Help me out here
How can I cope with the unimaginable?
Help me out here. What are some good coping mechanisms?
What are some strategies for ignoring what's happening? For acting like it doesn't matter? How can I put it in a box, close it up, and hide it? Is there some secret equation where I plug in numbers and it balances out in our favor?
I know we can't say we didn't know. Ignoring the news doesn't work, even if I could. We know too much already to say we didn't know. They said they didn't know even when they lived right near chimneys belching out smoke and ash with an unforgettable stench day and night.
But we are not like them. We are better. We always said that unlike them we would do something. We would stop it. We would be heroic. We would give our lives because how on earth do people let that happen? But a year later we haven't, have we?
Please tell me how to cope. There must be some way to reconcile what is being done every minute of the day with my inaction? Do I just say it doesn't matter? Does that work?
I would like to say we are powerless, we can't do anything. But that seems even more ghastly. It says politics are meaningless because we cannot stop the single most horrible things humans can do. If politics are useless, then why do we talk so much about it?
I am begging you because many of you have figured it out. What can I tell myself that makes it okay to not just ignore it but makes me feel happy to support the perpetrators? What would convince me to devote my free time to help return them to power as it goes on and on and will keep going on because we are telling them, “Keep doing it. We won't try to stop you”?
What gets to me are the kids. Even if you have never had any, like me, who has not loved some child unconditionally and would do anything for them? Anything.
It's not just seeing their tiny bodies shredded like rags, missing heads, or limbs and pieces stuck in plastic bags like we just went shopping for groceries. It's the ones who are still alive.
The one who shakes uncontrollably all the time.
The one who is stunned and mute and coated in gray dust, on the run for the seventh, eight, ninth time.
The one whose helpless eyes bulge on a skeletal body limp on a dirty mattress.
It’s the little ones, shoeless and filthy, who stare uncomprehendingly.
Or the ones who are a little older. Who should be in first or second grade. They cower in a tent under the incessant drone buzzing. They are old enough to have looks of pure terror.
Who doesn’t want to just grab them and comfort them, tell them it will be all right, make it all right. They did nothing. Nothing.
I know many of you have figured out how to ignore them. I would love to know how to do it too.
I would really like to ignore them.
Do I just say Bad Man is so bad we must ignore any bad things our guys do because we are not bad?
We are good people. We would never hurt anyone. Well, we don't mean it. It's not like we support it. We don't know what to do. What can I do? I’m only one person. I'm terrified. I promise I’ll do something next time.
Help me.
To counter despair I turn to Ilan Pappe:
“We are witnessing the end of the Zionist project, there’s no doubt about it. This historical project has come to an end and it is a violent end. Such projects usually collapse violently. And thus it is a very dangerous moment for the victims of this project – and the victims are always the Palestinians along with Jews, because Jews are also victims of the Zionism. Thus, the process of collapse is not just a moment of hope, it is also the dawn that will break after the darkness...”
I know this does not help Palestinians now going through the darkest period of their history, but I do know their resilience and heroic resistance will inspire and be remembered through the ages, and will stand with Stalingrad as the beginning of the demise of a racist genocidal regime.
None of us has figured it out. We are all shredded by the images of dismembered children. We have a short -term task of calling senators, witnessing to atrocity, boycotting, and pressuring the Democratic Party. We have a long-term task of shoring up our democracy, working for the end of (in this case American) empire, and stopping the flow of arms to Israel. We are living in the holocaust still. We have to hold that anguish and endure, as the survivors are enduring. And we have an obligation, a sacred duty, to mourn the dead. We must grieve publicly, as Gazans grieve publicly. That counts. And we have to live without the certainty that we are being heroic or effective at all. We are in a similar situation to the hanged resisters in « Jojo Rabbit. » When the little boy asks his mother, « What did they do? », she replies. « What they could. »