Valerie Grove

Artist. AKA multi skilled creative problem solver. Former international itinerant. Former lots of other things. Currently stuck in various limbos.

[Dr. Ezzideen @ezzingaza]

I swear to you. Before God. Before this wretched century. Before whatever last flicker of humanity may still remain in me, what I saw today was not life.

It was the collapse of everything that ever claimed to be sacred.

Once, Fridays in Gaza were holy.
Not because of tradition, but because they were tender.
A father would come home with fish, or perhaps a piece of chicken, and for one hour, we would eat like people.
We were poor, but not degraded.
We would smile across the table, thank God for a small plate of meat, and feel alive. We felt worthy of breath.

Even the poorest among us knew this dignity. They saved all week. They endured hunger not out of habit, but for hope. For that one day. That one meal.
That illusion of a normal life.

But now?

Today is Friday.

And I walked through the streets of Gaza, not to celebrate, not even to feed, but to hunt for rice.
Rotten rice.
Gray grains that stick to your fingers and taste like nothing.
Anything. Anything at all to fool the stomach into silence.

My brother searched one market. I searched another.
We returned with crumbs.
We paid with the last coins we had.
They ask for gold in exchange for ash.
And we pay it, because the children must eat, and because we no longer dare to say what is fair.

But I have not come to speak about rice.

I have come to confess what I saw.

A truck passed by.
It was empty.
Its floor was covered in a thin layer of flour dust. Just dust.
Not bags. Not bread. Only the trace of something that might once have saved a child.

And then I saw them.

Not rebels. Not criminals.
Children.

They ran, ran like hunted things, toward that truck. They climbed it with hands that have never held toys.
They fell to their knees as if before an altar.
And they began to scrape.

One had a broken lid.
Another, a piece of cardboard.
But the rest, the rest used their hands.
Their tongues.

They licked it.

Do you hear me?

They licked flour dust from rusted steel. From dirt. From the back of a truck that had already driven away.

One boy was laughing.
Not because he was happy, but because the body goes mad when it is starving.

Another was crying, quietly, like someone who no longer believes anyone is listening.

And I stood there.
With all my shame.
With my hands in my pockets, like a man waiting for a bus.
Like I wasn’t watching the end of the world.

I wanted to scream.
But what scream can reach Heaven, when Heaven itself is deaf?

What words can I offer?
What words can explain the sound of a child’s tongue scraping against rust for a taste of flour?

There are no metaphors left.
There is no beauty in this.
Only sin.
Only crime.
And we are all guilty.

You. Me.
The ones who sent the truck.
The ones who sent the planes.

And God?
If You are watching, then cry with us.
And if You are silent, then we are alone in this hell.

This is the twenty-first century.
But history has not moved forward.
It has swallowed its own children and called it progress.

I don’t want to write this.
I want to unsee it.
I want to forget the boy who licked the floor.

But I can’t.

Because I saw him.
Because he is real.
Because he is more real than all the words I’ve written.

And because if I forget him, then I am no longer human.

#GazaGenocide

[Valerie Grove @naturestrikes]

@ruskimo2 I think Neil's both of them...

[Valerie Grove @naturestrikes]

Word of the day:
"Omnicide"
@ClimateBen

[Extinction Rebellion Global @ExtinctionR]

New research suggests that war is emitting 5.5% of global emissions. Over a twentieth of emissions just to create damage and enormous humanitarian suffering is intolerable.

https://t.co/feCoHCN8Ue

[Valerie Grove @naturestrikes]

https://t.co/65Oh1664BK

[Valerie Grove @naturestrikes]

@HaringeyWelcome @WagingPeaceUK @DavidLammy @CatherineWest1 It was a privilege to be there. X

[Haringey Welcome @HaringeyWelcome]

A truly moving commemoration in #Haringey yesterday with @WagingPeaceUK for #SharifBarko / #MajedHassan and for all Sudanese and Darfuri people who are victims or survivors of #Genocide
#KeepEyesOnSudan #KeepEyesOnDarfur

Thanks @DavidLammy @CatherineWest1 for your support.

[Valerie Grove @naturestrikes]

https://t.co/oga9SyDJtY

[Valerie Grove @naturestrikes]

@StuartWilksHeeg @Prof_Alistair @ProfJohnDiamond Am PT distance MA mature student and system sucks. Cross institutional admin chaotic. Not even video lectures! Bland formulaic 'discussion' questions where no real communication or shared learning happens. Very isolating and depressing. I'm quite techy but system still hellish!

[Valerie Grove @naturestrikes]

A new series of aerial images from photographer Edward Burtynsky reveals sites of displacement, erasure, and extraction—all, at first glance, sublime—across five African countries.
https://t.co/jZWGN9Xhed

[Valerie Grove @naturestrikes]

Very long but fascinating read about the dystopian nature of our relationship with tech. "Have we have finally become ghosts in the machine?"
https://t.co/t6nc5aXLqA

[Lucy Nabijou @LucyNabijou]

Commemorative bench for #SharifBarko finally in place. Been a long wait to claim a public space to remember this remarkable person, his unwavering fight for rights of ppl of Darfur + Sudan, and for dignity + humanity of migrants and struggling ppl everywhere. #ForeverLoved

[Valerie Grove @naturestrikes]

Did Western philosophy ruin Earth? A philosopher's letter of apology to the world. Has much of western European philosophy, from ancient Greece to the present, led directly to unspeakable evil?
https://t.co/dfiPCQlpn2

[Valerie Grove @naturestrikes]

To Tackle the Climate Crisis, Philanthropy Needs to Get Religion https://t.co/wqwghWK8il

[Valerie Grove @naturestrikes]

@RaiWaddingham Brian eno, Just another Day is a great song to just drift and accept to!
https://t.co/VRlwHUxn0E

[Valerie Grove @naturestrikes]

@naturecognition Another Day on Earth, Brian Eno

[Patagonia @patagonia]

Hey, friends, we just gave our company to planet Earth. OK, it’s more nuanced than that, but we’re closed today to celebrate this new plan to save our one and only home. We’ll be back online tomorrow.
https://t.co/fvRFDgOzVZ

[Los Angeles Review of Books @LAReviewofBooks]

“Tally argues that a satisfaction with surface meaning and a resistance to critical analysis always betrays a resignation to the status quo and that which sustains it.“ @_rob_scott reviews Robert T. Tally Jr.’s book on literature’s impact on capitalism. https://t.co/o91SX8svTQ

[Valerie Grove @naturestrikes]

Lovelock spent his life advocating for climate measures, starting decades before many others started to take notice of the crisis. By the time he died he did not believe there was hope of avoiding some of the worst impacts of the climate crisis.https://t.co/J4t0xB968w

[Valerie Grove @naturestrikes]

@neilpartrick Blue Velvet meets Yellow Brick Road? What a perfect description of where we seem to have culturally arrived! 😆