Staying hopeful in the face of the overwhelming death and destruction that the U.S. and Israel have brought upon the Palestinians has been a challenge for many of us. In Particular for Palestinians and Arabs in the diaspora who were born into and have followed this for our entire lives.
Speaking for myself and other Arab friends and family, we have also lived it through the eyes and lives of our parents and our grandparents. We remember them talking about the war and the displacement of Palestinians from the occupied territories. We have also lived it through the eyes of Arab scholars, historians and political scientists.
Two overarching themes come to mind as I reflect on this. The first is the overwhelming and sickening destructive military, political, and financial powers of the U.S. and Israel (and to a degree the British as well), imposed on the Palestinians, Lebanese and Syrian people. These include the First Arab-Israeli wars in 1948 to the Fourth Arab-Israeli war in 1973. And of course the Lebanese Civil war as well as Israel’s siege on Lebanon in 1982, when I was 2 years old.
The war continued in the following decades of course, culminating again in 2006 between Hezbollah and Israel. And now culminating again most recently since October 7 2023. There has been all kinds of economic and political sanctions against the Arabs in those countries, that have produced tremendous amounts of poverty and instability on every level.
The second is the steadfastness and resilience of those Arab people who suffered and continue to suffer from those sieges. Whenever I talk to my family and friends in that part of the world, they describe to me their living conditions and I always end up feeling heartbroken, sad, and angry to say the least. They feel the same way. We feel this together, but they experience it to a much larger degree.
Yet I never feel completely hopeless. Through it we still find ways to appreciate Life, to express love, and to find joy where we can. All the while never forgetting that cursed Sword of Damocles that is the U.S. and Israel hanging over us.
So I often would think to myself “is this it? Is this how we will go on living? Looking for any small way to make due with the conditions imposed on us?”. And that is where I notice hopelessness trying to creep in and take over. Hopelessness for me looks like acceptance of these inhumane conditions, their normalization. That is “you can hope, but not for much more than this”. And that is specifically the point where I, as well as others, need to do something to interrupt this kind of defeatist thinking.
For some of us it’s faith, and prayer, and belief that a greater power is watching over us. This is all part of Allah’s plan. Surat Al-Anfal Aya 30 of the Qur’an tells us “And ‘remember, O Prophet,’ When the disbelievers conspired to capture, kill, for exile you. They planned, but Allah also planned. And Allah is the best of planners”. And many Muslims accept the idea that “Allah’s plan” doesn’t necessarily include us being alive to see it unfold. Rather, that plan will unfold with or without us.
I am reminded of what the philosopher Immanuel Kant said while theorizing about knowledge “I have therefore found it necessary to deny knowledge, in order to make room for faith”. In this sense, I take it to mean that if we want to accept the ideas that we are free, that Allah exists and plans, and that we have eternal souls, we must suspend the idea that we can ever know those things. We must be faithful.
For some of us that isn’t enough. As reassuring as it can be to meditate on verses and holy text, some of us need to focus on something more concrete and tangible. And as I try to make sense of my own experience, what I’m witnessing, the unfolding of a greater plan, I can’t help but think of Hegel’s books “The Phenomenology of Spirit” and “The Phenomenology of Reason”.
I do believe there is a greater plan, to be sure, in the sense that what is happening now has present and future consequences that will shape us and our world in some way. Not necessarily according to the Divine will of a singular deity. Rather, a greater plan according socio-political and economic laws and regulations that humans have made up, as well as the greater unfolding of Life (and maybe even the universe as a whole).
Hegel explained that ‘Spirit’, the process through which entities evolve into greater unities and expressions of Life, grows through a process of overcoming struggles. For example, we start with a spec of life that begins to grow (thesis). Eventually, this spec will hit a wall and encounter something that prevents it from growing (Antithesis) in this example, another spec of life. Through a series of back and forth, trial and error, death and destruction, those specs will basically have to figure out a way to overcome their differences and grow in a way that is mutually beneficial, rather than at the expense of the other. The result (Synthesis) gives birth to a new spec of life that contains within it more of the will to grow alongside other life, and less of the will to destroy other life.
Stay with me. If this is getting boring I won’t blame you for leaving, but just know that if you do then you suck…
‘Reason’ develops in a similar way. for example two opposing ideas come up against each other, and through their back and forth struggle, a new idea is born that carries with it the premises that best serve the growth of ‘Reason’ as a whole. And ‘Reason’ in Hegel’s sense is the progress towards more meaningful organization of the chaos. But what does that look like?
This is all very dirty and butchers a lot of what Hegel says, and no doubt people who know Hegel better than I do will get triggered by my explanation. But so what? I’m sharing a story that helps me to make sense of things, and that’s about it.
Now, how can I apply this to real world events and what’s been happening in Palestine? Hegel attempts to explain how we go about affirming our freedom and our existence in relation to other objects. I walk around, I get hungry, and I need to eat in order to stay alive. I see an apple, amazing! I eat the apple, and through that process I’ve now affirmed and assured my existence as a human being who needs to eat and relies on food to help me exist. But now the apple is gone. The thing that helped me affirm my existence has been destroyed, and I must find another and so on until the day I finally die.
What I come to find out then is that my existence depends on my consumption and destruction of this and other particular objects. In order words, my existence would be compromised in the absence of these objects. But this only addresses a basic form of my existence. A necessary form to be sure, but the human experience extends beyond the basic stuff. We know this.
So now, what happens when I get to trying to affirm my existence as someone who likes to play, talk, learn, love etc? Which objects, out there, help to validate my existence as such? And not just validate my existence, but also to help me grow as a person, to experience life and love on higher levels. I don’t think there are any such objects. However, there are subjects, plants, animals, people. And living things are more than just “things”, we are also subjects. And Hegel warns against the futility of treating people as objects, as means that we use to satisfy personal ends (we can also extend that to other living entities, but I’m just talking about people right now).
An object like a rock is one thing, a living object is different. And therein lies the problem. What kind of a stupid life is this to go from person to person, as if they were apples that we consume, destroying their existence in order to affirm ours? Life wants to live and grow, and if history teaches anything it’s that Life will eventually overcome that which threatens its greater plan to evolve into greater unities. Not to mention that eventually someone will kill the master…
I believe that the only way to reach and maintain a state of positive validation and existence is with the help of other people. Other people can choose to spend their time with interacting with me in ways that nurture my growth as person, and I reciprocate. And this reciprocity and cooperation isn’t simply based on transactional quid pro quo merit. Rather, we do so because of how we develop mutual love and respect for each other.
And I am not saying anything new. I’m simply standing on claims that have been articulated by many BIPOC authors, and Indigenous cultural practices that highlight the importance of building community and connection to Life as a whole. Just look at who is usually defending the land from corporations that want to lay oil pipelines, destroy forests, and mine for resources.
A system of domination and destruction will inevitably crumble because it is the antithesis to the will of Life to grow and develop. And it will crumble either due to its own unsustainable inconsistencies and contradictions e.g. climate catastrophes and wars are just two examples. Or it will crumble because the will of Life and the people to live evolve into greater unities forces a change.
It just makes absolutely no sense to me that the proponents of Capitalism, a system which has barely existed for a few hundred years, can be so stupid as to believe that they know better than a Life code that has been evolving over millions of years! It’s so incredibly stupid. Life needs the right conditions to grow and develop. The conditions of Capitalism on the other hand are antithetical to the needs of Life, because it destroys those conditions (climate change being a prime example).
In the same way, the kind of ‘Instrumental Reason’ that is the highlight of Capitalism, which views Life as an instrument and a resource to grow the system, is flawed and stupid. The sheer audacity of the proponents of this kind of “Reason” to believe that they know better than a Life-Code that’s been evolving and developing since the Big Bang, is absolutely ludicrous. Instrumental reason would have us conclude that it’s ok to sacrifice human, animal and plant life en mass, for example, for the sake of growing a business.
We have become creatures who are capable of rational reflection, both of ourselves and the universe around us. In a profound way, we are essentially the Universe attempting to understand itself. That is, if ‘Rationality’, the ability to examine, reflect, deduce etc. is the way in which the Universe can understand and reflect on itself, it must do so through creatures who are capable to rationality. And throughout history we’ve seen our ability reflect on and understand Life and the Universe growing. The biggest obstacle for us so far (along side human ignorance) has been this system of domination and subjugation we call Capitalism.
But if Hegel’s theory of the phenomenology of Spirit and Reason have taught me anything, it’s that whatever keeps Life from evolving will eventually be overcome. Whether it’s disease, or stupid men who love to wage wars for money and stupid ideals, Life will overcome the antithesis. Maybe not in my lifetime, and maybe in nobody’s lifetime, and in this sense it is similar to the hope and belief that religious people have in deities. Maybe climate catastrophes will destroy all of humanity before human beings resolve our mistakes and work with the Life-code and not against it. But Life will go on, with or without humanity.
I have to keep believing that what Israel and the U.S. are doing to the Palestinians and other Arabs, and what the sellout Arab governments are doing to their people, the atrocities happening and being committed in Congo and Sudan, are nothing more than a moment, a blip in Spirit and Reason’s greater plan to evolve into greater unities of Life and Understanding.
That is the hope I have.