Holding Multiple Truths
Solidarity with oppressed people, from so-called Australia to Israel-Palestine.
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One of the worst features of social media is the tendency for people in the West to take another group of people’s suffering, and make it about them. Another is that we’re rewarded by the algorithm when we say something that elicits strong emotions in other people; something that makes someone else want to cry “you’re wrong and bad!!” if not “I agree!!” Many of us volunteer for corporate tech giants for hours a day and if we’re provocative enough, attention is what we’re dispensed. As a treat.
Of course, the pull to share and re-share is strongest when we feel let down by the narratives we see “out there”. When we’re shown only the most narrow, sensational content from some real or imagined opposing “side” and we seethe with frustration and feel compelled to share even more reactively than before. Ironically, the emotional core of our motivation for sharing increasingly partisan language and content seems universal; we feel unheard and misunderstood. We’re told that some Other out there hates us. And it’s our job to change everyone’s minds.
Very few people attempt to tell the full story. Maybe because it’s impossible. You can’t pluck every string of a harp in unison. You can only select which strings best illustrate or elicit particular emotional states. But every string is a truth.
What’s most devastating about Israel-Palestine right now, aside from the lives lost and ongoing horrors, is how hard it is for many of us to hold multiple truths. We’re not encouraged to cultivate this skill often. In fact, we’re actively discouraged from acknowledging the ways that each of us is a collection of multiple truths. If you’re breathing, you’re a paradox. A puzzle of infinitely complex parts, inexorably linked with the complex parts of those around you. Whether you like it or not.
For example, I have a complicated relationship with ethnicity and religious identity. On one side, my grandparents were Egyptians, but not everyone in my family identifies as Arab per se. That was common pre-revolution, but especially among Copts and those with mixed Mediterranean backgrounds, like them. A pan-Arab political consciousness didn’t emerge until they were well into their 40s. But when I hear discussions about the MENA/SWANA region, I’m obviously invested. When I hear Arabic, I still look up. Despite being an assimilation baby who only knows a useless very few words.
Growing up, my family exposed me to Orthodox Christianity, Seventh Day Adventism, Buddhism, the esoteric, and folk beliefs. Now, I’m an ecclectic witch informed by Sri Ramakrishna-style universalism, among other things, and I’m married to a Jewish person. While I didn’t convert, we’re still a proudly Jewish household as it were.
Perhaps because of these many threads, I firmly believe non-violence predicated on spiritual ideals of oneness to be the most generative revolutionary path to change. I also know how stupid that sounds, particularly in moments of intense suffering and grief. To me, both are true.
In the spirit of practicing holding complexity—of learning to pluck new, euphonious strings at once—here is a small list of very simple truths on my mind this week. All existing in parallel.
~ You can be anti-Hamas as well as pro-Palestine.
~ Not every Israeli person is a Zionist.
~ More than one ethnic group can be Indigenous to a region.
~ What’s happening to the Palestinian people is genocidal ethnic cleansing.
~ Being anti-Zionist ≠ anti-semitic.
~ Some people on the left are both. Many others aren’t.
~ No one group has a sole claim to a place.
~ Human beings act stupid online.
~ Most people are good and want the same things, like dignity and freedom.
“Free Palestine” does not mean “expel Israelis”. It only means, as brilliant voices from Hannah Arendt to Edward Said have said, Israel-Palestine must become a democratic state, free of apartheid, free of oppression of any kind, for all. Apartheid has been ended before, in most of our lifetimes. Great walls have toppled, in most of our lifetimes. Things that may have seemed impossible, then happened.
The indiscriminate bombing of a trapped population should be immediately condemned by all and made to halt. That happens, like most things, by ordinary people putting pressure on their leaders over time. If you’re a US taxpayer, especially. $4.8 billion of your collective money went to the Israeli government’s military in 2022 alone.
And if you practice tarot or anything of a Western ceremonial magic bent, this is your Holy Land too. It’s the birthplace of Abrahamic faiths, including the arcane, mystic branches with which much of Western mystery traditions appropriated to build their entire beliefs.
I want what we all want. Liberation for all. It seems to me that the main thing standing in the way of that are certain stories and systems that tell us someone’s trying to take our liberty away (to distract us from the fact that that someone is them).
But I also want to allow myself the experience of getting higher than simply “standing with” something. Not because of neutrality, but as if through the eyes of God. Peering down from the clear sky above bombs and and borders and binaries, where there is space enough to observe every life as unspeakably precious. And every unjust institution or ideology that would convince us otherwise, as like a speck in my eye. May letting the tears of love and grief flow allow me to remove it.
Another day in the colony*
Meanwhile, in so-called Australia, the national referendum to add an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander advisory body to the constitution returned a “no” vote with this. There’s so much to say on this and I’m cognisant that given the result, theorising on why the majority of my fellow settlers voted “no” is painful and unnecessary. Suffice to say, it’s because of fucking racism. So I’ll point you to Darumbal and South Sea Islander journalist/academic Amy McQuire, who wrote about this result and racism today in her Substack
.One thing I’ll say to settlers specifically though. There was so much disappointment and sadness from us online at the news. Warranted, of course. But if this result elicited fatigue, confusion, hopelessness, or exasperation, then it’s like the meme: “imagine how tired we are”. Meaning, save your tears and conserve your energy. Nothing about the demand for self-determination has changed. Speak to your family and/or extended networks, as many times as you need to, until their ignorance shrinks. We’ll probably be having the same frustrating conversations with the same people until the day we die. Good (see above meme). That’s the minimum.
Listen to the demands from First Nations groups. Build better relationships with First Nations people in your life and community. Pay the rent in whatever way you can. Put more pressure on your leaders more often. There’s no chance of a slow and easy path now, full of lengthy reports and processes, towards Truth-telling and Treaty. There is only a groundswell push. Let’s move with it. Or else get out of its way.
*Refer to the book of the same name by researcher Chelsea Watego.
Journal prompts
Rather than offer specific prompts in today’s newsletter, I want to invite you to make a list using a very simple invitation: list down all the truths you currently embody or sense. The ones you feel are truest truths. The ones that you notice resonate for you right now. There’s no need to strive for truths that might seem “positive” or else perfectly opposed. Just let whatever feels present—known or unknown, understood or yet to be understood—to emerge from your body, senses, or mind. It doesn’t even matter if they don’t make sense. Breathe into them. And let them move through you. Notice any dissonance that some of these truths might bring up. Notice what happens if you allow them to exist, all in one moment.
Recommendations
~ “I have a seat in an abandoned theatre”. A poem by Mahmoud Darwish.
~ Natalie Wynn of Contrapoints dropped a new one hour “tangent” video on the male gaze; what it is (as opposed to how the phrase is used these days), and what the female gaze might be understood to be (as opposed to how the phrase is used these days). You can’t watch it unless you subscribe to her Patreon’s lowest tier. You won’t regret it!
~ Creative advice from David Bowie.
~ Krista Tippett’s three practices for wisdom and wholeness.
~ I don’t watch that many TV shows. But the ones I like, I obsessively like! Here’s what I watched and really enjoyed over the last handful of years: Station 11, Severance, The Crown, White Lotus, Enlightened, Succession, The Bear, The OA, I May Destroy You, Life And Beth, PEN15, Hacks, Russian Doll. The only shows I watch consistently are SNL (weekly), the opening monologue of the Late Show with Stephen Colbert (daily), and Unhhhh (when it occurs to me). Next, I want to watch Yellowjackets. I’d love your recommendations. Send em if you have them.
Tarot card of the week:
No card this week. This is one of those week’s where using your own gut and discernment feels like the most restorative practice. Go well. <3
Xo Jerico
These words are exactly procured in a way that is so important in so many situations right now. Thank you so much and I hope to share this
Your words run thru me like a cleansing breath. Thank you for sharing this thoughtful piece of writing.