Living on a prayer

Greta Thunberg, Thiago Avila, and others after Israeli navy intercepted Gaza aid flotilla on October 1. PIC/ AFP

The only thing I can think about today is the fleet of civilian boats and ships sailing towards the waters of Gaza, loaded with essentials like baby formula. More than the life-saving freight it carries, the mission represents our collective hope in the face of the continuing horror. It is a statement that all of us who have been vocal about our resistance towards the language of hatred and impunity are collectively making. Every single body on board each vessel of the flotilla feels like a stand-in for my absence. I find myself praying for their safety just as I continue to pray for the people in Gaza whose lives resemble pure hell with continuous bombing and unrelenting displacement, not to mention forced starvation, bombed hospitals, and no more access to external help, considering all other organisations are pulling back their personnel in the light of intensified attacks. There is no cause on earth that can justify such senseless inhumanity. No form of revenge is justifiable when it deploys bodies that have been fed propaganda so that they can better serve the killing machine.

Thanks to the profusion of updates from Bangladeshi photographer Shahidul Alam, who went on board one of the ships, one has a more immediate sense of what's going on, and every little bit of information refuels my body with hope. I should mention that I am currently sleep-deprived - going through the motions of a hectic work day while nursing a six-month-old, clearly going through a sleep regression that is the result of bodily milestones. All the details of my mundane feel blurry, and I think I look like the walking dead. As I began writing the column, my hairdresser called. I completely forgot about the appointment I had made for a much-needed haircut. Meanwhile, a poet looking to publish a new collection connected to ask if I had any time to read it so I could offer a blurb. I had to respond to say I haven't had time to even send out emails to a list I made of people from whom I myself need endorsements in order to make a better case for the book I wrote on motherhood that no sales team in India wants to touch because their male perspective cannot imagine anyone being interested in reading about maternal subjectivity, even if it is well-written or even literary. Every day I try to stay on top of things, and every day I have to make peace with failing. The cards are stacked against me. Working full-time while mothering a newborn and a toddler is not for the faint-hearted. Especially not in a world that seems to be going off-script, thanks to politicians who ought to be confined to institutions - convicted criminals functioning with impunity.

The message of the flotilla is simple. If every vessel is intercepted, more vessels will begin the journey anew. They will not be defeated. They will not be cowed. My hope is that every interception sparks outrage, and all over the world, people take to the streets and we block and shut everything. I want to believe that this collective action at this crucial moment in time can have the impact we need. If anything, it states for the record that there were enough of us who dissented, even if we seemed powerless.

Every day I think about all the joy that has been stolen from our lives because of the military-industrial complex; the privileging of weaponry - its trade and use - over nurturing our planet. It is so easy to kill, once you have sold your soul. But to sustain a life, to resurrect something, to reanimate barren ground or repair fragile eco-systems, that requires a re-energising love and dedication. To bomb a building to the ground takes seconds if the detonator has dissociated themselves from their humanity. But there are those who sift through the rubble, rescuing survivors, collecting the bodies of the dead so they can at least receive a burial - these are the people who represent our humanity, who protect our species from condemnation.

These days I am seeking solace in the poetry of small gestures… in how we use our limbs to heal. I find, increasingly, that I turn to prayer as a form of resistance… reasserting how the spiritual nature of our beings is intricately tied not only to our humanity but is central to how we commune with other beings, other forms of other-than-human life. I find succour in forms of singing, wailing, whispering, and praying as a way of participating in the collective resistance, especially as an immigrant mother of colour who cannot actively participate in demonstrations. The only way forward is for us to hope together.

Deliberating on the life and times of every woman, Rosalyn D'Mello is a reputable art critic and the author of A Handbook For My Lover. She posts @rosad1985 on Instagram
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The views expressed in this column are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper.