Mass graves in Gaza and mass arrests in the United States, both evidence of the violence with which the dominant forces maintain power, violence which we must not assume will be contained to specific groups or specific acts. Violence is like fire, it cannot be mastered by language or history; it rips through the world, gaining in ferocity with every spark until it engulfs an epoch which believed it could control its elemental impulse. Violence is the legacy system upon which modernity is built and continues to thrive. The violent extraction, extermination, oppression and domination of everything and everyone, from the natural world to racial hierarchies to the Law, which keeps our world turning. Violence is not a flaw in this system. It is a feature, a feature virulently and repeatedly denied by the very institutions that wield it to maintain “order”.

We are faced with unspeakable horrors. Horrors that cannot be bound in the stories we tell about the world, horrors that choke our throats with sobs or fill our chests with screams. We cannot speak through such fear, terror and rage. Horrors are felt in the body, where language does not rein. It’s why civilians take to the street to be heard—because there are no words for what we need to say. It’s why students are camping on campuses—because speech fails. And it’s why police are violently arresting them—there is no mercy for the unspeakable because the unspeakable speaks to violence, and we live in States that deny their own violence. Students must be locked up because the State denies Israel’s violence in Gaza; students must be locked up because the State is only interested in language it can control and to control bodies you must incarcerate them.
State power is built on a “willingness to put bodies on the line”, argued legal theorist Robert Cover. It is founded on violence. But that violence has been re-imagined as justice, ensuring that the most violent actors in the world are free of scrutiny or accountability. These institutions commit violence every day under the guise of law and order and, in order to perpetuate this myth, violence is understood as an aberration in an otherwise functioning system rather than a necessary feature of that system. The Law denies its own violence, and instead “projects an imagined future upon reality”, wrote Cover. The Law is incapable of justice if it is not situated in the real world, which is full of the violence of its own making.
Power is maintained through language: stories are re-written, books are banned, words are denied: Genocide. Despite Israel making an utter farce of international law, still we await these same institutions to pass judgement on the devastation of Palestine before we can speak. It is not a genocide until these institutions say so. Yet, Israel has undermined their authority and the sanctity of Law at every turn—so why are we still asked to look to these institutions and these Laws for guidance? Journalists and media outlets face legal repercussions for using the word “genocide” before it has been established in the correct hallways, hallways that ring with silence because their own power is founded on unspeakable violence.
As long as power wraps the world in stories of its benevolence, progress and liberty, violence, in all its unspeakable-ness, will be denied. Students will be arrested for protesting the slaughtering of civilians. They may even be killed, because we must never assume the state’s willingness to commit violence against its subjects’ bodies stops at incarceration. We must never assume violence can be contained because it is, by its very nature, wild, beyond language, and also shrouded in language by the same force that wields it. Shrouded, denied, maintained by the very institutions who purport to guard against it. Violence guards the world order. We call it Law.
Crucial words from Rachel Donald. Irreducibly clear meaning.
I'm genuinely confused what you are saying here.
One minute it's students being arrested for protesting - the next minute it's Israel's war crimes?
PROTESTS: We are not told anything about what those students were doing to get arrested. I'm all for peaceful protest. But breaking windows and unlawfully stopping traffic and vandalising public facilities - not so much. The working class colleagues I have are increasingly upset by Extinction Rebellion and their unnecessary vandalism. Why punish people just trying to get through their day by causing traffic chaos? Want to make progress in promoting climate awareness? Don't do that. I'm known as "The greenie" at work. I hate it when my morning headlines tell me Extinction Rebellion have done something stupid again - because I know I'm going to get it at work!
Then suddenly we jump to Israel's horrific treatment of Gaza. The attack on Israel was also horrific - but Israel has now killed 43 TIMES the civilians that the terrorists killed in Israel - and we have no idea what percentage of those may have even been involved in Hamas. Odds are low that it is even a 10th of 1 percent. But this is then generalised to all states across all time.
Then suddenly we're back on students protests again - "They may even be killed, because we must never assume the state’s willingness to commit violence against its subjects’ bodies stops at incarceration." Wow. Statistics please.
Events like Kent State are still commemorated today - half a century later. Because they're so terrible and rare. But unfortunately in the USA where gun ownership is so insanely high it's something like 110 guns per 100 people - many of the BLM protests in 2020 were actually protestors shooting each other!
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/31/americans-killed-protests-political-unrest-acled
Sure BLM raised some systemic issues. Where there are specific issues of policy or police corruption - please call it out! In a specific way. With details. Because no system is perfect. Police and politics and policies can be corrupted because people can be corrupted. People all have their own proclivities.
I'm not stating the 'system' is perfect - but that I am simply grateful for law and order, because the alternative is far, far worse.
Sure - in some regional areas of Australia or America I'd really hate to be black! There are varying kinds of state corruption and bad policing policies. BLM raised some very real issues.
But the way you write it sounds like you believe it's all bad, all the time. Can I suggest not writing with such universal reprobation of everything, everywhere, all at once?
Not every democratic nation is behaving like Israel - all the time. Some have Prime Ministers that speak out against it.
Of course the state has power. That's what it is to live in a nation with law and order. What's the alternative? Anarchy is worse. Far worse.
From the last few months of your blog, I'm getting the picture that we're to trust in the loving vibes and good wishes of an ecovillage commune? WITHOUT a state? Without police? Without laws? Without separation between 'us' and 'nature'? I'm honestly confused as to what you are proposing?
Neo-primitivist anarchy? What could possibly go wrong?
While we're on eco-villages - when was the last time you googled how many communes self-destruct after 5 years because of personal conflict? Even at our best- nature loving ecovillage vegans are people too. Corruptible. Prone to pettiness. Exhaustion. Selfishness. Weird proclivities.
We all have our proclivities. When it comes down to it - I want to be able to call the police when someone has let their 'proclivities' stray into the unsafe or illegal. Because sometimes we need 'state violence'. Like just a few weeks ago at Bondi shopping mall. State violence stopped someone running around with a knife, stabbing women and children. Six people died. It could have been so much worse.
But a cop put a bullet through them and ended it. Are you saying you didn't want that cop to be there?