Screw Your Starbucks, My People Are Dying

Just in Case #2, Taysir Batniji | Printed Matter, Inc.

By Ayeza Ahmad

Printer Matter, Inc. is a bookstore located in the Chelsea district in New York City, dedicated to highlighting artists’ books. While the bookstore itself is a work of art, I invite you to bring your attention towards one of the displays on the back wall of the shop, by Palestinian artist Taysir Batniji.  

Printed Matter, Inc. in Chelsea, New York

Before diving into the significance behind this seemingly arbitrary display of keys, I must contextualize this exhibit. While this topic absurdly remains under debate, it is not news to many that a genocide has been occurring in Palestine for the past year. With Gaza now having the highest rate of amputated children per capita, the word ‘war crime’ cannot fully encapsulate the atrocities committed against the residents of Palestine. No matter one’s political alignment, it is ignorant to claim that explosives dropped in densely populated civilian areas are merely an act of self-defence. I contend that it is perhaps even more ignorant to reduce the lives of these innocent Palestinian citizens to a death toll, or a mere statistic. For every life that has been unjustly taken or burdened, there is an entire story. An entire potential ‘about the author’ section that is now buried in rubble, forgotten to most.  

I recently took a biomedical ethics class, and thoroughly enjoyed class debates about autonomy and nonmaleficence in regards to preserving choice and causing no unnecessary harm to human lives. So why is it, in the context of ‘political discourse’, we forget about these values and turn a blind eye? Why is it that tonight, I am debating human rights with a peer, while a father in Gaza carries his daughter home in a body bag? I search for answers to this worldwide ignorance, while people in Gaza search for the remains of their families among the rubble of hypocrisy.  

“Do no more harm than good,” they say. But when there are deliberate attacks against schools in Gaza, under the guise that Hamas might be hiding there, these principles are abandoned. There are children being slaughtered in front of our eyes, and yet what remains on the forefront of media are disputes about the exact war crimes and statistical accuracy. It’s like nitpicking to find a few blue beads in a pile of red, when the issue at hand is that the entire jar has been spilled.  

Nothing can truly represent the lives that have been taken. Every story about a man appreciating his daughter’s first steps, every blink that conveyed ‘love’ between two people. These are forgotten instances of life—familiar to many, but unbeknownst to outsiders. And as outsiders (rather, as bystanders), we cannot reduce the existence of these people to a chapter in history. I believe that artists have the responsibility of bringing attention towards smaller aspects of a larger concept. This attempt to speak to people’s hearts is a start to diversifying perspectives and understanding what it truly means to empathize. 

Taysir Batniji showcases exactly this. The housekeys belonging to residents in Gaza whose houses have been destroyed. These keys remain, with a forgotten purpose. A mere object that no longer holds any practical use, and remains a distant memory. Do you wake up today and think about whether it’s the last time you will ever use your house keys again? It is a privileged life we lead, having a home to go back to at the end of the day.  

Writing this, I look at all the objects around me that serve a purpose to me right now. The bookshelf with various trinkets and textbooks. What good is that psychology textbook if my school gets blown up tomorrow? Or that romance novel, if I have no home to read it in? The word ‘displacement’ has been used so much that we might have become desensitized to it. What it means to be stripped of your home, your belongings, and your relationships. Everything we might use to describe ourselves, now gone, fallen down the priority list. As humans, we tend to forget that a person struggling is still a person, with mood swings, antics, and personalities.  

Taysir Batniji, Just in Case #2, 2024

I have house keys, and you probably do too. The key to resistance begins here: as we situate ourselves in these instances of political hypocrisy and mourn lives on an individual level. Because they aren’t just a statistic. But you know what we are? A statistic of bystanders who scrolled away and ignored resistance while our brothers and sisters were butchered before our eyes. A statistic of individuals who our grandchildren will be ashamed of. Where was the rest of the world when these innocent lives were taken, when these family lineages were wiped? Drinking Starbucks? 

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Ayeza Ahmad is the Co-Chair of the Art Committee. Ayeza pursues a Mental Health Studies Specialist degree and examines the intersection of social acceptance and psychology. She also minors in English literature. Her favourite art mediums are acrylic painting and pencil.