Aviva Tuffield

Publisher at UQP. Co-founder & inaugural ED of the Stella Prize. Champion of Australian writers & writing. All opinions my own. She/her.

[Aviva Tuffield @AvivaTuffield]

https://t.co/R2iACLtnaA

[Aviva Tuffield @AvivaTuffield]

Thank god we hear from you again @ezzingaza You have been in our thoughts every moment of every day since you were displaced YET AGAIN.

[Dr. Ezzideen @ezzingaza]

On September 2, we abandoned our home. No, not abandoned, we were torn from it, as a limb is torn from the body, bleeding, twitching, still longing to move though it has been severed. And I tell you: the earth itself convulsed.

For seven hundred days we remained in the north, chained not by walls but by despair, enduring four displacements that broke us bone by bone. Once, shells tore through our house while we were still inside, and we fled half-buried in dust. Once, we moved from one broken dwelling to another, dragging behind us our shame like beggars. Then to a school, where the stench of a thousand crowded bodies suffocated even the thought of sleep. Then to a ruined university, where we spent a month crammed into a room no larger than a coffin, waiting for dawns that brought no light.

We starved like animals. Famine stretched across months until my mother, that saint who once baked bread with her eyes closed in the rhythm of life, now ground barley meant for beasts, corn meant for ducklings, seeds meant for birds. She baked bread out of humiliation itself, and we ate it with trembling hands, our stomachs rebelling, our souls rebelling more. Each mouthful tasted of degradation, of the slow erasure of what it means to be human.

And still we obeyed. We did everything the army demanded of us, bowed our heads, silenced our throats, extinguished our cries. We clung to life with the stubborn hope that staying upon our land was worth every humiliation, every hunger, every burial in advance. Because leaving, we knew, was the end. Leaving was death. Leaving was never to return.

And yet we left.

That morning, we rose like mourners. We did not speak; what word could one utter at one’s own funeral? We gathered the remnants of a life, crumbs, rags, useless tokens, and felt them heavier than the gravestones of our ancestors. The driver shouted, ordering us to climb into the car. His voice struck us like whips upon slaves, and yet we did not move. For a moment we waited, for the stones, the trees, the very air to cry out, “Do not go! Stay!” But the silence was merciless. When the car moved, it was not wheels that turned, but the axle of history, grinding us into strangers upon our own road.

And I knew, even as I breathed, that this was not merely leaving a city. It was leaving faith. I saw Christ again upon Golgotha, yet this time He was forced to lay down the cross, mocked not by executioners but by history itself. I saw Muhammad once more cast out from his home, driven into exile not by choice but by the cruelty of men. I tell you, we were forced into apostasy, betrayal without sin, exile without crime. We were robbed not only of walls and roofs, but of the sacredness that bound us to them.

And now I write, with these trembling hands, a testimony for eternity: that we were expelled. That we walked not of our will but of compulsion, that we tasted exile as one tastes poison, drop by drop, until the soul itself convulses. By God, we never loved exile, who loves the grave in which he is buried alive? Yet our homeland turned its face, and in that moment it became stranger to us.

We wander now not only as exiles before men, but as exiles before ourselves. We are the funeral of our own hearts, walking. And if there is one thing you must carry from these words, let it be this: that there is no silence deeper than the silence of a land that once knew your name, and will never speak it again.

#GazaGenocide

[Dr. Ezzideen @ezzingaza]

This land, which should have been mother, has become executioner. It rejects us with a violence as relentless as the sea breaking upon rock. We wander across its scorched face like shadows dispossessed, and everywhere we go, the soil itself denies us rest.

For two years we have not remained more than five months beneath the same roof. Each time we tried to raise a fragile dwelling from the debris, each time we whispered to walls riddled with bullet-holes, each time we caressed the stones with our weary breath, saying to them: “Remember us, we belong to you,” the tempest returned. The house was torn away, the nest scattered, the memory broken. What madness, to call anything home when the hand of destruction hovers above every threshold. Four houses gone, a fifth already trembling. How many ruins does it take before one understands he inhabits not a nation but an abyss?

Look upon the road. Behold the children staggering under sacks heavier than their bones. Their hair tangled, their eyes extinguished before their youth. They are the image of mankind crucified, walking the Via Dolorosa once more. But no gospel will record them, no psalm will consecrate their agony, no Qur’an will inscribe their names on the tongues of believers. Their suffering will vanish in silence, like smoke carried off by the wind.

The city flees before the decree is spoken. The people need no proclamation; the bombs are proclamations enough. The iron shells are louder, more sincere, than the hollow promises of politicians who conjure the word “shelters” while meaning only graves. Fear speaks truer than all the speeches of men. Blood writes in a language no minister dares to utter.

And now, the procession: vehicles that are not vehicles but skeletons of iron, wheels without glass, doors torn from hinges, bodies devoured by rust. Upon them are heaped mattresses, barrels, broken chairs, fragments of tables, the remnants of lives dismantled a hundred times. Around them, multitudes on foot, dragging their poverty across the dust. Mothers, fathers, infants clinging to shoulders, the elderly limping behind. It is not a march; it is an exodus.

Yes, it is the city itself that departs. Have you ever seen such a thing? A city gathering its belongings, folding its history, extinguishing its memory, and abandoning its very soil? That is Gaza today. Gaza, once a cradle of voices and prayers, is now a caravan of stones in motion, a city packing its own coffin.

Grief has devoured her soul. Massacre upon massacre has wrung her dry, until even the name of Gaza is weary of itself. She flees herself. She walks, not toward a promised land, but toward nothingness. Toward the impossible, now made real. Toward an end so absolute that it no longer even resembles death, only silence, vast and unbroken, as if the world itself had forgotten it ever contained such a city.

And thus will posterity know: Gaza was not destroyed; Gaza departed. A people, a city, a history, compelled to carry its own funeral through the desert of time.

#GazaGenocide

[Nour Abdel Latif @NourGaza]

أصوات الإنفجارات والنسف ما توقفت نهائي من منطقة الصفطاوي شمال غزة وما في تغطية إعلامية.
The sounds of explosions and bombings haven’t stopped at all in the Safatawi area, northern Gaza and there’s no media coverage.

[Aviva Tuffield @AvivaTuffield]

Donate don’t celebrate
Dhadjowa Donations : Make a donation today to support Dhadjowa Donations https://t.co/eNrfpMQPM9 #dhadjowa-donations via @raisely

[Paul Bongiorno @PaulBongiorno]

Just finished reading and notating this meticulously researched book.
My own ignorance shocked me as much as the chronicled atrocities.

[Aviva Tuffield @AvivaTuffield]

@arablit @sncrlynotsorry @UQPbooks You just need to go to that page and then from there click the RESOURCES button and then you’ll see free PDF is there.

[Adam Bandt @AdamBandt]

International law only means something if its signatories abide by its rulings. It cannot be applied selectively. 

Canada, Netherlands and Italy have all confirmed they’d act on the ruling, and arrest Netanyahu if he visited.
 
Australia must too.

[Adam Bandt @AdamBandt]

As bombs have rained down on Gaza, Labor have spoken a lot about ‘respecting international law’. 

Now is the time to show it. 

The Australian Government must confirm they will comply with the arrest warrants issued by the ICC.

[Antony Loewenstein @antloewenstein]

Congrats @AvivaTuffield et al for organising this, vital books being sent to all Australian politicians to read some truths about Israel/Palestine.
Thanks to all those who gave $ to support this initiative:
https://t.co/HXwVI7uXiQ

[Jewish Council of Australia @jewishcouncilAU]

Authors group gives 5 books to every MP.

“The political debate in Australia and internationally rarely touches on the issues, events and historical analyses that these books reveal – despite their direct relevance to what is happening today”

https://t.co/2Y91NGXDJZ

[Aviva Tuffield @AvivaTuffield]

Disgusting. This is hate speech.

[Randa Abdel-Fattah @RandaAFattah]

7. This is a long thread to make a simple point: universities are failing the victims of a genocide. They are failing their own glossy policies and fancy mission statements on anti-racism, equality, diversity and inclusion. They are eviscerating intellectual inquiry and critical thought, falsely posturing as places of knowledge and education, and betraying a generation of students and academics. All in the name of protecting an apartheid, settler colonial, genocidal regime. They are hedging their bets on systems and structures that are collapsing.

[Aviva Tuffield @AvivaTuffield]

I could hardly finish reading this thread from rage. Solidarity to the incredible @RandaAFattah

[Randa Abdel-Fattah @RandaAFattah]

In response to the Oslo Accords, @DrHananAshrawi said, “They made the people under occupation responsible for the security of their occupier.” Throughout Israel’s savage 11 month (and continuing) genocidal campaign in Gaza, zionists have made the people opposing genocide responsible for the feelings of those who support genocide. (1) 🧵

[Aviva Tuffield @AvivaTuffield]

Donate if you can. Help My Family Survive in Gaza https://t.co/RbTJpbfyL2

[Aviva Tuffield @AvivaTuffield]

What a beautiful man! What excellent reading taste! JILYA is unmissable. Congratulations, @TracyWesterman.
@UQPbooks

[Troy Cassar-Daley @troycassardaley]

Reading sorted for my next big week of flights, can’t wait @TracyWesterman and what an achievement!!
It’s in book stores September 3rd, thanks to Lauren for the advanced copy🙏🏾 #psychology #mentalhealth

[Jewish Council of Australia @jewishcouncilAU]

The National Socialist Network group did a stunt at Federation Square in Melbourne yesterday calling for mass deportations of immigrants. These neo-nazis are nothing more than contemptible, pathetic individuals seeking attention through offensive behaviour. Neo-nazis and their genocidal antisemitism breed in a soup of racism encouraged by Australian politicians and the media who regularly attempt to whip up anti-migrant, anti-Palestinian and Islamophobic sentiment.

[Michael J Wyllie @michaelJwyllie]

Dear ABC chair Kim Williams, can we please have #theDrum back on instead of Hard Quiz reruns. Thanks.

[Jews Against Fascism ☂️ @jewsagainstfash]

A chilling article highlighting the vile state of mcarthyism the zionist community has descended into.

This is written by a current teacher at Bialik College, in Melbourne. She is willing to drag her students through the mud for supporting the Jewish Council of Australia.

[Jordy Silverstein @jordana_s_]

I'm so angry at this appointment, at this moment, at this overwhelming racism that we are enduring.

big thanks to @gtiso and @OverlandJournal for providing a space for this anger.