The Message

by Ta-Nehisi Coates

I looked over and saw an Israeli man in dark glasses standing off to the side of our little group. I knew he was Israeli only because of how he glared at our guide as he recited the history of the site. At first, I had the same semi-shocked reaction I have back home when those in power so violently object to words. It seemed absurd. Umar did not have any guns or knives. And he was standing on land firmly under Israel’s rule. Nevertheless, Umar presented a threat—the threat of the storyteller who can, through words, erode the claims of the powerful. “Every single empire in its official discourse has said that it is not like all the others,” writes Edward Said. That its circumstances are special, that it has a mission to enlighten, civilize, bring order and democracy, and that it uses force only as a last resort. And, sadder still, there always is a chorus of willing intellectuals to say calming words about benign or altruistic empires, as if one shouldn’t trust the evidence of one’s eyes watching the destruction and the misery and death brought by the latest mission civilizatrice.