In psychology, there is a phenomenon we refer to as “psychic numbing.” It occurs during times of staggering catastrophe, when it seems however we try, we cannot prevent a tragedy. Indifference and defeat set in. Systems of oppression rely enormously upon this kind of detachment, banking on the burnout of dissenters.
The utter devastation of Gaza — and the impunity of its assailants — is a strong example of psychic numbing: six months in and 35,000 slaughtered. Nearly half of them children. Neighborhoods flattened, aid trucks blocked, mass graves unearthed. This comes even after huge numbers of Americans have made calls to U.S. representatives, participated in protests and organized actions and teach-ins. Now the 1.4 million people sheltering in Rafah face an imminent ground invasion, which President Biden deemed back in March a “red line.”
As a Palestinian American, I believe it is the very relentlessness of the violence that makes the act of witnessing, of not turning away, its own kind of dissent. The unprecedented mass demonstrations across the U.S. in recent weeks are a sign of growing support for Palestinians, not to mention an antidote to psychic numbing.
Yet in the wake of more than 2,000 people arrested in the campus protests, many journalists, talking heads and campus administrators seem to treat the why of it — what would possess tens of thousands of students around the country to risk expulsion and doxxing and violent arrest? — as an afterthought. Perhaps the question we should be asking is why those meant to model accountability and moral compassing for young people have remained silent or equivocating or carefully picking at language in the face of documented atrocities. The students and activists fighting for the equality of Palestinians are saying, plainly: We’ve found our red line. Where’s yours?
One of the most poignant moments of these horrific months has been watching Palestinians say, I will not leave here. Many were then killed in the homes they refused to leave — while others were killed in the “safe zones” they evacuated to. The encampments we’ve seen erected on campuses interact with this phenomenon: Protesters enter a space and say, We will not leave here. They say, We will not leave here because elsewhere people are cleared out of homes and hospitals and universities in dismembered parts, and mothers recognize their dead children from the inked names on their forearms. A photograph of one encampment shows tents markered with the words “FOR GAZA. FOR HIND” in honor of 6-year-old Hind Rajab, who was killed in Gaza. Another image is of a sign with a simple, nonnegotiable sentence: “There are no universities left in Gaza.”
The first act of protest is often an interior one — where we put our attention, how we examine or question our ideas and value systems. From individuals to institutions, this moment has put a magnifying glass on concepts — and acts — of consistency. Where are our ideas of freedom tested? What are the limits of our value systems, our politicians’ allegiance to constituents, our international law? Who do we believe deserves to be called a child, to be given water, to be granted safety?
The “Palestinian exception” has for decades presented a quandary for “good” and “liberal” people: how to grapple with a movement that is asking for equal treatment within a larger system that is built on tenets of exclusion and superiority. At its core, the movement for liberating Palestinians isn’t about exceptionalism; it’s an ask for consistency and, nested within that consistency, accountability.
Accountability is the bedrock of any worthwhile social order. For instance, the contravention of international law — the reported targeting of hospitals and journalists, engaging in collective punishment — is a breach that shouldn’t just alarm Palestinians, but every entity and individual that seeks to live under some sort of world order. If one believes in what they’re defending, in the righteousness and legitimacy of an idea or system, then there should be no hesitation in having it appraised. To hold one another to account — in political systems, relationships, educational institutions — is a gift: It implies an imagined future of corrected behavior, interrupted harm. It is the belief in change, in renewal, in remediation.
There is a curious phenomenon of asking Palestinians what they denounce before asking what they stand for. But the first is answered by the second: My commitment is to the truth, to being answerable to the ways I enact or interact with harm. My commitment is to movements that are rooted in good faith, rooted in interconnectedness, rooted in genuine belief that the only liberation worth its salt is a collective one.
“True resistance begins with people confronting pain,” bell hooks wrote, “and wanting to do something to change it.” The people in Gaza are currently being starved and bombed. They don’t have access to the spaces that so many of those protesting, writing or speaking out do. Across collapsed buildings in Gaza, survivors have written the names of beloveds left under the rubble. “If I must die,” wrote the poet Refaat Alareer before he was killed, addressing his since-slain daughter, “you must live/to tell my story.” This directive has crossed oceans. Its fulfillment is in the unwavering solidarity we’re seeing across the world, from rallies and artwork to vigils and encampments.
In this historic moment, people are gathering to demand accountability for alleged war crimes. Eventually, the call to freedom moves us collectively to the core because it rings louder than fear, because safety that comes at the cost of another’s destruction isn’t real safety. And it is our task, each one of us, to ask what we will do with that call, with what we have witnessed. Because we owe it to the future. Because we owe it to the dead. Before being killed in November, Dr. Mahmoud Abu Nujaila scrawled on a hospital whiteboard in Gaza: “We did what we could. Remember us.”
Hala Alyan is a poet, novelist and professor of applied psychology at New York University. Her latest collection is “The Moon That Turns You Back.” @hala.n.alyan
