Gokoreanships

“You must be taught to love me. Human beings must be taught to love silence and darkness.”

• Save a displaced Gazan Family (@ranibra) - Rania is married with five children, her husband needs medical care. She is now responsible to save her children. Help them evacuate.
• Support Fahmi and his family (@fahmiakkila) - Fahmi's life has been turned completely upside down, and he now finds himself responsible to save his parents, sisters, & brothers - 7 members.
• Save the Maliha family (@dinamaliha) - Dina wants to save her mother, two sisters, and three brothers. The family lost contact with their father when the genocide started. They desperately need to get to Egypt.
• Save Firas' family (@firassalemnewacccount @prosolitudeeee) - Firas is a father of two children, a 10-month-old boy and a two-year-old girl, who are in need of safe haven in Egypt.
• Help Husam and his family (@husamthaher) - Husam desperately needs to save himself, his wife, and 3 young children.
• Help Nader's family to evacuate from Gaza (@nadershoshaa) - Nader and his family, consisting of six members, are currently displaced in the south; help them evacuate and survive.
• The Shamaly family wants to survive (@daee571989) - Help save 15 kids and their family, who are living a horrifying active genocide.
• Ahmd needs urgent evacuation (@ahmd-iyd) - Ahmd has lost his livelihood to this genocide, and needs funds to help his family evacuate and rebuild their life.
• Help evacuate Hani's family (@skatehani) - A dear friend, and a Palestinian skater trying to evacuate 10 members of his family; he has lost his father to injustice.
• Help Iman’s family find safety (@imaneyad) - Iman has a family of 7 who need to find safety.
• Help save Youssef's family (@bba3lo @mahmoud7878) - Ahmed Baalousha wants to save his wife, his two sons, his daughter, as well as his parents and siblings.
• Support Ruba and Amal's family's urgent evacuation (@rubashaban @amalshabn) - Ruba and Amal's family are lacking the basic necessities of life; they have an elderly father who desperately needs to be evacuated for medical care.
• Save little Yusuf and his family (@ahmednabubake) - Yusuf is in an intensive care unit fighting for his life in Gaza; he needs urgent evacuation alongside his family.
• Help Omar evacuate (@omarsobhi) - Omar is a 20 year old Palestinian student who wants to save himself and his family from this genocide.
• Help Belal and his family to evacuate from Gaza (@alaajshaat) - Belal has lost too much to this war and needs to support himself and his family.

Do Palestinians throw stones as a weapon of warfare? Maybe. Sometimes. They’re more often a weapon of imagination, emblems of a dogged refusal to submit or disappear. No matter the intent when a Palestinian throws a stone, the Israeli perceives it as an act of rejection. It is an accurate perception. This act of rejection, not any perceived danger, provokes the Zionist’s disdain.

 Think about the moment in 2000 when Edward Said tossed a stone from southern Lebanon into northern Israel. The stone didn’t come close to hitting anything—the nearest object was an Israeli military watchtower—and the episode would have passed without interest had a photographer not furtively captured it. The photographer was smart. His picture became a sensation, launching a hysterical news cycle about Said’s genocidal tendencies and renewing demands for his termination as a professor at Columbia University.  

But what about the military watchtower? It’s the normative object in the scene. It wasn’t threatened by Said’s stone, but it threatens thousands of people. It’s the apotheosis of colonization and militarism. It houses soldiers whose bullets travel at a much greater speed than Said’s manual projectile. Said was well aware of the ridiculousness of the outrage, its sanctimony and disingenuousness. He noted that he had joined in “the spirit of the place that infected everyone with the same impulse, to make a symbolic gesture of joy that the occupation [of southern Lebanon] had ended.”  

The only inalienable possession of the native is the moral burden of violence. The colonizer owns everything else. Thus the military watchtower is an afterthought—or not even a thought at all beyond its existence as a backdrop to Said’s unconscionable action.

[Text ID: “I love you. Without end.”]

JEONGHAN in YSL for GQ Korea Feb 2023 issue