how should we respond to evil?

On longing for the aftermath

On Saturday I stood beneath these fragile garlands, strung up by friends of ours to celebrate their adoption of two children. The new parents had spent hours folding hundreds of individual origami cranes to honour the much-awaited arrival of their new family members; a lavish expression of love, hope and longing for their children’s future.

Sat on the train home I turned to the news and read the horrifying reports emerging from Israel, of rape and cold-blooded murder by Hamas. A day of joy and fulfillment for our friends was also the bloodiest day of violence against the Jewish people since the holocaust. Each news-cycle since seems to have offered more unconscionable stories, of babies killed and grandmothers taken hostage. Now Israel is about to embark on a ground invasion which can only end in total disaster for the Palestinian people, who are trapped in ‘the world’s largest open-air prison’.

Unquestionably, the forces of evil are at work. We are witnessing acts which are so depraved they make us question the moral fabric of humanity. Can our culture meaningfully respond to this moment, beyond expressing horror and condemnation?

In 1949 the cultural philosopher Theodor Adorno stated that ‘To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric.’ For Adorno, a German born to a Jewish father, the holocaust was the ultimate barbaric act which fundamentally transformed our understanding of what humans were capable of. Adorno believed it was the product of a ‘total society’ which continued to thrive in the hollowed-out literary and artistic world following the end of the war. He felt that to write poetry or make art for the benefit of the cultural establishment was to simply perpetuate the cycles of barbarism which had failed to prevent the mass-murder of the Jews.

It’s possible to identify elements of Adorno’s ‘total society’ at work in our media today, in this moment. In a 24hr news cycle dominated by extreme perspectives, to write or say anything about the conflict feels like a perilous task. Words and phrases are misconstrued and taken out of context. Others meanwhile, are actively seizing this moment to spread lies and misinformation.

I often write about hope in The Murmuration, by which I mean an active hope, which is more than mere optimism that things will work out. This kind of hope, writes Václav Havel, is ‘an ability to work for something because it is good … The more unpromising the situation in which we demonstrate hope, the deeper that hope is.’

Adorno’s seemingly nihilistic perspective was really a deep acknowledgement of the very tangible forces of evil in our world, and the way it shapes and affects every corner of our culture, making any response feel almost impossible. I understand and empathise with Adorno’s inability to articulate any positive vision in the aftermath of Auschwitz. Confronted by that evil, and the evil we witness today, appeals to peace and hope can risk sounding trite and insincere.

Perhaps for now, as the fighting continues, something we can do is develop what Arthur Cohen describes as ‘a new language … in order to destroy the old language which, in it’s decrepitude and decline, made facile and easy the demonic descent.’ This is the task that now faces those who write stories or poetry, for people who report news and raise children; we must engage with the re-envisioning of the world as it should be.

Women Wage Peace is a grassroots organisation which brings together Israeli and Palestinian campaign groups of women. They have worked in partnership for two years now, hosting events and protests together. On the 4 October they marched through the streets of Jerusalem in an act of joint solidarity, calling for a resolution to the conflict. Huda Abu Arqoob, a Palestinian political activist, had this to say

It's not about despair; it's about hope, and we are the ones who are carrying that torch of hope to the entire world. We... because we have our kids on the stake, our kids' lives on the stake. And so, this is what we want to achieve, for the world to know that Palestinian and Israeli women are determined to bring peace to this land.

The Japanese practice of making 1000 paper cranes (senbazuru) was popularised by a child called Sasaki Sadako, a victim of Hiroshima. When the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Japan in 1945, two-year old Sadako was blown out of her window but miraculously unharmed. She lived in relative good health for most of her childhood, but was eventually diagnosed with radiation-induced leukaemia aged eleven.

During her hospitalisation Sadako was brought some paper cranes by school children, and was inspired to fold a 1000 cranes in the hope that it would grant her (as the folder) a wish of good health. Sadako is thought to have completed her senbazuru, but died at the age of twelve.

What struck me about Sadako’s story was the sense in which she used senbazuru to envision an alternate reality which reinforced her sense of human dignity. It was a way to orientate herself towards hope in circumstances which others may quite rationally have described as an apocalyptic nightmare, stripping her life of of all agency and meaning. It is the same dignity we see when Palestinian medics turn up for work, and when Orthodox Jews defend the Palestinian’s right to have their flag flying in Jerusalem.

We must join forces with Sadako, with Women Wage Peace and with my friends who faithfully practiced senbazuru for their own children, in recognising that the internal posture we hold in these times of uncertainty and fear forms one of the pathways to peace.

We can allow ourselves to be debased by the events we are witnessing, or we can allow ourselves to be transformed, understanding that the only end to this conflict is one which recognises the worth and dignity of every human being.

Dear friends,

There is so much happening in the world at the moment, so thank you for giving your time and attention to The Murmuration this morning. I hope it has given you some food for thought.

I am hosting a virtual Substack workshop on the 24th October to raise funds for Babybank Network UK, a small charity doing brilliant work with struggling families. It would be great to ‘meet’ some of you there and hear about any ideas you may have for your own newsletter.

Email grace@gracepengelly.co.uk to reserve your place.

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