In One Hand the Gun

O ctober 7th unleashed a Pandora’s box. Hope, anxiety, fear, vengeance, despair and grief surged among the oppressed, while incredulity and rage swelled among those attacked. As the smoke cleared and the colonizer’s vengeful bloodthirst was on full display, history repeated itself: moralistic hand-wringing and pearl-clutching from some quarters of the left; a defense, even celebration, of revolutionary violence in others. Epithets were dug up from the annals of history – from Mao to Cabral, Arendt to Fanon. Did we really think decolonization was just vibes, some wondered.

In true Manichean fashion, liberals have summoned the specters of the Mahatma – both Brown (Gandhi) and Black (Martin Luther King Jr.) – to ask why Palestinians trapped in the world’s largest concentration camp cannot simply protest non-violently. Perhaps they missed the memo on the 2018 Great March of Return, where unarmed demonstrators were maimed by Israeli snipers deliberately targeting their knees. Or that countless nonviolent activists continue to languish in Israeli prisons. The irony is striking: the Western world venerates its own violent anti-colonial uprisings – celebrating “the shot heard round the world!” – and yet when Black and Brown people seek emancipation, the West expects – nay, demands – pacifism and non-violence.