Intro

The chapter explores how victory in liberation movements may not necessarily lead to increased freedom for marginalized groups like women and gay individuals. It stresses the importance of supporting these communities alongside promoting broader liberation goals. An ad for ButcherBox offering a discount code on meat products is also featured in this chapter.

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Can yoga bring hostages home? No. Can yoga stop a genocide? Also no. But this won’t stop earnest practitioners from instrumentalizing practice for both purposes.

For supporters of Israel, practice is dedicated to the protection of land, the return of hostages, and to uphold the spiritual valor of soldiers. Among supporters of Palestine and a ceasefire, yoga practice and community is an organizing principle for decrying genocide, building mutual aid, and resisting global colonialism. Both factions cite the Bhagavad Gita.

Does yoga support nationalistic violence and body fascism? Isn’t that where its modern origins lie? Or does it have deeper, intersectional roots in universal liberation?

The interpretive war, articulated and inflamed online, only accelerates the material war.

But there is a third space we examine today: the gap between how spiritual aspirations appear and are praised or condemned in the world of the spectacle, and how they play out in the flesh.