Rage is the fire, love is the oxygen
Recently, I met my friend Anam in the centre of Bristol for a walk. It was one of those clear sky days, where the sun is shimmering across the water like television static, where you can hear every note of the bassline from passing cars cos the windows are open, and where Bristol is at its best. It was Anam’s first time in the city and I was seeing it through her eyes. The things I had been taking for granted recently, the political graffiti that makes me feel safe and emboldened, the hodgepodge of architecture, the care for the community, was all there.
It was also my first time meeting Anam in person.
Anam Raheem is a writer. A few years ago, she was shortlisted for a prize, and part of the prize was a mentoring session with me, to help her develop the ideas she’d begun in her work. I remember our first session well. It was in the middle of the pandemic and she was in New Jersey with her family, and I was in Bristol. We were both stuck in our houses and thinking about Gaza. She had not long returned from there, where she had been working at a tech hub. I was talking to a poet friend who I’d got back in touch with to help with some thoughts on where to publish her book.
Then I read Anam’s short story, Tesellation, and was blown away. The best writing is nimble, moving between the hyper-specific, the micro-local and the great big idea. The best writing is intimate and political, resonating in the world and in the heart and head. And that’s what Anam had written.
Speaking to her, though, it turned out that the thing she wanted to work on was a memoir about her time leading a coding school, and her work with Gaza Champions, a grassroots mutual aid network she founded with her friend, Bristol-based activist Matt Davis. The memoir would be about life in Gaza, moving between the horrors of the occupation and the dynamism of the people in that besieged and war-ravaged territory.
We worked on a proposal, and at the point at which she took some time out to write, we found ourselves watching the bombing, the horror, the genocide of October 2023 onwards unfolding on our phones.
Gaza Champions is a love-motivated movement that helps us keep our rage alive through the vessel of love, friendship and caring for other people.
Months later, Matt was organising a benefit for Gaza Champions at Bookhaus, and asked me to participate. He, Anam and I agreed that I would read one of the pieces about Gaza on Anam’s Substack. Again, faced with her writing, this time trying to recreate the Gaza she knew, archive it somehow, keep it alive somehow, despite the devastation, I was struck by how powerful her words are. Her language, her cadence, her choice of imagery was simple and sincere yet deeply humane and specific. Reading the piece in front of a packed crowd in June 2024, I was moved to tears by the question a friend had asked her as they scrabbled across destroyed buildings in order to catch a beautiful view: are you ready to be brave?
It’s a question I’ve been asking myself a lot recently, especially as I draw lines around the use of language and writing. How much can I push the world to be better? What is possible? How can I dedicate myself to direct action? What can I do on the streets of my city to push for change, to make things better? Because I’d been feeling for the longest time that my words are failing to do that. Maybe I need to act and write about action instead of trying to summon up something graceful and yet abstract about the need for change.
It was at that point that I met Anam recently. In person. I was nervous.
I deeply respect her and her work. The way she makes things happen and still continues, in spite of it all, to be hopeful and resilient is so very powerful. She met me by the Harbourside. I introduced her to my kids who were about to learn to kayak. On our way to meet her, my eldest child had wanted to ask her about the kids she’d taught in Gaza, but faced with Anam’s smile, she got shy. Instead she held my hand tight and whispered for me to ask.
We left my kids to kayak and Anam and I did a seasonal circuit of the water. We walked around the swinging bridges, stopping for coffee, an attempt to find ice cream and also to sit when the heaviness of the world got too much.
Talking to me about Gaza Champions, she wanted to impress how easy it was to join and how tiny acts of help or kindness made all the difference. She was clear: this genocide could end in two phonecalls, but only a handful of people can make those calls. We are faced with such a feeling of helplessness, that all we can do is express our rage and sadness online. I asked how she kept going. She took off her sunglasses and stared at her coffee, then up at me and smiled.
“Rage, which is very needed and righteous in this moment,” she said. “Is very easy to burn out on. But love sustains us. Rage is like a fire and love is an oxygen around that fire. Gaza Champions is a love-motivated movement that helps us keep our rage alive through the vessel of love, friendship and caring for other people.”
I’m in the process of talking to Matt about becoming a Gaza Champion. By writing this column, I’m speaking it into existence. You can do the same. Here’s some basic info on what they do:
We are a mutual aid network rooted in friendship and collective action directly connected with families in Gaza and with each other. As champions for their fundraising efforts, we support their daily survival while building meaningful relationships across borders.
Through virtual gatherings, strategy sessions, and community events, we come together to share ideas, uplift one another, and deepen our commitment to solidarity. This is more than a fundraising effort—it’s a movement of care, connection, and shared resilience.
If you’re feeling rage, helplessness, sadness at the horrors we witness in Gaza every day, and you’re not sure where best to place that, or yourself, Gaza Champions is a great place to start.
I’m grateful to have people like Anam in my life, who are so good at reminding us of what’s important, and what we can do about it that makes a difference. Because every action we take, small or big, as minuscule as sourcing an e-sim or as big as donating to an aid charity, or showing up to protest when protesting is as aggy as it is, is best approached with love.
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