Profession revolutionary

Top-down narratives describe Hamas as reckless, but in people's whispers, Hölderlin words echo: "Where the danger lies, also grows the saving power”

There is a specter that is hunting the Western World. No, it isn’t communism again, it is Islam.

After the end of the cold war, and the consequential unrestrained spread of modern capitalism, the revolutionaries of the world felt that a real alternative to the “ills of the world” was missing. Certainly, there have been many well articulated critics on modern society, but nothing able to offer a comprehensive system to substitute it.

Then October 7 happened.

Hamas, like any other resistance movements, rose amid the extreme poor conditions of its people, in its case of the Gaza Strip and the West Banks. It soon became clear though that they differ from the secular Palestinian resistance, which had developed into professional funds receivers¹.

The islamic movement was diligence, stayed away from the Ngos bureaucracy, and focused mainly on self-sustainability and local community support. By rejecting the ideological framework of international aid, Hamas offered to its people freedom to act. Elsewhere, mediating within the western framework, led to a different path.

In Afghanistan, the US – backed up by the Western allies – developed an economic system completely dependent on foreign aid. Then, when the Taliban humiliate them by entering in Kabul without their green light, they cut it all, leaving the whole country in economy despair.

A similar destiny seems upholding to the newly president of Syria Al-Sharaa, formerly known as Al Jolani. The military commander, who led the end of Syrian conflict, is now tied between the belief which has allowed its victory, and the fear to upset the ego monsters that has back them up for geopolitical convenience.

“Where the danger lies, also grows the saving power”, wrote the German poet Friedrich Hölderlin, and Hamas, with the Operation Al Aqsa flood turned upside-down the tables of the international scenario. No hope belong to the oppressed if they play according to the oppressors rules, now everyone knows.

Hamas inundated the river banks in which modern society funded its legitimacy, and offered to the Palestinians, and the oppressed of the world, a way out from permanent subordination. Like in “The Skin” by Curzio Malaparte, in their struggle to avoid dead they found the means to preserve dignity. And dignity indeed, means also rejecting an enemy system as a whole.

Any attentive observer of the world affairs has well clear that aid, development, mainstream journalism and international law, are certainly not friends of the oppressed, but the soft hand of the oppressors². However, our sophisticate society has mastered the technique of discipline through language, and even the harsh critique remain within a predefined framework that legitimise its existence.

The constant threat of possible crisis has transformed every individual into a diligent citizen, ready to mediate without negotiation, and condemn ahead any form of violence as a civic duty. Rather than means for changes, peace has been reduced to formality, often used to educate at the adaptation of a status quo.

By making again politics a means for social changes, Hamas not only is giving to the Palestinians a hope of liberation, but is sparkling over the world the light of awakening. The video coming from Gaza shows people with an undoubtedly dedication to self-sacrifice for the greater good, and this can be nothing but inspiring.

While our feeds were summoned hedonistic blathering, we all witnessing Palestinian facing their fate with dignity. While Trump, the president of the so called liberal world, dream about building “a riviera”, the people of Gaza pray amid rubble. While the Israeli government talk of hate, Abu Obeida, Hamas spokesperson, speeches are guided by rationality; while the IDF soldiers appears as mental child on a spring break with a gun, Hamas fighters are praised for straight and humanity also by their Israeli captives³.

Yet, it is Hamas to be listed as terrorist organization by a number of western countries, and anything in its support can be labelled as apology of terrorism.

That is not sorprising. Power has always used the label terrorism against anymore that take up the arms, and challenge its monopoly of violence. Jacobins suffered from an infamous campaign that pinned them as brutal animals, the Italian partisans were called terrorists by the Nazis. Even the Communards of the short-lived 1871 Paris Commune were victim of what we would have called bad press.

But the lacks of meaningful and truthful debate around Hamas actions is clearly an attempt to take away the psych resources needed to resist any systematic form of oppression. The ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict is then challenging power in ways that are unprecedented for the last generations.

I am not simply talking about social trends such as youth discovering the thought of Osama Bin Laden, the inexplicable inconsistencies of Western institutions undoubtedly exposed. I am referring to the re-opening of the space of imagination: the courage to questioning the very forma mentis in which we perceive and analyse reality.

Think about Zionism, for instance. European Zionism began as romantic dream to return to East, and live side by side with fellow Arabs as in ancient time, it then became a colonial project that defined Palestine an almost desert land⁴. In the modern days, it has become nothing but a fully secular project, perpetuate in the name of liberalism and civic rights against what they define uncivilized lands.

Exposing the lies in which it is frame it, which often use religious references, allow people to question everything in the way it is thought, and put it under scrutiny. The world as we know it quickly fell down with a domino effect: the universalism of modern human rights; the idea of development and progress, the prejudice of materialism against the soul.

The old establishment is aware of the power of imagination, and has entered into an alliance to exorcise “this spectrum”, like they did back in the days with anarchism, socialism, and anything system of thought able to challenges its power. Now, it is Islam.

Since 9/11 in US, but way before in Europe, Islam has been victim of misinformation, persecution, pinned as religion of war and accepted only when compromise with the Western framework⁵. However, Islam means an idea of society as a whole, it is a framework of social and psychological equilibrium that embrace all the life of an individual.

It is well know that this, to the occidental mind, means to be a Christian of the Middle Age⁶. The western attitude is trained to simply ignore any societal structure and idea that doesn’t belong to its tradition. But now, Palestinians are forcing everyone to witness what it means faith, unity, and sense of justice for muslim. And the western modern mind have to measure this, with their own world, led by individualism, subjugation, cruelty.

History teaches that struggle has never ended with oppression, on the contrary, it enhanced its flourishing. And the process of consciousness is slow but persistent. No doubt, a new generation of professional revolutionaries, is coming.

1. The making of human bomb, Nasser Abufarha (2009)

2. Plenty of literature in this regard. Some reading suggestion to began:

The road to hell : the ravaging effects of foreign aid and international charity, Maren, M. (1997)

Lords of poverty : the power, prestige, and corruption of the international aid business, Hancock, G. (1989)

Everything you have told me is true, M. Harper (2019)

3. All mentions refer to videos widely available online

4. Le fasi del pensiero sionista esposte da un sionista, M. Beilinson (1922)

5. Disciplining Terror, how experts invented Terrorism, L. Stampnitzky (2013)

6. Islam and the destiny of man, G. Eaton (1994)