Sunday, January 4, 2009

Arbeit Macht Frei

To move one's fingers, to lift the eye lids, to pick words and to be, in order to write about what is happening in Gaza is an absurdity. Absolutely. To speak about it is to acknowledge to oneself that Gaza as a geographical entity exists, it is populated, populated by human beings, they too eat, sleep, and give birth. No. It's the avalanche of temptation one has to learn to resist. One has to learn to erase. No. One has to learn to stop learning. One has to learn from them, the miraculous way in which they have forgotten EVERYTHING, they who have placed Arbeit macht frei at the door to their conscience. They who have taken up the Philosophy of Erasure. They who keep the Bully that is the God of Old Testament alive and fresh through the generations. Fresh as freshly picked vegetables. Apparently that same old God would not give us amnesia, would not give us hemlock. We who shed bitter tears over the untimely departure of Benjamin, We who vividly recall the murder of Walther Rathenau, We who wake up with a start in the middle of the night and stare into the riddle of Primo Levi's death, we who are doomed to recite the Talmud of cruelty lest we forget . Will not even erase us, we who would without a murmur cease to be. One has to learn to vanish. Vanish.