EXCERPT:
An older friend told me he thinks the manifesto will blow over. Maybe, but maybe not. To me, the manifesto is important because of what it conveys: frustration, and a wish for change. No one writes such a dangerous manifesto just as catharsis, and the way it has moved through the English-reading Palestinian university community cannot be read as just an upper-class fad, especially since that community cuts across class and religious lines. I know kids from the camps who have enthused about the document, and religious people from poverty-struck families who have done the same. Frustration with the political horizon is not restricted to the rich here, desperate to live debauched lives like their peers in the West. One student writes, “Our feelings of despair, irritation and resentment are the same” as those who drafted the manifesto, admonishing them for not making it better. And it will be re-written. The authors have already released a clarifying statement. They are not dumb, and know which sparkles caught the eye of their tormentors to the north and west, and it wasn’t the stuff about “fuck Israel.” Meanwhile, it has inspired debate—where’s the political vision? Where’s the call for tactical solidarity? Why no mention of BDS? Why the hint of nihilism?–and that’s good, because we never know which spark will set off fiery revolt, which enraged polemic will make people think through the steps required to get unity, something that won’t come from above–it’ll come from below. We cannot but barely directly affect the internal dynamics of mobilization of Palestinian society. Those who care will critique, highlight, tend, support, fund, hope, struggle, and all the while, do our best to overthrow our own governments, the most important work we can do to support the people of Palestine, be they Hamas or Fateh or neither, keeping front and center that this is an anti-colonial struggle—the last one—and that while Gaza remains a ghetto we all live in a world of walls.
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