The ICJ preliminary findings in the grand scheme of things

VIDEO MUSIC BOX AFTER SCHOOL

Years ago, As I arrived home from elementary school, I sunk into my daily routine. I put my book bag away, grabbed a snack, and turned on the television to watch something. I was a latchkey kid and many times I was the only person at home, so I could effectively do and watch what I wanted to.

The year is 1987. There was a show I'd watch called “Video Music Box” that used to come on TV. While most of the time I would pull out my books and start my homework or just sit there and zone out, watching TV endlessly this time was different.

A song shot out from the screen and grabbed my attention. It wasn't just the rhythm or percussion, but that the artists started spelling out a word I knew, but not one I really knew anything about: 

🎵A-F-R-I-C-A🎵

Angola!

Soweto!

Zimbabwe!

Tanzania!

Zambia!

Mozambique!

And Botswana!

So let us speak! 

about the motherland!🎵

In one fell swoop I was extremely entertained and also given an entire lesson on geopolitical conflict. Places people and things that I had never heard of before sent my mind spinning. By that time in my life I knew that there was a continent called Africa but I had never heard of any of its countries. I had heard of Morocco & Egypt but I never even associated these countries with Africa itself. The remaining countries were all knew to me.

The song’s chorus continued and the artists, a group called Stetsonic, shouted in unison:

🎵FREE SOUTH AFRICA!🎵

🎵FREE SOUTH AFRICA!🎵

To my young mind not only was this eye opening but it was deeply moving. “You mean to tell me ALL these places exist? ALL these places are experiencing political upheaval? ALL these places are going through segregation of the type that my grandparents told me existed when they were children?” 

Apartheid was a new word in my vocabulary. Some of you reading this might scoff at this story as un-meaningful story or out of character. But I feel this story is extremely important, so bear with me as I share it with you. There is a point here.

Later that year towards its end another song came out, this time it was one by Peter Gabriel. Because he was such a big artist (having formerly played with Genesis) his song got airtime not just on TV but also on radio:

🎵You can blow out a candle

But you can't blow out a fire

Once the flames begin to catch

The wind will blow it higher

Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko

Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko

Yihla moja, yihla moja

The man is dead

The man is dead

And the eyes of the world 

are watching now, 

watching now…🎵

These lyrics are a tribute to the South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko, who died in police custody in 1977. Although the song was actually written and performed in the early 80s it was re-released in 1987 to coincide with the release of “Cry Freedom” a biographical picture about the life of Stephen Biko with Denzel Washington playing the lead.

Politics, as hard as it tries to distance itself from the public by creating a caste system of those in proximity to power versus those who have been disenfranchised, popular culture has a pervasive and penetrating effect in shaping public opinion about politics, and thus politics itself. When political moments and movements are reflected in the infectious ideas of mass media they inevitably end up influencing the masses, putting pressure on politicians, and nudging the public towards what's right.

POPULAR CULTURE AND CRITICAL MASS

🎵You can blow out a candle

But you can't blow out a fire🎵

Popular culture can influence and reflect the political moment, creating and reinforcing stereotypes, as well as providing spaces for legitimate resistance. Depending upon what ideas are promoted this can be a positive or negative, but its effects cannot be denied. 

It is a common denominator, cutting across economic, social, and educational barriers. It's no wonder then that culture production is such a huge industry, and security apparatuses around the world co-opt it, and that governments regularly enlist it; it informs the masses directly and indirectly on what ideals, expressions, and behaviors are acceptable.

Popular culture also has a pervasive influence on political will. It has the ability to shape perceptions, reflect societal issues, and provide a platform for political expression. The is one reason why Hassān Ibn Thābit, being the skilled poet that he was, was permitted to answer the attacks made by the poets of Quraish against the Prophet ﷺ. He ﷺ said, “Indeed some poetry has wisdom.” The pervasiveness of popular culture was well known at the time of the Prophet. About a popular line of poetry he said, “The truest word a poet has said is that of Labīd: Is not everything other than God, false?” (Bukhari) He commented on the poetry of Umayya ibn al-Ṣalt saying, “Umayya almost accepted Islam.” Did he really? No, he was a Jāhili poet, but the intention here was to comment on the purity of meaning in his poetry. 

This level of familiarity only comes from broad societal exposure. Was the Prophet encourages people to consume any and all forms of pop culture in his time? No, as we know from other ḥadīth that he said, “For one of you to fill his innards with pus is better than to fill it with poetry.” (Musnad Ahmad) The majority of scholars hold that poet depends on its contents; the good of it is good, and the bad of it is bad. So each person should avoid the haram and also avoid excessive and indiscriminate consumption of what is allowed. 

The point here is not to debate the permissibility of any of this (there is a lot to discussed about cultural production). The point here is simply to show that popular culture has a quantifiable effect on the way that people think. How did artists like Stetsasonic and Peter Gabriel, among others, take up that cause? Inevitably it was because in their social circles, in the information that reached them, in the lived experiences of those around them, there was an adamant refusal to back down and accept apartheid as a norm. That refusal to back down spilled over into the lives of others, and then into popular discourse.

Even if you consider such songs, movies, plays, protests, social media campaigns, and other expressions to be mere overtures to what people wish would or had happened, they can represent something very real in the mind of the common person: possibility.

They can represent the possibility that something different can happen, that change can become a reality, that oppression can be fought and will be defeated, that with the correct mindset and consistent struggle justice will prevail.

THE LONG ARC OF HISTORY

“My eye reaches but little ways…” says Theodore Parker, the 19th century Unitarian Minister and Abolitionist. The sermons and speeches of this man came 150 years or more before songs by Stetsasonic and Peter Gabriel. But they were the popular medium through which people were inspired in his day.

In a famous sermon delivered in 1853, Parker looks out at the moral landscape of his time. He was perplexed to see what he recognized as an abject evil being meted out on his fellow man: slavery. Despite speaking against the clear wrong that Africans held in bondage in the Americas were subjected to, Parker was faced with not just deafening silence by the public, but adamant support by many of its members.

Parker’s sermon, ‘Justice and the conscience’, is wildly moving. He adeptly catalogs for us the oppression and injustice  in the centuries and years before him and then during his time. His contemplation was later interpolated by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Parker says, “I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice.”

Parker was not just sure that Justice was inevitable but he was also sure that wrong and oppression would end in ruin for those who perpetrate it. 

He says later in his speech about injustice: “Look at the condition of Christendom at this day; what tyrant sits secure? Revolution is the Lynch-law of nations; it creates an anarchy, and then organizes its pro- visional government of momentary despotism. It is a bloody process, but justice does not disdain a rugged road; the Desire of all nations comes not always on an ass's colt. All Europe is, just now, in a great ferment; terrible questions are getting ready for a swift tribunal. Injustice cannot stand. No armies, no "Holy Alliance," can hold it up.”

He succinctly states:

“What is false to justice cannot stand. What is true to that cannot perish.” 

What was the solution, according to Parker? It was that just as crustaceans lay the foundation for islands, and just as a raging river started as a small channel, then so to can justice be reached by the cumulative effort of the righteous. “God will not disdain to use our prayers, our self-denial, and the little atoms of justice that personally belong to us to establish His might work, the development of mankind” Parker says. It is the constant, intentional, righteous acts of justice, however small, that turn a stream into a raging river. He says, “even the crumbs that fall from our table may save a brother's life.” 

The Moral Universe that Parker and then later King referred to represents the moral and ethical values that guide human behavior. Grounded in principles like justice, fairness, empathy, and compassion, it influences our perceptions of right and wrong. It highlights the interconnectedness of global ethical issues, advocating for personal responsibility and collective action in fostering a just society. Being part of that universe means not just believing in something, but actualizing that belief into positive actions for ourselves and others, not matter the size of that action.

Being part of the “Moral Universe” is about actively engaging in moral discourse, reflecting on our actions, and contributing to ethical progress. So while wrong exists and Injustice seemingly persists, it will all inevitably end one day.

HOW FAR DOES YOUR EYE REACH

For many of us, we only know about the Palestinian cause through the same media and government channels that support the oppression. When our “eye reaches” no further than October 7th, we can wrongly think that the Moral Universe has not only failed, but that nihilism is the only rational response. Even worse is existing in a “moral universe” where the victim is characterized as the perpetrator of wrong and the oppressor dons the cloak of victimhood. For the average Palestinian of any age their eyes reach back farther. 75+ years of depression, subjugation, and dehumanization.

The provisional ruling of the  international court of justice (ICJ) was just released the other day outlining the preliminary findings in South Africa's case against Israel. What an amazing twist of fate. That the country perhaps most known for brutal apartheid in the modern period, a country that was a former ally of Israel itself, is the one to not only throw the yokes of oppression off of its back but to turn around and actively defend the oppressed in Palestine.

And I know that there are some saying that the ICJ’s ruling will be ineffective, or that it will not do enough, or that Israel will not abide by it, or that it won't change anything. But what I want to convey to each and every one of you reading this is that our “...eyes reach but little ways…”

First, if an international court of justice, made up of legal minds from around the world, rules that Israel's acts are genocide, then resisting that genocide is not only morally obligatory but is politically legitimate. Sure Israel can scoff at the ruling and refuse to stop, but this only adds to the decay of the vapid “moral order” that it and it's allies has for decades claimed to uphold.

It was just yesterday when the Israeli army was seen as untouchable, its own political apparatus was seen as a well-oiled machine, and its allies could make the most bold-faced statements of unconditional support on a world stage and not be looked at in contempt. Now their army is unable to operate on its own (may be they're busy on TikTok), it faces a political crisis internally, and its allies’ attempts to whitewash its crimes are so sad that even their spokespersons struggle with their own lies and deceit.

It is crucial to remember that our limited view of the world is just a fragment of a broader, ongoing narrative. To understand that narrative, we have to look past the immediate and obvious, urging us to uncover and engage with the underlying currents of progress and empathy that persistently, though often imperceptibly, mold our world.

There were 118 years between Theodore Parker and Martin Luther King Jr. They were around 60 years between MLK and Stetsasonic. Apartheid ended in 1991, just four years after Stet’s song. In 1997 Nelson Mandela said "We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians." And now only 26 years later after that statement the freedom of Palestinians has come center stage. I'm not saying that this is a case of direct causation. 

Between each of these dates we're countless small acts, crumbs on the trail, channels dug, and seeds planted. One poem, one protest, one social media post won't necessarily change the world directly. These small things build critical mass, and will result in change as long as we are consistent and intentional.

AN INFLECTION POINT IN THE ARC

Gauging the mass protests around the world, the vast majority of people recognize the unique oppression meted against the Palestinians and demand it to end. At the same time the powers that be insist that what we are seeing is not a genocide, that what we are witnessing is not oppression, that what is being live streamed directly to our phones is not only legitimate but a must for the preservation of Western life and the securing of world peace. 

Just as the powers at large judged the culture production, societal awareness, boycotting, divestment, and sanctions activism encouraged by 80s and 90s anti-apartheid activists as a useless waste of time, today the same broad attacks on the BDS movement and Palestinian solidarity are being normalized. Imagine witnessing a child killed at your local playground. You say, “Children shouldn't be murdered” and your next door neighbor (who was there) says in response, “What murder?” It's a mind trick to inject a sense of failure and exhaustion into those who would unquestionably stand for justice.

Parker says something else in his sermon which I found extremely profound. He says, “Justice has feet of wool, no man hears her step, but her hands are of iron, and where she lays them down, only God can uplift and unclasp.” It's almost as if he's saying that injustice necessarily will bring about the destruction of the oppressor.

We are at an inflection point. One in which the lies, deceit, duplicity, and filth of the modern liberal order has been laid bare for people around the world to see it for what it is. All of the vapid entertainment, droning political analysis, and empty resolutions about Palestine have exposed the façade. It is my hope that the same sort of awareness is create about Congo and other countries still suffering from the economic colonization of European powers long after the physical occupation has ended. 

Every bit of awareness that you create to counter these narratives chips away at that façade. Every small source of education that you provide builds up resistance. Every insistence to not accept dehumanization as normal creates an alternative to that satanic ideology.

Pay no mind to those who would tell you that the reality before your eyes is the exact opposite. That Dajjalic calculus does not fool the true believer; He sees through the smoke and mirrors. He knows not only that the arc of history is long, and that it bends towards justice, but that he has a specific duty to fulfill and that the end has a specific result:

{ قُلۡ یَـٰقَوۡمِ ٱعۡمَلُوا۟ عَلَىٰ مَكَانَتِكُمۡ إِنِّی عَامِلࣱۖ فَسَوۡفَ تَعۡلَمُونَ مَن تَكُونُ لَهُۥ عَـٰقِبَةُ ٱلدَّارِۚ إِنَّهُۥ لَا یُفۡلِحُ ٱلظَّـٰلِمُونَ }

“Say: O my people! Persist in your ways, for I too will persist in mine. You will soon know who will fare best in the end. Indeed, He grants no success to the wrongdoers.”

[Surah Al-Anʿām: 135]