“It was far-reaching: this much she knew. It had layers and strata, like a landscape.”
“trying to live as best they can in the presence of such enormous, distracting absences”
(Maggie O’Farrell)
Toxic, Jeff Russo · Lisa Hannigan, Fargo Year 5 (Soundtrack from the MGM/ FXP Series)
“Marxism has always claimed that being can determine consciousness precisely to determine being anew.’”
“Consciousness is no longer the mere product of social being but is at once a condition of its practical existence and, further, one of its central productive forces.
Raymond Williams
South Africa’s Justice Minister Ronald Lamola addressed the court at the opening of the hearing.
RONALD LAMOLA: Madam President and distinguished members of the court, it is an honor for me to stand here in front of you on behalf of the Republic of South Africa on this exceptional case. “In extending our hands across the miles to the people of Palestine, we do so in the full knowledge that we are part of a humanity that is at one.” These were the words of our founding president, Nelson Mandela. This is the spirit in which South Africa acceded to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crime of Genocide in 1998. This is the spirit in which we approach this court as a contracting party to the convention. This is a commitment we owe to the people of Palestine and Israelis alike.
As previously mentioned, the violence and the destruction in Palestine and Israel did not begin on the 7th of October, 2023. The Palestinians have experienced systematic oppression and violence for the last 76 years.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: That was South Africa’s Justice Minister Ronald Lamola addressing the court at the opening of the hearing. South Africa lawyer Adila Hassim was next. She began by citing Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza in her opening argument.
ADILA HASSIM: For the past 96 days, Israel has subjected Gaza to what has been described as one of the heaviest conventional bombing campaigns in the history of modern warfare. Palestinians in Gaza are being killed by Israeli weaponry and bombs from air, land and sea. They are also at immediate risk of death by starvation, dehydration and disease as a result of the ongoing siege by Israel, the destruction of Palestinian towns, the insufficient aid being allowed through to the Palestinian population, and the impossibility of distributing this limited aid while bombs fall. This conduct renders essentials to life unobtainable.
Yet as South Africa made clear, self-defence can never justify action that amounts to genocide.
The planet-warming emissions generated during the first two months of the war in Gaza were greater than the annual carbon footprint of more than 20 of the world’s most climate-vulnerable nations, new research reveals. via Guardian. This war will kill us all!!
The day, with all its pain ahead, is yours.
The ceaseless creasing of the mourning sea,
the fluttering gamboge cedar leaves allegro
Derek Walcott
Some people, born inside out, are prone to unravelling.
Among our vestigial traits: coccyx, wisdom tooth, death.
Every day, piecemeal evolution. Soon I will be pure wonder.
You step into the river of your history, wrinkle, step out.
Fruit is the fruit of the tree; rot is the fruit of the fruit.
Annelyse Gelman, Conch
lo and behold— another world,
a world of milder currencies, inverted cumulus and azure, verticals and shade, the velvets of a deep interior and turns
of coy comestibility—
in short, another life, with footholds made for memory.
Heather McHugh
“Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.” Martin Luther King
“…je m’endormis, prêt à retrouver dans mon sommeil la transfiguration hallucinée des événements de la nuit, à me réveiller dans un monde qui paraîtrait inaltéré au premier regard, mais où tout, sous la surface des choses, sous la peau du temps, aurait changé à jamais.
Tels furent, après ma soirée dans la toile de l’Araignée, mes premiers pas sur le cercle de solitude où glissaient Le Labyrinthe de l’inhumain et T.C. Elimane.”
Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, La plus secrète mémoire des hommes
The Psychosocial Foundation Presents: On Love, with Anahid Nersessian and Ronjaunee Chatterjee, (032023).
“To not make sound, to be sound
To not have language, to echo, to plan language
To be the stream of words
To not be sad for
To not have those to be sad for
To not eat alone”
Dorothea Lasky, To be the thing
“She wondered if he suffered from these same recollections, and if so, what he did with them.” (ZS)
“Chercher à s’anéantir dans son œuvre n’est pas toujours un signe d’humilité. Même le désir du néant peut être une vanité…”
“Je le laissai et allai provoquer la nuit parisienne, son incandescence, ses flots de bière, sa joie pure, ses rires purs, sa drogue dure, ses illusions d’habiter l’éternité ou l’instant.”
The Most Secret Memory of Men by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr