Compassion as a political act of resistance

Llewelyn Barnes

Translation: M.A.

Usually, I can’t bring myself to cry when I translate testimonies of doctors who worked in Gaza. It is important for me to make these testimonies available, to connect between those who have knowledge and those who want to know. My partner encourages me to cry, she says that crying brings relief. I know it’s true, but still can’t cry. The testimonies have small stories: a wounded woman who asked for help and bled to death before they could reach her because of a lack of medical staff; a girl who was buried alive for 12 hours next to her dead parents. 

I was hospitalized a few months ago. The Israeli hospital smelled of detergents that brought up pool memories. The team was so available – arranging the pillow for me  when I could not move, helping me wash my body in the shower. Intimate, sensory experiences of compassion and care, for which I am so thankful. The hospitalization was a traumatic and harsh experience. But the treatment I received turned it into an experience of safety and gratitude. 

In Gaza, hospitals are bombarded over and over again. Sometimes the floor is covered with blood, and there is no water to wash it. There is no water to even wash hands. Or drink. There are no beds, and patients are treated on the floor. I imagine the panic I experienced when I thought about what if there was an alarm because of a missile shot by the Houthis during my surgery. What if someone makes a mistake because of it? I did not think about what would happen if the whole hospital collapsed. 

I translate testimonies, and they join into a horrific, coherent story. I want to tell and tell everyone everything that is said in them. In parallel, I regulate the number of testimonies that I translate a week. On one hand, it is important for me not to be flooded by so much horror that I have to stop. On the other hand, when I feel helpless, I translate. And it helps me. 

These days, feelings, sensations, and care are pushed aside and framed as negative. As a failure or a character flaw. For example, Ben Gvir ‘s quote, according to which “in war one must crush the enemy and not to sanctimonious all the time.” Philosophers as Carol Gilligan and Eva Kittay have written about the power of compassion and care, the power of soft emotionality, which is different from that of anger and violence. In their perception, compassion and care are at the heart of human existence, and they are the most valuable human resources because they bring about building and healing, not destruction. Gilligan and Kittay offered completely different approaches from the dominant approach now. Their approaches are of special importance in a difficult time like the current one. They explain that without compassion and care, humanity has no chance of survival. From infancy and for the rest of our lives, we depend on each other, on compassion and care. Kittay wrote about the meaning and joy she finds in caring for her disabled daughter. According to Kittay, care and compassion are valuable to the person who cares, and we should be thankful for the privilege of giving care.

That’s how I feel about translating the testimonies. As difficult as it is, it contributes to my sense of agency and helps me face the helplessness and despair of this era. I want us to live in a society in which compassion is directed towards everyone alive, all of us. A society that has place and value for compassion, that can acknowledge common humanity, is a society in which we all have a safety net of a supportive community. It is a society in which difference and diversity thrive, rather than false universality. It is a society in which it is hard to persuade with lies about the “other” side supposedly being monstrous. It is a society in which Genocide is not possible. 

Gilligan wrote about characteristics of what she called “Ethics of Care”, or a slightly different phrasing, “Ethics of Compassion”, in other words, a moral outlook that focuses on care and compassion. She attributed this way of thinking to femininity and called for men to adopt it, too. One of the characteristics of the ethics of care is the acknowledgement of the power and the meaning of compassion and its advantages over a distant feeling of moral superiority. It is very easy to translate such ethics into the situation in which we now stand as a society. It means to feel compassion for people who die of thirst and hunger, with no access to medicine, or because the consumer goods shipments do not arrive. To be shocked by soldiers shooting people at food distribution points. It is the most basic ethics of compassion. The translation of the testimonies, so that Hebrew readers can look directly at these realities, is an action, I hope, of bringing more people to feel this compassion and shock and to act upon them.

Gilligan also wrote about the ethics embodied in looking at the world from personal and specific points of view, versus big declarations. For me, for example, it means imagining myself in someone else’s shoes. A few years ago, I had knee problems. Nothing serious, but enough to cause pain and difficulty standing. I imagine a similar, but much more acute difficulty for someone in Gaza who has a similar medical condition. A friend told me about her similar thoughts, how she imagines the long walks and life in a tent, displacement after displacement, without access to treatment.

Each of us has personal knowledge of shared humanity, through which we can understand and be empathetic towards the humanity of others. According to this conception, statements such as “there are no innocents in Gaza” are not only cruel but also fundamentally wrong. Instead, it is important to look at the details of specific human stories, like that of a four-year-old girl whose parents died in the bombings in which she was also injured. A girl who was left without parents to comfort her before she died of her wounds.

Another characteristic of the ethics of care is the perception that in order to be an ethical person, it is my responsibility to do good and not only to avoid doing evil. By virtue of my participation in Israeli society, like it or not, I am participating in the war campaign, I am doing something evil. But Gilligan suggests a type of power, by which it is my responsibility to do something good. There are many small ways to do good in the current situation. For a long time, I have been looking for the right path for me. And it means so much to me that I found it. Translation of testimonies of doctors who were in Gaza is a type of activism I can do, as a disabled person and with the skills I have. Translations allow me to participate in a small and personal way in the chain of personal responsibility and caring. I have the privilege of listening with heart and passing on the words of those who do this important work.

In contrast to the current perception in Israel, which sees compassion in times of war as a disadvantage or character defect, Gilligan and Kittay point to its political and social importance.

In Gilligan and Kittay‘s view, compassion is the heart of the matter. And honestly, when is compassion needed more, than when genocide is committed? And who would want to silence compassion more than someone who commits war crimes that completely contradict all compassion? In a world where the lack of humanity and the silencing of compassion are the norm, feeling compassion is a radical and meaningful act. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have tried so hard to erase it. The literal meaning of the word “radical” is an action that touches something from the core or its root, in this context, an appeal to the common human core of all of us and change from the root of the unjust social system. Compassion is essentially an emotion that uplifts those who are weaker, who are crushed. 

Compassion motivates behavior in ways that reduce injustice and inequality. No wonder we are required to eradicate it, in order to promote what are considered so-called “security considerations”. The extinction of a part of ourselves, of our humanity, is not a safe act. A “security” system that requires me to be not myself, is not a security system at all. For me, by participating in translations, I have the right to participate in a chain of compassion, albeit in my small way. 

After I finished writing this text, a missile landed near the building where I lived, and it was completely destroyed. My partner and I were left with nothing. Almost immediately, we were wrapped in the help of amazing volunteers who brought us food, clothes, hygiene products, and so on. It was a deeply meaningful activism for which I have no words to thank. It made us feel we were not alone. If only there was such help in Gaza. If only everyone whose house was destroyed, would immediately be surrounded by such abundance. If only everyone who was injured or hurt would immediately find a solution. If only there were no injuries at all and there was no need for it. If only this genocide would stop immediately.