Hazem Saghieh
TT

On the Heartbreaking Crowds and the Voice of Resounding Victory 

There have been many mass marches in history, and they have been turned into material for myths and mystification and constitute a trove of wealth for the imagination. Mass gatherings of people stir the same emotions and images as the difficult paths paved with pain that they traverse. The point of departure on a journey laden with torment is intriguing, as is the final destination of presumed salvation. As for the hardships undergone in between, they too are wild sources of inspiration. Thus, for many, masses on the move seem like a snapshot of history turning on itself, or a testament to history pushing events, with full force, in one direction or the other.

The story of Moses remains foundational to our conception of crowds and their departures that go beyond space to create meaning. Extraordinary miracles are attributed to the Jewish prophet who led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt according to the religious narrative: unleashing plagues and deadly diseases, wreaking havoc upon nature, seas, and rivers alike, all in the hope of convincing the Pharaoh to set his people free and allow them to leave Egypt.

Then, the "deliverer" split the Red Sea with his staff to lead his people on a forty-year-long journey that ultimately brought them to the borders of the "Promised Land." There, he received the Torah at Mount Sinai and God promised him that "His people" would receive a land of their own that sets them apart from other nations - on the condition that they adhere to His commandments and prohibitions.

The Five Books of Moses are more than just a historical record precisely because their "traversal" presented, for the first time, a conception of history that transforms the disarray of the past into single unit and a trajectory in pursuit of a unifying goal and something akin to a law of chronology and causality - uniquely imbuing it with a philosophy of history. That is how they surpassed the ancient Greek and Roman traditions, becoming European thinkers’ primary reference for understanding the world.

Reaching the salvation being sought, as the "traversal" does, thus became the ideal that many were inspired to emulate - and this was not only true for the religious or believers in the Torah. In the modern era, propaganda methods, along with ideological driven narratives and interpretations, have been employed to push traversals that culminate in salvation.

For example, no more than 30,000 fascist "marchers" took part in the 1922 "March on Rome." Similarly, the "Long March" (1934–35) in China was, in fact, a defeat and a retreat in the face of the advancing Kuomintang forces, and out of the 100,000 communists who went on this 10,000-kilometer journey, only 8,000 survived. Yet, the "Long March" nonetheless played a crucial role in amplifying Mao Zedong’s leadership and ultimately paved the way for his takeover of China in 1949. The "March on Rome" had already achieved the same, as King Victor Emmanuel III gritted his teeth in fear, acquiesced and tasked Benito Mussolini with the formation of a government.

Over the past few decades, we have seen masses on the move create scenes of pure tragedy in which they were heading only to further suffering, but they were not inspired by the foundational biblical narrative, nor did they fake themselves with claims of false victories. In 1991, as Saddam Hussein brutally retaliated to the Iraqi Kurdish uprising that followed his failed invasion of Kuwait, 750,000 Kurds fled to Iran, 280,000 fled to Türkiye, while another 300,000 gathered at the Iraqi-Turkish border, waiting. The Kurds did not claim victory at the time; rather, they waited for the United States to declare northern Iraq a no-fly zone, keeping Saddam’s air force out to its skies.

In 1994, two million Rwandans fled the country in the span of just one hundred days, while another 1.5 million were displaced within the country - nearly one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered, in a country whose population numbered no more than seven million at the time.

The relative scale of displacement and death seen in Syria since 2011 largely resembles that of Rwanda: more than half of the population was either internally displaced or forced into exile, in addition to over half a million Syrians who died. And as with the Iraqi Kurds, the Rwandans and Syrians were overwhelmed by a profound sense of grief that was carved deep into their soul, grief that was almost silent and without words.

Recently, in southern Lebanon, but especially in Gaza, we saw heartbreaking images of crowds returning to devastation or being prevented from returning to homes that had been destroyed. Over the many heads loomed the heavy shadow of an arrogant, belligerent Israeli baton, deciding whether the return is allowed or not. Here, there is no salvation or promise, and there is no industry to manufacture success. There is only the image of the oppressed, destitute, and broken people who have lost everything, trudging forward amid deafening cries of the "organizers of their happy trip:We are victorious."

This is disheartening. Regrettable. Painful. Sad. Humiliating. It is cause for lingering despair.