butterfly rising #3: fuck israel, fuck the new york times, fuck fundamentalist "christianity", and FREE PALESTINE
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butterfly rising #3: fuck israel, fuck the new york times, fuck fundamentalist "christianity", and FREE PALESTINE
while "terrorism experts" brandish academic degrees, institutional pedigrees, and endless lists of intriguing facts, real people are being exterminated: and they have been for over a hundred years.
nothing justifies the denial of human rights to palestinians
there is much that bothers me in the discourse about palestine: the worst of it coldly justifies the dehumanized position in which the zionist project keeps the palestinians. but nothing can justify the denial of basic human rights which palestinians face. nothing. there is no number of heads that hamas could chop off, and there is no number of votes that could be cast for hamas, and there is no number of bombs that could go off in tel aviv which could possibly justify the mass deprivation of human rights which palestinians have now faced for many many decades.
“palestinian rights” are human rights: and for human rights to mean anything real they must hold an absolute existence for… humans… all humans, no? otherwise what are they really? american rights? jewish rights? something, but not human rights.
what’s with some of these “civil libertarians” these days when it comes to the palestinians? what’s become of those champions of “civil liberties”? they laugh at queer people who support palestinians having full human rights: they chuckle incoherently at signs that read “queers for palestine”: they claim that no democratically elected government of palestine would ever willingly tolerate the lgbTq+ community.
but regardless of whether true, what does the average palestinian’s opinion about queerness have to do with their access to basic human rights? and is that not simply an issue to be worked out in any democracy? the tension between securing the rights of the minority in the face of an otherwise oppressive majority? has america not struggled too with that challenge and do palestinians not have the same right to pursue self-governance and develop mechanisms for dealing with those same challenges? are palestinians somehow uniquely terrible because there are many palestinians with certain bigoted views? does that not simply describe every human society? are not all human beings full of flaws and issues?? are we really so racist as to believe palestinians so uniquely flawed and so accordingly unworthy of basic human rights that we can tolerate their stateless and desperate situation in the name of… what? democracy? preserving civil liberties?? for who? unhoused queer people in gaza who have lost their families??? it’s too easy to lose the plot here.
the fact that certain palestinians have committed grotesque crimes or that other palestinians hold bigoted views of queer people is a product of the fact that palestinians are, like us, complicated human beings: additionally, this fact is entirely irrelevant to the key truth for which we must uncompromisingly stand: palestinian rights are human rights, and these rights are absolute for palestinians because palestinians are humans. and in response to the argument that the application of full human rights to palestinians would certainly jeopardize the project of an exclusively jewish state we must also say: palestinian rights are human rights, and these rights are absolute for palestinians because palestinians are humans.
but what about zionism? what about the jewish state, the creation of which forced palestinians from their homes and deprived them of their property, and the preservation of which denies them a right to return? to that we must say: if the price of a guaranteed majority- jewish state is the elimination of palestinians’ rights, which is what it always has been and by definition must be, then that is not a price worth paying. that is a price to be ashamed of: it’s a price being paid in blood for the construction of a ethno-religious supremacist entity, and this entity does not have a “right to exist,” because like all “nation-states” that entity is a fabrication.
ultimately there are no “nations,” there are no “nation states,” there are no “peoples,” there are no “countries,” and there are no “religions.” these are products of our imagination: we invented these concepts and we choose to uphold these things at certain costs: by clinging so fervently to these made up concepts we forget what there really are: beings who are suffering, and what we must do is alleviate the suffering of those other beings, not create logical justifications for their continued misery in the name of upholding the existence of a deliberately racist political entity on the basis of the idea that “not a jew in the world” is safe without the safeguarding of a state that demands the suppression of palestinians. to fall back on ultimately shallow concepts about securing the purity of a certain group’s “nation-state-hood” (as the supposedly only means of securing that group’s survival) in order to justify the suffering of our fellow beings is… well: it’s probably extremely bad karma and those who do this should maybe fear the results of a coming reincarnation 💓
a quote from the Buddha seems relevant when thinking about the raw necessity of standing up for the human rights of palestinians. i love this quote because of how directly it challenges thinking that is rooted in logic and abstract principles rather than stemming from a focus on the suffering of our fellow beings.
“you should not go along with something because of what you have been told, because of authority, because of tradition, because of accordance with transmitted text, on the grounds of reason, on the grounds of logic, because of analytical thought, because of abstract theoretic pondering, because of the appearance of the speaker, or because some ascetic is your teacher. when you know for yourselves that particular qualities are unwholesome, blameworthy, censured by the wise, and lead to harm and suffering when taken on and pursued, you should give them up."
(an introduction to buddhism: teaching, history, and practices by peter harvey)
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when i was a child my mother often told me that before jesus could return, the dome of the rock would need to be demolished: in its place the jewish people would rebuild their most sacred temple where it had stood before the romans destroyed it in 70 ad (the babylonians were the first to do this centuries before).
my mom encouraged me to read the book series left behind, its movies starring the same man whose influence was behind me joining an anti-masturbation treatment program when i was 16: he and his friend ray cameron, who once tried to prove creationism by demonstrating how perfectly a banana fit inside his narrowly opened mouth, were key orchestrators behind living waters.
ray comfort, in a video with kirk cameron:
“Behold, the atheists' nightmare. Now if you study a well-made banana, you'll find, on the far side, there are 3 ridges. On the close side, two ridges. If you get your hand ready to grip a banana, you'll find on the far side there are three grooves, on the close side, two grooves. The banana and the hand are perfectly made, one for the other. You'll find the maker of the banana, Almighty God, has made it with a non-slip surface. It has outward indicators of inward contents - green, too early - yellow, just right - black, too late. Now if you go to the top of the banana, you'll find, as with the soda can makers have placed a tab at the top, so God has placed a tab at the top. When you pull the tab, the contents don't squirt in your face. You'll find a wrapper which is biodegradable, has perforations. Notice how gracefully it sits over the human hand. Notice it has a point at the top for ease of entry. It's just the right shape for the human mouth. It's chewy, easy to digest and its even curved toward the face to make the whole process so much easier. Seriously, Kirk, the whole of creation testifies to the genius of God's creation."
their mentors kicked me out of the program because i masturbated too much.
in tenth grade my masturbation addiction had spiraled out of control. i often thought about that boy and the sleepover. i was so scared of what this meant for my soul.
i snuck out at night and met up with a girl. we made out for two hours and then i went home. i wanted to date this girl, but she wasn’t a christian. i hated myself for how turned on i had felt with her that night. i had no control over my lust. i was evil.
finally i took the step: i signed up for an anti-addiction program online, run by living waters (this was 20 years ago). living waters offered online treatment programs with spiritual mentors, helping christians use the power of the holy spirit to overcome drug abuse, promiscuity, homosexuality, and masturbation, among other symptoms of a soul the holy spirit had not yet fully purified.
i was assigned a mentor, a man in his 40s who would help me quit masturbating.
these same people run churches where devotion to israel is a religious belief.
there is only one way to truly understand zionism from a fundamentalist evangelical christian perspective, and that is by examining evangelical support for zionism within the context of other evangelical beliefs.
fortunately, i grew up among these people and i have been diligently recording my experiences in the hopes of exposing them:
but not only to expose them.
there are so many children and adults trapped within that world and its awful logic: i hope that by sharing my experience living life as a fundamentalist christian, i can help them somehow to escape see that this is not christ’s message.
The pastor instructed us all to bow our heads in prayer for the American soldiers who were embarking on the Second Battle of Fallujah in Iraq. I was sixteen. Our whole congregation had just finished loudly rejoicing at the recent victory of George W. Bush in the 2004 election.
“I’m not technically allowed to tell you how to vote,” the pastor had said. “But you all know in your hearts the difference between right and wrong.” He mentioned the gays who might get married, the abortions that could become more widespread, the children who would be led astray by Darwinism. He led us in a prayer without naming any candidates in particular.
The Sunday after the election, he hyped up the congregation in0to an outpouring of jubilation. The people of Michigan, in a constitutional amendment by referendum, had defined marriage as being between a man and a woman. John Kerry, who would have coupled an inadequate resolve against our Muslim enemies with the teaching of an unbiblical science in our schools, had been defeated. The Democrats, who had abandoned even the pretense of being committed to maintaining America’s Judeo-Christian heritage, had been vanquished. Had Election Day played out differently, the wrath of God could have been upon us.
The pastor compared America to ancient Israel. We were a nation at risk of turning away from our duties as God’s chosen people. Our country was God’s vehicle to work His plans among mankind. This was why the United States was so powerful. Because the Lord chose us to be. But the blessings He granted us were not unconditional. The Jerusalem of antiquity had forsaken the Lord, and He had accordingly sent the fierce armies of Babylon to crush that city. We too could fall away from His good graces if we deviated from His commands. “We need to indoctrinate our children,” the pastor declared. “They say that’s a bad word, indoctrination. It’s not.”
The pastor read to us from the book of the prophet Jeremiah. Implicitly, the words of God, once meant for the Israelites, were now a warning for Americans. God had given this land to our forefathers, the Puritan settlers, to conquer and subdue, spreading His worship across North America. And how have we repaid Him? We have steadily degenerated from the greatness of that 17th-century Massachusetts theocracy. Thus declares the Lord to Israel / America, lamenting the spread of ungodliness in our culture:
What wrong did your fathers find in me that they went far from me, and went after worthlessness, and became worthless? ….And I brought you into a plentiful land to enjoy its fruits and its good things. But when you came in, you defiled my land and made my heritage an abomination. (Jeremiah 2:6-7)
What would be the consequences for America, a nation chosen by God, should we respond to the blessings of the Lord by electing the reprobate John Kerry? What should become of our nation if we should then turn against His most basic commandments about sexuality and gender? If we should be so arrogant as to keep the Bible out of public schools? If we let scientists brainwash children into believing in evolution instead of God’s six-day creation? There would certainly be profound implications for international politics. Thus declares the Lord:
Behold, I am bringing against you a nation from afar, O house of Israel…. It is an ancient nation, a nation whose language you do not know…. They shall eat up your harvest and your food; they shall eat up your sons and your daughters; they shall eat up your flocks and your herds; they shall eat up your vines and your fig trees; your fortified cities in which you trust they shall beat down with the sword. (Jeremiah 5:15-17)
I did not agree with my pastor that God’s proclamations to Israel could be applied so directly to modern America. But I certainly concurred that our power over other nations was a blessing from God, and that He could possibly take it away as punishment for our sins.
My slightly more serious disagreement with church leadership dealt with eschatology, the study of the end of the world. Here, I was sympathetic to those Postmillennialists who abide by Dominion theology. To me, this meant that Jesus would not return to the Earth until the planet had been under the control of a Christian theocracy for a thousand years. Through the edifying inquisition of that universal episcopate, whose constitution would be the Bible, the Earth itself could be gradually purified of even slight deviations from divinely sanctioned types of sex. This could ideally be modeled after the learned John Calvin’s 16th-century Geneva, where the heretic Servetus was rightfully burned alive for rejecting the Trinity and predestination. The re-election of George W. Bush could only hasten the inevitable rise of that elevating regime. Watching him give a speech on Fox News a few days before the election, I wondered if I’d adequately savored his reign. I prayed for another chance.
…..
But the minister adhered to an eschatology [the study of the end-times] of the Post-Tribulation Premillennialist variety [this is the theological school, extremely predominant among right-wing evangelicals, which influences and mandates evangelical support for israel].
[As my mom explained it to me when i was 11], this meant that, at any moment, every true Christian in the world would vanish into thin air. Those who still walked the Earth would then be ruled over by the Antichrist, who would rise to power promising peace and progressive values. I thought he might be the Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, with his Nazi-enabling opposition to the Iraq War (Saddam Hussein was just like Hitler). With a liberal like Annan in charge, guided by the invisible hands of Satan, the demons of Hell would run rampant across the Earth torturing people. Then, after these seven years of horrifying mayhem, which are known as the Tribulation, Jesus would come back. He would throw Kofi Annan into the Abyss. He would inaugurate his kingdom of a thousand years. Hence: Post-Tribulational Premillennialism.
I grew up hearing stories about the Rapture. I was cautioned not to be deceived by the Antichrist’s promises of peace. Pastors told us to always be ready, because He could return at any time. If our hearts weren’t ready, we would be left behind. And after all the Christian pilots vanished mid-flight, the atheist science teachers who taught us evolution would find themselves in planes plummeting from the sky. Actually, some believers said they wouldn’t, because every airline in the world apparently has a policy whereby at least one pilot is always a non-Christian, just in case.
But the science teachers would be dealt with once they landed. The international institutions that the Democrats so foolishly support, like the United Nations, would radically expand their powers until they smothered out all national sovereignties, uniting the whole world under the beloved Kofi Annan. The peace-loving progressives who had opposed the Iraq War would eagerly accept the Mark of the Beast offered to them by this false god, perhaps in the form of a microchip or tattoo. He may force the whole world to bend the knee and worship him.
To me it was of course impossible for a Democrat to truly be a Christian. Eventually, the Democrat kids at school would be tortured by giant locust-demons. They would jump from the tops of buildings, trying to kill themselves to escape the pain. But by God’s design, they would survive every time, their bodies mangled and bloody, their limbs twitching as the locust-demons descended to play with the thing that remained.
Then from the smoke came locusts on the earth, and they were given power like the power of scorpions of the earth. They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any green plant or any tree, but only those people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. They were allowed to torment them for five months, but not to kill them…. And in those days people will seek death and will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee from them. (Revelation 9:3-6)
“You think global warming is going to destroy the world?” a pastor whom I listened to asked once. “Just wait until you see what Jesus is going to do to it.”
And all of this can only happen once the Jews demolish the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple which the Romans destroyed in AD 70. That’s why it was such an imperative to support Israel against the Palestinians.
yes, i started life so deep inside the vortex of evangelical fundamentalism that these were once my views of the world.
and here is how i recalled those views when they came to israel.
here is the experience i had growing up inside the fundamentalist vortex, which is still strong today and controls the minds of millions who are counting on trump.
“i just couldn’t figure out how you became so crazy!”
and you know what?
10 years ago in 2014 i tried to tell this story for the first time on an old blog of mine which i called venturing backward and in which i attempted to record my experiences.
i wanted so badly to believe that my mom truly loved me,
and i was so afraid of hurting her feelings,
that i erased her from the story and turned myself into a clown.
i mocked myself in public so that my mom would feel better about herself.
i sought the blame for what happened to me in the Bible; i sought the blame for what happened to me in “Christianity”; i sought the blame for what happened to me in my own inner demonism (which my family always taught me to believe in).
i kept thinking:
wow! i was such a fucking moron for taking every word of the bible as the literal truth!
but i forgot about the fact that my mom constantly told me:
anyone who does not take the bible literally will burn in hell.
even just believing the earth was older than 6,000 years could land you in hell according to my mom.
according to my mom, anyone who refused to acknowledge that dinosaurs walked the earth with humans was doomed to eternal hellfire. my mom almost banned me from playing Pokemon because she was concerned the cards might make me believe in evolution (my mom says she is very weirded out by my fixation on my bracelets).
i was so scared that i would displease god that when i masturbated, i would fantasize i was fucking a girl in the ass so as to avoid the eternal consequences of an abortion, which i figured i would probably support when push came to shove.
(i did not really understand the full nature of the white stuff coming out of my penis: even in seventh grade i said i was “going chemical”)
“i don’t believe that any democrat can go to heaven,” my mom told me,
and i believed her.
an early memory: preschool
my mommy is picking me up from preschool and she is crying.
she is in tears.
“why are you crying mommy?” i ask.
“a very evil man was elected president today,” she says.
and as my seventh grade geography teacher told us,
“i could tell you kids anything! and you’d believe me!”
(during sex ed, he claimed to have no idea “how gay men have sex”)
(“i don’t know,” this man said after waxing lyrically about seeing his daughter get smacked on the ass when he dropped her off at the mall, “and i don’t want to know.”)
🩷a cold-hearted take on the israeli state’s “right” to exist
given that homelife and educational context, here is how i wrote in 2014 about my past views on israel:
you see?
not one word about my mom.
i thought, “it’s the Bible’s fault!”
i thought, “it’s Christianity’s fault!”
i hated these abstract concepts which i blamed for my batshit views on israel.
“Christianity” is why i thought these crazy things! not my mom! not american fundamentalist evangelicals, a very small and pharisee-like manifestation of a religious tradition with spiritual roots stretching back
well over 3,000 fucking years!
it was so hard for me to see that it was my mom and evangelicals, specifically, who did this to me.
so fucking hard.
i was more eager to blame myself — the crazy family member — or “Christianity.”
it was not “christianity” that made me support israel.
it was not “christianity” that had me justifying genocide.
it was a very specific belief system that holds sway over millions of minds right now, today, all across america: millions of minds who see trump as their salvation.
with the election approaching, it is important to think about what is at stake in terms of israel. i respect anyone’s decision, especially those who are deeply affected by events in palestine and do not feel they can vote for kamala harris:
but there is a difference here when it comes to trump.
trump represents the people i wrote about in 2014 and 2022.
trump represents the person i was in 2004.
those people do not care about trump’s crimes or sexual immorality.
this we already know: but what else don’t they care about?
do you think they care at all about rape victims unless they meet certain criteria?
do you think they care at all about a single rape victim in gaza?
they say his locker room ways, as they callously reduce his acts of rape, make him no different from someone like king david from the bible.
he’s flawed: but he is still a vehicle for their agenda.
and what is their agenda?
what is their agenda when it comes to palestine?
say it.
🩷donald trump or kamala harris?
you know what kamala harris’s problem is?
kamala harris’s problem is she, like most people who run the country (olivia rodrigo for u.s. senate!!! how many times will i say it?????) is trapped inside this kind of thinking:
he talked about the pros and cons of various vice presidential and presidential picks if biden were to withdraw. and these pros and cons had very little to do with each person’s values or ideas. these pros and cons were based on this random man’s analysis of which candidates he concluded had the “best shot” at winning the election. he listed off various characteristics which he believed to be true about voters in various states and described some of the campaign challenges democrats would face if they replaced biden. he was up late into the night listening to podcasts about extremely specific political details in kentucky (we were nowhere near kentucky). as he talked, i just sat there staring into the fire thinking, “can we go smoke some weed now? like wtf?” when i told him i hadn’t really read the news in months, he looked at me with total disbelief. but the discussion lasted forty-five minutes. at the end, he mentioned a “report” he had seen on twitter earlier that evening. the “report” was a leak of some gossip from some dc insiders. “i still haven’t had a chance to look,” he said, and off he went, presumably to have his hands on the latest dc leaks
i understand why these conversations are addicting, especially in an environment where trump is lurking out there, but seriously: what’s the point? what is achieved by being an ordinary person who knows all these minute details about politics? yes, i understand that some people genuinely are passionate about analyzing the details of government, and this is wonderful for them! but among so many men, there prevails a deep obsession with demonstrating political knowledge and insight, all of it essentially speculation about the future with no bearing on our actions or values today.
i think it’s clear what knowing all this information achieves: knowing all this enables men to perform, although if they are unreflective they may not know this is what they are doing. they may simply think they are “smart serious people.”
anyway, the junky culture sucked me in. i thought reading the news and knowing all this stuff was making me smarter. but the truth is that knowing all that shit was just a tool for me to appear smarter to other men (i believed i was a man) so i could be included as a “serious” and “thoughtful” and “knowledgable” participant in the detailed discussions these “smart guys” were having. i couldn’t have them acting shocked that i didn’t know who the undersecretary of state for some random world region was
i think these kinds of conversational patterns are an extension of the ways in which many men discuss other topics, notably sports. how do men discuss sports? they argue about which players and teams are best. i remember teaching high school: guys would start literally screaming at each other while arguing about which basketball player was best. there is a class of men that likes to gamble on sports because these men like to feel like they know about sports: knowing about sports helps them feel more like men: showing up to male gatherings without their sports facts in their back pockets is like social suicide. because what else are they going to talk about? their feelings? their clothes? olivia rodrigo? no, they must demonstrate their masculinity by deploying sports facts. they are certainly not talking about their aesthetic admiration for the various parts of these athlete’s bodies (at least not directly)
and what about music? when i think about music, i think about how the art makes me feel inside. i dwell upon the personal relationship i have with certain songs, lyrics, and instrumentals. i like to feel like some part of my soul is reflected back at me in the music i listen to: i see music as a guardian angel, guiding me in my personal development. i don’t evaluate music based on the “objectively best” music, nor do i have any sense that such a thing exists. but i often cannot help but feel when i am with certain groups of men that they all like the same handfuls of classic rock bands, often cock rock bands. for them music is a way to signal and perform their masculinity: and of course what men select as “highest quality” is… the objective best. and don’t be mistaken: these men do believe there is such a thing
when i talk with women about music, we talk about how the music makes us feel. we talk about the themes and how we connect with them. we discuss the emotions which that music awakens inside us. we message each other our favorite lyrics and talk about what those mean to us. that is music to me. but when a man who identifies me as a man walks into the room and i am listening to over-the-top girly music, i can see the concern in his eyes: and it’s not just a concern for my suspected femininity. he sees me as a child, he sees me as a teenager, he sees me as unserious: because i am girly
i have left those masculine conversational patterns behind. it’s amazing: the moment when we recognize all the ways in which we have been performing. i started coming at politics with feelings. i don’t need to know the day-to-day details about the election: i know my values, i am in touch with my compassion for other beings, and i will leave the sorting of political detail to those who actually have something to do with those details. for me, it’s better to ground myself in my emotions and use love as my guide. i’m done stuffing my pocket with facts just so i can prove that i’m a serious person
kamala harris’s problem is that she doesn’t see the world like a poet:
To me it was of course impossible for a Democrat to truly be a Christian. Eventually, the Democrat kids at school would be tortured by giant locust-demons. They would jump from the tops of buildings, trying to kill themselves to escape the pain. But by God’s design, they would survive every time, their bodies mangled and bloody, their limbs twitching as the locust-demons descended to play with the thing that remained.
Then from the smoke came locusts on the earth, and they were given power like the power of scorpions of the earth. They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any green plant or any tree, but only those people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. They were allowed to torment them for five months, but not to kill them…. And in those days people will seek death and will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee from them. (Revelation 9:3-6)
“You think global warming is going to destroy the world?” a pastor whom I listened to asked once. “Just wait until you see what Jesus is going to do to it.”
And all of this can only happen once the Jews demolish the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple which the Romans destroyed in AD 70. That’s why it was such an imperative to support Israel against the Palestinians.
🩷italy, the crusades, and the dispossession of palestine
I went to Genoa thinking about the sea, but I found a city cradled by fortress-strutted mountains (photo my own)
the dispossession of palestine:
it’s such an old project!
did you forget about the crusades?
did you forget about what was beneath the surface of the crusades?
venice, genoa, and the crusader kingdoms stealing all the wealth from all the trade that passed through palestine.
now how many israeli companies, and how many european & american investment & technology firms, are benefiting from palestinian dispossession?
here is what i wrote in 2022 about how genoa and venice attained their wealth on the backs of conquered people and stolen land in palestine.
The breathtakingly beautiful Genoa we see today is ultimately a product of Genoa’s vast trading and financial empire, which reached its zenith in the 15th and 16th centuries, during which its presence was felt not only as far away as the Black Sea but also in the Americas. Even when Christian Genoa was using that sea as a bridge rather than a moat during that time, it hardly promoted much diversity or understanding between cultures. Quite the opposite.
It was during the Crusades that Genoa saw the first real growth in its power as an independent oligarchical merchant republic. The expansion of Muslim Empire during the first millennium into the formerly Christian-dominated spaces of Egypt, the Holy Land, Syria, and Turkey inspired a Byzantine emperor, eager to take back these ancient Roman territories, to appeal for help to his Christian brethren in Western Europe. Numerous interests converged to answer the call and launch the Crusades, in which countless Muslims, Jews, and Christian “heretics” were slaughtered, including eventually even those in Constantinople itself, many of whose Eastern Orthodox inhabitants were murdered and raped by the Catholic armies originally summoned to their supposed aid. Genoa was one of those powers who eagerly participated in and subsequently benefited from the general butchery, seizing control over key territories in the Holy Land which would help expand its trading interests deeper into the Middle East. It was able to supplement its holdings in the Middle East with additional settlements in North Africa and around the Black Sea. One outcome of the Crusades was that the Byzantine Empire became financially dependent upon the wealthy traders in Genoa and especially Venice, each of which found themselves controlling significant outposts and colonies across the old Roman lands. Although Genoa enjoyed substantial influence in the next few centuries over interests as far away as Ukraine, Romania, Turkey, Palestine, and Egypt, its real golden age would come from another one of the world’s most regrettable connectors of civilizations across seas.
The extent of Genoese power in commerce, banking, and directly controlled territories. Genoese banks and explorers helped fuel Spain’s conquest of the Americas. (Wikimedia)
Christopher Columbus was the most impactful gift to world history from the city which I liked to romantically imagine as a vibrant link between cultures and societies. At the time of Columbus’s voyage to the Americas in the fifteenth century, the Muslim Ottomans had just finished wiping out what remained of the Christian Byzantines, who had been destroyed over time by both Catholic and Muslim armies. The Ottomans quickly seized control over access to the Black Sea, in which Genoa had possessed significant interests, and over the Silk Road land routes connecting Europe to China and India. The Christian leaders of Genoa and Venice, preying upon the sickly Byzantines, had both profited handsomely for centuries from their domination of numerous colonies and trading posts in what was now Muslim territory. As mentioned previously, each of them had commanded a substantial military and commercial presence in places as far away as Crimea, Romania, eastern Turkey, Lebanon, and Egypt. It was even a Genoese ship coming from Crimea which brought the Black Death to Europe in the fourteenth century.
But with the rise of the Ottoman Empire, the Genoese and Venetians were forced to concede one interest after another to the seemingly unstoppable Ottoman military, whose armies would eventually even reach and besiege Vienna, so that the oligarchs of Genoa and Venice found their business models in serious jeopardy. The question facing Christian Europe was how to re-establish trade with China and India that would bypass enemy Muslim territory, and whoever could accomplish this first would move forward with a serious geopolitical and economic advantage over their rivals. Christopher Columbus provided the best opportunity to the Spanish, who sponsored his voyage to the newly encountered Americas. But it was not only Columbus who proved pivotal for the construction of the Spanish Empire across the Atlantic. Genoa itself ultimately redeployed its resources to serve as Spain’s bankers, while Columbus returned hefty portions of his own private profits to his associates in his home city.
It would be wonderful if the sea and international trade were the conduits of a free and open cosmopolitan exchange engendering tolerance and diversity in the participating seaside cities. Unfortunately, I was forced in Italy to think of Genoa and the meaning of “trade” in a different way. As I learned in the Museum of Mediterranean Civilization in Marseille, sixteenth-century Genoa played host to some of the world’s earliest banks, and they focused much of their investment on Spanish and Portuguese Empire, establishing franchises in Seville and funding the brutal expeditions which ruthlessly exterminated so many of the indigenous inhabitants of the Americas, not to mention the slave trade which ruined so many African lives.
The sea was then a conduit for the transportation of the stolen goods which would help build the magnificent palaces we see in Genoa today. Native Americans were worked to death mining gold and silver, or otherwise collapsed dead by the millions from the diseases brought upon them by Europeans. Africans were kidnapped and sent to replace them, steadily supplying a new labor force for the growing plantations which obliterated what had once been the rich land of American empires and cultural groups. Huge amounts of bullion, stolen from America, flowed steadily into Genoese banks. The Genoese bankers, often exempted from this story today, then reinvested the profits of colonialism all over Europe throughout the sixteenth and much of the seventeenth century, funding expansionary wars on the continent even for the Austrian Hapsburgs, all to the future profit of the Genoese and to the continued annihilation by enslavement, murder, and butchery of Africans and Native Americans. Many of the beautiful palaces, squares, monuments, and fortresses which I enjoyed looking at in Genoa were built with the revenue of this savage enterprise. And how is this reported in a nutshell by the most starry-eyed idealist about Genoese history, looking eagerly for something to admire and praise? “Genoa grew rich by trade.”
end extract
don’t you know???
don’t you see???
even in europe, so progressive!, they glorify these people.
they admire the villas they built more than they think about where the material came from.
even in europe, as i discovered in madrid, they have statues of christopher columbus, and one of my spanish teachers even said the guy wasn’t so bad.
even in europe, they look back fondly on the inquisition and the knights of malta, who still have a massive embassy — “sovereign territory” really — in vienna. i walked by the building, fall 2022, swept up in disbelief: i had just been reading about what these guys had been up to in the 16th century.
even in europe, the progressive wet dream of liberal americans, there are millions of people on the same side as trump, and there is a history they glorify too.
are you still not paying attention to all the connections between the right in the “west” and the right under putin in russia?
do you look at sudan, ukraine, tibet, xinjiang, india & its minorities, violence against Black and Brown people in America, anti-Semitism on fire across the world while attacks against Jewish people escalate: do you seriously look at all this and still not understand that the world war has already fucking started? do you see the children in cages and go back to collecting your fucking materials?
🩷how malta illuminates a right-wing paradise
street in valletta, malta - photo my own
i can’t speak for malta in terms of relations with russia or even in terms of its domestic politics, but one take on maltese history illuminates the vision of those who stand to one side of the culture war today.
maltese history is interesting for many reasons, but here i am only focusing on one aspect: the tendency to glorify malta for the achievements of the inquisition; and for its role as a final fortress against ottoman expansion in the mediterranean (the ottomans would reach the gates of vienna more than once by the 17th century).
The appeal of English-speaking Malta as a hedonistic party destination for beefy British men and half-naked couples is clear. My friend and I took a boat tour that brought us beside several stunning caves and pristinely blue and secluded bays, each of them ideal for swimmers and sunbathers. At one point, our boat passed by a small rocky island with a large statue of the Apostle Paul facing out to the sea, but we did not linger there. No doubt to the horror of the curators who designed some of the more theocratic exhibits in the museums I visited, including one which glorifies the missionary role of the Roman Inquisition in Malta, northern European vacationers could be forgiven for leaving the country without any idea of just how central Christianity has been to its national identity.
The mythology of this identity goes back almost 1500 years before the great Siege of Malta. Maltese national legend asserts that Malta is the world’s oldest Christian country, tracing its Catholic culture all the way back to the Book of Acts in the New Testament. The Apostle Paul shipwrecked there on his way to Rome in AD 60, and Malta imagines its devotion to Christ beginning at that moment, even dating the first Bishop of Malta to that time. Hardly any of this can be verified beyond the Scriptures. Nevertheless, a large statue of St. Paul is positioned on a tiny island in “St. Paul’s Bay,” and Maltese Christian nationalists have adopted dramatic imagery of the apostle as the symbol of their country’s core identity as a “frontline nation” (Cassar) within Europe and “Christendom.” As Cassar suggests, the heavy emphasis on Chrisianity is partly a way of reconciling Malta’s indigenous Semitic language, heavily related to Arabic, with its “European-ness,” which still seems to demand Christianity as a prerequisite. The very first display in the museum at St. Paul’s cathedral in Mdina, prominently displayed before the ticket booth, drove this point home for me in startling language. The proclamation begins with a nod toward tolerance, but it ends with an emphatic Christian declaration of Maltese, European, and Western identity.
“There are many roads to God. They are called religions. In Malta and the rest of Europe most people have traditionally followed the religion of Christianity…. As a Cathedral Museum, we are a Christian foundation in a Christian country…. Christ’s moral teachings are not only compelling but also conducive to a good life on earth, both for each one of us individually and for society as a whole…. These were revolutionary teachings that came to form the basis of western civilization and democracy. They are the fundamental values that made European society among the most caring in the world.” (Museum at St. Paul’s Cathedral, Mdina)
It is a strikingly unreflective language from a religion which spread throughout Europe, Africa, and the Americas through the violent eradication of indigenous traditions and cultures. It struck me as demonstrably absurd o describe European society, which enslaved and massacred people in regions all over the world, as “among the most caring in the world.” And to credit Europe’s supposedly “caring” disposition to a religion which justified centuries of crusades, anti-semitism, and colonialism was even more discordant with the world history I have read. I hardly need to belabor this obvious point. But the perspective of the museum at St. Paul’s cathedral made it easier for me to understand the celebration of the Inquisition which I encountered at the museum in the Inquisitor’s former palace in the old capital of Birgu.
The Inquisitor’s Palace today celebrates the inquisitors, two of whom became popes
The Inquisitor’s Palace was the first museum I passed through in Malta, and the underlying tone was unquestionably one which defended that terrifying institution as ultimately a good thing for “society as whole.” In fact, it is precisely the crucial role of the inquisitor in ensuring that the Maltese people became better Christians which the Inquisitor’s Palace Museum cherishes today. The inquisitors, who held papally ordained jurisdiction in Malta from 1574 to 1798, when the Emperor Napoleon banished them, were not generally Maltese. But the people of Malta apparently have cause to be grateful for the guidance they provided in graciously teaching them the errors of their ways. As one exhibit in the Inquisitor’s Palace puts it, “most people did not realize the seriousness of their actions until their Confessor insisted they should denounce themselves to the Inquisition.” The role of the inquisitor was not to oppress, torture, or murder people, but rather to ensure that Christ’s flock in Malta, which included virtually everyone on the island, would grow into the good Catholics they were meant to be. “Every now and then,” reads one exhibit, “the Inquisitor would feel the need to issue an edict thereby reminding people of their obligations as good Catholics and the punishments incurred by those who did not do so.” The apparent crimes outlined in these edicts included becoming a Muslim, owning banned books, practicing love magic, and engaging in “heretical” speech. At no point does the museum even subtly suggest that the eradication of these “sins” was not justified.
Instead, the museum defends the inquisitors and celebrates the outcomes of their office. If the museum does not outright defend torture, it is quick to assure its visitors that the inquisitors were “reluctant” to use torture, and that torture was only “reserved for cases of very serious breaches of orthodoxy, when it was overtly clear that those accused were lying in the face of evidence, or that they were refusing to reveal all they knew.” As examples of cases where the merciful inquisitors found themselves obliged to resort to tormenting their suspects, the museum lists “the owning of prohibited books” by a silversmith in 1575, the practice of “love magic” by a 50-year-old woman in 1619, the utterance of “prohibited blasphemy” by a young Sicilian man in 1636, “apostasy to Islam” by a French sailor in 1641, and several cases including “heretical talk” and “sorcery.” By rooting out such “very serious breaches of orthodoxy,” while using torture only when absolutely necessary to get to the truth, the Roman Inquisition in Malta fulfilled its godly mission as described by the museum:
“The Inquisition took it upon itself to communicate the truth, fight ignorance and heresy in order to convert the ordinary folk to the Church doctrine as propounded by the Council of Trent [1563]. By inducing people to act as good Catholics, the inquisitors acted as missionaries. They emphasized the need to teach the basics of Catholic Reformation through pastoral work…. The more spectacular side of the missions was evidently to impress a public whose mentality had had retained its country roughness and who could learn most quickly from a direct, simple approach to religious teaching…. The fear of God which resulted was designed to lead the faithful to a general confession and to receive holy communion.”
The Inquisitor’s Palace praises the inquisitors for going after both high and low
The Inquisitor’s Palace Museum ends with a comparative exhibit showcasing Maltese Christmas traditions side-by-side with other nativity scenes and practices from other Christian-dominated countries. By then, the museum has also honored the achievement of two inquisitors in Malta who went on to become popes. At one point, the museum lauds the career of Saint Peter the Martyr, apparently the “Patron Saint of the Inquisition.” After being raised by parents who adhered to the Catharist heresy, which was popular in France and northern Italy, he went on to become an inquisitor in Milan in the mid-1200s. There, “he focused his efforts on the eradication of Catharism” before being murdered in 1252 by a “Milanese heretic.” At no point does this particular display mention the brutal crusades and mass killings of Catharists in France and elsewhere, which the Catholic Church eagerly promoted in the thirteenth-century. Instead, it maintains positive imagery of “Saint Peter the Martyr” and proudly notes the date of his liturgical feast and a Maltese chapel dedicated to him.
From start to finish, the Inquisitor’s Palace Museum takes on a grateful and uncritical tone toward the inquisitors and their mission, whose means were always justified by the end of creating a more perfect Christian society, and who only tortured people when they were “certain” the person was lying. And yet the very examples of crimes and offenses which the museum provides betray an utterly detestable program of theocratic totalitarianism, one designed to vanquish from Malta any thought or deed which contradicted the rigid decrees of Canon Law. Yet this is precisely the awful agenda which today’s curators are unashamed to celebrate. The ultimate result, the museum explains, was the welcome spread of standardized Catholic rituals and values across the Maltese island and archipelago. In the end, one exhibit concludes, the work of the inquisition and its missionary partners “brought about a change in the attitude of the faithful to communion and confession.” And yet how intriguing to contemplate that the Inquisition was apparently so necessary for an island which, according to the nonsense myths of Maltese nationalists, has been continuously Christian since AD 60!
“The Byzantines are the culmination of a lengthy transformative process which began with Greek philosophy and the Roman Republic… only to end with a totalitarian theocracy devoted to thought control. And although the Roman Republic was more a dysfunctional oligarchy than it was a popular democracy, the Byzantines suggest that the fate of a democratic system can be a stupefying religious tyranny. As the eventual successors of a republican government which collapsed into autocracy, the Byzantines make a mockery of the idea that the long arc of history bends toward justice.”
🩷conclusions about the right-wing agenda and palestine
it used to just be about exterminating muslims, forcing everyone in society to think the same way, and making money off whoever survives.
that encapsulates the genoese and venetian approach; the approach of the crusaders; and it also describes the maltese approach, the spanish approach: the dream of a world full of clones who think and say the same things, and the delivery of death to anyone suspected of deviating from the dictionary.
now there’s something else, at least for american evangelicals and palestine:
now they want trump because trump heralds the signs they seek for the end times.
trump makes the final destruction of palestinians, the dismantling of the dome of the rock, and the erection of a jewish temple in its place all much more likely.
don’t you understand yet why they reject the evidence for global warming?
“just wait until you see what jesus will do to the world.”
they think jesus is coming back to burn the world up.
they want jesus to come back and burn it all down.
don’t you get it yet: why they have been supporting the dispossession and mass slaughter of palestinians since the fucking 1800s and even long before that?
they don’t get the end times until the palestinians are finished off. they don’t get their second coming of christ until they’ve killed more muslims. they aren’t going to be satisfied until the dome of the rock is destroyed.
whether trump is conscious of this or not, they see him as their vehicle.
don’t you know what ronald reagan said????
i can’t find the exact quote, but he literally looked to biblical prophecy, both old and new testament (did you forget about the book of revelation?) to explain events in the modern middle east.
are you going to tell me you think he was being figurative?
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okay, i have tried to use my experiences to show what trump means for palestine and what the american evangelical right ultimately wants to do with palestine.
now i’d like to share some advocacy takes from two of my favorite people in the whole fucking world,
Israel has been committing genocide for the past year on Palestinians, and now on the Lebanese. 2000 people were murdered in 2 weeks. How is the world not angry? Our politicians allow this, especially if you live in the United States. Your tax dollars are quite literally going towards Israel, a foreign government, rather than the necessities Americans need like groceries, housing, healthcare, etc. Netanyahu is allowed to say that everyone in Lebanon and Palestine is a terrorist and that justifies his military’s actions. How far can someone dehumanize a population?
Mainstream media, especially The New York Times, is despicable at reporting news about Palestine and Israel. It is heavily biased towards Israel, as I’m sure every Western news outlet is, but the absolute misinformation and facetious comments are disgusting. They call the Palestinian and Lebanese flags “Hamas” and “Hezbollah” flags. There’s an article stating that a “Free Palestine” would be an Islamist state that persecutes Jews and denies real freedom, which is such blatant islamophobia and stereotyping. But god forbid there’s any (justified) criticism of Israel on their news page, then it’s the absolute worst thing. The 76-year-long occupation, apartheid, and oppression of Palestinians are always forgotten. So is the International Court of Justice ruling Israel’s occupation as unlawful and violating international prohibition on racial segregation and apartheid.
“I have so much grief in my heart. Not for myself, no. Grief for the children in Palestine who will never grow up to be who they want; grief for the mothers and fathers who have to suffer such losses that should not be experienced so soon or in this way. Grief for the brothers and sisters who have to carry their siblings in bags and backpacks just so they can keep a piece of them. Grief for the grandfathers and grandmothers who lose their beloveds without having a chance to teach them their ancestral history; without having a chance to return home. Grief for the poets and writers and academics that will never put pen to paper again, or even for the first time. Grief for the babies that never even got the chance to understand who or where they are; they were condemned from the very moment they were born.
The only difference between me and a child in Palestine is where I was born.”
“So, I won’t lie to you guys, this post will probably sound a bit rant-like and was inspired by my annoyance with certain content creators. It may also make some people uncomfortable, but I hope this post can educate or enlighten others.
If you couldn’t tell from my author bio — or maybe you haven’t even seen it — I support Palestine, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Sudan, Haiti, and other countries, but more broadly I support “land back”. Despite this intro, I am not going to write about the genocides and conflicts going on in the countries I mentioned (that could possibly be another post); however, I will share a link to a masterdoc of resources and educational materials for those countries and other regions.
What I really wanted to write about is the boycotting associated specifically with Palestine and the DRC. Two separate incidents on Twitter and Instagram sparked my anger and thus inspired me to write this.”
sharing her outrage over a new york times factoid quiz about palestine.
to me, those stupid new york times quizzes ONCE AGAIN sum up the following approach to world affairs in all its worst aspects: void of compassion, indifferent to feeling, more concerned with collecting facts than with ameliorating real suffering:
if the holocaust were happening in germany today, you’d have all kinds of these people in your face delivering fact after fact after fact about why it’s just too complicated, we just can’t do anything about it.
don’t believe me? bill clinton and rwanda. and what about somalia? read about somalia: bill clinton was so obsessed with killing some warlord he blew up the entire mission of feeding starving people. then some people in hollywood made a propaganda movie blaming the whole thing on the united nations and somalians.
what they care about: being taken as serious people, being knowledgeable of foreign affairs, sending in the SEALS to kill bad guys, blaming foreigners for our problems, proving they know more about tel aviv than every other man in the room.
what they avoid focusing on: beings who are suffering.
read it again:
“you should not go along with something because of what you have been told, because of authority, because of tradition, because of accordance with transmitted text, on the grounds of reason, on the grounds of logic, because of analytical thought, because of abstract theoretic pondering, because of the appearance of the speaker, or because some ascetic is your teacher. when you know for yourselves that particular qualities are unwholesome, blameworthy, censured by the wise, and lead to harm and suffering when taken on and pursued, you should give them up."
the buddha (an introduction to buddhism: teaching, history, and practices by peter harvey)
Seeing these New York Times trivia posts incited a visceral reaction in me. “Fun trivia” after a bombing would only be done if the victims of such an attack were Black or Brown. Could you imagine “fun trivia” about 9/11? No, you can’t. Because it wouldn’t exist. Even years later, it’s still an event that is “never forgotten” and respected. As it should be: people lost their lives across the east coast of America in very ugly ways. But, here we see “fun trivia” moments after Israel’s ugly terrorist attack across Lebanon (which continues, by the way). How dare they. Shame on the New York Times for their biased reporting. Shame on the New York Times for not give these events and its victims, real people who are suffering, the honor and truth they deserve.
This is dangerous in more ways than one. For one, it not only fails to give the respect to and further stereotypes and dehumanizes the true victims—Lebanese, in this case, (but also Palestinian, Yemeni, Syrians—all the victims of Israel’s attacks who have the right to defend themselves); beyond respect, it also minimizes the destruction that Israel is causing. Israel is always given a pass—they are defending themselves in a “brilliant” way; rather than being held accountable for the real terrorism they inflict. Even if the New York Times chooses ignorance, I hope the readers can see beyond this biased reporting and choose to unsubscribe, boycott, protest, make their calls, write their letters, and take action until Israel and the US are held accountable for their war crimes and Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen can be free.
love you more 🤍🤍 tysm for your post and your insights. so many more people need to be learning and writing about Palestine and all other oppressed peoples. you’re so sweet and ty for sharing my posts 🥹🫶🏼
love you more 🤍🤍 tysm for your post and your insights. so many more people need to be learning and writing about Palestine and all other oppressed peoples. you’re so sweet and ty for sharing my posts 🥹🫶🏼