But then Israel decided to bomb an apartment complex, killing over 50 people (well over half, children), using US-supplied weapons (duh). Well, that did it. Every task I'd committed to went out the fucking window. Thanks, guys.
And so it went. Sunday evening was a blur of piecing together a press release, until I closed the laptop at 1am, bleery-eyed. Monday morning would see the beginning of an escalatory campaign of direct action and civil disobedience here in the District, to complement the already unfolding series of community forums and evening vigils. Despite working on 24hrs notice, much to my surprise, we made something happen; something that felt like a reasonable approximation of what we'd set out to do.
Sitting in in the little courtyard outside the GWU Hospital, I watched Bassam hand the phone to Mark. "It's the cops, they want to know what we're doing." The conversation seemed pretty standard. There are actions like this every day in the District, and it's part of the routine for certain police agencies. To some extent, they're expected to allow these sorts of things to unfold with little drama, to keep up appearances about the elasticity of american democracy and yadda yadda. Of course, anyone who's ever substantively tested said elasticity has likely enjoyed the lecture one gets from US Marshalls in Central Holding -- the one where they point out the lack of cameras in the facility, noting "We don't do that PC shit, here." This however, wasn't to be anything dramatic, merely the hint that there were bodies prepared to fall on the gears if this shit didn't let up quick. I watched, as Mark jotted down the name of the voice on the other end... Agent Smith. Winking at Bassam, I whispered (to Mark), "Ask him if I should take the red pill, or the blue pill." Mark merely waved us off to keep our laughing from bleeding into the conversation. Bassam then began handing out mouth-freshening gum, saying that any randy cellmates might be a little genlter "if you smell nice."
DC's finest vegan establishment sits half a block off of the infamous K Street - our version of Wall Street, and the corridor whose namesake became a euphemism for the unholy trinity of Neo-Cons, Ambramoff, and the backdoor deals the fundamentalist rightwing of the midwest and southeast would rather not know about... Much of which seems to be steadily unraveling (mostly at the feet of Tom Delay), though the mainstream press has seemingly moved on to some extent. As I pocketed my change from breakfast, I turned to hear Bassam speaking in Arabic and waving his left hand around at a white guy from a film team, who'd come to document the action. "I'm converting him, so that we have the full spectrum." I squinted, to indicate my confusion. "We've got a Jew, a Christian, two Shia, and we needed a Sunni. So, I converted him." Still laughing, the cameraman asked, "Don't I need to say There is no god but Allah in Arabic or something?" Bassam shrugged it off. "Nah, it's cool."
Then he got serious for a sec. "Guys, no joke. I know I say a lot of shit, and you're going to hear this and blow it off, Bassam's joking around again - but I'm not kidding right now: I'm ready for whatever today - arrest, beatings, torture, prison rape. It's all good. But I swear to you, if there are any dogs, I will scream like a little girl. No kidding around. I'll lose it." A few years ago, I hosted a meeting at my old house in Mt. Pleasant. Bassam was taking notes on a laptop when my cat nonchalantly strolled in to see what everyone was up to. Abruptly, everything stopped as Bassam clapped the laptop shut against his chest, shot his chair out from behind him, and backed into a corner asking, "What is that?! Is that a cat?!!" I was floored. Rami was on the verge of rupturing an organ, tears streaming down his face, laughing on the other side of the room. I've never asked how or why, but the guy seriously loses his shit over domesticated animals. I feel blessed to have witnessed it firsthand, actually.
The crowd outside the State Department swelled slowly but surely, mostly Arab press mingling with activists and community folks, getting interviews here and there. Some journalists showed up as activists, a gesture I've only rarely encountered otherwise. The heat was insane. I worried that little kids who'd shown up might be in some real danger, but they never really seemed to slow down. Rami's kid was all over the place, and even (quite boldly, for a 3 year old) raced past a cop to hug his father as he stood blocking the entrance. By 1pm, the cops rather unceremoniously flex-cuffed the four who'd been blocking the driveway at the main entrance, and walked them to a waiting paddy wagon. By that time, rather pointed and passionate calls had been cast through a megaphone, mainstream press was circling the crowd, and despite the pulverizing heat, a significant number of onlookers had gathered -- tourists and lunching staffers alike.
The mechanics of actions has kinda dulled on me in the way the rote tasks of a job do for most people. There are aspects of the process in which I feel creatively engaged, and there's a real elation in seeing that through. But at the end of the day, their significance is usually eclipsed by the relationships I've had the privilege of building, the teaching moments that have passed between myself and others, and manner in which our most human qualities (namely our humor) consistently refuse to stand down for some stoic, soulless, vapid notion of what struggle looks or feels like. What goes down in the interstices is ultimately what sustains this sort of thing. Even if there's no tangible "success" to speak of on this or any other horizon, if I'm going to go down... Goddammit, I'm going down with my people, the people who've made me matter. More importantly, the people who've made me laugh.
No comments:
Post a Comment