In defence of the Radical Universal Emancipation Embodied in the Palestinian Cause.
The images from October 7 of paragliders evading Israeli air defenses were for many of us exhilarating. Here were moments of freedom, that defeated Zionist expectations of submission to occupation and siege.
In them, we witnessed seemingly impossible acts of bravery and defiance in the face of the certain knowledge of the devastation that would follow (that Israel practices asymmetric warfare and responds with disproportionate force is no secret).
Who could not feel energized seeing oppressed people bulldozing the fences enclosing them, taking to the skies in escape, and flying freely through the air? The shattering of the collective sense of the possible made it seem as if anyone could be free, as if imperialism, occupation, and oppression can and will be overthrown.
As the Palestinian militant Leila Khaled wrote of a successful hijacking in her memoir, My People Shall Live, “it seemed the more spectacular the action the better the morale of our people.” Such actions puncture expectations and create a new sense of possibility, liberating people from hopelessness and despair.
When we witness such actions many of us also feel this sense of openness. Our response is indicative of the subject effect the actions unleash: something in the world has changed because a subject has inscribed a gap in the given.
To use an idea from Alain Badiou, we see that the action was caused by a subject, thus producing that subject as a retroactive effect of the action that caused it. Imperialism tries to shut these feelings down before they spread too far. It condemns them and declares them off limits.
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Demonstrators block highways and shut down travel in Illinois, California, New York and the Pacific Northwest.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators march during a ‘Strike for Gaza’ protest, calling for a permanent ceasefire [Mario Tama/AFP]
Pro-Palestinian protesters have blocked major roads in the states of Illinois, California, New York and the Pacific Northwest, temporarily preventing travel into some of the United States’s most heavily used airports, onto the Golden Gate and Brooklyn bridges and along a busy West Coast highway.
In Chicago, protesters linked arms and blocked lanes of Interstate 190 leading into O’Hare International Airport at about 7am (12:00 GMT) on Monday in a demonstration they said was part of a global “economic blockade to free Palestine”, according to Rifqa Falaneh, one of the organisers.
Protesters say they chose O’Hare in part because it is one of the largest airports in the US. Dozens were arrested, according to Falaneh. Chicago police said that “multiple people” were taken into custody after a protest where people obstructed traffic but did not provide a detailed count.
In California, demonstrators blocked lanes on the northbound I-880 in Oakland by chaining themselves to barrels, while a separate group of protesters with banners disrupted traffic on the southbound lanes. On the Golden Gate Bridge, protesters impeded traffic in both directions, displaying a banner that read, “Stop the world for Gaza.”
In Eugene, Oregon, protesters blocked Interstate 5, shutting down traffic on the major highway for about 45 minutes.
Meanwhile, on the East Coast, protesters marching into Brooklyn blocked Manhattan-bound traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge.
Antiwar protesters have held demonstrations in Chicago nearly every day since Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel, which killed about 1,200 people, triggered an Israeli assault on Gaza that has killed more than 33,700 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.
O’Hare warned travellers on social platform X to find alternative ways to get to the airport, with car travel “substantially delayed this morning due to protest activity”.
Some travellers stuck in standstill traffic left their cars and walked the final leg to the airport along the freeway, trailing their luggage behind them.
“This was an inconvenience,” Madeline Hannan from suburban Chicago said in a telephone interview as she was heading to Florida. “But in the grand scheme of things going on overseas, it’s a minor inconvenience.”
Inbound traffic towards O’Hare resumed at about 9am (14:00 GMT).
Heavy traffic at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, Monday [Nam Y Huh/AP]
Arrests and calls for Gaza ceasefire
Near Seattle, the Washington State Department of Transportation said a demonstration closed the main road to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Social media posts showed people holding a banner and waving Palestinian flags while standing on the highway, which reopened about three hours later.
About 20 protesters were arrested at the Golden Gate Bridge demonstration and traffic resumed shortly after noon, according to the California Highway Patrol. The agency said officers were making arrests at two points on the highway, including one spot where roughly 300 protesters refused orders to disperse.
“Attempting to block or shut down a freeway or state highway to protest is unlawful, dangerous, and prevents motorists from safely reaching their destinations,” the agency said in a statement.
Oregon State Police said 52 protesters were arrested for disorderly conduct following the Interstate 5 protest in Eugene, Oregon, about 177km (110 miles) south of Portland. Six vehicles were towed from the scene.
New York Police made numerous arrests, saying 150 protesters were initially involved in the march at about 3:15 pm (19:15 GMT) but that the crowd grew quickly.
In San Antonio, protesters holding Palestinian flags obstructed both sides of the Valero Energy Company headquarters, causing traffic congestion on the city’s northwest side.
Pro-Palestinian protests hit the US [Mario Tama/AFP]
Starting with a false view of Darwin’s theory of Evolution right wing leaders of opinion have built a tower of lies to justify their crimes against humanity, as argued from the beginning by the anarchist Peter Kropotkin.
Kropotkin was no pacifist, he was jailed and escaped as a terrorist. But his writings show us how our aggression can be harnessed through love and respect for our fellows and our dying planet. ‘Humans are innately cooperative and empathetic, and this gives us the basis for a new kind of non-capitalist system’.
The researchers claim to be surprised by their findings, but is it really so remarkable?
A large and impressive study of children’s progress into adulthood found that those who display bullying and aggressive behaviour at school are more likely to prosper at work.
They land better jobs and earn more. The association of senior positions with bullying and dominance behaviour will doubtless come as a shock to many.
This is not to suggest that all people with good jobs or who run organisations are bullies.
Far from it.
It’s not hard to think of good people in powerful positions. What this tells us is that we don’t need aggressive people to organise our lives for us. Neither good leadership, nor organisational success, nor innovation, insight or foresight, require a dominance mindset. In fact, all can be inhibited by someone throwing their weight around.
Whether in game theory or the study of other species, you quickly discover how the dominance behaviour of a few can harm society as a whole.
For example, a study of cichlid fish found that dominant males have “lower signal-to-noise ratios” (sound and fury, signifying nothing) and counter-productive impacts on group performance.
Anything sound familiar?
A win for bullies is a loss for everyone else: their success is a zero-sum game.
Or negative-sum: the first study I mentioned also found that school bullies are more likely to abuse alcohol, smoke, break the law and suffer mental health problems in later life.
But the bullies’ triumph is also an outcome of the dominant narrative of our times: for the past 45 years, neoliberalism has characterised human life as a struggle that some must win and others must lose.
Only through competition, in this quasi-Calvinist religion, can we discern who the worthy and unworthy might be.
The competition, of course, is always rigged. The point of neoliberalism is to provide justifications for an unequal and coercive society, a society where bullies rule.
It’s a perfect circle: neoliberalism generates inequality; and inequality, as another paper shows, is strongly associated with bullying at school. With greater disparities in income and status, stress rises, competition sharpens, and the urge to dominate intensifies. The pathology feeds itself.
The Free 