Witness

Odds

Odds

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WITNESS, in the English, usually carries connotations of criminal court. A witness is one who speaks to the veracity of an alleged event. Perhaps the motivations of Gazan reporters, at this later point in the genocide, might be read more through this frame. Despite their professed feelings of futility, Owda and Azaiza, along with others like Wael Dahdouh, continue to document Gaza’s deepening catastrophe. At great risk to themselves, they provide us with the evidence of criminal cruelty, bankrolled by the West. One hopes the day will come when this proof is used in trial.

Yet I have been pondering not the English, prosecutorial witness, but the Arabic. In this, our, language, the verb to witness comes from the root شهد . This is also the source of the much-maligned word شهيد, shaheed, which means, literally, witnesser, but is often translated as martyr. It is a word with many folds of meaning and history. It carries connotations not only of seeing, but of presence and proximity. To be a witness is to make contact, to be touched, and to bear the marks of this touch.

Shaheed is the word Palestinians use to describe those lost to Israeli violence, a word which has drawn condemnation from American universities and press, who once again presume to know the meaning of Arabic-rooted terms, without bothering to investigate. They allege the word martyr glorifies death for death’s sake. But in this context, it should be read as honoring the truth these brutalized bodies speak. Their flesh, marked by colonial violence, makes visible the wild injustice they endured. Which is to say, their martyrdom tells us the truth about our world.

ما زلت مصرا نحن لم نعتد القصف ونخاف من كل حدث ولم نعتد مشاهد المعاناة ، ان القلب دائما ما ينفطر، ولم نعتد المجازر الذي يرتكبها الاحتلال فلكل شهيد حياة.


Sarah Aziza@Jewish Currents.org
 
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There is quite a bit at stake in entertaining the possibility of linguistic relativity – it impinges directly on our understanding of the nature of human language. A long-held assumption in Western philosophy, classically formulated in the work of Aristotle, maintains that words are mere labels we apply to existing ideas in order to share those ideas with others. But linguistic relativity makes language an active force in shaping our thoughts. Furthermore, if we permit fundamental variation between languages and their presumably entangled worldviews, we are confronted with difficult questions about the constitution of our common humanity. Could it be that there are unbridgeable gulfs in thinking and perception between groups of people speaking different languages?

But what about the linguistic determinism of the so-called Sapir-Whorf hypothesis? Although neither Sapir nor Whorf ever formulated any precise, testable proposition postulating the influence of language on thought, they certainly envisaged such effects. In 1929, Sapir wrote:

The fact of the matter is that the ‘real world’ is to a large extent unconsciously built up on the language habits of the group … The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached … We see and hear and otherwise experience largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation.

Sapir and Whorf’s rhetoric answered to a contemporary moral panic about the use and abuse of language. The [early] 20th century saw public discourse perverted by new forms of propaganda, disseminated by such new technologies as radio and film, all of which accompanied and facilitated the catastrophic upheavals of the First World War and the political polarisation that resulted in the rise of totalitarian governments across Europe. There was a desire to break the spell of language, to revolt against its tyranny supporting irrationality and barbarity, and make it the servant of enlightened thought. This sentiment found expression in, among other places, the linguistic turn taken by the incipient analytic philosophy of this period. At the popularising end of the spectrum, innumerable manuals on meaning appeared, such as The Meaning of Meaning (1923) by C K Ogden and I A Richards, Science and Sanity (1933) by Alfred Korzybski, and The Tyranny of Words (1938) by Stuart Chase. This is the world of Orwell’s Newspeak, in which language is the master of mind.

Aeon.co
 
Taken from the words of Bamber Gascoigne:

I started so I'll stop.
 
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fillyboy said:
I thought it was about that film with Harrison Ford and those Hamish buggers.
Click to expand...
That would be the Amish - although the Hamish were one of the 'Pictish' tribes north of the Antonine Wall, which the Romans lumped together into one word. South of the wall there was the Damnonii, Novantae, Selgovae and the Votadini. Roman terms that obscures the tribes true names and even their language which remains dotted around the Highlands in a series of pictographs which defy translation. We know more about the Egyptians than our northern ancestors...
 
Meta‘s oversight board says it will review the moderation of the Arabic word “shaheed”, which means “martyr” in English, because it accounts for more content removals on the company’s platforms than any other single word or phrase. Thomas Hughes, director of oversight board administration, said... this was “a complex moderation issue” that “impacts how millions of people express themselves online”. Meta policy prohibits praise, support or representation of entities or people designated as dangerous or placed on “terrorism” lists, including a number of Palestinian groups opposing Israel’s decades-long occupation.

In September (2022), a report produced by an independent consulting firm commissioned by Meta found over-enforcement resulted in significantly disproportionate consequences for the digital rights of Palestinians and Arabic-speaking users. The report found that Meta’s practices violated Palestinians’ right to freedom of expression and assembly, political participation and non-discrimination.

The Washington bureau chief for the Jerusalem-based Al-Quds, one of the most widely read Palestinian daily newspapers, had his account suspended. Among the reasons offered by the platform were violating community standards, and some accounts were said to have been suspended by mistake or as a result of technical glitches. Some critics believe unspoken reasons include a general increase in hate speech and incitement against Arabs, including Palestinians.

Allahu Akhbar@Al Jazeera

However you dig a little deeper and find this...
 
The concept of shaheed, as interpreted by the majority of Muslim scholars to mean a martyr is totally un-Quranic. According to the traditional Muslim scholars, anyone who is murdered, drowns or is killed in a fire becomes a shaheed (martyr) and goes straight to Heaven. The incorrect belief that the manner of death has some bearing on the fate in the Hereafter is the result of the misinterpretation of the following verse:

Those who emigrated in the cause of God, then got killed, or died, God will provide them with good provisions. 22:58

The traditional scholars singled out the words "got killed" to claim that it is the act of (getting killed) that made them martyrs, thus entitling them to go to Heaven. They have forgotten that the verse also includes the words "or died" (i.e. a natural death). In other words they are still destined for Heaven even if they die naturally. It is the faith and deeds of such believers that gets them to Heaven and not the manner in which they died. When we study the various verses where the word 'shaheed' is used throughout the Quran, we find that this word is never used to mean martyr. The word 'shaheed' as used in the Quran means witness. In every verse where the word 'shaheed' is used, the meaning is always 'witness' and never a martyr.

Those who believed in God and His messengers are the 'Siddiqoon' (truthful ones) and the 'Shuhada'a' (witnesses) at their Lord. They shall have their reward and their light. 57:19

quran-Islam.org

Taking a word out of context can alter the meaning of everything that is said by a people and used to reconstruct their culture in presenting a very different aspect to their actions - In this sense, we have all become 'shaheed', a witness to the endless tragedy of the Palestinian and Israeli people.
 
To try and put this into a Christian context is not a simple matter; the closest we can get is in Matthew 28:19-20 "The authority to witness is from Jesus. The power and boldness to witness is given as a result of the work of the Holy Spirit (Mark 16:17-20 ; Acts 1:8 ). The willingness to witness is a decision each one must make.

The Jehovah's Witnesses are an obvious example of this concept, although they believe in God, whom they refer to as Jehovah, and the complete Bible as his “inspired message”, and Jesus is believed to be the Son of God and the saviour but not part of a Trinity. A broader interpretation of the word is simply one who 'witnesses' the Sacrament of Baptism into the Christian faith so it becomes a very different concept to the Muslim understanding of the word. An Arab would take it to mean they must adhere to the interpretation of the word within the holy scripture of the Quran with complete acceptance while a Christian understands it is a guideline to living a Christian life on a day-to-day basis, evaluating the circumstances of bearing witness to the truth of Christ's word in the Bible.
 
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A Jew, on the other hand, takes a more Gnostic approach to the way he sees the word:

A Witness (עֵד) is one that has personal knowledge of an event or a fact....

It goes on to describe many ways of interpretation in regard to legal matters but has a distinction for 'the wicked' where The Talmud discusses the question of how to characterize a “wicked” person who is disqualified as a witness (Sanh. 27b).

Jewish Virtual Library.org
​
Gesenius's Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon states that it is the present participle of a root ayin-waw-dalet, meaning 'return' or 'repeat', with an Arabic cognate `āda - the idea apparently being that a witness is one who 'repeats' what he saw. It's presumably not an Aramaic borrowing, since it occurs already in Genesis. Gesenius lists the meaning 'testimony' in addition to 'witness'. In modern Hebrew, though, it only means 'witness'; 'testimony' is a related noun, edut. As for whether it's related to `ad 'eternity', Gesenius thinks not: he derives the latter from a different root ayin-dalet-he. It seems conceivable that the two roots could be related further back, though; at least, one could certainly imagine a semantic relationship between 'return' and 'eternity'.

linguistics.stackexchange.org

We're familiar with "testimony" as a term used in courtroom proceedings. Many readers of the Bible do not realize is that in Hebrew עֵדְוֹת (edot) which is translated as “witnesses” or “testimonies,” is not used in a judicial or courtroom sense. God commanded Israel to behave in a certain way and “testimonies” fall into the category of those commandments. These עֵדְוֹת (edot) have to do with remembrance - visual and tangible representations of past events or the Almighty’s covenants. They are witnesses of God and His works.

Psalm 119 speaks about “clinging” to these tangible witnesses of God. The Hebrew verb דָּבַק (davak) indeed means “to cling,” “to adhere,” “to fasten,” “to hold on to,” and even, “to be glued.” Israel, as a people, has done this for many centuries. We clung to the testimonies of God as they are expressed in peculiar customs, ethnic traditions, and cultural ways of life. And clinging to these “testimonies,” we have never been ashamed, but have witnessed God’s presence over and over.

דָּבַקְתִּי בְעֵדְוֹתֶיךָ יהוה אַל־תְּבִישֵׁנִי׃
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The central tenet linking the word 'witness' within the three Abrahamic traditions appears to be a way of living within God's Law and adhering to the Covenant made between Him and the people who've heard His Word and beleive in the Truth of His Word: To transgress within the Jewish religion would mean being cast out from the tribes of Israel; in the Christian faith it would mean being cast out of Heaven and to a Muslim it would lead to a denial of Paradise.
Becoming a 'martyr' in that sense of the word can then be translated as a corruption from the original meaning. A common trait among fundamentalist followers of the faith who persist in demanding their way is the only way to follow God's Law to the exclusion of anyone who does not accept this interpretation of the will of God.
 
In the Passover Haggadah, the passage beginning “Vehi Sheamda” reminds everyone at the Seder table that in each generation an enemy “rises up to destroy” the Jewish people. “But the Holy One, Blessed be He, delivers us from their hands,” the Haggadah continues. Benzion Netanyahu, the family patriarch and a historian of the Spanish Inquisition, was a secular man. For deliverance, he looked not to faith but to the renunciation of naïveté and the strength of arms. This creed became his middle son’s inheritance, the core of his self-conception as the uniquely unillusioned defender of the State of Israel.

“Historically, Netanyahu will go down in history as the worst Jewish leader ever.”
(Avraham Burg)​

Since first gaining the Prime Minister’s office, in 1996, Bibi, as everyone has called him since childhood, has been dismissive of any talk about the influence of his family—“psychobabble,” he once described it to me with a disdainful wave of the hand. Yet the power of his father’s guidance was never in doubt. When Benzion died, in 2012, at the age of a hundred and two, Netanyahu delivered a eulogy that directly addressed his father, and spoke to the centrality of his counsel: “You always told me that a necessary component for any living body—and a nation is a living body—is the ability to identify a danger in time, a quality that was lost to our people in exile; that is what you said. You taught me, Father, to look at reality head on, to understand what it holds and to come to the necessary conclusions.”

Benzion was an acolyte of Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the leader of the branch of right-wing Zionism known as Revisionism (what was being revised was a Zionist agenda deemed insufficiently militant), and it had been Jabotinsky who foresaw disaster befalling the Jews of Europe, which, in 1938, he likened to a “volcano which will soon begin to spew forth its fires of destruction.” In the Revisionist view, the founding of Israel came, culpably, too late—too late for six million Jews. Like Jabotinsky, Benzion believed that Ben-Gurion and other mainstream Labor Zionists had been much too accommodating of the British, who ruled Mandate-era Palestine, and too willing to negotiate with the Arabs who lived there. “A nice end they are preparing for us,” Benzion wrote in a Revisionist publication. “That end is an Arab state in the land of Israel.” His view of the enemy did not admit much humanity. “The tendency to conflict is in the essence of the Arab,” he told a reporter in 2009. “The goal of the Arabs of Israel is destruction. They do not deny that they want to destroy us.”
 
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