A review by reads2cope
Recognizing the Stranger: On Palestine and Narrative by Isabella Hammad

5.0

“This particular woman, she said, pointed at another woman wailing in distress on the television screen in her living room in London and cried, “That’s me! That’s me!” I found this story quite moving. Then I was told the woman’s name, and learned that it was my own grandmother. I suddenly laughed, because my grandmother is very dramatic. Reflecting on this now, however, I find myself moved once more. What a pure connection, to see herself in the woman on the television, to experience the distance between them not as numbing, but as another component of her pain. The present onslaught leaves no space for mourning, since mourning requires an afterwards, but only for repeated shock and the ebb and flow of grief. We who are not there, witnessing from afar, in what ways are we mutilating ourselves when we dissociate to cope? To remain human at this juncture is to remain in agony. Let us remain there: it is the more honest place from which to speak.

…

There is a temptation to leap forward rhetorically to reflect on the present. What will you have done? What that means is there is still time. What that means is time is running out. Every ten minutes, according to the World Health Organization, a child is killed. It will be easy to say in hindsight, “What a terrible thing. That was a terrible moment when the movements of the world were out of my hands.” Do not give in. Be like the Palestinians in Gaza. Look them in the face. Say, “That’s me.” … The Palestinians in Gaza are beautiful. The way they care for each other in the face of death puts the rest of us to shame. Wael Al-Dahdouh, the Al-Jazeera journalist who, when his family members were killed, kept on speaking to camera, stated recently with a calm and miraculous grace, “One day this war will stop and those of us who remain will return and rebuild and live again in these houses.”

A perfect book to follow reading The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates as both authors break down their time with the Palestine Festival of Literature, the privilege of awakenings, and so much more. My favorite passages from both books are when the authors explain how speaking clearly within our own communities is persuasive enough to awaken outsiders to our struggles. Hammad honor Edward Said and ties in so many critical aspects of literature, life, and history together that I now feel like I’m rambling on longer than the work itself in praising it. Read this, then read it again, as well as Hammad’s other works.