Y’all,
As you read this newsletter, it’s been 151 days of ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Sudan, Congo and multiple places globally are also suffering genocides linked to empire.
The Panjabi farmers are protesting — again — as they are met with fascist oppressions.
As we grapple with all these realities, many folks we are connected to have chosen to overlook or uphold the status-quo.
Here are a few verses I’ve drafted recently as someone who engages in the cultural work of documentary poetry.
150 days
& 75+ years of occupation
built on genocides.
150 x 150 countless ways
our humanity perished
& our collective obligation
to be human diminished.
How will any of us survive?
How will our humanity revive?
150 days & countless ways…
— GSethi, 3/3/24
"They steal your bread, then give you a crumb of it. Then they demand you to thank them for their generosity!
O their audacity!" — Ghassan Kanafani
When empire genocides
with unending bombs,
refuses to ceasefire to end the fire, drops a drop of “aid,”
aid is another bomb
in empire’s arsenal.
— GSethi, 3/2/24
I’m daunted & stumped by the genocidal geographies, geopolitics & arithmetics.
Have we paused to count the martyrs?
As of March 2nd, 2024, more than 31,000* Palestinians in Gaza have been massacred, 70,000 have been injured & the entire population of 2 million are “at risk” of being ethnically cleansed, killed by starvation & disease.
150 days in Gaza
Have we fathomed all the ways we are perishing, bystanders & enablers funding this genocide, included?
Have we been attentive to all the ways we are being dehumanized & ended?
As Ramadan approaches & we begin fasting, my heart stops to pause & recall the histories of so-called famines engineered by colonial machinations of empire. I’m keenly aware that the history books underestimate & fall short of naming empire as culpable.
I often teach that refugees exist due to colonial violence. Famines happen by (neo) colonial design, too. Even charities, “aid” & the entire humanitarian regime are rooted in empire’s structures & practices.
As someone who copes with numerous ailments & disabilities, especially those related to food, I recognize that decolonizing our relationships to food & famines is ongoing healing work.
Many of my ancestral traumas are retriggered as I research & remember:
Genocidal geographies Empire has created “famines” throughout time & place: I feel these histories in my ancestry as I remember severe food shortages in the aftermath of partition - research British policies & mortality from Great Bengal famine of 1770 & multiple famines — 1943.
The Great Bengal famine of 1770 1- 10 million deaths; Chalisa famine of 1783–1784, 11 million; Doji bara famine of 1791–1792, 11 million; Agra famine of 1837–1838, 800,000. 19th-century large-scale “mortality”: Upper Doab famine of 1860–1861, 2 million; Great Famine of 1876–1878, 5.5 million; Indian famine of 1896–1897, 5 million; Indian famine of 1899–1900, 1 million; first major famine of 20th century Bengal famine of 1943, which affected the Bengal region —1.5 million and 3 million people.
Read: Amartya Sen (1998 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his work on the economic mechanisms underlying famines) 2009 book The Idea of Justice: “prevalence of famines… had been a persistent feature of the long history of the British Indian Empire.”
Note: “Migration” as in forced indentured labour from India to the British tropical colonies of Mauritius, Fiji, Trinidad & Tobago, Surinam, Natal & British Guyana is directly correlated to these famines.
*Make the connections in empire’s genocidal geographies to Gaza?
"Imperialism is a system of exploitation that occurs not only in the brutal form of those who come with guns to conquer territory.
Imperialism often occurs in more subtle forms, a loan, food aid, blackmail. We are fighting this system that allows a handful of men on
Earth to rule all of humanity."
— Thomas Sankara
Even as historic oppressions & empire’s theatrics extend from Gaza to all of us, whether we acknowledge any of this or not.
Farmers are flying kites among drones.
Where oh where else is this happening?
Do we see how Panjab to Palestine,
our freedoms, like kites 🪁
are connected to the same long tail?
What I wish we all understood with clarity:
from Panjab to Palestine,
(& every cop city close to home)
the struggles & resistance movements against fascism are deeply connected.
If we speak up selectively about injustices in our lives & say nothing about how we are connected to Rafah & Gaza, Palestine, or refuse to speak up at all, we might need to revisit our notions of humanity & solidarity.
let us relearn & act accordingly,
Desi book aunty
Amen, may we relearn. Thank you for your verses and call to action, one thread at a time