On pests and nightmares

Jingles that drive you insane

Five hundred seventy days, and counting.
Fifty thousand corpses, and counting.
One hundred thirteen thousand wounded, and counting.
Two million+ starving, a few less every minute as they die off. Finally, a count-down.

Are we numb yet?

I won’t blame you if you read no further. Delete and scroll to a kitten that climbs up someone’s leg and makes you smile. I might too. All I really want to do is write about the three generations of Nile Geese that hatched in the poplar tree… about the pregnant Salamander and the federation of Snails… about that conversation between the Rose, Lettuce and Nettle… about the Forest Mouse that hid under my bookcase and read all the books and whom the others call The Professor… Animals, insets and plants are lining up with their stories- but the soup kitchen is closed. Nothing is allowed in. No food. No water.

I keep coming back to
That man singing to himself to dampen the incessant sound of drones…
That boy playing his ‘oud upon the rubble…
What would you do in his shoes?
No wait, he has no shoes. Nothing to step into. Nothing to identify with.

Photographer (yet unknown) / Save the ‘oud: Gaza

Are we numb yet?

An Israeli screenwriter/actor likened Gazans to Sharks and supported their extermination. ‘It’s no genocide,’ he added, ‘it’s pesticides.’ (source)

Another item to add to the list of names:
Terrorists, non-humans, human-animals, animals, beasts, sharks… pests.

Who lacks humanity in this scenario?

History repeats itself.
Once upon a nightmare, they blamed the Jews of Europe for the Plague.

Shall we write in defence of Pests and Semites… raise a case against pesticides and empires that eventually kill humans and bees?

What is a Pest?

A pest is any living thing—a plant, an animal, or a microorganism—that has a negative effect on humans. It can be an unwanted plant (weed), fungi, nematode, microbe (such as bacteria or virus), insect, spider, mite, bird, fish, rodent, or even a deer. Labeling an organism a pest is a very subjective concept that varies with each individual’s point of view….. Many organisms may become pests, certain organisms are often pests, but none are inherently pests. (source)

Nothing is inherint.
Call me a pest if you may.

Cockroaches, scorpions and Fruit-flies can survive a nuclear bomb; humans cannot.

Call me a weed.. it’s a compliment (especially if you can smoke it make it into tea.) It’s hard to get rid of weeds- it not altogether impossible. Often medicinal and criminalised (but could potentially kill you - ask the ol’ hags, they know the dosage.) Weeds might be dormant for a while or for years, but will always find their way back… between the tiles, cracking the walls - overthrowing the sterilised regime.

In a dream

I’m standing against a fence, a number is written on my forehead. The man with me has another sequence of numbers on his forehead. We will be parted. Each will be transported somewhere else. Feels like WWII.
I examine my two pair of boots. It’s going to be a long way, I choose the warmer and more comfortable of the two.
I open the drawer to my three passports. I take two and leave one behind.
[Passports to where - which do you let go of? Do describe the boots, please—
No time for dreams- —Don’t say that!]

Recurring nightmare

Sometimes, I like to look at waking-life as if it were a dream, and ‘work’ on it that way. ‘Look at it symbolically’ has been my motto since childhood. Makes it easier to draw meaning or lessons, to feel volition or exercise it. Relativising. A survival mechanism.

2008: I’m working at Link TV in San Francisco, translating news from Arabic to English. Until that year, I had not watched a single news item in 7 years. (I had shut the TV the day after 9/11 and never turned it on again. I was living in New York City when that happened.)
The first few months working at Link was a spiritual shock and a daily emotional heart-attack. I will never forget that little girl’s face, in Gaza, after the war of then, standing upon the rubble of the building she once lived in. Having lost everyone. Her eyes were large, staring at me. Hazel with a golden green tint. Beautiful. Fearless. And oh … so traumatised.

2025: Algorithms know where my heart breaks, so they/it show(s) me a girl of the same age, upon rubble tens of times worse than back then, covered with ash, carrying two rag dolls, repeating: ‘The war has taught us everything.’ Her eyes are large, staring at nothing. Once beautiful. Now Empty. Is there ever healing this trauma?

Image/video by Mu’ath Abu Taha

Are we numb yet?

The waking reality of today is a nightmare. Not my ‘direct’ reality - nor yours if you have the luxury to be reading posts like this. Alhamdulillah- Alhamdulillaat. We can only be grateful for the blessing of not living in a war zone.
But that child in Gaza is also me… she is also you.
What meaning can she / I / you make from this!

It is utter meaninglessness.

Jingles to drive you insane

After the towers fell —or rather, after they were toppled to manufacture a ‘War on Terror’— sitting at a cafe in Alphabet city, I met a fella who made jingles for a living. He had a recording studio and I wanted to make a VO demo. We gotta talkin’. He told me about havin’ worked with US intelligence to make sounds that were undetectable to the human ear but that could drive people mad, cause anxiety, aggression…etc.

If that’s what they were busy with back then, can you imagine what’s they’re doing today? What they are capable of tomorrow…
Who’s they?
They … all of them that are benefiting.

Sirens of war

Crossing a street in Limburg yesterday, a bus drove by displaying an ad from the Ministry of Defence with the text ‘You belong here’ and a photo of a shouting helmeted guy against the backdrop of a war zone. Warm green colours, eliciting feelings of a hike in the wilderness. A smoke cloud. Adventure, toughness. Reward.

Finally, all those video-gamers can come in handy!

WHO IS BENEFITTING?

Nightmares have great potential. Recurring ones are doubly so. They alert us - force us to look at something - showing us our greatest fears. If we become lucid - wake up slightly in the dream - then we can face the fear and transcend it. Transformation follows. In the dream world, I know this to be true. But in waking?
If I were that ash-covered girl lost in the rubble … what would I…..

Words fail me.

Alas. It is not just symbolic. It is an actuality in the waking life of millions of people… millions of children. Not only in Gaza and the West Bank, in Ethiopia, Yemen, Sudan, Congo… it’s all related … it’s not just about the F- Holy land … but it’s so blatant there, and it is so loaded. Not to sound too Biblical, but the prophecies are known, we’re just seeing them unfold… or at least the most narrow interpretation of the dysfunctional bigoted myths. An alternative of course would be a global awakening … but oh … dare we imagine that?

Dire straits require magical thinking.

If someone can make jingles to drive people mad, then we can make jingles to make us all sane. But peace is not a profitable investment. It’s just like no one would fund research on garlic as a safe and effective pesticide (yup- we’re back to the pests) because you can’t patent Garlic but RoundUp you can.

If there is consciousness beyond the material … if there exist an imaginal realm - unbound and free .. then maybe we can teleport and telepath and go through the walls to the outdoor prison that is Gaza, reach that traumatised ash-covered girl, wash her face with our tears, put her in our lap and sing her a lullaby. Might she sleep? What might she wake up to tomorrow?