Diane Coetzer

Writer + Journalist + Music Lover + Vegan. Curator of @WhistlingWomen. Join me on Substack

[Diane Coetzer @dianecoetzer]

It’s distressing how “non-white” has crept into reporting on the #USPresidentialElection. During #apartheid it was used to drive home the message of white superiority. It was the benchmark against which all other “races” were deemed “non”. 1

[Jason Hickel @jasonhickel]

It's wild that the term "Free World" emerged in Western discourse in the 1940s, at a time when the Western European powers exercised authoritarian control over the colonised territories and the US was an apartheid regime with institutionalised racial segregation.

[Mbekezeli @MbekezeliMB]

President @CyrilRamaphosa has appointed Justice Nambitha Dambuza and Justice Kate Savage as the new justices of the @ConCourtSA.

With these appointments, South Africa becomes one of only 3 countries in the world that have a woman majority apex court.

[Tamer Nahed @Tamer_Alnoaizy]

Honestly, I feel a deep shock as I watch what is happening now. In Gaza, we lived for more than two and a half years under direct bombardment, with no real protection, no shelters to hide in, and no safe places to escape to.

We lived every day between fear, hunger, and thirst, lacking food, water, and medicine, waiting each night simply hoping the next day would pass safely.

And yet, we were always told to endure, to be patient, and to live with this reality as if it were something normal.

But today, after just one week of war in other places, I see the level of fear and confusion. Despite the presence of a huge military arsenal, interceptor missiles, shelters, and advanced protection systems, anxiety is everywhere and the conversation has quickly turned to the urgent need to stop the war.

And this is what truly leaves me stunned… How did we in Gaza manage to live like this for all those years under bombardment without any protection? How did we endure that constant fear, hunger, and uncertainty day after day, while the world simply asked us to be patient?

How can human beings endure this for years, when others cannot bear even a few days despite all the protection and resources they have? This is something that leaves me in a state of shock and disbelief.

[Jason Hickel @jasonhickel]

Make no mistake. The US/Israel war against Iran is a colonial war. Like the genocide in Palestine, the invasion of Iraq and Libya, the incineration of Vietnam and Laos, it is war to subjugate the people of the global South and annihilate their resistance. Colonialism has no place in humanity and it must be defeated.

[Yanis Varoufakis @yanisvaroufakis]

The world's two rogue states, Israel and the USA, have started a war not against Iran but against the whole world. We stand with Iranians, with Humanity, against the notion that Israel and the US can bomb anyone their fancy takes them to bomb. https://t.co/Xn8bo7q5Xc

[Caitlin Johnstone @caitoz]

No, this is incorrect. The key isn't finding a balance between blissful ignorance and painful awareness, it’s learning to find happiness in sources that don’t depend on the delusional belief that everything is fine.

It’s very possible to be both happy and well-informed. We live in an explosively beautiful universe, and getting to experience anything at all is amazing. The fact that our world is plagued by human butchery and degradation does not cancel out the majesty of a bird in the sky, or the ecstasy of the wind upon your skin.

It is true that we live in a civilization of unfathomable cruelty. It is true that our biosphere is being strangled while human and non-human beings are subjected to horrific abuses in a society which elevates the worst art, the worst values, and the worst people to the highest levels of prominence.

It is also true that getting to live even a single moment on this astonishing blue planet is a gift worthy of immense joy and gratitude.

These things are both fully true at the same time. They do not negate each other.

Don’t find your happiness in the belief that everything is okay, because everything is not okay. If you spend your life squirming around trying to avert your gaze from the truth and psychologically compartmentalizing away from reality, you will never know actual happiness.

Instead, find your happiness in that which cannot be corrupted by this fraudulent dystopia.

Your connections with your loved ones. That’s real and authentic.

The radiance of the natural world. That’s real and authentic.

The crackling aliveness of the senses. That’s real and authentic.

The boundless peace deep down at the heart of your being which reveals itself if you listen closely enough. That’s real and authentic.

These things can supply endless happiness, even as the world burns, and even as you weep at its burning. Because it is entirely possible to honor the grief and tragedy of this world while also delighting in its beauty.

You can weep for the dying oceans while marveling at the stars.

You can rage for Gaza while reveling in the earth beneath your bare feet.

You can open your heart to all the suffering and to all the wonder.

You can fall to your knees in both anguish and gratitude.

You can do these things because feelings move through you if you don’t cling to them. You feel them fully without resistance, you invite them in to have their say, and then you let them leave when they are done.

It usually doesn’t take long; a few minutes, maybe even seconds. Then you get up and go back to marveling at the miracle.

Feelings are meant to be felt. If you simply feel them all the way through when they come up instead of repressing them or trying to manage them, they move through fairly quickly without setting up a permanent residence in your chest.

But you’ve got to really let them have their say. You’ve got to give yourself fully over to them. This takes practice if you don’t know how to do it, and because of the way our culture conditions people it tends to be harder for men than for women. But it’s a skill like any other, and anyone can teach themselves how to do it.

Appreciating the beauty of this terrestrial experience likewise takes practice. Everything is crackling with beauty all the time, but we don’t notice it because our attention gets wrapped up in mental stories. Just make a conscious practice of noticing beauty at every opportunity, and your aperture for appreciating beauty will get wider and wider. You can learn to live your whole life in this way, from moment to moment.

If you can get the hang of these two skills—appreciating beauty and feeling your feelings all the way through—then there will be nothing stopping you from living a joyful and fulfilling life while also having an entirely truth-based relationship with reality.

[Zachary Foster @_ZachFoster]

Colonialism, in one photo.

[Max du Preez @MaxduPreez]

What an insult to most South Africans

[Daniel Lambert @dlLambo]

First they steal your history.

Then they bomb what remains.

Then they erase you.

[Colin Sheridan @colinivan]

If you've a problem with anybody expressing public sympathy with a people being slaughtered, then something is missing in your emotional make-up. Not your politics, but your wiring. This isn’t about agreeing with Pep on every detail. It’s about the grotesque instinct to police compassion. In todays @ExaminerSport

[Jason Hickel @jasonhickel]

Bombing Venezuela while coordinating a genocide in Palestine while threatening to attack Iran (again) while destabillizing Somalia while carrying out a heist in the DRC...

US imperialism is the greatest threat to peace and security in our world today and it's not even close.

[Craig Mokhiber @CraigMokhiber]

My latest: The UN Embraces Colonialism: Unpacking the Security Council’s mandate for the U.S. colonial administration of Gaza https://t.co/K8kIrlQrtc

[Jacobin @jacobin]

From our first interview immediately after he won his state assembly election in 2020 through profiles, op-eds, interviews, and speeches, Jacobin has closely covered Zohran Mamdani’s political career rooted in the socialist movement since its start. https://t.co/zKLJuSUw01

[Jacobin @jacobin]

It's official: A democratic socialist (and Jacobin contributor) will be the next mayor of America's largest city.

It’s proof that organizing around universal programs and working-class demands can still win big in the heart of capitalism.

[Andrew Feinstein @andrewfeinstein]

‘US will limit number of refugees to 7,500 and give priority to white South Africans’
The deranged racists are running the world! https://t.co/ONboEgWrBk

[Daniel Lambert @dlLambo]

The US commits another war crime last night and celebrates it online.

No trial, no public information, evidence destroyed. An execution on the basis of "trust us we wouldn't lie" from a state led by a pathological liar.

And silence from the media.

[Mail & Guardian @mailandguardian]

WATCH | “After meeting so many of you in the struggle for justice for Palestine, Mandela could not have been born anywhere else. He was fully, truly, beautifully South African” - Francesca Albanese @FranceskAlbs, a UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories speaking at the 23rd Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture, brought to you by the @NelsonMandela Foundation, in partnership with the Mail & Guardian.

Watch here: https://t.co/g0VuUpZKEu

#NelsonMandelaAnnualLecture

[Rania @umyaznemo]

It's literally not us but you!

[Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt @FranceskAlbs]

South Africa's affection toward me is no doubt the reflex of their authentic unbreakable support to the Palestinian people. Yet as a European woman, the privilege is enormous.

[Channel 4 News @Channel4News]

Israeli forces are said to have dropped more explosives on Gaza than fell on London, Dresden and Hamburg combined in the Second World War. The level of destruction is hard to fathom as is the humanitarian suffering.

Our Foreign Affairs Correspondent @SecKermani looks at the damage that’s been done and the challenges of now rebuilding if the ceasefire holds.