protest as poetry
reflections on saturday's I-5 shutdown in seattle
community catharsis
This weekend, leaning against the rails of an I-5 overpass, a multitude of protestors occupying the interstate below, a guttural bellow rose from my lungs in unison with hundreds of other protestors in shared catharsis. In the melodious uproar of our shouts and cries for a free Palestine, I was reminded of one of the greatest reasons we gather in organized disruption like this. It’s something my partner and I refer to as the human element.
In his higher ed international law courses, my partner was taught that “on an individual level, attending protests is insignificant”. A lofty claim. See, what two-dimensional textbook metrics fail to account for is the spirit of protest; the palpable union of hundreds (sometimes thousands) of folks gathered in one place, motivated by the vastness of their grief, willing to disrupt in the name of liberation. I can think of few things more significant to an individual than the shared witnessing of such grief. A textbook could never adequately capture this feeling; indeed, it should be left to the poets.
For three months now, I have swallowed the screams lodged in my chest. I have driven to work, clocked in, and pretended to care. I have done laundry, visited family, and taken my dog on walks with the gurgling of my rage souring my esophagus. Every day I have settled into my bed with my good christian upbringing, a cup of tea, and my view of a city unburdened by white phosphorus. I have been unknowingly searching for the very release I found when screaming alongside other rage-filled humans. In the shouts of the collective, I tasted the communion our late teacher bell hooks spoke of .
“…rarely, if ever, are any of us healed in isolation. Healing is an act of communion.”
-bell hooks, all about love
embodied mourning
The organizers of Saturday’s action (a resounding thank you to Samidoun Seattle, Falastiniyat, and SUPER UW, all of whom you can find on instagram) posted a request on their instagram ahead of the protest calling for “community assistance in making pretend ‘bodies’ wrapped in white sheets…to present a shock factor and draw further attention to the atrocities being committed by the genocidal force”. So, as I sipped my morning coffee, I gathered clothes from my donation pile, an old pillowcase, and some red cord.
An onlooker would have known that the shroud before me consisted merely of some old fabric. The saltwater that gushed from my eyes, the involuntary contraction of my muscles as I gripped the body to my chest might’ve given them second thoughts. As I shrouded this "fake body” the size of a toddler, I was drawn into the grief of every mother, sister and friend in Gaza who is forced by the vile arm of I*raeli occupation and settler colonialism to wrap a slaughtered loved one in burial garments (if they’re lucky enough to identify their loved ones’ body, that is).
I am a sister. I am a daughter. I am a friend. I have intimately known the weight of loss. And I have shrouded dead bodies. Nothing could ever prepare me to shroud my siblings. It is here, to the heartfelt and nausea-inducing intersection of affection and gruesome loss that this child-sized burial shroud transported me. I do not take for granted the privilege I had of retreating into the knowing that the shroud before me was not truly a deceased child. My grief knows how many mothers, sisters, and cousins do not have that privilege.
Walking down the street carrying a prop of a dead child will stir something in you. I swear it. If you are struggling to get in touch with the kind of grief that moves you, let this be an offering to practice shrouding your own donation pile. Dare to ask grief what she has to teach you. Do it scared—it’s human to fear what you do not know. But do not let fear stop you from experiencing the depths of transformation available to you here, beloved. For grief’s most loyal companion is love.
what our art says
I have been reminded repeatedly during this ongoing genocide that art is resistance. Why else do you think I*rael targets artists, writers, poets, and journalists? Art threatens colonialism because it connects us both to ourselves and to each other. Art is proof of our livelihood, of our kinship, of our humanity. When we make art, we refuse the paradigms that seek to separate and silence us. When we create, we look the beast of oppression in the eye and say you can kill me, but you cannot quiet the spirit within me. Palestinian artists are reminding us of the immense and revitalizing power our creativity holds. I believe it is this very creativity that will free us, that will birth for our descendants a different world.
The artists showed up at last Saturday’s protest. Pro-Palestine graphic designers pasted stunning fliers on telephone poles. Painters carried with them invigorating iterations of scenes from Gaza. Someone sat on the curb, knitting gloves with the Palestinian flag on them, while organizers hollered lyrical chants. It is these artists’ vulnerability and commitment to shedding light on suffering that has encouraged me to write what you are reading today.
Creativity has allowed me the gift of believing in the future I imagine. A future where we listen to indigenous folks, where we live in mutual relationship with each other and with the land, where bombing families and killing en masse is never a possibility, much less a reality. I keep returning to this image of a Palestinian woman tending to a garden, using tear gas canisters from the protests her son was killed in. The only thing that could take such grief and turn it into something as painfully beautiful is a love so great it glows in every cell and fiber of her being. May we all emulate her creativity and spirit in our communities, tending to the metaphorical gardens of our lives, transmuting pain into care and fear into connection.
the earth and protest
About five hours into protesting, the almost prophetic hail began to fall. Rain ponchos were passed around and strangers huddled together under umbrellas. We would not leave as long as our comrades occupied the highway beneath us. I was kindly invited to shelter underneath a tarp with a group of folks as the storm rolled in. As if our prayers had taken to the sky, a strike of lightning flashed and a resounding burst of thunder roared. Shivering under an eight foot tarp, I held my hand to my heart and inhaled. Even the elements cried out for liberation.
While reflecting on the gathering of community in protest, I was reminded of something renowned mycologist, Paul Stamets, recently said on TikTok.
“For millenia, when people come together as a community and have celebrations such as births, weddings, planting crops, fall harvesting, the vibrations from the gathering of a community—playing drums, music, the congregation, singing, the dancing—all reverberate through the ground, initiating fungal activity in the surrounding ecosystem.”
I can’t help but think the mycelium are stimulated by our coming together in protest too. May the reverberation of our marches and the echoes of our shouts produce nourishment not only for each other, but for the soil beneath us.
I am attaching below some Palestinian art that has touched me recently and would love if you’d link more in the comments! Let’s amplify our artists.
The Arsonist’s City by Hala Alyan
“It Takes a Village” acrylic, oil, thread, glass beads, gold leaf on canvas by Dana Barqawi.
Amal Abu Al-Sabah, who paints the rubble of destroyed buildings in Gaza
Artwork by Heba Zaqout, who was recently martyred in Gaza.
via mosab_abutoha on instagram
May you find care and connection today. Thank you for your presence here.
kenzi
Such a beautiful, powerful piece Kenzi. I found my eyes tearing up and sobs choking my throat many times throughout reading this. However, the hope ignited in my heart beats all of that. Thank you for writing and sharing this, and thank you for standing for humanity. 🙏🏽💛
i absolutely support the cause of any innocent peoples who find themselves harmed, ruined and killed by those dripping hate, greed, hunger for power .... i absolutely support expressions of peaceful protest which comes in so many forms. I cannot support shutting down a freeway that is a mainline to medical help. When my dear friend Margarita (a Cuban woman who stood against Castro as a girl in the 1960's, whose family fled to the US, who served as an army nurse on the frontlines outside Saigon, who became a nurse practitioner, grief counselor for children, who mortgaged her house to pay for immigration lawyers for a family of Salvadoran refugees, and fought for gay rights in the Presbyterian Church)...when she was dying an ugly death from multiple myeloma brought on by agent orange, I would drive her to chemo an other appointments from Burien to Group Health on Capital Hill. Except for the morning Sharma Sawant told her followers to shut down I-5. The anxiety and literal pain this caused Margarita that day as we wound around seeking other routes - thank God there was a tiny window of notice - I was furious and so distressed for my friend. One cannot know who is trying to get to help: parents trying to reach Childrens with an asthmatic child? A woman in labor? An aide car carrying a critical emergency? A woman with multiple myeloma experiencing pain and bloody diarrhea? Nope. I will not support guerilla freeway shut downs in a city encumbered with terrain that impedes options.