20 months on, it’s hard to find the words to keep reporting~ 9 min

By Francisco Ulrike

The Holocaust of our times continues in Gaza. The zionists have just presented the world with the newest category of massacres – the massacres in the “aid distribution” concentration camps – as they continue to systematically destroy the healthcare system and meticulously attack any forces guarding humanitarian aid, while giving a free hand to the gangs that steal it.

It is now safe to say that the horrors of the Gaza Holocaust far surpass those of the Holocaust perpetrated by the Nazis.

Today, 20 months into the genocide, the biggest difference is that the whole world – other than a couple dozen honourable nations – keeps having diplomatic relations with the present day Nazis, and only one government has declared war on the zionist project – the Yemeni government in Sana’a.

20 months on, it’s hard to find the words to keep reporting on the genocide. I do it out of respect for the Palestinian people, and of duty towards our colleagues in Gaza – who have no choice themselves.

And yet, I’ve reached a point when I ask myself: what’s the point of continuing to do independent journalism, from an anti-colonial perspective, directed to the western public?

There is a point – or should be, at least. If independent journalists in the West have a task, it’s to expose the contradictions within our movements and our societies as a whole – even if that hurts some egos and costs us some followers.

That’s the role journalists should have – to expose reality as it is. And, to understand reality, we need to understand not only each context, but also how it relates to previous historical periods.

This has to be said: the reaction of western societies to the genocide has been astonishing mild and utterly insufficient – even from the majority of pro-Palestinian organizations.

I have no doubt that, unless there’s a change of direction, the present generations will be remembered in History as the most cowardly and tamed generations in a very long time.

As an independent journalist, I can no longer report about marches from point A to point B, vigils, performances, art installations for the children of Gaza, boycotts, petitions, and letters signed by hundreds of people who don’t seem to be ready to turn their words into actions.

I struggle to even find the words to report about actions – like hunger strikes – which, although more radical and escalatory, remain non-confrontational and end up being equally ignored by the media and those who rule over us.

To understand how mild and insufficient our reactions as societies have been, it is useful to revisit some of the more relevant outbreaks of collective rage of the past two decades.

How did people react when France tried to raise the retirement age, in early 2023? General strikes, the economy was blocked, as were the main traffic junctions, railways, ports, and refineries – for several months in a row.

Or when British cops killed Mark Duggan, back in 2011? Police stations got attacked, clashes took place, and stores and businesses were burned and looted. £200 million in property damages in less than a week.

Or when the Turkish state, in 2013, tried to destroy Gezi Park to build a mall? Taksim square was flooded by thousands of people, barricades were set all around, and daily clashes took place for several weeks in a row.

Or when Greek police shot dead Aléxander Grigoropoulos back in 2008? Athens was engulfed in flames, as it also happened when Pavlos Fyssas was killed by fascists in 2013.

Or when the EU and the IMF imposed harsh austerity programs on the peoples of the European periphery, from 2011 on? General strikes and protest camps took the main squares of hundreds of towns and cities across Europe.

This is the tragic reality of our times: western societies have reacted in a much stronger way to the killings of a single person, or to some political decisions by our governments, than to a livestreamed genocide paid by our taxes and sustained with the sweat of our labour.

Kill one man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror.

There has hardly been any other time in History when this famous sentence has made more sense.

People around the West are worried about the rise of far-right fascist forces and the prospect of watching them climb to power. Most don’t seem to grasp that it’s all of us, the Collective West, who are perpetrating the most depraved Holocaust in recorded History. And there’s nothing more fascist than supporting and participating in the extermination of a people perceived as inferior.

All Western ruling parties, even those showcasing their crocodile tears after 600 days of genocide, are fascist parties – regardless of being perceived as left, right or centre, moderate or radical.

Will our rulers be called fascists only when they normalize brutality and inhumane treatment against European white people, or against minorities in the heart of the Empire that can be fetichized by leftist schools of thought?

Sorry, folks. What we have seen of “political action” during the past 20 months, here in the West, is not a normal reaction to genocide. It simply is not.

Many people say that “We have tried everything, we don’t know what else to do”.

That is a complete lie.

99% of those claiming to be pro-Palestine in the West have not taken any meaningful risks on their actions to show solidarity with Gaza. A part of us, still a small part, has been fired, or has compromised or postponed their academic career, or has faced police charges or a few hours or days of detention. But very few have risked more than that.

There is a reason why we are failing to impose any significant costs on our ruling class, and it is a simple one: most of us are not ready to risk our “freedom” or our lives.

Nobody knows what should be the normal reaction to what is happening in Gaza, because we had never seen a concentration camp with 2 million people being relentlessly bombed, starved and asphyxiated for 20 months.

What is clear is that petitions, letters, peaceful protests, performances, and cultural events – which are good and should happen – definitely do not live up to what the scenes we are witnessing require. These activities resist the attempts to erase the genocide and the Palestinian people from public discourse, but they do not resist the genocide itself.

Humanity should be enraged, bursting defiance out of every inch of our bodies against those who use out taxes to aid, finance, and abet this genocide – and therefore making all of us complicit.

But nowadays, in the West, activism is mostly performative. A performance that allows us to tell our consciences that “we did something” while we go on with our lives as the world continues on, unchanged.

And most pro-Palestinian organizations are responsible for this – by ignoring the calls for escalation coming from within Gaza and by sidelining people and groups within their own societies that reverberate those calls.

Every pro-Palestine movement that, after 20 months of mobilizing and being ignored, keeps acting in a polite and civilized manner is normalizing, even if not deliberately, this new normal.

Do we realize that we are using the same tactics that we would use to oppose the privatization of some public services – or to defend the right to privacy, or any other social right – to react to the Holocaust of our times? This is simply not normal.

Even some independent media have been reproducing this very tamed approach to political struggle, probably unwillingly, but doing it nonetheless. Take the example of The Electronic Intifada. In March, during an EI livestream, Abubaker Abed stated that Gaza “simply needs your actions right now, protesting no longer works” but, when EI posted the interview as a segment, the headline was: “Gaza reporter says Americans must protest genocide”.

People in Gaza are no longer asking us to protest, they are asking us to take action.

Many in the independent media world are calling for escalation, for finding creative ways to make ourselves heard, as long as we are not violent nor break the rules of engagement of our “democratic order” – rules broken time and time again by those who created them.

Many go as far as condemning or doubting the sanity of those who were prepared to pay the ultimate price for materializing their solidarity – like Aaron Bushnell and Elias Rodriguez.

I find this to be one of the biggest contradictions of our movements – which might even admire the brave Yemen for standing tall in its support for Gaza, by all means necessary and no matter the cost, but won’t even conceive that we too could, and should, do the same.

We must understand that, if we do not take action to stop this genocide, by all means necessary and no matter the cost, we will have to live the rest of our lives with its consequences, and with the weight of our consciences – whoever still has one.

Even if this hurts our egos, we have to face it: the unfolding reality demands much more from Humanity.

Is it late? Yes, but it’s better late than never.

Are we able to do it? Maybe not, but there’s no way to know if we don’t try.

How? That is for each one, individually or collectively, to decide.

Post Scriptum:

Yet, it has to be acknowledged that, Hamdulillah, there are those who resist this new normal, and put their freedom and life on the line.

First and foremost, the Yemeni and the Lebanese peoples, as well as the whole Axis of Resistance – but also some people in the West and elsewhere.

A huge thanks to Palestine Action and all actionists around the world, the students and their intifada, the crowds in Pakistan and Bangladesh who attacked outlets of western brands, the Revolutionary Class Self-Defence, Les Frites Insoumises, A15, the Global Escalation, and to all those trying to be a clog on the machine around the world. And, of course, to Aaron Bushnell and Elias Rodriguez.

You all show the world that Humanity is not dead.