protest touches - 27.09.2024
Curiosity - at a Palestine / Lebanon protest, me and my partner had two encounters that sparked an interesting confluence. One was with a friend of my partners, she’d just had a long term break up and we had a long chat about the difficulties of transitional time. How everything can feel so in flux and flimsy in those moments. We said this having both had break ups from 7 year relationships prior to finding each other. It felt healing.
The other came at a curious moment. After having read June Jordans - Apologies To All The People In Lebanon together, we took a moment to contemplate and cry. Musing over the age of the poem, how long this has all gone on for and how overwhelmingly cruel the events of the past week have been, alongside the consideration that I guess this past week was just a slight uptick in what had already been a cruel century, post the Balfour declaration of 1917 and all that it has since wrought.
After a while we kissed deeply, embracing both the shared sadness of it and the love in finding someone to share the sadness of it with, who aligns with the need to act instead of just sitting in passivity by the wayside. Not a moment after, a man approached us. He seemed sad somewhat, lost and disheartened. Carrying a handwritten placard with slogan about Lebanon, he began asking us how long we’d been coming to the protests. Then he asked if we’d been chanting ceasefire all that time, before stopping and asking what its changed, what good the chants and calls for an end to this genocide has really done. We spoke to him for a bit, about the need for hope, the need to say these things and not just believe but know they will come true if you keep acting and keep speaking them into existence.
Eventually he left, but as we dispersed from the protest to get some food before heading home, we were both struck with the why. Why approach us, why ask us, why out of everyone there, us? And so soon after we had kissed. I think there can be many interpretations but I wish to pick at one for the moment. Maybe the one I had also given him for the need for hope. The need for symbols and gestures of love and resistance in the world, even during hard times. The need for representations of the vulnerability and hope that comes with love, even when standing at the opposition of cruel and oppressive regimes. Even while being told if we don’t disperse by 8pm we could be arrested.
This feels grandiose and indulgent to say about my own intimate relationship, but maybe that makes it more important to admit to feeling. A relationship thats also re-built my own notions of hope in the world at large. One that has made me feel strong enough and brave enough to risk arrest, go to the dicer protests and actions, that I previously only had the courage to do due to disregard for my own well being and safety. Now I feel brave enough to thread the needle of both opposition but also the fear that comes with it. That if it feels too much I can clutch her hand tight and feel the warmth of that shared courage we carry between us.
Maybe thats what the man saw when he asked us why we have hope. Because seeing the potential of something in someone else can give permission for you to freely pursue it yourself. Its maybe a bit of a fantasy but one that feels more harmful to doubt then to keep close. Maybe its important to express your love loudly, instead of it feeling like an imposition maybe it can feel like a permission.