Witnessing

On feeling our way

At the weekend I took my toddler to see Banu Cennetoğlu’s right? at Void Gallery Derry, and it was one of the most affecting exhibitions I’ve ever witnessed, and I use this word as it really felt like an act of witnessing.

In an interview in the Guardian, the artist spoke of her work around ‘the List’ — a catalogue, made by volunteers, of those who had died in their attempt to make a new life in Europe—

‘[the List’s] power, she believes, is actually really in the way that it forces the reader to confront the fact that each of these deaths is singular. And that perhaps one’s own personal choices might be implicated in the complicated web of politics that causes these individual tragedies.’

Banu Cennetoğlu’s right? (2022 – ) presents the articles of the UDHR in bouquets of gold letter balloons. As the bouquets deflate during the run of the show, they will leave viewers to question whether any rights can remain without the labour of protecting, extending, and upholding them. It closes today , 1 November 2023 so get into it if you are able.

What do human rights look like in a world that chooses to uphold the vehicles of war, the economies of brutality, the politics of violence? In a world that makes, instead of ecologies of care, economies of inhumanity?

I encountered this small publication — THE ORPHEUS DOUBLE BIND— as Banu has it there for reference and I’ve never read anything more pertinent in any given moment in time than me reading this on Saturday.

‘Can literature be the echo in this world of those who have lost their voice? Terrible things have been done to human beings with words; they have been duped with words, threatened with words, oppressed with words. How can I now tell a story with these same words?’

So much to hold here as we navigate this landscape as writers but one thing that I have never known more deeply than right now is that words hold power.

It’s our task right now to make sure those words create lasting, fair, humane change.

The veil between realities was at its thinnest last night and into today, and I firmly believe our ancestors are guiding us this year in ways we are being called on to fully give our attention to.

I will not stand by and watch the thing I love so much — language — be twisted into a thing of darkness when at its core it is a thing of truth.

We all know in our core that what we are being told about this horror is simply untrue.

The survivors of every genocide we have known speak over and over about the need for a language that allows their humanity to be the central, the only, story.

Enough already.

CEASEFIRE NOW.

Link for Trocaire petition is here and takes 30 seconds.

At this point I need to share with you all that this is a conscious decision that I have made with my work, with what I see my role as writer to be in emergency. I have lost many subscribers and followers across my sites since the violence in Gaza reached the horrific, criminal stage it did a few weeks ago. I have sat with this, with the question around how to navigate it all as a person with a (small) following but a following nonetheless. And I guess the question for me is really about care. How do I show care here? What does care look like during genocide? And during the antisemitism and anti Arabism that is in the rise? How does this all sit with the inhumane policies we’ve allowed to continue for those seeking safety and asylum for decades ? What about for the ecosystems we are all part of, human and other than?

And there are no answers for me, only questions.

The main one : how could I ever inhabit this body and mind and heart and soul of mine without being true?

Without speaking truth; as a human; mammal; mother; lover; daughter; friend; writer?

I’ve made this post free as I want anyone who might be considering a paid subscription to have a clear and truthful summary of what this space looks like and will reflect on.

So, yes there will be book reviews and I will share random musings on light and creativity and moths and more as always but please know that if you are here, I value you so much.

I value you as a reader of my words, as a human, as a member of a race navigating emergency.

And my valuing of the children, mothers, fathers, and elders of Gaza and Israel means that my voice will not be the voice of any middle ground.

I cannot be silent about any of this much as I cannot be silent about the loss of the Irish language, or what we are putting women through by not supporting them, or the pain we inflict on the living world and therefore ourselves when we view them as separate from us.

I hope you understand that these times call us towards truth, and tenderness, and togetherness and for me as a writer that has never felt more pertinent.

This space is a safe one and I need to share with you that I will be speaking from a place of truth that I hope might help me as I feel my way in this darkness; towards togetherness and tenderness.

You are me.

I am you.

WE is the only choice.