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The center of the world, where recorded civilization got its start over 7,000 years ago, can be found in southwestern Asia, in ancient Mesopotamia. It can be found in The Epic of Gilgamesh, in the Torah and the Talmud, in The Odyssey and The Iliad of Homer; in Zoroastrianism, which predated the Qur’an by over 2,000 years; in A Thousand and One Nights and in the literature of 20th-century poets and writers, among them Khalil Gibran and Naguib Mahfouz, Hanan Al-Shaykh, Ahdaf Souief, Nizar Qabbani, Ghassan Kanafani, Mahmood Darwish, Forugh Farrokhzad, Amin Maalouf, Edward Said, Hisham Matar, Assia Djebar, Kateb Yacine and too many more to name.

Eventually nationalism took root, as it did in Europe, and the ancient civilizations became identified as Iran, Iraq, Syria, Egypt and the many other countries, small and large, that stretch from the Mashriq to the Maghreb — as far east as Pakistan and Afghanistan to Morocco in the west.

But in 1902, American naval historian and retired admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan expressed a hegemonic vision of the world in an argument he published in the National Review. In “The Persian Gulf and International Relations,” Mahan described the western Asian region from the Gulf to the Mediterranean as “the Middle East,” suggesting that whichever navy controlled that part of the world would hold the key to world domination. After World War I, Europeans jumped into the fray with the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement, which divvied up the region after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, with several countries coming under British or French influence. The domino effect of outsiders meddling in the affairs of west Asian nations led to the Balfour Declaration, the San Remo Conference, the partition of Palestine, the creation of Trans-Jordan (a British protectorate for 25 years), the division of Greater Syria into Syria and Lebanon, then the end of Palestine and the establishment of Israel . . . right up to the year 1953, when the CIA with the machinations of MI6, succeeded in fomenting the overthrow of Iran’s democratically elected leader, Mohammad Mossadegh, which would lead to the anti-Shah uprising 26 years later that became known as the Iranian or Islamic Revolution.

Stories from the Center of the World: New Middle East Fiction, edited by Jordan Elgrably. Click here to buy.

All of this to say that the “Middle East” or the “Near East” are akin to exonyms, terms used by outsiders to define others as they often do not define themselves; they are convenient catch phrases that continue to cause consternation today among those of us who are from the center of the world. Lebanese poet and translator Huda Fakhreddine calls the “Middle East” a trap — “a made-up thing, a construct of history and treacherous geography, the Middle East as an American trope, a stage for identity politics.”

To be sure, neither Rear Admiral Mahan nor Lord Balfour, much less Mark Sykes, François Georges-Picot, or any of the other many thousands of Western politicians, secret agents, generals, businessmen and other meddlers have ever given much thought or exhibited empathy when it comes to what it means to be Iraqi or Syrian or Iranian or Egyptian, or Palestinian. Geopolitics has been capitalism’s overlord and nationalism’s emperor, serving agendas that have little to do with the needs of real people.

It is a given that governments prefer borders and passports, shored up by flags and patriotism, while people will always find a way to relate to one another, in spite of their nationalities. Personally, I prefer the metaphor of the mosaic or the salad when it comes to parsing identity: just as it takes several colors to create a mosaic, and a salad contains diverse ingredients, we are all the sum of multiple parts, and each of us is much more than our national identity card.

I became closer to my own North African roots as a result of living in Spain in the lead-up to the 1992 Quincentennial, when there was a lot of talk about the Spanish Muslims and Jews who were effectively exiled as a result of the Inquisition in 1492. They left a powerful imprint on the soul of the country, as Marie Rosa Menocal so elegantly describes in her classic work, The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain (2002). But the convivencia that Menocal described was not merely a period of Spanish history; this cultural entente was innate to southwest Asian societies, which had long been comprised of a mix of religious, cultural and ethnic communities. In the aftermath of the post–World War II reconfiguration, the Nakba, the Islamic Revolution and the Iraq War, however, the region has lost much of its organic diversity, and current economic strife and climate devastation continue what Western meddlers started over a hundred years ago.

Not all is doom and gloom when it comes to the center of the world today, however, because despite the failures of the Green Movement, the Arab Spring and the Syrian civil war, “what has not changed is West Asia’s geopolitical centrality,” as Chas Freeman has written. “It is where Africa, Asia, and Europe and the routes that connect them meet. The region’s cultures cast a deep shadow across northern Africa, Central, South and Southeast Asia, and the Mediterranean. It is the epicenter of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, the three ‘Abrahamic religions’ that together shape the faiths and moral standards of over three-fifths of humankind. This gives the region global reach.”

This is the time for the original voices of people from the region to be heard — for Arabs, Iranians, Kurds, Middle Eastern Jews, Armenians, Turks, Afghans, Pakistanis, the Amazigh and Kabyl peoples, Druze, Assyrians, Copts, Yezidis et alia to speak up, and speak out.

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Mir was born in Agra, India, into a Muslim family. His father was a Sufi mystic, and the spiritual aspects of that philosophy are seen in all his poems. His father died when Mir was a young man, in his teens.  As a young man, it seems that he began an adulterous relationship with a married woman.  When this was eventually discovered, he was disowned by his family and forced to leave his home and move to Dehli.  This traumatic event colors all of his poems.  He writes about his subsequent relationships with women with a dark sensibility, often with a sense of doom and dread.

Mir was a master of the ghazal, a poetic form with repeating lines.  He wrote his poems about love. Every aspect of the experience is explored in depth—from initial infatuation to bitter regret. Nor does Mir neglect the spiritual aspects of love, which along with carnal desire are so much in evidence in each of his poems.

The Plague of Love: Selected Sufi Love Poems of Mir Taqi Mir, By Mir Taqi Mir, translated by Bilal A. Shaw and Anthony A. Lee. Click here to buy.

This poem explores the poet’s dark fears and hopes at the start of a new love affair. Still, he tells us tragically how he has been scarred by past relationships. So, he hesitates. 

Love Is Just Beginning

Love is just beginning, and I weep.  Why?
Just go on.  See what happens, man!  Why not?

Hear that?  Sounds of the morning caravan.
So, move!  They’re leaving, fool.  You’re sleeping.  Why?

The land of heart will not turn green again.
But still, I sow seeds of desire.  Why?

These love stains on my skin will not come off.
Still, I wash the wounds that scar my chest.  Why?  

Yet more precious than Joseph’s hair is time!
And, Mir, you are wasting this rare thing. Why?

In this next poem, Mir confesses that he has abandoned the worship of God for the worship of a woman. His prayers to God he counts as only treason to his new beloved. Tortured by his blasphemy, he knows he is ruined.

I Worship You

I worship you, and God knows that.
What you may think? Well, God knows that.  

The agony of love is sweet.                            
Every wretched lover knows that.                             

Beneath her hair, behind her veil,
what she wants, only she knows that.  

You think I am a fraud like you?
My pleas aren’t false.  But you know that.  

My prayers to God are treason now.  
You’re cruel to those you love.  Know that.                    

You’re a spoiled and stupid child.  But
you twist your lips well.  You know that.  

Because you live inside my heart,
my love is there.  And, you know that.  

When you’re in love, Mir, you’re ruined.  
You gave away your heart, fool.  You know that. 

Though he pursued multiple relationships with women, Mir remained deeply religious.  But his piety and his sexuality were at war.  In one poem, “Finished,” he recounts his seduction of a woman.  But he includes this couplet:

I chased her for long miles, but stopped to pray.  

God!  Even mad with love, I dared not sin . . .  

In the next poem, spiritual love and physical love are so blended and intertwined that we cannot tell one from the other. The truth seems to shift from one to the other: “Sometimes love is/the believer. Sometimes God is this love.” And still, in the end, Mir doubts both his faith and his love. 

What Is Love?

How can I tell you what it is, this love?
It’s a disease, it’s a sickness, this love.

Love—only love—exists.  Look!  Everywhere
the universe is bursting with this love.

Love is my lover.  Love is my beloved.
And love itself delights inside this love.               

This love makes its own law.  Sometimes love is           
the believer.  Sometimes God is this love.

Who has ever reached his aim without love?
My wish is this love.  My goal is this love.

But no one really wants this sort of love. 
See!  It’s just like a bastard child, this love.

Mir, your life is looking so weak and pale.         
Can you say you have ever been in love?

In the poem “Until He Comes,” Mir expresses the pain of his love for a young man. The poem reflects the bisexuality that was the norm in his society at the time (and certainly also today).  We should remember that some of Shakespeare’s love sonnets were written to a young man, as well.

Until He Comes

Long have my tears been falling.  Still they come!
If my tears stop falling, my blood will come.

I can control myself, until he comes.
Then, I lose my mind, and no sense will come.

Patience used to be my only friend here. 
But now, he too is one who will not come.

My heart has lost all trace of its desire.
Just gone.  No wonder now my tears have come.

It’s all still here in this full heart, my friend.
But no verses on my lips.  They won’t come.  
   
There he lies so far away . . .  Poor sad Mir,
without love, this poem will never come.

After the end of another relationship, Mir laments and cries bitterly. He drinks. His sadness and insecurity are so evident. His loss is devastating and complete.

A Ripple on Your Robe

In this garden, make your tongue a rosebud
in your mouth.  Make a baby’s fist your hand.  

Cup your palm around your heart when you cry.
In that tempest, your lamp will die unmanned.

Wine boy!  Without you we will never know           
ourselves. Lost, we wander in our homeland.

The chains of reason hold me down, or I
would live insane–at frantic love’s command.

Even though I’m a poet, not a hack,
I fear the rhymes my friends recite offhand.

Mir, swept away by her soft love:  Now she’s
just a ripple on your robe as you stand.  

Finally, this short poem sums up Mir Taqi Mir’s own view of his brilliant poetry. 

Don’t Call Yourself a Poet

The God of favors did me a favor.  He took
some dust: From nothing, he gave me a human look.

Don’t call yourself a poet, Mir.  Because, you just
took a bunch of sorrows and wrote them in a book.

The Plague of Love: Selected Sufi Love Poems of Mir Taqi Mir

Translated by Bilal Shaw and Anthony A. Lee
A New Literary Translation (Nirala Publications, New Dehli) Paperback.  110 pages.

Available on Amazon.com here.   But do not pay full price.  New copies are available from private sellers at much reduced prices. 

At the beginning of the Iranian revolution, the new regime in Tehran tried in vain to dissuade Iranians from celebrating this ancient feast, exhorting them to concentrate more on Islamic feasts.

It was no use. People fiercely resisted such policies and ended up celebrating Nowruz even more enthusiastically.

A day after this year’s Nowruz, on March 20th, a beloved artist/singer passed away from cancer in Maryland. He was seventy-eight years old. His name was Faramarz Aslani. We, the generation from before the Iranian revolution, grew up with his music, a mix of Spanish guitar and Persian melancholic lyrics.

Aslani, like so many singers who did not fit the new regime’s definition of culture, left Iran for England and eventually emigrated to the U.S. He continued to sing. His voice was deep, warm, and passionate, sometimes sad.

At the beginning of the Revolution, like so many artists and intellectuals, he was for change, not knowing what the future had in store. He sang a song depicting the struggle against the former regime in favor of the people’s movement. But soon, like so many he became disillusioned. His songs were forbidden and called taghouti, a Quranic term describing anything tyrannical and commonly used for the shah’s regime.

Yet, the youth in Iran still enjoyed his music and would listen clandestinely.

Over the years, things changed. I vividly remember that on one of my last trips to Iran, a large gathering of men and women and youngsters was held on the grounds of the Borj Milad in Tehran.

Faramarz Alsani’s music filled the air.

Aslani held concerts with other famous singers in cities with a high concentration of Iranian expatriates such as Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. He was revered not just as a musician but as a fine human being who truly cared about his country and his people.

“Faramarz Aslani Feat. Dariush: Age Ye Rooz | داریوش و فرامرز اصلانی: اگه یه روز | Official Video”

He started a tour in the U.S. in 1992 at the Shrine Auditorium in L.A. received by an enthusiastic crowd, he said, “These songs are from all the sweet and bitter memories of my life.”

A year later, he finished an album called Hafez, A Memorandum, which consisted of eight poems by Hafez, Iran’s most famous mystical poet.

In 2010, he released another album titled, The Third line (Khatte Sevvom).

Yet, his song, Age Ye Rooz, (if you go on a trip one day), became the signature song of nostalgia for many Iranians, evoking the past, a different era.

Like so many before him, Faramarz Aslani died in exile, far away from his homeland, where he had grown up and had learned to love and compose music.

He became a journalist in London, but it was always his music and his songs that remained.

He is gone now leaving behind a legacy. The many tributes on social media are filled with his music, remembering a legend that died a day after Nowruz.

Adieu Mr. Aslani….

The latest film adaptation of the Sixties novel helps us understand the contemporary Middle East and its ecology.

“Based on Herbert’s 1965 science fiction classic, “Dune” is a tale of a rising duke, intergalactic power struggles, a precious spice, and lethal spaceworms. The story, which deals with religion, politics, myth, destiny, heritage, environmental decay and colonialism resonates as much with audiences today as it did when the novel was first published.”

( TRT World ) – The latest Hollywood blockbuster “Dune” is a space opera based on Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel of the same name. While written in the Sixties, its current release is salient as the film reengages audiences with several core themes of the novel.

The novel is replete with Arabic and Islamic references, which raises the question of whether the novel is orientalist, in addition to the film, given the resurgence of cinematic orientalist tropes post-9/11.

Also, while the novel “Dune” won a slew of science fiction (sci-fi) awards, it could also be considered one of the first cli-fi novels, or climate fiction novels. Herbert’s work was prescient given its examination of the ecology of a desert planet that essentially stands in for the Middle East. 

Finally, the novel is relevant due to its trope of resistance and empire. “Dune” is essentially a political thought experiment, examining how charismatic leadership can lead to the defeat of stronger states and empires, salient to US foreign policy, whether it is the Vietnamese under Ho Chi Minh or the Afghan Taliban.

Techno-Orientalism

In a previous article for this publication, I used Edward Said to examine “Slavery, the “robot,” and Orientalism in science fiction.” I categorise Orientalism as a system of communication that essentialises the East with a series of ‘E’s. The West sees the ‘East’ as Exotic, Erotic, and the Enemy.

For example, in the “Star Wars” franchise, there are Middle East-inspired elements with the Sufi orders reflected in Obi Wan and the Jedi. Orientalist flourishes include the Enemy, the barbaric Sand People and the Erotic, the indolent Jabba the Hut, who smokes a nargile and maintains a harem, which includes princes Leia.

“Dune”, like “Star Wars”, is about a band of rebels who bring down an empire. The protagonists of Lucas’ space opera consist of a rebel alliance brought together from far ranging planets and galactic groups, like Admiral Ackbar, the squid-like commander from the Mon Calamari, to the Ewoks. In Herbert’s work, the rebels are the Fremen, who practice a futuristic form of Islam, seeking to free their desert planet Arrakis and bring down a down an intergalactic empire led by the Padishah Shaddam.

“Dune,” Digital, Dall-E 3, 2024.

The references to the Middle East are not flourishes to exoticise the narrative. The Arrakis depicted in the novel and latest film are not exotic, but enigmatic. There is little that is erotic in “Dune”. The Fremen are not the enemy; you root for them as the protagonists. 

The Fremen are led by a messianic figure, Paul Atreides, who engages in a “jihad” against the empire, but Herbert used this term in the sixties well before the notion become associated with terrorism post-9/11.

It is unusual to have the Muslims as good guys. The only other science fiction franchise that does the same is the “Pitch Black” franchise beginning in the mid-Nineties, also examining a futuristic, intergalactic Islam. The protagonist Riddick, played by Vin Diesel, seeks to save another character, simply referred to as “al-Imam” on his way to complete the hajj in New Mecca on the planet Tangiers-3.

I would argue that the prevalence of a futuristic Islam in both sci-fi stories makes neither orientalist. In both cases Islam is not exotic but banal, interwoven in interplanetary daily life.

Finally, all orientalist films essentialise the Middle East as a desert landscape replete with camels and minarets. The desert in “Dune” does not serve as a mere exotic background but makes an ecological argument. The dunes symbolise the vulnerability and precariousness of human life. The heat and sand, Mother Nature if you will, overwhelms this future civilisation and its technology. The theme of insecurity and the quest for water pervade the narrative. In the face of this powerlessness, the Fremen represent a fight for agency by learning to adapt to the desert, not exploit it. 

Science fiction and empire

The revolt in Arrakis seeks to bring down an intergalactic empire, led by the Padishah Shaddam. While Shaddam does sound like Saddam, the future Iraqi president was relatively obscure when Herbert wrote the novel. However, the title Padishah refers to the highest rank in the Ottoman or Persian empires.

Sci-fi has had a long history of dealing with empire and resistance. One of the first sci-fi pioneers, HG Wells published “War of the Worlds” in 1898 as a commentary on the British extermination of the local population of Tasmania, Australia.

Arrakis could very well be a reference to Iraq. The Spacing Guild in “Dune”, a cartel that controls the production of the Spice that is necessary for space travel is certainly influenced by petroleum and OPEC, which was founded in Baghdad in 1960 (albeit the brainchild of a Venezuelan oil minister). 

In this case “Dune” would fit other sci-fi and cli-fi narratives where Iraq emerges as an imaginative space challenging the 2003 invasion. The film “Avatar” critiqued the rise of mercenary companies, where the planet Pandora stands in for Iraq and Unobtainium, like the Spice, is a reference to oil.  

The 2004 reboot of “Battlestar Galactica” portrayed the villains, the robotic Cylons as Americans, and the humans resisting them as the insurgents, forcing TV audiences, particularly in the US, to see the conflict from an Iraqi perspective.

While sci-fi as a genre is escapist in nature, it simultaneously brings our current reality into greater focus. It reveals our current technophobias and anxieties over the convergence between scientific advance and what it means to be human. 

Close to 50 years separate the novel “Dune” and the film. The themes of ecological precariousness, rapacious resource extraction, and resistance to occupation are as relevant now as they were when the novel was first published. In this case “Dune”, a work of science fiction, is also a political fact.

IMDB’s laconic description of Glazer’s masterpiece, based on a novel by Martin Amis, goes this way: “Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss and his wife Hedwig strive to build a dream life for their family in a house and garden beside the camp.” The film is an indictment of what Hannah Arendt called “The Banality of Evil.”

The British national Glazer, however, clearly has a difficulty with the Zionist Right, which has appropriated the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews as a primary plank in its platform of bestowing impunity on the Israeli government for whatever atrocity, whatever violation of international humanitarian law, whatever genocide its leaders wish to commit.

In his Oscar acceptance speech, Glazer said,

“All our choices were made to reflect and confront us in the present — not to say, ‘Look what we did then,’ rather, ‘Look what we do now.’ Our film shows where dehumanization leads at its worst. It shaped all of our past and present. Right now, we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation, which has led to conflict for so many people. Whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack in Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization, how do we resist?”

Here’s the clip:

ABC Video: THE ZONE OF INTEREST Accepts the Oscar for International Feature Film

Daniel Arkin at NBC writes, “Inside the Dolby Theatre, many in the audience could be seen cheering and applauding. Sandra Hüller, the German actor who portrayed Höss’ wife, Hedwig, appeared to be crying and put her hand to her chest.”

He adds, “Billie Eilish, Mark Ruffalo and Ramy Youssef wore red pins on the Oscars red carpet symbolizing calls for a cease-fire.”

Glazer’s international platform (19.5 million people watched live) and his universalist sentiments posed a severe difficulty for the Zionist right wing. Glazer was saying that the Holocaust was an event in human history, not solely in Jewish history, and that its lesson is that dehumanization leads to atrocities and even genocide. In wartime Nazi Germany Jews were called “Rats, lice, cockroaches, foxes, vultures.” And then they were murdered in their millions by the National Socialist government.

Likewise, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant called Palestinians in Gaza “human animals.”

Glazer is aware that the Hamas commandos who killed over 600 Israeli civilians on October 7, along with some 400 military personnel, also dehumanized those Jews, allowing them to mow down attendees at a music festival and left wing grandmothers at Kibbutz hamlets.

He was saying that this dehumanization, and its consequences in the casual murder of other human beings, clearly needs to be resisted. But how? How? is the existential question of the twenty-first century.

But for the current full-on fascist cabinet in Israel and its cheerleaders in the United States, the Holocaust and October 7 aren’t about universal values, they are about Jews and Zionism. They are antinomian in effect, justifying Israeli troops in committing any action, any crime. They are a get out of jail free card for Zionists. The Right denies that Israel is carrying out a genocide in Gaza, even though over 13,000 children have been killed in indiscriminate bombing and another 12,000 women noncombatants have been killed. How else, they ask, could you destroy Hamas? Even President Biden, however, has begun pointing out in public that there are other ways of targeting a small terrorist organization than killing tens of thousands of noncombatants.

Glazer also violated the tenets of the Zionist Right by saying that his film about the Holocaust is not about what people did in the 1940s but about what people do today. His clear implication is that the tactics the Israeli government is using in Gaza must be condemned for the same reason that the Holocaust must be condemned. These actions, while of entirely different scale, are atrocities that spring from a denial of our common humanity.

Glazer’s most controversial assertion was, “Right now, we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation, which has led to conflict for so many people.”

He was saying that the Zionist far right of Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich had attempted to hijack the Jewish religion to which Glazer and some of his colleagues adhere, and that he rejects this appropriation.

This statement strikes at the core of Zionist nationalism, which insists that Judaism and Zionism are identical. Non-Zionist Jews from this point of view are traitors. Never mind that in opinion polling significant numbers of American Jews express discomfort with the right wing Zionism that has come to dominate Israeli politics.

Because Glazer’s brief, historic statement profoundly threatened the project of what some have called “Israelism,” a cult-like induction of people into the Zionism=Judaism and “Jews must support Bibi” complex of beliefs, some Zionists decided that he must be smeared and his reputation destroyed.

Batya Ungar-Sargon, Newsweek deputy opinion editor, author of a book on how “woke” media is allegedly undermining democracy, and inveterate propagandist for the Israeli Right, presented a gross distortion of what Glazer said on X:

I simply cannot fathom the moral rot in someone's soul that leads them to win an award for a movie about the Holocaust and with the platform given to them, to accept that award by saying, "We stand here as men who refute their Jewishness."

— Batya Ungar-Sargon (@bungarsargon) March 11, 2024

Even X’s community comments eventually flagged the post as misleading, though it is actually a horrid lie, and it is hard to understand why anyone should ever again take seriously anything she says.

Her posting was widely reposted and paraphrased on the Zionist Right, in a disinformation campaign attempting to make it look as though Glazer were an apostate and had abandoned Jewish values rather than standing up for them.

An attempt was also made to push back against the red pins worn by numerous celebrities at the Oscars, symbolizing their call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza (which in polling the majority of Americans of both parties desire).

Foreign policy expert Matt Duss pointed to another disinformation campaign:

pic.twitter.com/h2KG6p0SW1

— Matt Duss (@mattduss) March 12, 2024

Another poster saw a pattern:

Lol.

You can watch the roll out of the propaganda in real time…

As a bunch of geographically dispersed accounts amazingly arrive at the same conclusion simultaneously. pic.twitter.com/tJk7NmfI7z

— Conor Hennessy (@typingduck) March 12, 2024

In fact, the red pins were distributed by ArtistsForCeasefire
who said, “The pin symbolises collective support for an immediate and permanent cease-fire, the release of all of the hostages and for the urgent delivery of humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza,”

Israeli propaganda, or Hasbara, as Duss points out, has reached the level of irrationality and of sheer crazy that characterizes QAnon conspiracies such as Pizzagate and Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Jewish space lasers.

That is why we increasingly have to consider what comes out of AIPAC, the Israeli Prime Minister’s office and other Zionist organizations as QZionism, a form of information pollution.

The Board of Directors of the Middle East Studies Association and its Committee on Academic Freedom condemn in the strongest possible terms the ongoing attack on Gaza by the state of Israel, which has now claimed more than 100,000 Palestinian dead and wounded according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. We have previously written statements on the conflict since 7 October 2023, including the horrors inflicted on civilians and the educational sector in Gaza (21 November 2023, 25 January 2024) the West Bank (22 November 2023), Jerusalem (9 November 2023) and Israel (20 November 2023, 28 November 2023, 23 January 2024). We feel compelled to write once more to address not only the accelerating scale of genocidal violence being inflicted on the Palestinian population of Gaza, but also the concomitant cultural genocide that is the result of the wanton destruction of the built environment and civilian infrastructure of the Gaza Strip.

The horrific human toll of the massive military assault on Gaza, now having surpassed its 155^th day, has proceeded hand in glove with the deliberate destruction of the historical landscape of the territory. The very notion of a Palestinian people is itself under attack through Israel’s policy of destroying Gaza’s archaeological, religious, and cultural heritage. As a scholarly community, we are aghast first and foremost at the unfathomable and indiscriminate violence threatening the lives of 2.3 million people. Alongside the magnitude of the atrocities committed against the Palestinian population, we must also bear witness to the decimation of thousands of years of historical material culture that constitute a part of our shared world heritage.

The current multipronged attacks against Gaza appear calculated to achieve nothing less than the total erasure of the Palestinians and their history from this small coastal strip. Horrendous in its nature and scope, this war is also just the most recent, if also most deadly, episode of a hundred-year-long policy, actively abetted and openly supported by the United States, along with a succession of other Western powers, to facilitate the expulsion of the Palestinians from their homeland, erase their material and cultural claims to it and by extension their historical memory, and indeed deny their existence as a people. In short, Israel is engaging in cultural genocide against the Palestinian people with the active support of its American and European allies.

This support from the United States and the European Union has taken many forms. Perhaps the most devastating example is the record of systematic vetoes cast by the United States against United Nations Security Council resolutions to date calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. In the most recent of the three vetoes cast by the U.S., on 20 February 2024, the country was alone on the 15-member Council in opposing the call for an immediate ceasefire. The United Kingdom abstained. The United States has also continued to supply weapons to Israel, with President Biden going so far as to invoke extraordinary powers to bypass the usual procedures for such transfers in December 2023. Similarly, European powers have also supplied vital weapons to Israel in the midst of its attacks on Gaza. Even as United Nations experts call for an arms embargo on Israel with some Europeans also calling for a halt in arms exports, the U.S. continues to plan for additional military aid to Israel.

Since the beginning of the current war, estimates of the extent and depth of the destruction are devastating. According to the 9 January 2024 Statement of the Arab Regional Group at the International Council of Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) “more than 200 of the 325 registered sites in Gaza considered of national or global historic, archaeological, natural, religious and humanitarian importance have been destroyed or severely damaged by the Israeli military.” These sites include, among many others:

• archaeological and cultural heritage sites stretching back 4,000 years, including remains from the myriad empires that conquered and settled Gaza;
• mosques and churches, some among the oldest in the world;
• archives rich with historical documents and municipal records;
• museums large and small filled with holdings from across the centuries and representing both Gaza’s long history and its rich popular culture and traditions;
• community centers, serving as gathering places and venues for art shows, musical events, and poetry readings; and
• libraries, some in mosques and universities, others smaller and local, rich with resources and open to provide books and literacy to all.

Even community graveyards, the most tangible and personal evidence of affective ties to place and heritage have been bulldozed or bombed. A full accounting of the cultural destruction in Gaza can be made only once there is a lasting ceasefire and it becomes possible for international and Palestinian investigators to undertake comprehensive documentation. In the meantime, we provide in the annex to this document what can only be a partial, and most certainly already – given the continuing bombing and shelling – out-of-date list of sites that have been completely or partially destroyed.

These institutions and resources, which underpin the sense of community and shared history and identity of the Palestinians of Gaza (as well as the West Bank and the diaspora), have been and continue to be deliberately destroyed as part of an intentional policy, voiced clearly by multiple Israeli politicians and military figures since early in this conflict, of completely destroying Gaza and precluding any possibility of a meaningful “return” and rebuilding by its forcibly displaced and decimated population.

This deliberate destruction of Gaza’s human and cultural heritage constitutes war crimes and clear breaches of several international conventions including the Fourth Geneva Convention,[1] the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property,[2] the International Convention for the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage,[3] and the protections of customary international humanitarian law.[4] These war crimes are in addition to the violations of the laws of war and the prohibition on genocide that are the subject of current investigations before the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court.

The Board of Directors and the Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association therefore:

• Condemn the ongoing genocidal violence against the Palestinian people and their cultural heritage and call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire;

• Call for the urgent and durable protection of the Palestinian people, land, and heritage and the immediate provision of all necessary humanitarian supplies together with unfettered access of all relevant international humanitarian agencies to come to the assistance of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip;

• Call on the United States government to desist from any further arms transfers or military assistance to Israel and to support United Nations Security Council resolutions demanding an immediate ceasefire and unimpeded humanitarian assistance.

• Call upon the relevant United Nations and other international agencies to send investigative teams and assessment missions to Gaza to work with Gazan specialists to survey and fully document the destruction, and to determine next steps in the process of recovery, reconstruction, and preservation of what remains.

• Call upon the international donor community to urgently and swiftly provide the funds needed to undertake the herculean tasks of documenting the destruction of Palestinian heritage in the Gaza Strip and beginning the rebuilding and rehabilitation of the cultural heritage sites and sector, along with the civilian infrastructure of the territory.

ANNEX[5]

This annex represents a compilation as of 1 March 2024 of available documentation concerning Palestinian archives, cultural heritage, libraries, and museums destroyed during the ongoing attack on Gaza by the Israeli military. The destruction is catalogued by category of heritage: libraries, archives, and publishing houses; cultural and social centers; media and artistic production companies; museums; churches; mosques; archaeological sites; cemeteries and monuments; traditional houses and markets; and natural heritage.

Public Libraries and Archives

Gaza Municipal Library
Central Archives of Gaza City
Palace of Justice
Rashad al-Shawa Cultural Center
Diana Tamari Sabbagh Library

University Libraries

Islamic University of Gaza Library, Gaza City
Al-Israa University Library and National Museum
Al-Quds Open University Library, Gaza City
Jawaharlal Nehru Library, Al-Azhar University, Gaza City

Publishing Houses and Smaller Libraries:

Al-Shorouq Al-Daem Library and Exhibition
Sami Mansour Bookshop and Library in Gaza City
Enaim Library
Al-Nahda Library
Lubbud Library
Al-Nur Cultural Center’s library

Cultural and Social Centers

Arab Orthodox Cultural and Social Center
Dar Al-Shabab Cultural and Development Authority
The General Union of Cultural Centers
The Sununu Foundation for Arts and Culture
Our Children Society for Development
Gaza Center for Culture and Arts
The Hakawi Association for Culture and Arts
The Palestinian Association for Development and Heritage Protection
Shababik Professionals
Village of Arts and Crafts, Gaza Municipality
Widad Theater and Widad Association for Community Development
Rafida Suhail Artist Studio
Es’ad Child Cultural Center
Bayader Theatre and Arts Association
Iltiqa’ Gallery for Contemporary Visual Arts
Kana’an Educational Development Institute
Ataa Library, International Board on Books for Young People Children in Crisis Library (Beit Hanoun)
Yasser Arafat Foundation

Media and artistic production companies:

Mashariq Company
Asayel Studios
Mix and Match Studio

Museums

Rafah Museum
Al Qarara Cultural Museum (also known as the Khan Younis Museum)
Qasr al-Basha (Pasha’s Palace Museum, also known as Radwan castle)
Mathaf al-Funduq (Museum Hotel)
Al-‘Aqqad Cultural Center of Heritage Archaeology and Museum
Shahwan Museum
Khudari Museum
Ibrahim Abu Sha’ar Heritage Diwan
Deir al-Balah museum
Cultural Karameh Museum

Churches 

The Church of Saint Porphyrius
Ruins of the Monastery of St. Hilarion, part of the Tell Umm Amer site in Nuseirat
Byzantine Church located in the Jabaliya refugee camp
Holy Family Church

Mosques and other Muslim religious sites

At least 114 mosques have been destroyed and 200 others have been damaged in Gaza

The Grand Omari Mosque
Othman Bin Qashqar Mosque
Mosque of Sayyid Hashim
Sheikh Abdullah Mosque
Katib al-Wilayah Mosque
Al-Zafar Dmari Mosque and Center for Manuscripts and Ancient Documents (Shuja’iyya)
Sheikh Shaaban Mosque
Mosque of Ibn Othman, Gaza City
Maqam Khalil Al-Rahman (Abasan)
Maqam Al-Khidr (Deir al-Balah)
Maqam al-Nabi Yusuf (Bani Suheila)

Archaeological sites

Tell al-Ajjul
Tel al-Mansatar (Gaza)
Tal al-Sakan (Al-Zahra)
Tell 86 (al-Qarara)
Tell Rafah (also known as Tell Zara’b)
Anthedon Harbor
Roman necropolis (Ard-al-Moharbeen) in northern Gaza
Qal’at Burquq

Cemeteries and Monuments

At least 16 cemeteries desecrated during the ground offensive in Gaza

English Cemetery (Gaza)
English Cemetery (Zuwaidah)
Unknown Soldier Monument

Historic or traditional houses and markets

Old City of Gaza City
Al-Suqqa House (Shuja’iyya)
Tirzi House (Rimal)
Hammam al-Sammara (the Sammara Bath)
Al-Fawakhir district
Al-Zawiya market, historical extension of the Al-Qaysariyya market, also destroyed.
Mazan Market (East Khan Younis)

Natural Heritage

Coastal Wetlands in the Gaza Valley

Documents & Links

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The Denis Villeneuve Dune films signal that the Fremen Bedouins of the desert planet Arrakis are “Muslim” in various ways, including casting Arab Muslims, shooting in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, and the use of Arabic vocabulary, drawing from the Herbert novels. The films have been charged with playing down the Muslim-ness of the Fremen, and perhaps there is somewhat less Arabic in their language and less reference to their religion (which in the novels is ZenSunni). But I think the visual vocabulary of the films makes pretty clear that the Fremen are some sort of descendants, at least, of old earth Muslims.

We are seeing the films in a different context than the one in which the 1965 novel appeared. It is a Cold War novel (as I will explain below). We are now watching it in the wake of the Bush “War on Terror” (against Muslims) to which the Republican Party and elements of the Democratic Party in the US are still committed. For this reason, the films do not use the term “jihad,” translating it inaccurately as “crusade” (ironic!) or “holy war,” in contrast to the Herbert novels. Jihad is a sacred word for Muslims, meaning to exert oneself or struggle for the faith in all sorts of ways– ethically, by donations to charities, by speaking out. It can also refer to taking up arms at the order of legitimate political authority to defend the country. Americans might call it “patriotism.”

We are also watching the second film in the the duology during Israel’s war on Gaza, and it is difficult not to see the Fremen as Palestinians. At least it was difficult for me not to see it in that context, though of course Villeneuve could not have predicted this moment when he and his team were shooting.

The massive firepower and awful destructiveness of the Harkonnen forces recall the intensive aerial bombardment pursued by the Israeli Air Force for five months. The Palestinians of Gaza are not Bedouin tribespeople, of course, but highly urbanized and literate. Still, the search for a religious and political deliverance from a brutal Israeli occupation led them to the fundamentalist Hamas, a dead end. In today’s political atmosphere in the United States, the only sort of resistance against occupation that can be lionized is fictional, in Dune and James Cameron’s Avatar films. Despite their own progenitors’ revolution against King George’s despotism, the majority of Americans nowadays, according to opinion polls, have a knee-jerk tendency to identify with the occupiers and not the freedom fighters.

Warner Bros. Video: “Dune: Part Two | Official Trailer 3”

For those who have not read the book or seen the film, I should give a brief plot summary. A set of planets, each ruled by a Siridar or planetary governor with a noble rank such as duke or baron, owe fealty to an emperor, Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV. They form of council of nobles, the Landsraad. Flying spaceships between these imperial planets requires pilots to ingest a psychedelic drug, melange or the “spice,” produced by fungus in the sands exposed to effluvia from young sandworms on the desert planet of Arrakis. The vocabulary here is Islamicate. Padishah is Persian for emperor. Shaddam has the morphology of an Arabic word and may be modeled on Saddam (though not the Iraqi one). Siridar is from the Persian sardar or governor.

Shaddam IV grows concerned about the growing influence on the Landsraad of Duke Leto Atreides of the lush planet of Caladan, and fears Leto may make a play for the throne. He therefore forces him off Caladan and orders him to rule the arid Arrakis instead. In this alien environment, Leto is vulnerable. The emperor puts Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, the Siridar of Giedi Prime, up to attacking the House Atreides on Arrakis, and secretly provides imperial Sardaukar troops to help in the assault. Leto is killed but his concubine, Lady Jessica and his son, Paul, escape to the desert and find refuge with the Fremen, tribal desert dwellers. Jessica belongs to a religious order, the Bene Gesserit, who engage in genetic engineering, and Paul is a result of this experiment (though he was supposed to be a girl).

Among the Fremen, Paul is given the personal name Usul (Arabic for “principles,” “foundations”) and the title Muad’Dhib (Arabic mu’addib, one who teaches culture). Paul Atreides, by imbibing the liquid derived from killing and harvesting a young Sandworm, gains superpowers, including prescience, and becomes accepted by the Fremen as their messiah or Mahdi (Arabic for “guided one”). He initially resists the temptation to lead them, seeing visions of a vast murderous horde conquering the known universe if he takes that course. But the Harkonnen attacks back him and the Fremen into a corner, and ultimately he takes on the mantle of the Mahdi, the “tongue of the Unseen” (Arabic lisan al-ghayb). He leads the Fremen in a campaign to overthrow the Harkonnens, and to subordinate the emperor himself.

I first read the book, I think, in 1967 when I was an army brat on a base in Africa. It had won a Hugo award the year before. Like many adolescents of my era, I found the story mesmerizing. We all wanted to be Paul Atreides; Denis Villeneuve, 15 years my junior, admits that the same was true for him. I didn’t understand then that Paul Atreides is an anti-hero, who becomes a monster to fight monsters.

Herbert was deeply influenced by T. E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom, in which a minor British intelligence official and amateur archeologist depicted himself as the true leader of the Arab Revolt during WW I, in which the Hashemite leaders of Mecca rebelled against the Ottoman Empire. In return for their opening of an internal front against the Ottomans in alliance with Britain, London promised the Hashemites an Arab kingdom that would have encompassed what are now Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel-Palestine, Syria and Iraq (the British may have excluded Christians in Mt. Lebanon from the deal). The sons of Sharif Hussain, Faisal and Abdullah, were of course the actual leaders of the revolt, and were joined by many other Arab chieftain, officers and intellectuals. The predecessors of MI6 and James Bond were embedded with them, but weren’t all that consequential. After the war, the British roundly screwed over their Arab allies, giving Palestine to the Zionists, greater Syria to the French, and colonized Iraq themselves. The British government (both major parties) are still dedicated to screwing over the Palestinians.

Herbert was also inspired by Lesley Blanch’s The Sabres of Paradise (1960), which recounted the story of the rebellion by Caucasus Muslims against the Russian Empire after it conquered them in the nineteenth century. They were led by Shāmil of Daghestan, a Sufi.

Haris Durrani wonders why Herbert, a Republican, was so open to multi-culturalism and psychedelics, but this bewilderment is anachronistic. Herbert was a fierce environmentalist, as many Republicans were in the 1960s and 1970s. Nixon passed the Clean Air and Water acts. Herbert had Libertarian tendencies, like Libertarian science fiction writer Robert Heinlein, who was also very interested in drugs for expanded consciousness. And Herbert hated bureaucracy and big government.

Here’s the thing. In the Cold War era, for Libertarians the ultimate symbol of big government was the Soviet Union. And in that era, conservatives saw Muslims as allies against international Communism. The Eisenhower administration was afraid Muslims would secularize and go Communist, so it actually appropriated funds to encourage pilgrimage to Mecca by improving rail links to the holy city.

Much later, Ronald Reagan (whom Herbert admired) allied with the Afghan Mujahidin, about half of whom were fundamentalists, against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

So Herbert’s symbolic deployment of Muslim Bedouins against the iron law of bureaucracy and Big Government (with the Soviets as the biggest of big governments) was actually entirely in character.

The wrinkle is that Herbert was at the same time very nervous about such alliances with religious groups against the Soviet Union, because he feared their irrational tendencies and their coercive power. One of the strengths of Dune is that there are not really any heroes. There are just bad choices. Shaddam IV tried to centralize power and reduce the power of the nobles, destroying Leto Atreides for his despotism. Paul Muad’Dhib Atreides could only fight back by enlisting the Fremen. But in so doing he distorted the Fremen ethic of a kind of humanist egalitarianism, turning them into fanatical zealots and unleashing interplanetary war. People who see the story as fascist don’t understand that it isn’t an endorsement of either of these two extremes but a critique of them, a sigh of despair by someone who believes in liberty and the individual and fears the arc of reality is going in bureaucratic and authoritarian directions instead. I have argued that it is a Libertarian critique of the 1950s, not a celebration of dictatorship.

Herbert clearly admired much in Islam and its history and culture. It was, in specific, Mahdist movements that aroused his simultaneous fascination and distrust. In this regard, Herbert’s Orientalism is distasteful, since of course many Muslims have waged political campaigns for liberty without surrendering to those impulses. Algerians freed themselves from France without becoming Mahdists, and their revolution looks like a lot of other decolonial movements of the 1950s and 1960s, whether in Indonesia or largely Christian Kenya.

Ironically, the biggest force for a messianic fanaticism in today’s world is the US Republican Party, so it turns out that the contemporary face of the Fremen fundamentalists is Donald John Trump. Herbert would have been a never-Trumper. One only hopes that our American fanatics don’t pull us into their holy wars.

An effective criticism of social and political woes by public intellectuals might get the attention of some segments of the public, especially those who might be labeled “politically aware”—individuals who regularly follow the news and crises of the day. But there is more to being a public intellectual than becoming a gadfly gnawing on the pestiferous hide of the establishment. Eloquently depicting misdirection, mismanagement, and overweening ambitions among the political class can be motivating but often prove insufficient. Worse yet, it could become a self-defeating enterprise when these criticisms lead to public despair and political alienation. It is akin to the proverbial heralding that “the emperor has no clothes,” with the added twist that no tailor can sew one either. When others pile on, we get closer to a political black hole.

Churning out critical essays and commentaries should not be the end but an inducement to search for remedies. What utility do such analyses offer if their message only intimates a rotten and entrenched status quo immune to change and improvements?

Channel 4 New Video: “Hannah Ritchie on replacing eco-anxiety with ‘cautious optimism’ & how to build a sustainable world”

The public intellectual must go beyond criticism of the unsatisfactory status quo and policies by inspiring a sense of optimism in the public’s mind about change and reform and suggesting how they might be achieved. How can this be done responsibly?

Paul Romer, a Nobel laureate in Economics (2018), distinguishes complacent optimism from contingent optimism (he calls it  “conditional optimism”; I prefer contingent optimism to  accentuate the difference with complacent optimism) by giving an example of each: “Complacent optimism is the feeling of a child waiting for presents. “Contingent optimism “ is the feeling of a child who is thinking about building a treehouse. ‘If I get some wood and nails and persuade some other kids to help do the work, we can end up with something really cool.” In the first case (complacent optimism), the child is passive, awaiting a present with earnest expectation. In the second case (contingent optimism), the child lays out a plan to make her wish a reality. The optimism of the first child is wholly dependent on the largesse of others; she makes herself the object of her expectations. The optimism of the second child is born of her agency to identify and secure the resources she needs to build her treehouse.

Contingent optimism begins by taking stock of the challenge. Once the problem is defined, you search for credible solutions to change the situation in the desired direction. In other words, contingent optimism makes the reason for developing an optimistic outlook contingent on working out a strategy of change that makes it likely to achieve the outcomes one seeks. It is the careful mapping out of a plan that justifies feeling optimistic about change. That optimism is contingent on having correctly defined the problem and potential solutions.

We should expect contingent optimism from public intellectuals, not despair. They are uniquely equipped and positioned to critically analyze our societal ills and propose remedies that can change the system to better serve the common good. The same goes for the rest of us. Deluding ourselves with passive hope is the essence of complacent optimism. Planning how to achieve our wishes justifies optimism—contingently, of course!

The current Israel-Hamas war has dominated the news for the past few months. As reports of military machinations and diplomatic efforts have gained attention, the art world has struggled with responses to the horrors of this war.

For example, controversy and calls for transparency and accountability followed the departure of Anishinaabe-kwe curator Wanda Nanibush from the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO). The departure was apparently related to her expressed opinions on the war.

After the Royal Ontario Museum tried to change a Palestinian American artist’s work, Jenin Yaseen staged a sit-in and others protested.

I have been teaching and writing about the “art world” — what sociologist Howard Becker calls the network of artists, art institutions, funders, patrons and audiences — for years, and researching how artists navigate their thorny relationship with contentious political moments.

Policies and regulations can serve artists, but can also engender a lack of trust and create administrative burdens that impact the healthy functioning of artists and organizations.

Endeavouring to speak truthfully, meaningfully

The Globe and Mail reported some Canadians “active in a support group of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem” expressed concern to the AGO, and that one signatory to a letter said the letter didn’t call for Nanibush’s departure but rather for “antisemitism training and for the AGO to make use of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of antisemitism.”

If the gallery did try to silence Nanibush, critics have reason to be concerned about how they reacted as the curator and others in the art world endeavoured to speak truthfully and meaningfully in a time of crisis.

In a statement, the AGO’s director and CEO Stephan Jost expressed the gallery’s support for Indigenous artists and a need to “reflect on our commitments to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report …”

Refugees in their Own Homeland, by Mohammad ElMetmari; Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License

He acknowledged cultural institutions are “being asked to better define the rights and limits of political and artistic expression in a locally diverse but globally complex environment” and that “intense discussion” also raises questions about good governance.

Rights, limits, regulation and the purpose of artists’ work are what is at stake in this discussion. An investigation is underway to see how the gallery’s policies may have impacted the board’s decision-making.

People trying to create and speak truth

How people assess the value of policies and regulation affecting the art world depends on how much they feel the art world should, or should not, reflect political realities.

Some might suggest that artists should entertain and enlighten us but stay away from contentious issues.

I believe artists have a unique role, different than that of journalists, political leaders or even documentary filmmakers. Beyond parsing the facts of a situation or deliberating and brokering political solutions, artists work to bring human richness and complexity to experiences like conflict and strife.

Art and our lives

Thinking about “art worlds” as “patterns of collective activity,” as Becker does, helps us to think about art in relationship to our social and political lives, and the conditions under which artists create.

Art schools, professional organizations, galleries and performance spaces all play a part in enabling some artists and their messages to shine, whether through financial support, attention or time — while constraining or even silencing others.

Museum and gallery spaces, frequently dependent on government and philanthropic funding, curate and elevate certain artworks and in so doing mediate relationships and foster cultural dialogue between governments and pluralistic communities of citizens. At the same time, they prescribe behaviours and actions that constrain both artists and the public perception of their work.

In this way, the support systems around artistic work have political implications, just as much as the art itself may have.

Discipline via funding

As I examined in my doctoral research, the Summerworks Theatre Festival briefly lost funding from Canadian Heritage in 2011 after staging playwright Catherine Frid’s controversial play Homegrown.

The play critiqued the reach of the Anti-Terrorism Act and the use of solitary confinement as it examined the story of one man convicted of participating in a terrorist group. This was after a high-profile 2006 RCMP investigation saw 18 Muslim individuals accused of terrorism. (Charges against seven people were stayed or dropped, while four people were convicted). Some accused the play of being pro-terrorist.

Artists responded to this institutional censure by staging readings of the play to support the festival.

The art world will find pathways to speak its own truth in the face of such pressures.

For instance, as the Globe and Mail reported, the Belfry Theatre in Victoria made a recent decision to cancel its run of the Israel-set play The Runner. But Vancouver’s PuSh Festival is sticking by plans to run the play as a part of its program along with other works, including the immersive installation Dear Laila that depicts a model of one artist’s former home in the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp.

When political pressure closes one door, the art world will often seek to open another, though we have yet to see how this might play out in the case of the AGO and Nanibush.

What do we want from our artists?

In the face of numerous wars, the climate emergency, housing and food insecurity, this is a challenging time. People around the world face what some scholars and activists have called a “polycrisis.”

Artists represent and reflect this social and political upheaval. Banksy scrawls murals on the blasted Ukrainian cityscape. Theatres across the world stage performances or screenings — like The Gaza Monologues — to try to represent Palestinian voices.

Especially in a time when trust in our political leaders and institutions continues to wane, artists, arts leaders and policymakers face daunting but critical questions about making ethically sound decisions.

If the public trusts the art world to do their work with rigour and honesty, artists and arts institutions can be a community of voices expressing diverse perspectives on our collective humanity, reflecting suffering and the power of resistance to violence in this polarizing conflict.

We must critically assess the value of the arts and of artists to perform this important work. And we should be mindful of desires to discipline the art world at a time when its voices are so deeply needed.

Lowell Gasoi, Instructor in communication studies at Carleton University and the University of Ottawa, Carleton University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.