Miguel Afonso Caetano on Nostr: #History #Gaza #Palestine #Israel #Genocide: "OVER THE PAST FEW DAYS, I have had ...

#History #Gaza #Palestine #Israel #Genocide: "OVER THE PAST FEW DAYS, I have had lines from a novella by the Russian writer Valeria Narbikova, which I once translated, playing in my head. It’s a novella that is written as though the author were just learning to think, to recognize the world. Two recurrent phrases are: “If there is something, then what’s it like?”—a plea for a reference, a comparison—and another: “Something always precedes that which follows.” When we compare, we are also comparing contexts and histories, and making predictions. This is, of course, part of what makes Holocaust comparisons so fraught: they predict the worst. One important objection I have heard to comparing Gaza to the ghetto: but there are no death marches out of Gaza and no death camps waiting for its inhabitants.

And this is why we compare. To prevent what we know can happen from happening. To make “never again” a political project rather than a magic spell. And if we compare compellingly and bravely, then, in the best case scenario, the comparison is proven wrong."

https://www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/comparison-is-the-way-we-know-the-world/