Dr Lubaaba Al-Azami, expert on Anglo-European and Islamicate encounters has reflected on Shakespeare’s tragedy Titus Andronicus, named after a Roman general at the centre of a vengeful feud. Dr Al-Azami’s blog, Gaza to Titus Andronicus: Children on the Frontline of Genocide connects the play with the recently released report of the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel. The Commission’s chair, Judge Srinivasan Muralidhar, has observed that ‘by targeting children, Israel is attacking the very capacity of the Palestinian people to exist and to determine their future’ adding ‘Israel targets children to weaken demographic vitality’.
Dr Al-Azami notes,
| “Just as bearing and raising children in community despite genocidal circumstances are deployed as Palestinian acts of resilience and resistance, the same is illustrated in Titus Andronicus. We see all three aspects – birth, upbringing and community – in the case of Aaron the Moor and his mixed-race Black child in the face of the racialised genocidal intent of the play’s White imperial actors, both Roman and Goth. The infant is born of Aaron’s relationship with Goth Empress Tamora, but presents as Black like his father rather than taking his mother’s complexion. The scale of White genocidal impulse is made clear in the threat the Moor newborn faces and Aaron’s sole resistance to it [. . . ] In genocidal circumstances, children are not just among the most vulnerable to endure assault. They are some of the most powerful figures and symbols of resistance, survival and continuity. Their presence holds a potency unmatched by any adult. For this they are targeted by genocidal actors who would see a community decimated in the present and future, from Gaza to Shakespeare’s Rome. Aaron understands this reality deeply, seeing in his son a potency and futurity that is far greater than himself. And so, he sacrifices himself to save his Black son who will continue the Moor legacy and line.” |