‘What Do We Do During Genocide’: A Poem by Mohja Kahf
Mohja Kahf writes from Arkansas, USA. The image is by Hesham, of a kitchen into which he’d moved only seven months before.
What Do We Do During Genocide
By Mohja Kahf
What do we do on the eve of massacre as a grim silence falls in Gaza living in the empire itself what do we do after we have sent love and thoughts and wishes and prayers and love what do we do?
Do we freeze stunned in our anguish do we shrink into the beds we have in the empire itself do we binge-watch streaming series? Do we wash the dishes love harder love softer make more coffee in the empire’s kitchen unable to sleep do we eat unable to swallow in the empire itself? What do we do with our elbows, our minute-hands ticking slower and slower?
What do we do as the massacre begins the sickening thud thudding receiving text after text of the cousin after cousin we knew from toddlers killed and killed and killed during a genocide living in the empire funding the genocide what do we do with our wrists?
Do we do laundry do we water our heart-shaped philodendron plants breathe in breathe out during a genocide? What do we do with our loaves of bread with our tax returns what do we do with our skin?
On a flesh-burning night in Gaza as Israeli forces pinch whole families out of existence as the current state of Israel shells hospitals shells churches assassinates journalists shells schools shells bakeries during the dither-dance of did-Israel-bomb-the-hospital/did-it-not living in the empire itself funding the genocide what do we do?
Do we explain to our neighbors over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over that Palestinians are humans, beg our coworkers to imagine that Palestinians are humans being human that solidarity with Palestinians is not eliminationism that queer Palestinians are also killed by the current state of Israel that Palestinians free from the river to the sea is not eliminationism that equal human rights for human beings does not equal eliminationism that the right of return is not eliminationism that to call dissent against the current state of Israel anti-Semitic IS anti-Semitic that calling Gaza a concentration camp is what anyBODY who died in a Holocaust concentration camp would most want us to do because Never Again is for everyBODY?
Living in the empire itself during a genocide what do we do? Do we time travel visit the few humans left on a hot earth in their earthen bunkers at the end of our planet’s timeline tell them how we failed how violence can never bring real liberation how shooting up a rave cannot bring liberation how taking hostages cannot liberate how neither can genocide bring peace neither can apartheid bring peace? living at the end of our planet’s timeline they know we failed
During genocide we dissent Nonviolently we dissent During a massacre we dissent
During a population transfer we dissent During a forced displacement we dissent During colonialism we dissent During racism we dissent During Holocaust we dissent During internment we dissent During Occupation we dissent During war we dissent
During Apartheid we dissent we BOYCOTT we dissent we DIVEST we dissent we SANCTION we dissent Because we are human and Palestinians are human and Israelis are human we dissent We LOVE we dissent We LOVE we dissent We LOVE we dissent
Living in the empire itself nonviolently lovingly every way we know how we dissent we vote we dissent we march again we sign again with our tapping fingers we dissent with our online apps we dissent with our rattling lungs with our taxes with our wallets with our feet we dissent we dissent we dissent we dissent we DISSENT WE DISSENT WE DISSENT WE DISSENT WE DISSENT WE
Also read: What I Need to Tell My Neighbors in Arkansas: A Poem by Mohja Kahf
Mohja Kahf is Syrian. One Arab is not interchangeable with another, so if you daily read a poem by a Palestinian—and you should—you must still find a Palestinian poet to read, such as Mosab Abu Toha, Lisa Suhair Majaj, George Abraham, Summer Farah. Mohja Kahf has published a novel and three books of poetry, the latest being My Lover Feeds Me Grapefruit. Some of her writing is available in Urdu, Portuguese, Turkish, Japanese, Italian, German, and French translations. She is a founding member of the Radius of Arab American Writers and winner of a Pushcart Prize. Kahf has been a professor of comparative literature and Middle Eastern studies at the University of Arkansas since 1995.