For example, in Gaza and the West Bank there has been a massive increase in the number of NGOs since the 1990s, but the result of this has been to demobilize the Palestinian women’s movement, which used to be political, activist, and grassroots. Additionally, various human rights activists and researchers have complained that work they had done documenting the impact on women of the Israeli occupation and its siege of Gaza miraculously just disappears from the final reports produced by groups like Human Rights Watch. The result is that the Israeli occupation of Palestine, which is an important and foundational context for the oppressive conditions that Palestinian women live under, is erased from the picture. In this way, the structuring reality of occupation and empire is removed, which then makes it possible to offer limited individualistic solutions that don’t challenge the underlying causes. To make matters worse, social movements are demobilized and the best activists are sucked into NGOs.
I love when people clearly don’t know anything about how things tend to function in society at large so you see them post stuff like “FRIENDLY REMINDER THAT THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH BLUE EYES. YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL. DON’T LET BROWN EYED PEOPLE SAY OTHERWISE” and later “What do you mean I’m racist”
Like obviously it’s sad and it’s more important to inform them but I gotta be honest nothing makes me laugh harder. “Don’t let people on the internet convince you that it’s wrong to be a wife/mother!!” [4 hours later] “Oh so everyone you disagree with is a Nazi now, huh?” I love it
there’s something so special about falling in love with nature every time you see a little detail like a fallen leaf on the ground that’s slowly turning brown… or spotting a tiny mushroom that’s sprouting from a tree… or just getting a warm feeling when you see the moon, i’m in love with the little things of life
