Hunger

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Sometime in the midst of the pandemic I remember someone saying that all realistic fiction from now on was either going to have to mention the pandemic and risk being labelled a pandemic novel or to ignore it and risk a rose-tinted fantasy – the slight-remove-from-reality fantasy, devoid of politics and care, that a lot of literary fiction already inhabits. The assumption is that something so large cannot slip from view. Later, two different literary agents told me that nobody wanted to read books about the pandemic, that the imagined reader would rather pretend it never happened and move on with their life.

Food writing, which as a genre often seems to inhabit the same sort of fantasy space as literary fiction, was quick to engage with the pandemic as experienced in its natural arena, the home. Sourdough and home-rolled pasta and pickles, newsletters sprung up everywhere, assumed a norm, that everybody was more-or-less comfortably furloughed with time and money to spare – anything else too political for mainstream food writing to deal with.

This week saw a shift in the public discourse around the genocide in Gaza which allowed mainstream food writing a way in, as suddenly the issue was not bombing or rape or shooting but starvation, not just starvation but starvation of children. Photographs of starving children are everywhere, even on the cover of the Daily Express! Now you have to care. Food should not be a weapon of war, is the line, as if it were acceptable to slaughter people with full stomachs. Both sides are suffering, I read. Now the vocabulary of food writing is insufficient, it is not enough to mouth words about food bringing us together or about the instinct to feed. On Instagram there was debate over the word famine as if famines in Ireland or Bengal, everywhere, were not also manmade, there was a movement not to post pictures of food while Gaza starves / is starving / is starved which mostly lasted a day; now everybody's stories to that effect have disappeared (mine included) and my feed is again full of food photography and it is as if nothing had ever happened, I feel like I am going insane. Of course, you have no idea what people are doing away from Instagram, it is easy to judge a shallow surface. Longer-lasting, some friends, writers, are going on hunger strike, sponsored fasts, raising awareness. At least – at least – money is being raised, for kitchens in Gaza, for medical supplies.

[We are invited to pretend that this mass starvation is unexpected, our public officials like the coward and liar Keir Starmer are shocked and appalled (or words to that effect) by it. In October 2023 he said that Israel had every right to control the supply of food and water to its captive population – where did he think that would end?]

The way out that is being prepared for those complicit in war crimes – politicians, state media – is obvious. Now that it is almost too late to do anything about it, a red line has been found, the starvation of children. International pressure has been applied, food trickles in, water is available – all under strict Israeli control. Now we can say that

a) starvation is bad

b) [grudgingly] the actions of Netanyahu and this Israeli government are bad

c) we must get back to normal, that is, the constant state of terror that is the inevitable consequence of colonial enterprise, apartheid rule, religious and ethnic essentialism.

You will be asked to forget that our government did this, against the wishes of the people it serves, against international law and all morality. You will be asked to forget the lesson that when it comes to foreign policy – that is to say, the spending of unfathomable amounts of public money in order to kill foreigners – the will of the people is out of the window and the experts are in charge. Starmer, who has spent his political career working against democracy, criminalises protest, silences artists, musicians, journalists. Once everything is back to normal (see above) you will be ridiculed or worse for continuing to talk about Gaza, for demanding that the government recognises the state of Palestine, for suggesting that its much-diminished population might be justified for fighting back against monstrous oppression; those complicit will weasel their way Blair-like into the role of Elder Statesmen and as with the pandemic, no one will be to blame, no lessons will be learned, and once the crisis is declared to be over it will be over; this is their hope and it cannot be allowed to come true.

And you, food writer, what have you done exactly? – you might well ask me. Donated for food and medical supplies, signed open letters, shared information wherever I could, protested, very little really and almost nothing said in my own words, I do believe there is a time to let others speak. I am only writing this because I had to write something for this newsletter and because today I did not feel I could keep writing about food and about plants as if my government were not helping a population starve to death. I am not comfortable with the phrase bearing witness because it is so often used (I think) to give an unearned valour to the act of simply observing and because observing images however horrifying on a laptop or smartphone screen is not the same as huddling wracked by falling bombs and smelling death everywhere around you but I realise that what we are bearing witness to here at this remove is not the genocide but its consequence and its cause, the failure of our humanity to recognise the humanity of others, a failure of the imagination which must be fought at every turn even - especially - when it seems that nothing can be done except to watch in horror and then to grieve, our government wants us impotent with apathy or grief. Don't mourn, organise, Joe Hill nearly said – we must find the time to do both –