“The fact that this genocide is being live-streamed to each and every one of us means that we are being asked to witness this. We are being challenged. We are being asked what our role in this, and what are we going to do about it.”
“The fact that this genocide is being live-streamed to each and every one of us means that we are being asked to witness this. We are being challenged. We are being asked what our role in this, and what are we going to do about it.”
The TMV Podcast is back!
On this week’s podcast, Salim Kassam is joined by Hasanain Jaffer, a social justice educator who speaks regularly on racism, white supremacy, imperialism, and capitalism.
Focusing on the injustices happening in Gaza today, and the wider context of systems of oppression surrounding Palestine, Salim and Hasanain delve deep into where we stand in the world today.
One of the topics covered is how we are in the middle of watching a genocide being live-streamed – while there is no mistake that there have been genocides in the past, and even in our own lifetimes, what is happening in Gaza feels different for so many people around the world because of how “live” it feels.
Many of us are watching live streams of what is happening on the ground, we hear about a bomb blast or an attack the moment it happens, and we are also hearing first-hand accounts from people on the ground, living the genocide as it unfolds.
“Let us be clear,” Hasanain stressed, “this is a clear genocide. It’s not ‘new’ in the sense that, there are genocides that are happening right now, this very day. But what is different is that it is literally being live-streamed to each and every one of our phones. When you put together all the different factors – the scale of the genocide, the rate at which people are dying right now, and the fact that every moment of that is being live-streamed to our phones, you get two things: One is that you get clarity. Clarity that the most urgent thing that we need to be acting on is stopping this genocide. The other thing is that the fact that this [genocide] is being shown to each and every one of us means that we are being asked to witness this. We are being challenged. We are being asked what our role in this, and what are we going to do about it.”
What is happening in Gaza, stresses Hasanain, is different not just because of what is actually taking place but because of how it is being shown to the world. We now have a collective duty, one that we cannot shy away from, to act on the events that are unfolding in Gaza. There is no grey area, there is no real debate about what it happening, and there is a clear wrong and right about what is being done to the civilian population of Gaza.
Be sure to watch the full episode to hear the rest of this fascinating conversation between Salim and Hasanain on Gaza, the system of the world we live in today, and our roles not only as Muslims but as human beings within it.
