Ancient Alexandra
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I still haven't finished my MA, but that doesn't mean I haven't spent a large amount of time and energy, in a formal educational setting, reading, listening, discussing and writing about ancient events and ideologies that nevertheless have an evergreen relevance. Oppression. Suppression. Insurrection. Massacre. Imperialism, colonialism, power imbalances. The silencing of dissent. Both the infliction and receiving of mass violence; the experiences and trauma of such events, the ramifications of such events, the consequences and cultural shifts that result from those events. I have done all of the above through reading first and secondhand accounts of violent events. Through the poems and plays that the ancients created and consumed in order to process such events, to make sense of them, to condemn or to condone. I've analysed works of art, where both cruelty and pain are wrought with astonishing detail. I've seen the osteoarchaeological reports of people who were killed in horrific ways, violence forever marring what little of them remains. There's always been a lot of material to get stuck into. An undergrad may be introduced to a number of ideas on the above topics through the Melian Dialogue, the Mytilenean Debate, or Pericles on Samos. Or perhaps through the Teutoberg forest, the destruction of Corinth or the siege of Carthage. There's always the Asiatic Vespers, the Bar Kokhba revolt, Viriathus, the Thessalonika massacre... We are trained early to spot propaganda. To interrogate statements, to consider inherent bias, to contextualise every single piece of evidence. We are trained to spot such propaganda in places we hadn't thought to look: the artistic programmes of temples and columns and triumphal arches - Augustus' penchant for importing obelisks... Similarly, I've studied how these events have been viewed ever since; statues, works of art, novels, movies - all have something to say about how we've continued to grapple with the violence of the past. The statue of Boudicca outside the Houses of Parliament, the crucifixion scene(s) at the end of cinematic retellings of Spartacus or even Monty Python... At the same time, I was trained in the genesis of an East West divide. Prejudice built on fear, pride, assumptions and falsehoods. How what we study, how we've previously studied it and what we've said about it has influenced racism, xenophobia and a misguided sense of supremacy for millennia. One of my favourite MA assignments has, in fact, been Nazi reception of Sparta. A reception that was used as justification for mass killing. Less of an echo of antiquity, and more of a sonic boom. I say all of this because this was my curriculum. I didn't set any of it, apart from dissertation topics. No student has set their own curriculum - it has been presented to us. Presented to us by the very people who now have nothing to say. For months now, we have witnessed mass killing on a truly horrific scale. For many students, we have been putting all of the above training into practice. We have been deconstructing propaganda left right and centre, interrogating statements, sifting facts from fictions, questioning the ethics of ideologies, and perhaps most importantly - considering the imbalances of power. We have been able to do this because of the training universities have given us. We have been able to draw conclusions because of the work we have been asked to do. We have a lot to say about current events because we have been taught to talk at length about past events. Particularly for those of us who won't go past an MA, if we can't apply our training elsewhere in a manner such as this, then what is the fucking point of any of it? Imagine my surprise, then, when the academics I follow have largely remained silent. Heads in sand. We have no grand written histories, epic poems or monuments to deconstruct yet, but when it comes to Palestine we have such a large amount of evidence at our fingertips. Enough, actually, to be absolutely overwhelming. I don't know the names of the Melians killed, nor Boudicca's daughters. But I know Palestinians by name and face. I see their photos, their videos, their posts. I know when their homes are struck by bombs - by which type of bomb - I know what (little) they have to eat because I see their meagre meals on their instagram grids, I listen to them cry as they lose everything they own, I watch as they mourn their dead. I see the corpses of their children, posted with a desperation to prompt the world to take any action, any action at all. And when they don't post for a while, I hold my breath until I learn whether they are alive or dead. This is a quantity of evidence that classicists are perhaps unused to, and certainly there is an immediacy and an intimacy missing from, say, the shackled skeletons of Phaleron or the personifications of peoples brought under Roman dominion on the Aphrodisias Sebasteion. There is little left to the imagination any more, and yet academic voices are little louder than a whisper. I and my peers across global universities have been asked questions about the nature of power and how it is wielded. We've been asked about how the ancients justified their actions, and whether those actions were justifiable, both to them and to us. We've been asked to dismantle the self-mythologising of those wielding the power, and the othering, dehumanising lies they spun around the oppressed and murdered. We've been asked to consider the ripple effect of ancient sustained violence including mass killings, to chart their projectories across the centuries, to map the dominoes of other mass killings they nudge over. Why are those who have asked us these questions not asking any questions right now? Particularly on a mass killing with such obvious ties to the ancient past, as highlighted by both Palestinians and Israelis/Zionists? A couple of days ago Dr Chella Ward posted on the Liverpool Listserv about an upcoming roundtable event, described on the Everyday Orientalism site as such: "Join us on January 23, 2024, 4-6pm GMT for a special virtual roundtable co-organized by Critical Ancient World Studies and Everyday Orientalism. The event will consist of a discussion about the destruction of heritage and its relationship with cultural genocide, and will address the role that scholars of antiquity, archaeology and heritage should play in opposing the genocide and epistemicide of the Palestinian people, and how they can best stand in solidarity with them against the occupation." Responses included: "[Genocide] usually refers to acts with which one disagrees so passionately as to admit of no alternative perspsective (sic). It is a trigger term, which will of course enrage or deeply hurt many who do think a more nuanced view of the convtroversial (sic) acts is helpful." There is of course a lot of nuance in flattening every single hospital in Palestine and using thermobaric bombs on unarmed children, but I digress. "I must join the call not to use the forum board for any present populistic political private or public sharing. Such cases should be harshly dealt with." Crikey. How exactly this should be 'harshly dealt with' was left to the imagination, either from cowardice or self preservation. "It is inappropriate to use this list to distribute slander of any kind." Interesting use of language there. If anyone is using their platform to damage the reputation of Israel, I'd argue that the IDF on TikTok don't need any help from Chella nor the panellists. The ancients had an epigraphic habit to document the violence they inflicted - the IDF have dances in front of mass graves and flattened homes. Potato Potahto. It won't just be me pushing back on statements such as the ones above - academics have trained us to do it, you don't think we'd push back at you too? When you teach people to weigh every word, make sure you choose yours carefully. The suggestion that a listserv, like the field, should be apolitical is a suggestion that will flummox any student that has taken any module featuring any of the topics I have listed above. Of course Classics is fucking political, if it wasn't it would be egalitarian, for a start. Of course Classics is politicised. If Boris fucking Johnson can have a statue of Pericles in his no.10 office and a 'for everyone' Classics eJournal can platform a eugenicist, then ECRs can bloody well host roundtable events to discuss events none of us should be pretending we don't see or don't understand perfectly well. There are times when one can make the choice which side of history to be on. I learned that when I did my research for the Spartans/Third Reich assignment. Ask me what happened when academics then stuck their heads in the sand or condoned/actively promoted violent ideology. Go on, ask. Apolitical my arse. If this is what an apolitical Classics looks like, it deserves to be dismantled. Palestinian academics don't have the luxuries afforded elsewhere, and for those keeping count this extends to decades before the 7th of October. Their universities have been blown to smithereens, they don't have the option to sit on the sidelines or to swing their dicks about on a bloody listserv. So the very least we can do is turn up and listen to what they have to say. Academia loves to boast about the trend of history from below, recovering and restoring as many lost voices of those who suffered. So don't be a fucking hypocrite. Publicise this event. Sign up. Tell your students about it. I'll see you there. Edit: the event is now passed. You can watch the recording of the webinar here: https://youtu.be/PkrZefr1xqo?si=CqqXnpvrjHRC8aoG
1 Comment
20/1/2024 21:06:07
Thank you for this
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