an observant, intelligent kid who’s been locked up for a week and kept in the dark about shit that’s very obviously happening just outside.

'No, really, what is that?’ say I, seriously determined to get a straight, no-bullshit answer. 

Years later, after piecing bits of memories together, I realized there are only so many ways to skirt around 'It’s a tank, dear’, which is the single stupidest thing to say to a child who’s been locked up for a week if you expect them not to run outside because they want to see, damn it. 

So when my dad finally comes home five hours later, with the goddamn tree, she’s either too exhausted to say much, or doesn’t want to have that conversation in front of her kid, who is seriously right on the brink of smashing something out of frustration. 

It wasn’t until I was in highschool that he told me he’d actually been shot at several times, because sneaking around street corners carrying a large tree is not at all suspicious when everyone is so strung up. Any sniper who might have been around absolutely did not think he was probably a revolutionary agent smuggling weapons or w/e instead of a dad trying to make a nice Christmas for his family BECAUSE WHAT THE ACTUAL EVERLOVING FUCK

So this is the story of the Revolution Christmas Tree, aka the story of how my dad almost got shot lugging around an overpriced bit of spruce in the middle of violent street fighting so his kids could have Christmas. 

There are some levels of parenting you just can’t beat. 

"Come," [Cesare] said, drawing [Lucrezia] close. "I need you now. For you are what is real in my life." - The Family, Mario Puzo

When someone insults my fandom

It's like Dostoevsky said your worst problem is you fucked up

I like to imagine Hua Cheng showing off in the water b4 sauntering up to Xie Lian like an alluring mermaid and postering for a kiss

what’s the vibe of your blog. everyone has their own. is it an art gallery exhibit serving canapés. a nightclub. a knights of the round table situation. a book discussion meeting. a lonely hearts club newspaper section. a bedroom where you and two friends are chatting. the school of athens debating matters of consequence. a garden tea party. a bacchanal. an agatha christie murder novel style tense dinner party. etc

(not my gifs)

“but sex is what makes us human!”

in 1916 a French officer in his twenties writes his

doctoral dissertation under

heavy mortar fire.

he sends it by mail, a page

at a time, to his wife.

a week before he’s to step up to the podium and

defend his work rather than hiscountry

he is killed in...