December 2019 - Steve Salaita

Andom Ghebreghiorgis and the Limits of Left Electoralism

What must a radical candidate do to get some love?

For various reasons, I avoid political campaigns. I just can’t get excited about them, in part because electoralism has so thoroughly colonized the US left. In a healthy intellectual culture, its predominance would be automatic cause for skepticism. Unfortunately, these days sickness feels compulsory. Rejecting electoralism invites disdain and derision.

Amid the bickering on the US left about the utility of voting, a compromise usually emerges: voting is merely a form of damage control that one performs every few years before returning to the serious stuff. But the rhetoric of voting supersedes the physical act. In turn, elections have become a nonstop preoccupation. The off-season no longer exists.

The Magical City of Jerusalem

“Where are you from?” For Palestinians, it can be a devastating question.

The other day I was browsing the July issue of Palestine in America (an excellent magazine) featuring a profile of fashion designer Rami Kashou. Kashou is best known for his appearance on season 4 of Project Runway (2007-08), a design competition in which he placed second. He went on to a successful career in fashion.

Although I didn’t follow Kashou’s career, I remember him well. My wife and I liked Project Runway in its heyday and were watching when Kashou was introduced. His accent, his body language, his facial features—all felt deeply familiar. We glanced at each other. “Gotta be,” she said. The energy in the room got happier. We would have the rare opportunity to cheer on a Palestinian contestant.

Renouncing Israel on Principle

How to answer the question, “Do you affirm Israel’s right to exist?”

When anti-Zionists discuss the Middle East, the topic of Israel’s existence rarely arises. It’s almost exclusively a pro-Israel talking point. We’re focused on national liberation, on surviving repression, on strategies of resistance, on recovering subjugated histories, on the complex (and sometimes touchy) relationships among an Indigenous population disaggregated by decades of aggression. That a colonial state—or any state, really—possesses no ontological rights is an unspoken assumption.