Do We Believe Star Wars?

May 4th is today—a colloquially started but now basically official Star Wars holiday in which people tell each other “May the fourth be with you,” and retailers post sales of every type of galactic memorabilia imaginable. Prior to this pomp, the Star Wars franchise and the month of May already went hand-in-hand: the original Star Wars was released in the United States on May 25, 1977; and six other films in the franchise have also been released in May.

Also in May (not sorry about the whiplash here), May 15, 1948, was the recognized start of the Nakba, or the great catastrophe, when hundreds of thousands of indigenous Palestinians were forced from their homes by the new “state” of Israel1 and have been resisting ever since. That oppressive violence and that rebellion have continued to today, in which the death toll for Palestinians, just since October 7th, passed 30,000 (likely more2) in February 2024.

Of course May as the month of connection between a space fantasy and the reality in Palestine is just a coincidence. But as both a fan of stories and as someone who self-proclaims to be on the left, I’ve been increasingly outraged by the lionizing of a fictional rebellion next to hand-wringing about what resistance materially looks like, particularly among liberals/progressives. I get it: I can’t pretend I wasn’t there morally/philosophically yesterday. I’m just a baby when it comes to empathy about world events. And of course I also understand that fiction is fictional. But I also want comrades who are willing to re-assess what they know of resistance. This post is aimed at them.

With both Star Wars and Gaza always on my mind, I can’t help but think about, with it being May 4th, how nearly half of Palestine’s population is children3, kids who should be watching fun movies and not fighting to survive. It is a privilege, I know, to be able to sit and write about the historical resonance of Star Wars in May 2024. Yet I do think the question is valuable as an early step (and absolutely not a material nor standalone one): Can resistance in Star Wars be applied to real-world uprising? Or to put the question another way: Do we believe Star Wars?

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Star Wars as Cyclical History

As a child, I viewed the original Star Wars trilogy as an allegory (although