The Return to Normal
is not possible...
Witnessing the slow mass murder of a population by starvation is beyond belief. Who would have thought that this would happen in our lifetime. Livestreamed genocide with the world looking on, with those in power gleefully looking at innocent men, women and children lose their life in a cruel way. It's like the onlookers in squid game, except that none of the people being anihilated chose to be in this 'game'. In the end, the cash goes to the Israeli companies, and the non western leaders take their thirty pieces of silver for betraying humanity.
Nothing makes sense anymore, the cruelty, the spectacle, the horrors. Yet there's nothing new, that's the way the world has always been without the cameras rolling, without the screams. Those who die, die in silence and we are all happy to take the scraps falling off the masters' tables.
How can there be a return to a 'normal', is what I ask myself. But the sad part about this question is that I know the answer. By time, by defeat, by fear, by helplessness we will try and forget and pretend that it wasn't as bad as we remember, that it was an exceptional time. But it's not exceptional in any way except in clarity. It's exceptionally clear.
I will not forget, I know I will not forget, but the question is how can I return to the fake life we will be presented with after this genocide, knowing full well that all atonement is fake and performative and that the world will always be haunted by the dead men, women and children of Gaza.