Gaza: an "observably infinite number of sides".
And the story of a book recommendation from a man I've become fond of
A few people here and beyond have asked me to write another post about handling it. Handling what we are witnessing happening in the Middle East. Or, more to the point, not handling it. I have also needed to process some more information and mindsets for myself. And writing in this forum sees me rise to the occasion of Better Processed Thoughts.
It can be hard to find an entry point into it all. I’ve struggled. What do you think of this one?
Apeirogon: A mathematical term for an object of an observably infinite number of sides.
Here’s a story
I recently met a wonderful man via a supremely surreal sliding doors situation (which I may share as a story another time). He invited me to read Apeirogon by Irish writer Colum McCann. He’d just finished reading it and wanted to talk it through with me.
The book is about two fathers - a Palestinian, Bassam Aramin, and an Israeli Jew, Rami Elhanan - who both lost daughters to the conflict at different times.
It’s a true story, brought to life by McCann’s delicate and very Irish storytelling. All the characters hurt. It hurts to read the book. Bassam is studying the Holocaust. Rami is against the occupation. They become friends and are involved in Parents Circle and Combatants for Peace. The hurt is the hurt of being with the beautiful and tragic truth of humanity. It’s the hurt of facing our own shadows, of knowing into the impossibility of what we do to ourselves and each other.
At one point in the reading of it, I thought this thought:
We are a species marching further and further into the shark’s mouth.
McCann plants multiple (infinite) stories and threads on the pages as disparate and yet intimately connected ideas over 1001 chapters (a reference to the 1,001 Arabian Nights – “a ruse for life in the face of death”.)
I’m staying in Bondi, Sydney, at the moment and went to the local bookshop, Gertrude & Alice, to find a copy. Jimmy went and dug around in some dark corners and pulled out a second-hand one. It was signed by Bassam and Rami.
It gets better! But I’ll finish the rest of the story at the bottom….
Meantime, I’ll share some reflections and questions (some of them beautiful, per David Whyte) that I’m grappling with, some surfaced by reading Apeirogon. I have appropriated McCann’s practice of planting the ideas in short “chapters”.
1.
To be very honest, I have worried I’m being silenced by the comments and messages I receive in my various feeds. I’ve never been held back from defending or speaking up on behalf of what I believe is a morally sturdy and progressive cause - by bullying or differing opinions - before. Why now? There are an “observably infinite number” of reasons.
Although I don’t think my own welfare is really one of them.
2.
If you stay quiet on the crisis, does this make you complicit?
Per Hannah Arendt, is my banality evil? Am I an implicated bystander? I think bystanderism is criminal in many instances. But on social media in 2024? When nefarious algorithms are fucking with our intent, with our egoic tendencies and biases, and dialling up chaos and polarisation? I don’t think so.