On August 21st, 1831, one month shy of his 31st birthday, Nat Turner carried out the bloodiest slave rebellion in U.S. history. Like many of his fellow slaves, Turner was deeply religious, often seen praying and fasting and studying the Bible. But unlike his fellow slaves, Turner heard voices in his head as he worked in the fields. He saw signs from God in the sky and among the leaves. And one of those signs, an eclipse that he interpreted as a black man’s hand covering the sun, he took as a signal to kill every white person in Southampton County.
But this one feels right to me in the broad sense that oppression breeds violence which breeds oppression which breeds... You all get the point.
At some point, the justifications for both sides fall apart because the behaviors on both sides don't change. The real question is how to manage the generational trauma that such situations inevitably create. As our current US politics show us, we as a nation have still not fully processed the trauma of slavery for both black and white people. Fear, distrust, and righteous justification still dog our body politic.
Steve Q, brilliant connection between Nat Turner’s rebellion and Hamas’. Both then and now, a faction of the disenfranchised population, living in intolerable conditions, responds violently. And now as then, a ruling party responds murderously to murderous rebellion. I did not see this intersection of the two. Nice.
Ye old “Give me liberty, or give me death” of 1775 Rebel Virginia should have been in living memory of 1831 Slaver Virginia but, Alas! The purblind exercise of Confirmation Bias always relegates the other guy to having flawed character while I, myself, has no other choice but the obvious.
And tourists of “us and them” conflict don’t need to cross oceans for this benighted view. They can can simply look across the kitchen table at an ungenerous spouse or a river like the Rio Grande.
The breakdown that I see on this analogy on Substack & Medium is that even the Imperial Grand Wizzard of a Ku Klux Klan Klavern is not going to publicly say that the slave owners were the good guys. They did have reason to fear an uprising. Nat Turner was local, but that was small potatoes compared to what happened in Haiti. People not in the fight want to choose sides, good guys and bad guys. With the carnage in Gaza people are choosing sides to justify the action of their "good guys" because slavery is universally seen as evil while the justification for what governments do to people is subject to debate.
Yes, the Palestinians lived there when Israel took over while the transatlantic slaves were in dysphoria. But both ended up in the same place and one had power and used it in cruel ways. While difficult to call terrorism justified, it is regrettably understandable. The Nat Turner slave rebellion and the Hanas attacks are called terrorism while states with large armies can kill noncombatants and destroy infrastructure and it is not called terrorism. If it is your dead and shattered loved one those words become irrelevant.
There are really only two long term stable solutions to the problems of the Israelis and Palestinians, plus one more that's recognized internationally as a war crime.
Either Israel leaves the Occupied Territories and allows the Palestinians to create a state there, or Israel grants citizenship to the people in the OT. A two state solution, or a one state solution.
I could write thousands of words about the crimes and stupid decisions on both sides that have made implementing either choice more difficult, but that would change nothing. Both sides have spent over half a century trying to make life so miserable for the other that they leave. Neither side has succeeded, or will.
Israel, with its vastly superior military, controls the immediate options. Given their current behavior, there's no reason for the US to be supporting them.
There is a temptation in the commentary sphere to map everything onto American slavery, but it's just not always informative or accurate. Part of a larger trend to flatten everything into simple narrative structures, which is something you often avoid. But it lends an allure of false knowledge or righteousness where it doesn't exist. Just in the same way that "anti-woke" commentators like to view everything as some sort of flavor of Marxism. This isn't Nat Turner's slave rebellion.
The white southerners already owned the land. You give only passing mention to the ongoing land theft, not mentioning at all that the greatest seizure of the West Bank since 1993 was announced shortly after 10/7.
We know that Israel knew the attack was coming, and they let it happen, I am convinced, to have a pretext to resettle Gaza. Which they are doing.
Hamas knew that Israel’s response would be savage and disproportionate, though probably not as bad as it’s been. But their strategy succeeded; world opinion is shifting against Israel.
I hope I don’t need to say I deplore Hamas’ extremity.
Forget whether they back Hamas to rule them, 70% back the insane atrocity of October 7th.
That's why they haven't had an election in the West Bank. The PA KNOWS HAMAS WOULD WIN.
BTW, Nat Turner wasn't isolated. Every southerner lived in fear of another Haiti, but that's another topic. But we know what happened when slaves WERE freed, and they had allies. Hamas, even after atrocities deliberately designed to give Israel little choice but to go medieval (or WWII)
But your insistence on using Hamas numbers of casualties baffles me. Are the supposed 500 deaths of the people at the hospital included in that number? The same people who said Israelis killed 500 people when it turned out a failed Hamas rocket killed about 15 are putting out those numbers.
Other observers have said that Israel's real count should be about 1 Hamas militant killed for every civilian. Tragic, but let's look at that. Considering using human shields is a Hamas STRATEGY, should Israel just say, "Okay, we can't do anything now" and make that tactic a successful slam dunk for the future?
Hamas doesn't have a formal army, so EVERYONE can be considered a "civilian." Many of them are in their teens, so they are "dead children."
I don't know what the real numbers are, and I don't think anyone does. But parroting Hamas's numbers because the anti-Israeli majority in the UN accepts them doesn't fly with me.
Analogies are never perfect.
But this one feels right to me in the broad sense that oppression breeds violence which breeds oppression which breeds... You all get the point.
At some point, the justifications for both sides fall apart because the behaviors on both sides don't change. The real question is how to manage the generational trauma that such situations inevitably create. As our current US politics show us, we as a nation have still not fully processed the trauma of slavery for both black and white people. Fear, distrust, and righteous justification still dog our body politic.
Anyway, thank you for this. I found it helpful.
Steve Q, brilliant connection between Nat Turner’s rebellion and Hamas’. Both then and now, a faction of the disenfranchised population, living in intolerable conditions, responds violently. And now as then, a ruling party responds murderously to murderous rebellion. I did not see this intersection of the two. Nice.
Ye old “Give me liberty, or give me death” of 1775 Rebel Virginia should have been in living memory of 1831 Slaver Virginia but, Alas! The purblind exercise of Confirmation Bias always relegates the other guy to having flawed character while I, myself, has no other choice but the obvious.
And tourists of “us and them” conflict don’t need to cross oceans for this benighted view. They can can simply look across the kitchen table at an ungenerous spouse or a river like the Rio Grande.
An Egyptian friend shared this. Read the comments.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5Ozcqfo9hh/
The breakdown that I see on this analogy on Substack & Medium is that even the Imperial Grand Wizzard of a Ku Klux Klan Klavern is not going to publicly say that the slave owners were the good guys. They did have reason to fear an uprising. Nat Turner was local, but that was small potatoes compared to what happened in Haiti. People not in the fight want to choose sides, good guys and bad guys. With the carnage in Gaza people are choosing sides to justify the action of their "good guys" because slavery is universally seen as evil while the justification for what governments do to people is subject to debate.
Yes, the Palestinians lived there when Israel took over while the transatlantic slaves were in dysphoria. But both ended up in the same place and one had power and used it in cruel ways. While difficult to call terrorism justified, it is regrettably understandable. The Nat Turner slave rebellion and the Hanas attacks are called terrorism while states with large armies can kill noncombatants and destroy infrastructure and it is not called terrorism. If it is your dead and shattered loved one those words become irrelevant.
There are really only two long term stable solutions to the problems of the Israelis and Palestinians, plus one more that's recognized internationally as a war crime.
Either Israel leaves the Occupied Territories and allows the Palestinians to create a state there, or Israel grants citizenship to the people in the OT. A two state solution, or a one state solution.
I could write thousands of words about the crimes and stupid decisions on both sides that have made implementing either choice more difficult, but that would change nothing. Both sides have spent over half a century trying to make life so miserable for the other that they leave. Neither side has succeeded, or will.
Israel, with its vastly superior military, controls the immediate options. Given their current behavior, there's no reason for the US to be supporting them.
Thanks for this. And you may want to read the commentary I left on Free Black Thought in regard to Episode 42.
Happy Easter.
There is a temptation in the commentary sphere to map everything onto American slavery, but it's just not always informative or accurate. Part of a larger trend to flatten everything into simple narrative structures, which is something you often avoid. But it lends an allure of false knowledge or righteousness where it doesn't exist. Just in the same way that "anti-woke" commentators like to view everything as some sort of flavor of Marxism. This isn't Nat Turner's slave rebellion.
The white southerners already owned the land. You give only passing mention to the ongoing land theft, not mentioning at all that the greatest seizure of the West Bank since 1993 was announced shortly after 10/7.
We know that Israel knew the attack was coming, and they let it happen, I am convinced, to have a pretext to resettle Gaza. Which they are doing.
Hamas knew that Israel’s response would be savage and disproportionate, though probably not as bad as it’s been. But their strategy succeeded; world opinion is shifting against Israel.
I hope I don’t need to say I deplore Hamas’ extremity.
Unfortunately, we have a pretty good idea of what would happen if the Palestinians were "freed." https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/poll-shows-palestinians-back-oct-7-attack-israel-support-hamas-rises-2023-12-14/
Forget whether they back Hamas to rule them, 70% back the insane atrocity of October 7th.
That's why they haven't had an election in the West Bank. The PA KNOWS HAMAS WOULD WIN.
BTW, Nat Turner wasn't isolated. Every southerner lived in fear of another Haiti, but that's another topic. But we know what happened when slaves WERE freed, and they had allies. Hamas, even after atrocities deliberately designed to give Israel little choice but to go medieval (or WWII)
https://claireberlinski.substack.com/p/sinwars-script?r=2k7n7&triedRedirect=true
But your insistence on using Hamas numbers of casualties baffles me. Are the supposed 500 deaths of the people at the hospital included in that number? The same people who said Israelis killed 500 people when it turned out a failed Hamas rocket killed about 15 are putting out those numbers.
Other observers have said that Israel's real count should be about 1 Hamas militant killed for every civilian. Tragic, but let's look at that. Considering using human shields is a Hamas STRATEGY, should Israel just say, "Okay, we can't do anything now" and make that tactic a successful slam dunk for the future?
Hamas doesn't have a formal army, so EVERYONE can be considered a "civilian." Many of them are in their teens, so they are "dead children."
I don't know what the real numbers are, and I don't think anyone does. But parroting Hamas's numbers because the anti-Israeli majority in the UN accepts them doesn't fly with me.
There was never any land called Palestine. Those Arabs squatters want to kill Jews and take over Israel.