Pharaohs Don't Sleep. Kings Don't Sleep. Caesars Don't Sleep.
How dare we speak of Advent "hope" when the context is genocide in Gaza?
Advent: the season of waiting for delivery from all oppression with some expectation of realizing it.
Hope: what we say Advent provides, despite our having no commitment whatsoever to revealing truth, the foundation for hope.
Apocalyptic: biblical literature which deals with pulling back the curtain on reality, a specific reality, i.e. that God and the Princes and Potentates will never in a hundred million years be one and the same. Particular apocalypses in the Bible include the book of Daniel, the "little apocalypse" in Mark's gospel, and the book of Revelation. Apocalypses have been denigrated, not because they are silly in the left behind sense, but because they are dangerous. Dangerous "bad news" to the Princes and Potentates and hope providing "good news" to all those suffering oppression.
Mary's Magnificat: did she not make this clear? The poor will be satisfied with real food, food one cooks in one’s secure home, while the rich will find their food has been vaporized.
Genocide. How do we dare speak of hope if we cannot name the off-screen US supported genocide of indigenous in Bolivia in the Añez regime, the quiet genocide of refugees at our southern border, and the anything but quiet, full-blown US supported genocide of Palestinians in Gaza?
Blasphemy 1: What blasphemy it is to throw around words, words that propose to do anything other than reveal the machinations of the national security state. Devoid of any intention to pull back the curtain on reality, the reality that the national security state, whether the United States or a coup-installed Bolivian regime or Israel, those blasphemous words function solely as a cover-up.
Blasphemy 2: What blasphemy it is to light pretty candles and say pretty words but not to say, loud and clear, unambiguously, without hesitation or qualification that Israel and the United States are carrying out a genocide in Gaza.
Or, breaking it down, that the genocide which is being carried out right in front of our eyes, not off-screen as in Bolivia is in no way a simple reaction to the actions of Hamas on October 7.
The Okeedoke of “Violence begets Violence”: True, as folks like to say frivolously, violence begets violence, but without examining what that means. Violence begets violence is the point. There is an initial, a foundational act of violence, in this case the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. That foundational violence has required additional acts of violence by Israel/the US, tightening the screws on the Palestinian people, tightening the screws on the expansionist apartheid state in order to shore up the initial, foundational act of violence.
Pharaohs don't sleep. Kings don't sleep. Caesars don't sleep. They stay woke listening for any real or perceived encroachments on their crucifying national security states. The slightest of noises, any rustlings in the grasses of resistance awaken their murderous paranoia, and they prepare to bomb back to the stone age the dangerous ones. Like the hope of the coming of that threat to the national security state whom we say we celebrate at Advent.
Advent. How dare we speak of hope when there is no context for hope?
Photo credit: Al Jazeera