The ritual begins again
*NOTE: Why am I posting my journal entries? See my inaugural post: Beyond journalism
The ritual begins again. The ritual of Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen, Pakistan. The ritual of Israeli missiles.
I ask of their arbitrarily bombed country: Are you okay, I hope you’re okay, that your family is okay, that your friends are okay, if there’s anything I can do, anything, something I can write, tell me.
This time it is Iran. The ritual expands in my lungs to near-breakage. I wake up to a frazzled body, twitching and tight. I shut my eyes to the sun, burrowed myself into the weighted blanket, listening to the sound of cardinals. I am half-dreaming, half-gone. My urgency rises, turns to nausea. I am a live wire. I am indecisive, erratic, pacing in circles, afraid, wounded, furious. And I will walk into campus and accomplish the forgetting of the world order and who funds it. My anger and grief means nothing there. My anger and grief is inconvenient. My anger and grief should be shut inside a tiny little box so I can study the neuroscience that gives rise to it. This is the mantra of neuroscience, the invisible cultural contract of the field: We care about the human brain but not the human. Don’t ask us to acknowledge the world order that destroys humans. That is not relevant. That is not our niche. That is beyond our scope of literature. Thank you for your interest.
The countries of 90% of my neuroscientist labmates are being bombed. But - business as usual - we have a group meeting. This is key, otherwise all this metastasizing, comprehensive hurt might not be sedated and instead succeed in tearing down the premises of “business as usual”. And what might happen then? The rise of neuroscientists of conscience, who acknowledge the effects of ongoing, acute, intergenerational trauma on the brain? Who, vesseled with this knowledge, apply their research by ending the constant victimization of the Global South?
X said to drink eight glasses of water a day, to implement small pieces of efficiency in this morally ruptured place. My mind is everywhere. It is in Iran, in Palestine, in Lebanon, in Yemen, with Mesarvot; it is angry, failing at documentation, punishing itself. My tongue feels so numb, so incapable. I badly want to be left alone. My lashes are extra long in the mirror, courtesy of very swollen eyes. My stress-induced skin discoloration begins again, a pale half-moon crawling over my cheek.
Should I read about Iran’s state TV being bombed by Israel? The birds are so loud here, the sun so bright at this bus stop. I think they will crush me.
Al Jazeera reports: The Israeli military confirmed in a statement that it has bombed the building of Iran’s state broadcaster in Tehran. “This centre was used by the armed forces to promote military operations under civilian cover, while using its own means and assets,” it said, without giving any evidence for its accusations.
Iran Wire reports: Israeli forces struck residential areas on Tehran's Keshavarz Boulevard, with one drone hitting a student dormitory.
I walked into the sunny fourth floor kitchen and told my Irani labmates that I would treat them to falooda. May I offer some comfort food? A nostalgic sugary drink filled with noodles that our countries share? My dissociation breaks when Y tells me that Israel struck hospitals in Iran and proceeded to try to convince me that a children’s hospital is not a military target.
“They’re children,” he said. “They’re a child. That’s not…”
This trailing off is part of the ritual. This trailing off is a familiar plea, an absurdity, a defiance. It is also a question: What kind of proof do you expect in order to admit that this strike was wrong?
I surprised myself by crying. I don’t cry in public. I didn’t know about the hospitals. A trembling lip, the world blurring in a single tear. A defiance against the systemic cruelty that subjects a dead child to cross-examination. I almost want to grab his shoulders: I know a child is a child. You don’t have to convince me. I know. I know. Stop.
“I do really feel it,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“Thank you,” Y said to me, shutting his eyes.
He tells me that Israel is targeting Iran’s water, electricity, and fuel systems.
Middle East Eye reports: Minutes after an Israeli missile struck Tajrish Square in northern Tehran, Iranians were left questioning why a densely populated civilian area was being targeted. "What do they [the Israelis] want with a water pipeline?" a local resident told Middle East Eye. "I just don't get it." On Sunday, at around 2pm BST (4pm local time), an Israeli missile hit the square, destroying part of the area's water supply. Videos filmed in the aftermath showed large quantities of water in the streets around the square.
I think of the beauty of a place I’ve never seen. I’m thinking of Gaza. I’m thinking of how Indian media posted photos of Gaza and called it their bombing campaign in Pakistan accomplished with Israeli missiles, how the information is in the sentiment of the misinformation: this is what we want to do to you, this is what we would celebrate. I think of the Israeli Defence Minister saying “Tehran will burn”. These thoughts are not thoughts. These thoughts are images, they are a flood of half-hallucinated, half-implanted memory, they are the marrow of my bones reinventing in real time. This Pakistani bone is Palestinian bone is Lebanese bone is Yemeni bone is Irani bone is the bone of every article I’ve sunken my heart into in the last two years whose fusions are forged in the fire of Israeli bombardment.
“I think one of the worst things is feeling forgotten,” I said. So I tell him I’ll write, if he wants me to write something, an article filled with how he feels, copes, his descriptions of home, his words interspersed with my summaries of what led to this. Or I tell him he can write something himself and I’ll ensure it is lifted to publication in London’s independent press. This is how I walk the ritual with agency. This is how we become permanent record.
He tells me that all weekend he scrolled through news and social media. He says Western mainstream media is not to be trusted. He says civilians are dying in Iran, civilians are dying in Israel from Iran’s retaliation; all civilian deaths are awful. He tells me that Israel started this war unlawfully so Israel needs to stop it.
Middle East Eye reports: According to International law scholar Marko Milanovic, the use of force to prevent a future attack, as used by Israel in its Friday operation, is considered “legally untenable” by the majority of international lawyers. "Israel's use of force against Iran is, on the facts as we know them, almost certainly illegal," he wrote. Article 2 (4) of the UN Charter prohibits "the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state".
"Unless Israel is able to provide substantially more compelling evidence than is currently publicly available, it cannot reasonably be argued that Iran would imminently attack Israel, or that using force was the only option to stop that attack," said Milanovic. "Israel is therefore using force against Iran unlawfully, in violation of Article 2(4) of the Charter. It is committing aggression."
But Y says he also feels confused. Many Iranis want a regime change; if this war weakens the Irani regime enough for this, it will be a good thing.
Washington Post reports: In Mashhad, a city on Iran’s eastern edge near the border with Turkmenistan, a strike hit a small regional airport. Ali, a 45-year old computer engineer and local resident, said he could see plumes of smoke from the roof of his building.
“I wouldn’t think that they strike as far as Mashhad. I am in so much shock. I am trying to understand what they are pursuing with these kinds of attacks,” he told The Washington Post in a phone interview. He said many of his friends and family were happy when the first Israeli strikes took out senior Iranian military leaders. “But now things are moving toward much higher destruction,” he said, wondering what Israel was targeting with the dozens of attacks across the country. “Are they trying to increase rage to provoke the Islamic Republic to accept any kind of deal? I can’t really understand.”
Z agreed. He said his family had just escaped Tehran.
“I don’t know how to feel,” Z said. “We were talking about how there’s nothing we can do.”
Then there is lab meeting. Business as usual. ♦