On Thick Solidarity...
On Thick Solidarity...
“I learned the moral value of political solidarity and what it means to express that solidarity not only as a minority position within a larger progressive community but also through a deep identification with those who have been designated as enemies. Solidarity is never entirely straightforward, but in this situation, it requires us to reach beyond simplistic explanations that attribute positions of moral rectitude to one side and utter depravity to the other.”
Angela Davis, Standing With Palestinians - Hammer & Hope, No. 3, Spring 2024
As we read this month’s book selection, A Day in the Life of Abed Salama, we are witnessing what may be a turning point in Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza. The murder of seven aid workers from World Central Kitchen by the Israeli Occupation Forces on April 1st has shifted both a perception about this assault and a previously unwavering support of Israel, particularly among the presidential administration, in a way that prior murders of innocent civilians had not even slightly penetrated. To be clear, the assault on these aid workers was horrific - Israeli forces directly targeted and bombed a vehicle clearly marked with the World Central Kitchen logo as it traveled along a stretch of road to deliver aid. Survivors of this attack fled this vehicle and entered a second vehicle following closely behind. Two minutes later, IOF soldiers launched a strike on the second vehicle. Again, survivors ran from this vehicle and entered the third and final car in the caravan. After another two minutes passed and the vehicle had traveled a half mile further, Israel fired another bomb killing all remaining workers. The precision and intentionality behind these strikes clearly show this was not an accident. Since then, global outrage has continued to grow and we have begun to see the signs of what might be a shifting response from the Biden administration.
Just weeks earlier, video captured Israeli forces bombing and killing four Palestinian men peacefully walking along a beach, unaware of the strike about to target them. Two of the men who survived this initial assault ran from the blast, only to be targeted further and bombed again until they were obliterated. While this attack was accompanied by some outrage in certain circles, it elicited nowhere near the condemnation we are seeing now and nothing from the Biden administration or others in positions of power. Further, it’s important to note that prior to April 1, hundreds of civilian aid workers had been targeted and killed by Israeli forces, yet these killings received virtually no attention at all.
What explains the difference over the outrage we are seeing today? The outrage can not be based on the fact that the WCK workers were aid workers, selflessly putting themselves in harms way to deliver needed aid to those most in need, as this also describes the hundreds of aid workers that were murdered by Israel before them. Is the difference that the WCK workers were white, while the hundreds of aid workers killed before them were largely Palestinian? Is the difference that the WCK workers were citizens of the United States, Canada, the UK, and other countries with which we may more closely identify? And is this simply further evidence of the racism and xenophobia that shape our culture and our views, constantly working to define those who may be dissimilar to us in myriad ways as the “other”?
As the horrors of the last six months have unfolded, we have seen this to clearly be the case when it comes to Joe Biden’s understanding of the assault on Gaza and the views that inform his response. In multiple interviews, Biden has boasted about being a Zionist, and just last week at a fundraiser, he stated, “We must get more food, medicine and supplies for the Palestinians, but we cannot forget that Israel is in a situation where its very existence is at stake.” This quote makes clear that to Joe Biden, it is Israel that is experiencing the greatest threat to its existence, not the country where an active genocide is happening. To Joe Biden, the Palestinians just need some food and supplies. This was clarified further last week, in an interview with former state department official Aaron David Miller, who when pressed on Biden’s disparate views on Palestinians in comparison to Israelis said,
“Oh, if you’re asking me: Do I think that Joe Biden has the same depth of feeling and empathy for the Palestinians of Gaza as he does for the Israelis? No, he doesn’t, nor does he convey it. I don’t think there’s any doubt about that.”
This month, as we read A Day in the Life of Abed Salama, we’re also reading selections from Hammer & Hope’s Spring 2024 issue dedicated entirely to Palestinian liberation, beginning with Angela Davis’s brilliant essay, “Standing with Palestinians.” As I read this essay on solidarity, I was reminded of Marc Lamont Hill’s recent interview with Angela Davis in which she was asked what she would say to people who say things like “my life is nothing like the life of a Palestinian, my life is not impacted by this, why should I care about this?” She replied,
“Those who assume that they live in a very small insulated space in the world are just not recognizing conditions as they are today. We do not live in silos, we do not have our little bubbles in which we get to choose what affects us as individuals.”
Indeed, we are all affected by the ever-growing reach of global capitalism and the policies of the United States that work to maintain this. We are all affected by the oppression and terror inflicted on others in support of these policies, regardless of the country in where they reside, and we are all affected by the limits placed on freedom in the service of global imperialism and the racial capitalist agenda upon which it depends.
When I think about the type of solidarity that Angela Davis discusses in this essay - the solidarity that Joe Biden and many others lack - I think about the notion of “Thick Solidarity” as conceptualized by the brilliant scholars Roseann Liu and Savannah Shange. In their 2018 article, “Toward Thick Solidarity: Theorizing Empathy in Social Justice Movements,” Liu and Shange define thick solidarity as “a kind of solidarity that mobilizes empathy in ways that do not gloss over difference, but rather pushes into the specificity, irreducibility, and incommensurability of racialized experiences. Thick solidarity is based on a radical belief in the inherent value of each other’s lives despite never being able to fully understand or fully share in the experience of those lives.”
This is the solidarity that I strive for myself and I hope for in everyone else. We do not have to personally identify with a population of suffering people to know that their suffering is wrong and we must do everything in our power to bring that suffering to an end. We do not need to share an identity, a race, a gender, or a country with those in need to know that their needs must rise above those with whom we might share identities when the needs of those who differ from us vastly outweigh the needs of those who are similar. This is the solidarity that Nelson Mandela expressed in 1997, following the end of his 27-year imprisonment by an apartheid state, saying "We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians." This is the solidarity Angela Davis has spoken of often, stating recently, “Those of us who call ourselves scholar activists, I can’t imagine not calling for justice for Palestine, I can’t imagine the whole agenda for social justice in the world not including Palestine.” And this is the solidarity that is needed today.
I shared recently my belief that it will never be too late to speak out against the genocide continuing in Gaza. Over the last six months there has been enormous pressure to remain silent. But perhaps you’ve reached a point where silence is no longer an option for you. Perhaps you simply haven’t yet had the time or mental space to fully understand the depth of destruction and suffering being inflicted on Palestinians. Or perhaps it was the story of the murdered World Central Kitchen workers that made you pause and begin to think differently about the events unfolding in Gaza and the complicity of the Israeli and United States governments in their murders. If it was this story, I and many others are grateful. But it’s also important to know that it doesn’t matter. How, why, or when you came to understand the genocide occurring in Gaza is not important. It is only important that you understand this now and that you speak out against it. You will not be shamed for not speaking out earlier. You will not be questioned for choosing to speak out now. You will only be welcomed. Your voice will be valued and your voice will be respected.
And when the chorus of our voices rises together, we will be heard.
I hope you’ll join us for our discussion of A Day in the Life of Abed Salama and the Hammer & Hope articles we’re also reading throughout this month. We’ll meet in our virtual space on Tuesday, April 30th, from 6:00 - 7:00 PM Eastern. connease and I are both looking forward to sharing this space with you. Register here and we’ll see you soon:
Alan & connease