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Affichage des articles dont le libellé est Gaza genocide. Afficher tous les articles
Affichage des articles dont le libellé est Gaza genocide. Afficher tous les articles

01/09/2025

AMENA EL ASHKAR
The problem with Hamas equating the Gaza genocide to the Holocaust

“What [the highly distinguished, highly humanistic, highly Christian bourgeois of the 20th century] cannot forgive Hitler for is not the crime itself, the crime against man, it is not the humiliation of man per se, it is the crime against white man, it is the humiliation of white man, and of having applied to Europe colonialist methods that until then had only been used on the Arabs of Algeria, the coolies of India and the negroes of Africa.”

Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism, 1955

Hamas’s effort to gain Western sympathy by comparing the Gaza genocide to the Holocaust is understandable but ultimately shortsighted. Instead, putting the genocide in the larger context of colonial violence could build genuine solidarity.

Amena El Ashkar (bio), Mondoweiss, 29/8/2025

 

Palestinians bury the bodies of 110 people killed by Israeli attacks in a mass grave in the Khan Younis cemetery, November 22, 2023. (Photo: © Mohammed Talatene/dpa via ZUMA Press APA Images)

For over two years, Palestinians in Gaza have been declaring: “We are being exterminated.” These declarations did not emerge from official Israeli statements alone, but from lived experience, where Israeli military operations have turned Palestinian bodies into sites of extreme colonial violence. Yet, despite the visibility of mass displacement, bombardment, and starvation, much of the international community remains reluctant to categorize these actions as genocide.

In practice, Palestinian reality becomes “legitimate” only once it passes through the moral frameworks of international institutions—frameworks that often understate the scale of the violence. Recognition usually follows a lengthy process: assessment, verification, data collection, and the involvement of a “credible,” “neutral” authority to study and label the event. Only then can Palestinian suffering acquire a certain degree of legitimacy. In effect, Palestinians may die without restriction, but they are not permitted to name their own deaths without external approval.

In an effort to combat this, we have seen how Palestinian resistance figures, including Hamas itself, have attempted to contextualize the genocide in Gaza by using one of the most potent historical analogies in the Western lexicon: the Nazi holocaust.

In the context of colonial struggle, this is not simply a matter of terminology—it is a strategic challenge.

At first glance, Hamas’s media strategy to use the Nazi holocaust during World War II appears logical: spokespersons aim to evoke the Western moral memory of the Holocaust and Nazism, hoping to mobilize public opinion in Western societies in a way that would pressure governments to act and end the suffering in Gaza.

Yet, after more than two years, this effect has not materialized. Why?

In the Western political imagination, the Second World War is a central moral reference point, and the Holocaust lies at its core. Within the framework of Western epistemic dominance, these states have been able to impose their ethical standards and define unacceptable behavours, shaping the very foundations of the concept of “humanity.” The Holocaust was not a historical anomaly; the same states’ colonial histories are replete with genocides and famines perpetrated against colonized peoples. What rendered the Holocaust a moral absolute was not the act of mass killing itself, but the identity of the targeted body — the European body. In this sense, global moral frameworks have been built on a Eurocentric foundation.

By choosing to frame the events in Gaza through the Holocaust, Hamas reveals two dynamics: first, that the Palestinian tragedy is not being presented as a self-standing experience but rather through the lens of another catastrophe — one that Western powers have designated as the archetype of atrocity. This reinforces the authority of a moral system that is selectively deaf to Palestinian suffering and inevitably grants primacy to Western trauma. Second, the use of this analogy sends a message to Western audiences: “Believe us because what is happening to us resembles your own history.” This reinforces the idea that Western pain is the benchmark for all suffering, and that other tragedies require comparison to it to be deemed credible. This dynamic risks undermining the Palestinian historical experience by situating it within the moral order from which it seeks to break free.

There is also a structural problem in the comparison itself. By invoking the Holocaust and Nazism, the Gaza war is placed in an unwinnable position, because the comparison is judged against a metric designed to keep the Holocaust at the top of the hierarchy of atrocities. This overlooks the fact that the Holocaust occupies a protected space in Western collective memory, one maintained through decades of investment in museums, films, literature, and education. The enormity of Nazi crimes is thus preserved as unmatched. In this framework, if the violence in Gaza is perceived as falling short of that standard — for example, lacking the iconic imagery of gas chambers — it becomes easier for skeptics to reject the label of genocide.

Furthermore, the term “Zio-Nazism” frequently used by Hamas is imprecise. While similarities exist, including advancing an ideology of racial supremacy, Zionism is a settler colonial project, and Nazism was not. While both have committed grave crimes, these crimes differ in substance and purpose. Israeli policies in Gaza are best understood as part of the longer historical continuum of settler-colonial violence, not as a direct iteration of Nazi methods. Technically and politically, the analogy risks obscuring the structural logics of Israeli violence and allows Israel to dismiss the charge by discrediting the comparison.

When Hamas chose to employ the Holocaust and Nazi comparisons, its intended audience was clearly the Western international community. This reveals two related problems. The first is a misreading of the structural nature of Western support for Israel — seemingly assuming that the West’s position is driven by ignorance or moral blindness, rather than by long-standing strategic and colonial interests that position Israel as a functional ally in the region. In this view, Western securitization of Palestinians and of the resistance could be reversed if the public were persuaded to see Israel through a different moral frame, such as that of the Holocaust.

It also overestimates the likely impact of Western public pressure on state policy, misjudges which alliances are viable, and constrains its diplomatic maneuvering to frameworks set by others. In such a context, the Holocaust analogy does not merely fail to persuade — it signals an underlying strategic posture that risks hindering the movement’s ability to convert battlefield gains into long-term political advantage.

Resistance and liberation are not solely about reclaiming land; they are equally about reclaiming imagination, consciousness, and language. At first glance, speaking of decolonizing knowledge frameworks during a war of extermination may seem secondary — yet it remains essential. What is happening in Gaza today is not an exceptional event, nor does it resemble the Holocaust as the West has constructed it in its moral imagination. Rather, it is the continuation of a long colonial legacy — one that has shaped not only the fate of Palestinians but that of other peoples across the Global South.

Seeing Gaza’s present as part of this broader colonial continuum is essential for building new alliances in a shifting geopolitical order. The region’s own colonial history offers ample comparative frames to expose atrocity, without reinforcing moral regimes that — after more than two years — have yielded very limited diplomatic and political returns for the Palestinian struggle.

The way we name what is happening is not a symbolic act; it fundamentally shapes the trajectory of strategic thinking and is an indicator of how we perceive things and how we think we are perceived by others. Decolonizing the frameworks through which we speak is therefore not merely a symbolic goal, but a strategic pathway toward a political and diplomatic practice capable of translating tactical gains on the ground into long-term strategic victories — using terms we define ourselves, rather than those imposed from outside.

13/08/2025

GIDEON LEVY
When Anas Al-Sharif Died, So Did Journalism, and So Did Truth and Solidarity

Israel's journalists refuse to see that a country that has killed more newspeople in this war in Gaza than have been killed in any other conflict in history will one day also turn its guns on them

A demonstrator holds a picture of Anas Al-Sharif, one of four Al Jazeera journalists killed in an Israeli strike days earlier, during a protest in solidarity with journalists in the Gaza Strip and condemning the recent strike, organised by journalists outside Egypt's Press Syndicate in Cairo on Wednesday.Credit: AFP/KHALED DESOUKI

Gideon Levy, Haaretz, Aug 13, 2025 11:37

"If these words of mine reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice. … God knows that I exerted every effort and strength I had to be a support and a voice for my people, from the moment I opened my eyes to life in the alleys and streets of the Jabalya refugee camp. My hope was that God would prolong my life until I could return with my family and loved ones to our original hometown, the occupied Al-Majdal Asqalan. But God's will prevailed, and His decree was fulfilled."

It was not God's will that determined the fate of journalist Anas Al-Sharif on Sunday, together with three other journalists and two civilians, in the press tent adjacent to Gaza City's al-Shifa Hospital. It was not the will of God, but rather a criminal Israeli military drone that targeted al-Sharif, Al Jazeera's most prominent correspondent in the war. Not God's will but rather Israel's will to execute him on the grounds that he had led a "Hamas cell," without presenting a shred of evidence to support this.

Many in the world believed the military's version, just as they had believed that the Israel Defense Forces did not kill Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh in Jenin in 2022. Even those who want to believe that Al-Sharif was a cell leader must ask: And what about the five people who were killed with him? Were they deputy heads of the cell? One cannot believe anything that is said by an army that massacres journalists so cold-bloodedly or a state that does not permit free coverage of the war, not even the stories about the head of the terror cell from Jabalya.

It is hard to believe – or perhaps nothing is hard to believe anymore – how little interest was shown here in the killing of four journalists. The Israeli press was split between those who ignored the story and those who reported that Israel had eliminated a terrorist. Equipped with zero information, nearly everyone mobilized to tell the story that the Israel Defense Forces dictated to them and to hell with the truth. And also to hell with showing solidarity to a brave colleague.

Une image contenant habits, personne, homme, chaussures

Le contenu généré par l’IA peut être incorrect.Haut du formulaire

Palestinians recite the Fatiha over the grave of Al Jazeera correspondent Anas Al-Sharif, who was killed alongside other journalists in an Israeli strike, at a cemetery in Gaza City on August Tuesday.Credit: AFP/BASHAR TALEB

The only evidence presented was a photograph of Al-Sharif with Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar. This is indeed grounds for execution.

A million times braver than any Israeli journalist, and less co-opted to serve the propaganda of his state and his people than Nir Dvori and Or Heller, Al-Sharif could have taught members of the Israeli media the fundamentals of journalism.

The chutzpah of the press here knows no bounds: Al Jazeera is a propaganda network, scream the reporters from the Israeli TV channels, who have given a bad name to ultranationalist propaganda and the concealment of truth during this war.

If Al Jazeera is propaganda, then what is Channel 12? And channels 11, 13, 14 and 15? Do they have any connection at all to journalism in this war?


Palestinian children and a journalist check the destroyed Al Jazeera tent at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on Monday following an overnight strike by the Israeli military.Credit: AFP/BASHAR TALEB

When journalism died, so too did truth and solidarity. Those who have killed more journalists in this war than have been killed in any other in history – 186 according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, 263 according to B'Tselem – will one day also turn their guns on us, the Israeli journalists who do not find favor in their eyes. It's hard to understand how Israeli journalists fail to comprehend this. Or perhaps they plan to continue their submissive service to the Israeli propaganda machine, because in their eyes, this is journalism.

But this week, the IDF shelled a press tent, and the scenes you didn't see were horrifying: bodies of journalists were pulled from the burning tent, and their Israeli colleagues cheered or were silent. What a disgrace, both personal and professional. How is this less shocking than the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi? Because they didn't dismember al-Sharif's body?

Al-Sharif's friends and his will say that he knew he was a target. When the IDF began making threats on his life in October, Irene Khan, the UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression, said she was concerned for his fate. Al-Sharif, she said, was the last surviving journalist in the northern Gaza Strip. That's precisely why Israel killed him. "Do not forget Gaza," were the last words in his will.

 

Norwegian government pension fund divests from Israel

Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM) is a separate branch of Norges Bank, the central bank of Norway, and is responsible for managing the Government Pension Fund of Norway, which is the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund. NBIM also manages Norges Bank’s foreign exchange reserves. NBIM invests the fund’s assets and the foreign exchange reserves in international equities and fixed income instruments, money market instruments and derivatives. Here is their press release.

 


Simplifying the management of our investments in Israel

NBIM, Aug. 11, 2025

Norges Bank Investment Management has reduced the number of Israeli companies it is invested in and brought all investments inhouse.

The Ministry of Finance has requested Norges Bank to review its implementation of the management mandate of the fund, its investments in Israeli companies, and to propose new measures that it deems necessary. We have initiated the review and are in close dialogue with the Council on Ethics and have meetings with the Ministry of Finance. We will formally respond to the Ministry’s letter as soon as possible and before the deadline on 20 August.

At the end of the first half of the year, the fund was invested in 61 Israeli companies. Of these, 11 companies were not in the equity benchmark index of the Ministry.

Early last week, Norges Bank Investment Management made the following decisions:

  • All investments in Israeli companies that are not in the equity benchmark index will be sold as soon as possible.
  • All investments in Israeli companies that have been managed by external managers will be moved inhouse and managed internally. We are terminating contracts with external managers in Israel.

As a result, the fund’s investments in Israel will now be limited to companies that are in the equity benchmark index. However, we will not be invested in all Israeli companies in the index.

We have spent the recent days selling all our investments in Israeli companies that are not in the equity benchmark index. We have now completely sold out of these positions.

“These measures were taken in response to extraordinary circumstances. The situation in Gaza is a serious humanitarian crisis. We are invested in companies that operate in a country at war, and conditions in the West Bank and Gaza have recently worsened. In response, we will further strengthen our due diligence. The measures we are taking will simplify the management of our investments in this market and reduce the number of companies that we and the Council on Ethics monitor,” says Nicolai Tangen, CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management.

We have long paid particular attention to companies associated with war and conflict. We constantly monitor companies’ risk management related to conflict zones and respect for human rights. In 2022, and again in 2024, we strengthened our expectations toward companies operating in war and conflict zones. Since 2020, we have been in contact with more than 60 companies to raise this issue. Of these, 39 dialogues were related to the West Bank and Gaza. In the autumn of 2024, we further intensified the monitoring of our investments in Israeli companies. As a result, we have sold our investments in several Israeli companies.

We have also expanded our information-sharing with the Council on Ethics on Israeli companies, in line with the ethical guidelines. To date, based on recommendations from the Council on Ethics, 11 companies have been excluded from the fund due to unacceptable risk of contribution to serious norm violations associated with business operations in the West Bank.

Norges Bank Investment Management will hold a press conference on August 12 at 08:00 CET to announce the fund’s half-year results and provide more information about its Israeli investments. We refer all questions about this press release to the press conference. The press conference will be held in Norwegian.

12/08/2025

LYNA AL-TABAL
Anas Al-Sharif: media coverage goes on

Lyna Al-Tabal, Rai Al Youm, Aug. 12, 2025

Translated by Tlaxcala

Dear readers, aren't you tired of these old lies about the sea protecting the city? Let's not be naive. The sea protects no one, the sea knows nothing of politics, the sea is just water, destined to evaporate, and the waves are nothing but meaningless physical movements. Gaza, drenched in salt and blood, is not a myth... Gaza is a painful reality.


Mourners march with the bodies of journalists who were killed in an overnight Israeli strike on their tent outside a hospital in Gaza City. Photograph: Omar Al-Qattaa/AFP/Getty Images

From there emerged Anas al-Sharif. Who said he was a hero in an old story? He was a young man from the Jabaliya camp who photographed the truth. This is the only story. Anas is not a legendary hero, but he is the creator of a new legend: the legend of truth.

Here comes Anas, wearing a vest with “PRESS” written on it, a heavy cloth vest that hides compressed panels, a modern talisman made of Kevlar and ceramic, trying to protect his body from bullets... But like all talismans of this gloomy era, it is useless when Israel is the one firing the shots. Anas, like Ismail, Shireen, Hamza, Abdulhadi, Salam, Hani, Muhammad, Ahmed, Majid, Shimaa, Ola, Duaa, Hanan, Samer... like hundreds of other journalists targeted by Israel, they witnessed its crimes and the crimes of its army, which defeats itself every day by killing witnesses.

Israel, the state that sells itself to the world as an oasis of democracy, is setting a new Guinness World Record for death...

Can you imagine that in less than two years, Israel has killed more journalists in Gaza than were killed in all the wars between 1861 and 2025? Can you comprehend that number? This period includes the USAmerican Civil War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, Cambodia, and Laos... Add to that the wars in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Ukraine...

Yesterday, it was Anas's turn... Anas al-Sharif was martyred... martyred... martyred on the road to Jerusalem. It is the usual phrase, the slogan we repeat to endure. Because death here, in Gaza, is a daily routine like bread, or rather, like the absence of bread. It is like hunger, like fear, like the dark color of blood when mixed with ash. Everything bad here repeats itself... Everything bad repeats itself without stopping, except for Abu Mazen's smile, which widens as the siege on Gaza tightens.

From a distance, Gaza looks like a painting in shades of gray, its streets black holes with no beginning and no end, and the wind carries the smell of gunpowder mixed with a little sea salt... a mixture familiar to Gazans, and familiar to Israeli pilots... who return to bomb again.

Here in Gaza, words are forbidden, and food is also forbidden... Freedom of expression for Israelis means the freedom to kill anyone who speaks out. Israel does not talk about professional ethics, because it knows only one profession: occupation... and killing. Israel kills journalists because it fears what the camera reflects: the bodies of children, the faces of mothers, and eyes that say to the world, “Look, this is genocide.” Israel kills journalists because it knows that history will be written through their lenses and that trials will document their images.

In the end, Anas al-Sharif was martyred and buried. It is now a scene etched in Gaza's memory: a body covered with a white shroud, hands quickly lifting it before the next raid begins, a silent camera accompanying the body, its lens still open, witnessing the death of its owner as it witnessed his life... but now it is not filming anything. No sound, no image, but #coverage_continues, as you instructed, Anas... The truth does not die, it moves from one lens to another, from one colleague to another, from one martyr to another still alive... And we are all martyrs waiting for our turn on the road to Jerusalem.

At this very moment, UN officials are arguing over the wording of a statement of deep concern. Some will cry, others will pretend to be moved, and then they will go back to drinking bitter coffee in their air-conditioned offices.

Netanyahu, mired in corruption and dreams of grandeur, knows that the image Anas conveyed is more dangerous than any missile, more dangerous than a thousand UN statements. The camera was the last thing Anas had against the world, something the iron dome could not stop.

He fired his camera like a fighter fires a Yassin missile, a camera and broadcasts and images that neither David's slingshot nor Patriot missiles could intercept. Netanyahu stood with a half-crooked smile to declare that Israel was fighting terrorism.

The world listened in silence, as it always does. But Anas knew that the end would come, and perhaps he also knew that the world would smile at Israel hours after his martyrdom. He knew that after his death, nothing would change. The siege would remain a siege, and the Palestinians would remain alive enough to die tomorrow.


Anas with Sham and Salah

Did you know that Anas named his daughter “Sham”* to say that Palestine knows no borders? He did so to tell the world: Palestine cannot be reduced to a ceasefire line, a separation wall, or a map tampered with by obsessed politicians. Palestine is against all occupation and against all violations of the human right to be free. The homeland is bigger than Gaza, and the Arab wound is one, in besieged Khartoum, in destroyed Beirut, in devastated Baghdad, in Damascus, over which enemy planes fly, bomb and return... Everywhere there was pain, there was Palestine.

No, my friend, we do not need a miracle. Miracles no longer exist, and if they do, they are boring. We need something else, something much less romantic and much more brutal: extra time, for example... or perhaps the complete collapse of the world order. The truth is that the heroes of Gaza are a miracle that surprises no one, because the world is used to seeing them die.

We need international law to prosecute Israel and impose sanctions on it, and we need a world that stops playing the role of sympathizer. What we want is for the world to stop lying to itself... even if it is only a short respite before the next lie. Is there a truce for lying?

In the end, the sea will remain, and the city will remain, but the faces will disappear. That's how things always go. The sea bears witness to the death of those who cannot be saved, and the city will collapse again, and again, and again. Everything will return to the way it was, because time in Gaza revolves and does not move forward... Time here repeats itself mercilessly.

But it's not that mythical. Gaza's survival is not a miracle, it's simply an uncomfortable truth. And the truth is that Gaza's survival is a victory in itself. Gaza will prevail because there are things that cannot be killed.

Did you hear that?

Things that cannot be killed...

There are simpler and more frustrating things: like the truth, and like the sea, which, unlike most of the region's politicians, understands that the next wave will inevitably be bigger than the last.

Yes, the sea of Gaza, which, despite your silence and complicity, continues to send waves bigger than the last, as a clear sign that this end is the beginning of Gaza and the end of you.

 

Translator's note
Sham: Bilad al-Sham, the “left-hand” country (seen from the Hijaz) as opposed to Yemen, the “right-hand” country, traditionally referred to
“Greater Syria,” encompassing today’s Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Jordan.

11/08/2025

Anas Al-Sharif: “I entrust you with Palestine “


This is what our beloved Anas requested to be published upon his martyrdom.

This is my will and my final message. If these words reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice. First, peace be upon you and Allah’s mercy and blessings.

Allah knows I gave every effort and all my strength to be a support and a voice for my people, ever since I opened my eyes to life in the alleys and streets of the Jabalia refugee camp. My hope was that Allah would extend my life so I could return with my family and loved ones to our original town of occupied Asqalan (Al-Majdal). But Allah’s will came first, and His decree is final. I have lived through pain in all its details, tasted suffering and loss many times, yet I never once hesitated to convey the truth as it is, without distortion or falsification—so that Allah may bear witness against those who stayed silent, those who accepted our killing, those who choked our breath, and whose hearts were unmoved by the scattered remains of our children and women, doing nothing to stop the massacre that our people have faced for more than a year and a half.

I entrust you with Palestine—the jewel in the crown of the Muslim world, the heartbeat of every free person in this world. I entrust you with its people, with its wronged and innocent children who never had the time to dream or live in safety and peace. Their pure bodies were crushed under thousands of tons of Israeli bombs and missiles, torn apart and scattered across the walls.

I urge you not to let chains silence you, nor borders restrain you. Be bridges toward the liberation of the land and its people, until the sun of dignity and freedom rises over our stolen homeland. I entrust you to take care of my family. I entrust you with my beloved daughter Sham, the light of my eyes, whom I never got the chance to watch grow up as I had dreamed.

I entrust you with my dear son Salah, whom I had wished to support and accompany through life until he grew strong enough to carry my burden and continue the mission.

I entrust you with my beloved mother, whose blessed prayers brought me to where I am, whose supplications were my fortress and whose light guided my path. I pray that Allah grants her strength and rewards her on my behalf with the best of rewards.

I also entrust you with my lifelong companion, my beloved wife, Umm Salah (Bayan), from whom the war separated me for many long days and months. Yet she remained faithful to our bond, steadfast as the trunk of an olive tree that does not bend—patient, trusting in Allah, and carrying the responsibility in my absence with all her strength and faith.

I urge you to stand by them, to be their support after Allah Almighty. If I die, I die steadfast upon my principles. I testify before Allah that I am content with His decree, certain of meeting Him, and assured that what is with Allah is better and everlasting.

O Allah, accept me among the martyrs, forgive my past and future sins, and make my blood a light that illuminates the path of freedom for my people and my family. Forgive me if I have fallen short, and pray for me with mercy, for I kept my promise and never changed or betrayed it.

Do not forget Gaza… And do not forget me in your sincere prayers for forgiveness and acceptance.

Anas Jamal Al-Sharif

06.04.2025

03/08/2025

MAHAD HUSSEIN SALLAM
The great psychic numbness

Mahad Hussein Sallam (bio), Mediapart, 30/7/2025
Translated by Tlaxcala

In a world saturated with alerts, emergencies, and tragedies broadcast continuously, another form of crisis is taking hold, one that is more insidious: numbness. Are we losing the very ability to feel as a result of being exposed to so much? When feeling becomes an act of resistance.

From Gaza to Sudan, from climate disasters to algorithmic exhaustion, emotional collapse is no longer an individual evil: it is a symptom of a civilization in psychological decline.

Gaza on my screen. Silence in my chest.

Every evening, I scroll through the images. Gaza is bleeding. The Amazon is burning. I scroll.

A Palestinian child lies under the rubble, others fall from hunger. Sudan disappears from the headlines, while atrocious crimes are being committed far from the cameras, behind closed doors. A little girl drowns in the Aegean Sea while another dances live on TV. One after another, European democracies are falling into the hands of radical right-wing parties who, incapable of governing in any way other than through chaos, are creating an atmosphere of permanent fear. Their recipe is well known: xenophobic and identity-based propaganda that stirs up fantasies of national decline to better conceal their political vacuity. And I scroll through the images.

I scroll, not out of desire, but because I am incapable of doing otherwise. Sometimes I stop, not because I feel something, but because I don't feel anything, I no longer feel anything, and that is what terrifies me more than anything else.

We are living in a time when the world is collapsing in high definition. Violence is no longer hidden: it is on display, scripted, multiplied, projected in a loop on all our screens. And yet it is not revolt that dominates our reactions, but a deep numbness. It is neither apathy nor indifference, but something more pernicious: a gradual extinction of our ability to feel. A mental anaesthesia on a civilizational scale. What I call: the Great Psychic Numbness.

This text is not a plea. It is not a cry for help.

It is a lucid confrontation with a drift that we have insidiously come to consider inevitable.

When everything hurts, we no longer feel anything.

Shocking images, calls for solidarity, waves of hashtags—it all floods our screens at the speed of an algorithm. And yet, we have never been so untouched by what we see.

Conflicts pile up like forgotten notifications: Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, Congo, the Sahel countries, New Caledonia, Martinique, and so on.

The waters are rising, glaciers are collapsing, nameless bodies are floating in the Mediterranean, which is becoming the largest cemetery on the planet.

But already, a new keyword is replacing the previous one. Memory is being overtaken by speed.

A study published in 2024 by Utrecht University reveals a chilling finding: 64% of Dutch students say they feel emotionally detached from global crises, even though they follow developments every day.

This is not ignorance. It is saturation. An emotional overload that leaves no room for shock, indignation, or grief.

The body goes into standby mode. The mind switches off. It is not that we no longer feel: it is that we are overwhelmed, dissociated, exhausted by compassion.

And this nuance is anything but trivial: it is political. It is moral. It is existential. It draws the line between democratic vigilance and authoritarian drift, between responsibility and renunciation. For while emotional numbness is spreading at the grassroots level, something more sinister is brewing at the top.

The rise of emotional authoritarianism

What we are witnessing is not a simple drift. It is a profound political shift: a radicalization of power that no longer seeks to alleviate collective suffering, but to exploit it.

They no longer govern, they polarize. They do not repair, they fracture.

They do not console, they accuse. This is the new order.

Malaise becomes a resource, fear becomes a lever. In the absence of solutions, culprits are designated. Social pain is recycled into political energy that is brutal, directed, and profitable. This is no longer governance: it is emotional engineering designed to divide.

The result is before our eyes: unrestrained anti-Semitism. Rampant Islamophobia. Systemic racism. Vocal misogyny. Unapologetic transphobia. Legitimized xenophobia.

Hate is no longer hidden. It is on display.

It circulates in slogans, laws, and likes. It has become a language of power, raw, unapologetic, normalized.

This is not a political vacuum. It is politics stripped of all empathy.

Politics without a face, without tremor, without shame. Politics that no longer seeks to convince, but to subjugate.

In such a climate, feeling becomes an act of resistance. Because everything pushes us toward anaesthesia.

 Everything pushes us to retreat. Everything pushes us to close ourselves off.

And that is precisely why feeling has become subversive. Perhaps even vital.

Anaesthesia by design

Numbness is not an anomaly. It is not an accident of the system.

It is a perfectly integrated logic: thought out, optimized, monetized, and, more often than not, graciously distributed under the guise of entertainment.

Social media platforms monetize our nervous systems. Anger keeps us hooked. Tragedy fuels engagement. Every death becomes a data point. Every trauma, a clickbait.

Instagram sublimates war into an aesthetic filter.

TikTok turns trauma into a trend.

X reduces genocide to a 280-character duel.

We are no longer witnesses. We are consumers of suffering.

And in doing so, we lose what made us human: the ability to feel fully, to cry deeply, to respond ethically.

The language of cowardice

When it comes to Gaza, words falter. We avoid those that disturb: “genocide,” “apartheid,” “ethnic cleansing.” Not because they are unfounded, but because they shake diplomatic salons and disturb comfortable narratives.

So we cover the horror with a veneer of language. We invoke “complexity” where oppression should be named. We preach ‘balance’ where justice is a strangled cry.

A child killed becomes an “innocent civilian.”. A targeted bombing becomes a “retaliatory strike,” or even a preventive war. Ethnic cleansing becomes a “security measure.” Apartheid becomes a “protracted territorial conflict,” and the massacre of peoples becomes a right of response.

This is not neutrality. It is lexical cowardice.

A deliberate strategy of linguistic anaesthesia. A semantic fog designed to neutralize indignation before it turns into action.

Citizens are taught to doubt their own moral impulses. To no longer believe their eyes. To relativize their anger.  To look away. To no longer feel.

This is how a war of words becomes a war against memory. And silence becomes complicity.

Gaza: a mirror of our collapse

Gaza is not just a geopolitical disaster.

It is an ethical shipwreck. A collective moral collapse. Not only for those who drop the bombs, but for those who watch, silently, with their arms crossed and their hearts closed.

Every missile that falls tests us. Not only as citizens, but as human beings.

How long do we stare at a pulverized school or hospitals razed to the ground before scrolling down the screen? Three seconds? Four? Five?

And what becomes of our soul when it screams the answer inside us: “No more than that”?

Gaza acts as a brutal mirror.

It reveals what we have become: saturated witnesses. Disconnected observers. Fleeing consciences.

To bear witness to Gaza today is to face an almost unbearable dissonance: between visibility and inaction. Between horror and everyday life. Between lucidity and resignation.

We are not numb because we don't know. We are numb because knowing has become an unbearable pain.

So, in order to survive, we disconnect. We cut the cord. We escape reality.

We become emotionally dead. Present without presence. Informed without memory. Touched without response.

The post-empathetic self

A new figure of our time is emerging, discreet but omnipresent: the “post-empathetic self.”

He or she knows. He knows the facts. She sees the images. He understands the power relations, the issues, the responsibilities.

But he or she no longer feels. Or if they feel, they do not act.

Or if they act, it is only out of reflex, a signature, a share, a form of indignant outrage. A gesture without weight. An act without consequence.

It's not cruelty. It's wear and tear. Moral fatigue. A slow, silent inner collapse. A fatalism that is manufactured and then imposed as an obvious truth that must not be thought about.

But this exhaustion, however human it may be, opens the door to an even greater danger: indifference.

And indifference is never neutral. It is the breeding ground where democracies rot. It is the breach through which genocide infiltrates without resistance.

It is the emotional void into which cold, cynical, methodical authoritarian regimes rush.

The “post-empathetic self” does not kill. But it allows things to happen. And sometimes that is all it takes for the worst to happen.

Where are the sanctuaries of feeling?

And yet, despite the noise, despite the widespread anaesthesia, resistance is organizing. In some places, it is emerging quietly, almost fragile, but deeply tenacious. In Utrecht, London, Paris, Washington, Beirut, Sanaa, Ramallah, Oakland, Amsterdam, pockets of emotional life are resisting the suffocating atmosphere.

Cafés of vulnerability where people talk about grief, without filters or detours. Interfaith vigils where tears flow freely, without belonging to a single faith. Artistic performances that refuse neutrality, that hurt in order to awaken. Circles of young people, sometimes lost, who are relearning to name what they feel—anger, sadness, tenderness, fear—as if relearning a forgotten language.

These are not mere emotional gestures. They are political gestures. Because in an age that rewards coldness, opening up becomes an act of defiance. In a culture where numbness is the norm, feeling is a declaration of war.

These places, these gestures, these voices are not spectacular. But they stand up to cynicism. And that, today, is already an act of dissent.



Towards a radically political emotional ecology

The Great Numbness is not an accident. It is a strategy. We are taught to keep quiet. To repress anger. To stifle empathy.

This is how technocratic systems hold sway: not through brute force, but by anesthetizing the soul, the souls. By paralyzing our ability to feel, they neutralize any desire for change. Any moral insurrection. Any meaningful disobedience.

So what can we do?

Bring emotion back into public life. Rebuild spaces where vulnerability is not ridiculed but shared. Where legitimate outrage is not stifled but honoured. This is where democratic repair begins: not with abstract reforms, but with a collective emotional truth.

We need civic assemblies of feeling. Places where we talk about what hurts, what scares us, what gives us hope. Without this, democracy is nothing but a hollow shell.

We must make schools emotionally literate. Every student should learn to name what they feel. Emotional awareness is not a luxury. It is a civic infrastructure. Understanding your emotions means understanding power, injustice, and the human condition.

We must hold algorithms accountable. Social media platforms should not be held responsible only for fake news, but also for the emotional violence they make commonplace, viral, and inevitable. Regulation can no longer be purely technical:  it must become affective.

We must strengthen those who care for our society.

Attention workers, caregivers, educators, social workers, and psychologists are not secondary actors.

They are the first responders in our wounded society. They must be protected, funded, valued, and above all encouraged to remain vigilant, to watch over, with clarity, a society that is faltering, which some already prefer to believe is dead.

We must fund collective artistic repair. Art must not only be beautiful:  it must be useful.

 It must heal. It must awaken. It must reclaim its true role. Culture is not a supplement to the soul. It is an emotional infrastructure.

Feeling is not a weakness. It is a political power. If our hearts can still break, then they can also rebuild. Another world.

Not later. Not tomorrow. Now. Before it's too late.

Because if we lose the ability to feel, we don't just lose compassion. We lose what remains of our humanity.

And what will remain then... will be silence.