Watermelons Smash Against Riot Shields

"Why are they so unattractive? Why are the protestors so homely?"

The heavy aestheticization of the Middle East has made it impossible for me to be spotted as an Arab. There must be something wrong with me or the way I look. Indigenous tattoos are so in right now, especially if you're white — just draw a line on your fucking chin. Egyptian jewelry looks so chic. Let's all dance to fucking shik shak shok. Dune was so epic I wish Arabs were real. Orientalism has never been in such a popular state. Liberalism has made it so incredibly easy to co-opt aesthetics from the east by depoliticizing clothing, jewelry, tattoos, music, art… I have never seen anything like it before — to feel like my culture is forgotten as much as it is over portrayed.

It is precisely aesthetics and aesthetic pleasure that dominates the world of today. We live in a world of theatrics and constant performance. There is a desire for beauty that is inherently fascistic in nature - liberalism thrives off of it, it revolves around it, it grows stronger because of it. The theatre adopts a state of ugliness and transforms it so that it is beautiful enough for its lustful audience. Ugliness must be washed by beauty in all its glory before it can insert itself back into the performance anew, robbed from meaning, serving only one purpose: to perform. Fascistic beauty is indicated by the swarm of liberals who pretend to be into politics but stand for nothing: the constant virtue signaling, whether it be through the co-opting of radical phrases (ceasefire  for Gaza, for example) and repeating them until they become meaningless, or with the popularization of the symbols of radicalism (the anarchy symbol, the red triangle) by subtracting the meaning and as a marker of pseudo-radicalism. But how can they pretend to be radical so effortlessly, to their similarly non-radical peers? How can they lie, without truly lying, through sheer performance of deceiving honesty? Because radicalism is subsumed into capitalism and into the spectacle of performance, because the symbols and quotes are repeated meaninglessly as an effort to aestheticize, which robs them of meaning entirely. Because meaning itself is unwanted — it's too much, too complicated and it has the power of destroying the world all too quickly. The consumption of reality, of meaningfulness to turn it into beauty, meaningless and superficial aesthetics is the current state of liberal politics.

This meaninglessness bleeds into everyday activism and waters radical politics down incredibly easily. In events, protests and actions, there is a sense of carelessness about liberal ideological infiltration due to concerns of “divisiveness” — we've seen this happen in the BLM protests’ “abolish the police”, which quickly turned into “defund/reform the police”. We see this now with the “ceasefire” remarks which even the so-called “Israeli left” chants, a toned-down catchphrase that is now devoid of any meaning. On social media, liberals (who call themselves radicals) repeatedly post “aesthetic” and historical pictures or quotes relating to Palestine which fits in with their feeds while continuing to post and uphold “Israeli” propaganda; masquerading as knowledgeable on the Palestinian cause while not even attending or organizing the smallest of direct actions. These historical pictures, our music, culture and art that they revel in without meaningful action to complement it with, weakens the cause. It diverts from the issue at hand, it softens it and makes it pretty enough to share, overwhelming the viewer with beauty. Similarly, those who continue to solely post traumatic images of Palestinians suffering without a mention of the resistance that opposes the occupation relentlessly overwhelm the viewer with an ugly reality that immobilizes them. Through the act of continuous sharing of suffering, the Palestinian turns into a helpless and hopeless victim, one that can be only saved through a prayer or a miracle. The resistance must be mentioned shamelessly and unequivocally and with confidence whenever the Palestinian cause is mentioned — actions must be backed ideologically within radical leftist frameworks in support of Palestine, or else they fall back into meaninglessness and liberalism. The encampments going on in universities around the world for Gaza are only meaningful due to the direct action and its complementary ideological structure and a set goal towards divestment - a university encampment without theory, reason and meaning to back it up is surely destined to fall back easily. 

Symbols indicating radicalism, communism or anarchism are subsumed into capitalism to be declared meaningless by its users: the red triangle no longer means a radical support for the axis of resistance in the Middle East, and a continuation of radical actions in the West through that support, but is just a meaningless symbol signifying some sort of pro-Palestinianism that is not, by heart, truly radical. We’ve seen this happen with the anarchist symbol that has been subsumed deeper into pop culture, now completely severed from its original meaning, used by Joker fans and anarchists alike.

This tweet, in all its glory, comes to mind. The keffiyeh and the watermelon are symbols of Palestine, each with their own history - but the acts themselves are devoid of meaning, at least in today’s climate. Assuming that the history behind the watermelon symbol is not a myth, which it has proven to be, it is used more frequently as a symbol of Palestine than the flag is, even though the Palestinian flag is not banned in (most of) these countries where it is replaced by the watermelon. The watermelon becomes an indirect indication of the Palestinian flag, a symbol of a symbol, slowly losing its meaning whilst not being attached to an act that gives it meaning. Since it is a secondary symbol, its meaning of being a replacement for the Palestinian flag is hesitant, turning it into a less radical figure that stands for a more ambiguous meaning - a fruit, or a symbol of a nation? Wearing the keffiyeh, writing a “crummy” article, waving a watermelon symbol, putting the red triangle in your bio without understanding its meaning are all symbols devoid of any meaningful act besides them. Of course symbols are, at times, powerful by themselves, depending on contextual & subtle meaningful actions: but what are you doing while carrying the symbol? What is the subversive and evident meaningful action complementing the symbol?

Since there’s been a lot of confusion, maybe “resistance” should be defined straightforwardly. Resistance is not devoid of meaning, resistance is spontaneous radicalism, resistance sees through beauty and manipulates it to its advantage - resistance is what Hamas and the axis of resistance are actively doing. Resistance is not your crummy articles, resistance is not rest, not your art or your bio, resistance is not symbolic, it is active and on the ground, it isn’t covered by layer after layer of symbols, or of beauty. It is resisting reality in all its ugliness, while looking the oppressor in the eyes, and destroying it with ugliness, with violence, with a lack of aesthetics.

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Adding onto this, because of an apparent racism and liberal depoliticized “queer” spaces, it is very hard for me to partake in a collective "queer joy" that is very heavily enforced in Athens — for me to come to bazaars or clubs or whatever that celebrate queerness and diversity. Obviously since I live in a white country, white queerness is advertised, and white queers are all around me, and racism is so rampant that it drives me further and further away from queerness. Maybe it is a little unfair and bitter of me, but I just cannot seem to understand where I can find what precisely "unites'' us, as queer people — what unites "me" with a white queer person. I don't understand the exact drive that people have in having a "community", or meeting new queers, or going to queer parties to celebrate queerness whilst our pride is overcrowded with corporate shit, when you don't stand for anything besides gayness, and when you turn your backs on us when we need help the most. Palestine seems to be only relevant when it can be compared to your identity, when you can refocus the matter at hand and empathize, ("queers for Palestine") or when you can get the “radicalism aesthetic” out of it. Inside of Greece, there is barely any meaningful action or protest being done by white queer people, those who are supposedly political, who have the hammer and sickle on their accounts, who use our aesthetics regularly for their own pleasure, and those who larp as anarchists but just "can't show public support for the resistance" because it puts them at risk of standing for something meaningful. Outside of the very few participants in the Greek movement for Palestine, there is no willingness to perform direct and harmful action against the Greek state’s collaboration with the Zionist entity - those who are seemingly ‘radical’ and anarchist on social media do not extend their sentiments to real life.  It is no longer so taboo to declare yourself to be an anarchist or a communist, especially not in queer spaces - but again, what action do you use to complement this identity with and to give meaning to it?

We must find more and meaningful ways to protest because capitalism consumes everything we find radical and profits off of it. We must find meaningful ways to assert radicalism spontaneously without falling too deep into our identities within the hallucinatory spectacle, making them meaningless and marketable.  Beauty and ugliness are not contradictory, as nothing truly is, in nature, but are complementary - the spectacle, and “beauty”, are now a part of our ugly reality. Eradicating one or the other will not restore order, we must use the spectacle and the performances to our advantage. 

So what must be done? Political education is the solution. We must be clear, direct and focused - we must use symbols that are straightforward and radical without misunderstandings, reclaim those that have been so entrenched within capitalism in order to make new meanings for them. One of the main roots of the problem - social media - can be used to our advantage, to organize direct action, to inform and to redirect those who want to learn to books and more knowledge, while building meaningful communities that extend social media, to break the algorithmic and robotic structure of media with spontaneous bursts of knowledge and actions. We must say no to normalizers and collaborators, those who mean to reduce us into aesthetics, to erase our radicalism and our hatred for the current state of things unconditionally. We must never let normalizers into radical spaces, never in the name of “more numbers”, for they do not care about our cause, and their liberal fascistic ideology will always hurt the movement. We must not let identity politics get a hold of us - we must always understand that Palestinians, Arabs, queer people alike can be liberals and fascists. Our compass should be al-Thawabit and communist theory, rather than the blind following of identities. We must always be in the frontlines of direct and violent action, peaceful acts such as sharing, talking or marching will not hurt or destroy the war machine on their own. 

It is always okay to feel that you’re not doing enough: that feeling should motivate you to do more rather than to paralyze you even further out of guilt. The individualistic western mindset of accepting discomfort instead of attempting to change will never be satisfactory for revolution.

Organize, mobilize, disrupt to hurt the empire with spontaneous bursts of meaningful ideological and tangible violence. Power to the Palestinian resistance and to those upholding al-Thawabit!

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