Reading the Plight of Violence: An Anti-Orientalist Perspective

As we write and proclaim and broadcast, our view as a society on the plight of violence and killing - generally with some exceptions - is derived from the perspective of the Israeli authorities and elites towards us, and its attempt to shirk any responsibility towards us and its policies that created this reality in all its details, including violence. Moreover, the discourse that begins and ends with a review of the number of victims of violence in the Arab community, or the morning news about the killing of "a father and his son from Tir'an" or about the murder of a young man in Sakhnin - all this language confines the plight in the Arab community and suggests that the issue is internal and related to it. As for the discussions that circulate, especially in Arabic-speaking media, they create the impression that there is an Arab state in this country of which we are unaware where all this killing occurs, and that the failure is the failure of Arab representatives and mayors and schools, and so forth. Thus, most questions posed by media workers reinforce this impression, especially with phrases along the lines of "Where is our society headed?" and the lamentations produced by this presenter or that host.

It is true that the victims are Arabs, but it is also true that the vast majority of them fall at the hands of organized crime. This alone should completely alter the direction and content of the discourse. At the very least, there should be a separation between this type of crime - which is the exclusive responsibility of the state and its institutions and agencies - and domestic violence or that arising from neighborhood disputes or altercations that occur everywhere. Here, I will attempt to "arrange" this destructive violence and the most chaotic aspects in its description and handling.

- The colonial, superior, and condescending perspective and policy have been reinforced in the last two decades, resembling a revival of the colonial component in the Jewish community's experience towards our society. Racist policies hold it responsible for its conditions, knowing that there are extended colonial applications, like land confiscation and making every Arab town a demographic isolation surrounded by a blue line or an administrative decision that demolishes, prevents, limits, and punishes, and turning most Arab towns into exemplary demographic explosion areas. 20% of the population lives on 3% of the spatial area - and this fact alone explains a large part of the phenomenon. I mean the severe population density. Or "much more population and much fewer opportunities"! Imagine, for instance, if every Arab town had retained its entire land reserve, and that there was no housing crisis! It is a completely stunted renaissance and a completely blocked horizon for the town and community. Urbanization without a city and suitable space has created social, demographic, and economic distortions that are the responsibility of the state, which holds the reins of planning as a tool of control and regulation, rather than as a tool to facilitate people's lives and develop their life opportunities.

- The cases of population explosion in Cairo, Rio de Janeiro, Bangladesh, the outskirts of Tokyo, and African American neighborhoods in Michigan and Washington itself and around Paris - all produce higher rates of violence than we see here.

- All cases of the absence of the state and the authority of law and deterrence in any area in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas, and the abandonment of the center to the margins and leaving its inhabitants to their fate, will inevitably lead to destructive violence, especially if the army and security forces are the source of 90% of the weaponry and crime technology - as here! Not to mention the emergence of cases of poverty, need, and economic dependency on the center, which means the disintegration of society and its "readiness" to do anything in the context of the struggle for survival. This is the case in relatively large swaths of our society.

- The state has abandoned Arabs by more than fifty percent (it still demolishes their homes and imposes heavy fines on them, and continues to collect taxes and national insurance fees and does not connect them to electricity and infrastructure) - and I fear it has reached the decision to let them drown in their blood. As the authorities of apartheid South Africa did for decades. This decision is embodied in that it has loosened the noose for crime families or "befriended" them or used them, so violence or "the state of rule" has become part of the outcomes.

- The more alienation increases among population groups, the more marginalization and exclusion they experience (and we are indigenous, which deepens the alienation and spreads despair of the possibility of equitability) the grounds for violence are fertilized, especially when a person reaches the conclusion that life is completely blocked in front of him, and that the law is the law of the jungle, and that he has to take "the law" into his own hands to survive or die!

- There is no escape from an approach to violence that is multi-faceted - historical, economic, political, social, and legal - for the reading to be valid, for our discourse to be accurate and for us to fully understand who bears this share or that of responsibility, so we do not throw out demoralizing frustrating repeated statements, but rather articulate responsible statements, which are a necessary starting point for confronting this plight.

- Compare the conditions of our villages and towns in the fifties and sixties with our situation today, or compare the conditions of an Arab Palestinian town east of the Green Line with a similar village in population size west of the line - and you will arrive at questions that challenge the authority theory and the theories that have replicated it.

- As for sociologists, educators, "activists", political actors, and "opinion shapers" including Arab media women and men and their questions and the heads and representatives - I say: no society can rise or face its fate unless it reads itself and its plights in its own language, because the foundation is taking control of affairs, including the will to read the plight or crisis. Or in other words: the plight of violence cannot be resolved as long as the reading is orientalist and with a colonial eye. Even from the standpoint that orientalist policies are complicit in producing this violence and are insincere in their talk about combating it. It is worth noting here the fact that the state alone has the authority to maintain the security of people and their lives and properties, and that no one from the "Arab representatives" and "heads" has any authority to raid a crime den or disarm someone!

And finally - our reading of violence in an orientalist way does not differ from our reading of politics in this manner and aspects of our other lives - it is true that people sometimes write in Arabic, but their content is not Arabic!