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Priyamvada Gopal ©

@PriyamvadaGopal

May 6, 2024

To understand Zadie Smith, you have to understand Cambridge. And its special brand of self-regarding gaslighting.

I am not quite sure why people are shocked or surprised. This IS the price of admission into elite white literary and institutional circles.

Anyway, I hope people get a small glimpse of what some of us have to endure year in year out. Precious pomposity that has zero idea how the world works, and is utterly convinced of its own rightness and superiority.

Read 15 tweets

Priyamvada Gopal ©

@PriyamvadaGopal

Dec 28, 2023

“The Palestinian people are the only people living under military occupation who are expected to ensure the security of their occupier.” Oxford's Avi Shlaim on Israeli terrorism.

Have the courage to read this detailed indictment.

prospectmagazine.co.uk/world/israel/6…

"What is happening in Gaza today is the cruel manifestation of Israeli state terrorism. Terrorism is the use of force against civilians for political ends. The cap fits and Israel must wear it."

This is the starting fact:

"From whatever perspective one chooses to view it, the establishment of the state of Israel in May 1948 involved a monumental injustice to the Palestinians. Three quarters of a million Palestinians became refugees, & the name Palestine was wiped off."

Read 12 tweets

Priyamvada Gopal ©

@PriyamvadaGopal

Nov 12, 2023

You know, I think it's perfectly possibly to criticise Israel in universal moral terms without resorting to swastikas and Nazi comparisons. There are very good reasons not to do the latter however angry or justified you may feel.

If Nazi comparisons are all you have, then apart from deep insensitivity to historical recent trauma for many (notwithstanding misuse of that trauma by state actors), you also show ignorance of multiple other land grabs ethnic cleansing occupation which are far better comparators

There is absolutely no virtue in anybody misusing the specificities of the Shoah for present day actions, & the fact that some on the Israeli side do it is all the more reason for you to not do it. And multiple reasons to do better on historical understanding.

Read 9 tweets

Priyamvada Gopal ©

@PriyamvadaGopal

Apr 3, 2023

We need to be clear: outside of African-American liberation discourse, the use of the term 'woke' has become both indiscriminate & fundamentally pejorative. It is not an innocent descriptor or useful analytical category any more than the equally resentful 'politically correct.'

Quite apart from the questionable wrenching of the term specific to becoming aware of structural race oppression, this use of 'woke' is not neutral. There's not point in throwing it around to describe fights that may not be yours, then getting upset when people query that move.

I am aware of very few people, if any, who embrace, let us say anti-racism, feminism and queer rights ("identity politics") who describe themselves as 'woke'. The term is almost always used by hostile critics on left & right.

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@PriyamvadaGopal

Apr 1, 2023

Vigilante attacks on religious minorities have increased markedly, the ruling party has taken steps to strip citizenship from Indian Muslims, and the historically repressed Muslim-majority state of Kashmir has faced even harsher crackdowns

newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/h…

'He’s not as popular as he claims. The B.J.P. never got more than thirty-seven per cent of the vote nationally. They control half a dozen big states, and most of them are in the Hindi Heartland. [These are states in the northern and central parts of the country.]'

Judiciary tampering. 'They finally internalized this, and they stopped nominating judges that they knew the government would not accept. They also started to become very complacent. So either they validated any law that government was passing or they refused to take a stand.'

Read 5 tweets

@PriyamvadaGopal

Mar 31, 2023

Vatican repudiates Doctrine of Discovery. That's nice, the anti-woke will be furious But what is really being withdrawn? 500 literally world-shaping years of deep damage to so many Indigenous communities & ecology? The laws, treaties & property regimes that still govern lives?

'From the mid-15th century to the mid-20th, most of the non-European world was colonised under the Doctrine.' (Dunbar-Ortiz) Then reiterated by US Supreme Court in 1823 as established principle of European and English law.

'The court defined the exclusive property rights that a European country acquired by dint of discovery...European and Euro-American "discoverers"n had gained real-property rights by merely planting a flag."

Read 9 tweets

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