What Phoenix will be born from these fires?
What Phoenix will be born from these fires?
On the Palestine protests and dreaming big
Fire is spreading in the groves of Academe.
It's a fire of righteous passion, the pure-hearted cry of young people unable to turn their backs on the children of Palestine as the iron fist of Israel descends; unable to stomach the knowledge that their own country and tax dollars are contributing to this violence.
The students' approach so far has been to apply local pressure on their own universities, demanding divestment from Israel.
The problem is that the contagion of violence and militarization runs throughout the entire corporate world. Is there a single major corporation that doesn't have its finger in the military industrial complex, one way or another? Is there a single bank or hedge fund that is not invested in the military hardware and software that is being used by Israel?
To pull back the curtain on the wizard of capitalism is to discover that the little man is just a front for a huge amorphous global system based on violence and exploitation.
And all of us who enjoy the privileges of life in the heart of empire, certainly all American taxpayers, are complicit.
The Hamas rapes, murders and abductions that set off this latest spasm of violence were appalling. The Israeli response, indiscriminately and savagely destroying an entire region with no respect for civilian casualties and suffering, is appalling.
Both partake of the same zero-sum logic of annihilation, the unwillingness to imagine the possibility of peaceful coexistence.
I understand why students are drawn to take the side of the underdog population, the Palestinians. In some ways this is a continuation of the Black Lives Matter protests of a few years ago, a full-throated cry of young people appalled by witnessing the brutality of the police, or the military, against unarmed and vulnerable civilians.
I'm appalled by that too.
But I don't want us to get caught in the same old cycles of resistance and oppression that have not managed to bring about lasting transformative change.
We must go beyond simplistic "us vs. them" oppositional logic.
We have to reach for a higher-level awareness of what binds us all together; what really causes oppression of certain populations or individuals; and how these social injustices within the human population mirror the violence we mete out daily on the more-than-human populations of our Earth.
I applaud the students' passion and commitment. They have gotten the attention of their faculties, administrations and the media. They have ratcheted up pressure on the various state actors to renew their efforts to negotiate a ceasefire and humanitarian solution.
What will happen when the semester comes to an end and all the students are dispersed and sent home?
The Black Lives Matter protests continued into the summer because the violence didn't stop, and I suspect that will be the case this summer as well.
This is a complicated year.
We are already seeing storms ramping up in the Midwest "tornado alley," and no doubt the fires will start up again out West. An extinction-level coral bleaching event is forecast for the southern seas this summer. Heat indices are going off the charts.
And then there is the US presidential election, which has implications for the entire world. American democracy is at stake: America could become an autocracy with a cabal of fascist thugs in the White House, a craven Supreme Court and a weak Congress unable to represent the people. This is indeed, as so many fear, a recipe for civil war.
The energy, passion and clear-sightedness of young people is desperately needed this year.
But I would like to see them calling for so much more than divestment from a single bad actor country. That is too simplistic and limited a demand.
What is needed is the redirecting of the military-industrial complex and its huge, bloated American taxpayer budget into global programs for environmental and social well-being.
What's needed are more vigorous and forward-thinking diplomatic and social programs that get the peoples of the world meeting and talking and dreaming together.
What's needed is pressure on governments and business leaders and yes, university administrators, to support the open-hearted cries of young people for a world that values peace and harmony, not just among humans but in the human relation to all life on our planet.
The issues being raised by the campus protests go far beyond Israel and Palestine. As important as that crisis is, it is just one conflagration among so many sparks igniting social and environmental infernos all over the globe.
Many smart people are talking these days about systems collapse, the descent of our global civilization into chaos brought on by climate disruption and war.
Sometimes I think this would be for the best, as our vaunted civilization, the version of human order we've known for the past 5000 years or so, has been such a disaster for our planet.
But humanity is capable of beauty and goodness, too. We have a remarkable capacity to remember, to learn and to evolve based on new understandings.
We are not only an intelligent, but also an emotional species—and it is our hearts, the seat of our emotions, that will finally determine whether we can summon the great love and compassion for all sentient beings, as the Buddhists say, that will pull our battered, bleeding planet back from the brink of total reset.
Our imagination of a better world must go beyond the narrow vision of "from the river to the sea"; it must go from sea to shining sea, all over the world; a global vision of harmony and flourishing of all life on our beautiful planet.
Our relationships with each other and with our planet must be transformed from exploitation and violence to respect and mutual reciprocity. It's that simple, and that complex.
Too ambitious, you say? Maybe it's the stubborn child in me, but I can settle for nothing less.
Friends, it’s my pleasure and my passion to support you as we stretch towards living our lives creatively and to the fullest.
The motto of my author consulting business is “Writing to Right the World,” and the motto of my book publishing business, Green Fire Press, is “Books that Make the World Better.”
If these intentions resonate with you and you are working on a book, or have one in mind, don’t hesitate to get in touch!
Supporting creative people bring their work more strongly out into the world is one way I try to make the world better….
Subscribed
Powerfully said. Thank you. I’m grateful to have found your work and look forward to reading more.
Thanks for posting this, Jennifer. Im glad to see you are on Substack. I met you a few years back at the Bookloft when you were doing a reading of your memoir (the old Bookloft location, so it was a while ago). I look forward to reading more from you. Thanks!