Link to last week’s reading group post.
Summary of this book.
The first book for this reading group will be Perfect Victims, by Mohammed El-Kurd. I’ve pasted the summary below.
Perfect Victims is an urgent affirmation of the Palestinian condition of resistance and refusal―an ode to the steadfastness of a nation.
Palestine is a microcosm of the world: on fire, stubborn, fragmented, dignified. While a settler colonial state continues to inflict devastating violence, fundamental truths are deliberately obscured—the perpetrators are coddled while the victims are blamed and placed on trial.
Why must Palestinians prove their humanity? And what are the implications of such an infuriatingly impossible task? With fearless prose and lyrical precision, Mohammed El-Kurd refuses a life spent in cross-examination. Rather than asking the oppressed to perform a perfect victimhood, El-Kurd asks friends and foes alike to look Palestinians in the eye, forgoing both deference and condemnation.
How we see Palestine reveals how we see each other; how we see everything else. Masterfully combining candid testimony, history, and reportage, Perfect Victims presents a powerfully simple demand: dignity for the Palestinian.
This book touches a lot on how Palestinians are constantly expected (especially by Europeans, who invented anti-semitism) to apologize for being Palestinians, and for being victimized by Jewish people.
Comrades who can’t afford to buy the book should definitely not go to annas-archive (dot) org and find a digital copy there, since that would be wrong and we are all law-abiding, copyright-respecting citizens.
I’m making this post a double-chapter one and keeping it up for two weeks, since I tend to forget to update them. We’ll see how that works. This is now past where I’ve read the book, so I’m going to do my best to join the discussion more for this one. Thanks to everyone who has participated so far!
Anti-zionism reading group Week 5!
Tagging everyone who I had marked down as potentially interested as well as anyone who participated in the last thread and this one so far. Let me know if you want to be added to or removed from this ping list.
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This one is a dual-chapter.
Just finished chapter 5, and I had forgotten that I’d already read ch5 a while ago. But very powerful, and I think, instead of analyzing it as “being too tired or exhausted to care about coming near antisemitism” (sort of what he says directly) we should analyze it as a sort of argument to prove that antisemitism as Europeans invented it is just not a thing outside of European racist circles. Antisemitism as a material force broader than individuals is not relevant to these discussions. It is superseded, which is obvious in the material reality that are imposed the people of the various groups, highlighted in this book. So the tactic is not useful to keep announcing our anti-antisemitism, we must focus on the current relations and how the European tropes should be ignored as European
The description in chapter 2 of the only acceptable people to be shown to a western audience “if he was a wolf, he must be defanged” felt like a high-brow Citations Needed by a Palestinian expert. Good stuff.
Also appreciate the way he utilizes his definition of humanity/inhuman as well as his desire to become human (feels like Fanon sitting in the background nodding along)
I’ve caught myself thinking about the human comment too tbh part of me has been reworking the term to not be speciesist but yeah I think this is why it stuck with me so much and why the word irked me in a way I couldn’t describe. Real on the fanon part
Didn’t know this was a thing, can you add me to the pings? Can’t promise I’ll actually get to reading it but I’ll try
Done.
Oh shit I hadn’t seen this group. I’m gonna catch up, I’ve had this book on my ereader for a while but only to like chapter 3
Adding you to the ping list!
I just finished chapter 5 and I see this, amazing timing add me to the list.
I’ve thus far really liked this book, I started reading it only monday would have started sooner but barely got it from my library on Sunday.
Chapter 5 is on my mind rn now and I been thinking of the tropes part of how much colonial forces have become cops in our heads and it brought me back to what I remember on fanon. The tightropes the colonized have to walk Everytime they even speak is an exhausting process. This book has been a great deal putting into words a lot of things I’ve been thinking about.
Keeping it up for 2 weeks is a good shout, I’ll probably finish this book before then but a reread and reposting of thoughts can’t hurt so thanks for making this group
@CARCOSA@hexbear.net Can we get a pin for a day, if we’re doing those again?
I really struggled to read the ebook (stalled around Ch1). I got through it but had nothing to say on it. So I ordered a physical book. Then while waiting for it, I learned I could access it via audiobook. So a little while ago I put it on while I was fixing some lamps. A quiet activity requiring a minimum of brainpower, so can give enough focus to a book requiring it. I got through to Chapter 8, almost done.
Basically this book is making a point I already agree with. I do not feel my mind has been changed about anything. Perhaps reaffirmed.
So I can’t tell if I am
- too stupid to understand the book
- not noticing when I am learning
- not the target audience
Sorry I know it sounds arrogant. But I am not accustomed to reading at all these days, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to get from this.
So my comment is a little meta. I’m not criticizing the book or the choice.
