Please, wake up and see
I wear a sadness scarf around my neck today. It feels suffocating but I can take it off whenever I want; Palestinians cannot. I cry when I read their stories and see their videos. But I cry in front of my phone screen. I can lock it whenever I want. The question is: How many Palestinians will have been killed until I decide to unlock my screen again?
I did not know. I did not know Palestinians who once welcomed Holocaust survivors into their homes were later expelled by them with soldiers hand in hand. I did not know the word Nakba. I did not know the atrocities Tantura and many more villages in Palestine endured.
I did not know an ethno-state was erected on top of Palestinian land, blood, bones and sorrow. I did not know mass graves were turned into parking lots. I did not know about apartheid walls, checkpoints, ransacking, cultural appropriation, Sderot cinema, skin banks, burned olive trees, the birth right, the delusion, the sinister and the barbarian of it all.
I did not know about the British, the French, the US Americans nor the Arab Western puppets. I did not know about Gaza. I did not know about the children imprisoned and put in solitary confinement until they lost their ability to speak, their eyesight weakened, and their minds broken into Schizophrenia.
I did not know about Palestinian men and how dehumanized they have been. I did not know about the love stories, love that survives even in the face of occupation prisons.
I did not know about Palestinian refugees who developed Alzheimer’s later in life and wanted nothing more than to go home. Yet their home was taken. Most likely by someone who hopped on a plane from Europe and landed in Palestine to live on stolen land. The propaganda machine will make them think they landed in “israel”.
I did not know, and for that I take responsibility. But today, I am here.
As I started writing this I was sad. It has been two days since an even more brutal attack began in Rafah – the last piece of land where Palestinians have been pushed to. I have seen a little girl hanging from a wall. Her legs were blown off. Her face was mutilated. Her name was Sidra. I have seen a man cry as he left home to get some food. When he came back his house had been turned to rubble. Buried underneath: his grandchildren, his children, and wife. His entire family was killed by the zionist entity.
I have seen journalists Ismail and Ahmed targeted by a drone strike. Ismail’s leg was amputated on the spot. Ahmed was covered in shrapnel.
Only last week, as I scrolled on Instagram, I saw an image I could not really understand. It sort of looked like hair. I swiped to the next picture, it was brains. I immediately knew who they belonged to.
The day before I had seen a video of a young man. He explained how he went out to try to find some food for his brother, and when he came back, he found his three-year-old baby sibling splattered all over the place. I, too, would do anything to keep my sister safe. I cannot begin to fathom the pain of seeing her body blown apart.
Palestinian men calling the names of their children under the rubble; no answer. Only a father’s tears and his knees glued to the ground.
I have seen first responders fainting because they cannot handle the pain of losing all of their family members. I have seen doctors released from israeli kidnapping and torture.
They go back to the hospital because they want to help their people. I have seen every hospital in the Gaza strip targeted and besieged.
I have seen a young woman having her leg amputated on the kitchen table by her uncle without proper tools or anesthesia. I have seen the mass-disabling of thousands, hindered dreams.
I have seen a little girl explain how she puts blankets over her belly at night to not break her mama’s heart because her stomach growls loudly.
I have seen parents carrying their children’s remains in a plastic bag. I have seen parents holding half of their child’s body in the hospital.
I have seen premature babies left to rot in incubators -diapers still attached to their bones.
I have seen horses, donkeys, cats, dogs in agony from bomb injuries. I have seen people burned to the bone with white phosphorus. I have seen so much blood, heard so many screams. Imagine what I have not seen. So much going on that is impossible to document it all; or no one was left alive to tell the story. How many times has the story been too harrowing to tell?
I have seen Plestia’s journals, Bisan’s beautiful visual stories about Gaza, Hind’s birthday letter to her husband. I have seen Refaat’s poems travel the word. I have heard Saleh sing to journalists with the sounds of tanks in the background. I have seen Amir teach parkour to little kids during a genocide. I have seen Ahmed be a journalist, first responder, and a volunteer to entertain kids.
I have seen Motaz show the world the truth. I have seen Wael reporting from the ground, even after two of his children, his grandchild, his best friend and his wife were killed. I have seen the amazing work of doctor Mohammed and doctor Mahmoud. I have seen Yousef tend to his patients at the hospital and report on social media at the same time.
I have seen little nine-year old Lama put on a press vest and interview other children, giving them the space to tell their truth under brutal callous israeli aggression. I have seen so much death and pain, but I also have seen the truth, the courage, the stubbornness (in Mohammed El-Kurd’s words), the resistance. I aspire to love like Palestinian men, as they hold each other in their grief, and kiss the foreheads of their friends, family and neighbors. One day I am going to be 1/2 teaspoon tough like a Palestinian.
https://laconicsteph.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/10000000_187040154476902_6246932459924130048_n2.mp4
These are Khaled and Reem. Khaled became known worldwide for calling Reem, his grandchild, the soul of his soul, as he kissed her forehead and prepared her to be buried. Reema was killed in an israeli airstrike.
https://laconicsteph.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/15423C2ED381A65C012DD703E1C24A93_video_dashinit3.mp4
Saleh Aljafarawi on the left, Hadia Nassar on the right. She was born in 1944. She is older than the entity called israel. A couple of days after this video was taken, Hadia was killed by an israeli sniper.
Today I am outraged. I am not angry. I am outraged. How can a few countries hold so much power to do this and get away with it -not only in the legal sense- but in the apathy epidemic that ails so many people. I do not care much for the silence of institutions. After all, they are a facade of “world order”; they are the beacons of colonialism, imperialism, and white supremacy.
I care about the silence of us, everyday people, so self-absorbed to even question why things are the way they are. So self-absorbed to not even make space in the online world to amplify Palestinian voices. So self-absorbed to not do a quick search online to see that it did not start on 7.10. So self-absorbed to say there is nothing that can be done about it, so why ruin our own peace and mental health in vain. It may seem as if the abundance of human-manufactured tragedy on this Earth is an excuse to continue to overlook and minimize the suffering of Palestinians.
I have noticed that individualism [not as self-expression and self-love] is used as a tool to maintain the status quo. Let them terrorists suffer in the Middle East, they brought it upon themselves with their extremist views and woman-hating ways. Let the bearded man suffer. Let the hijabi women suffer, for they have embraced oppression and they carry terrorists in their wombs.
I am furious. Even the people in my life who I consider beautiful souls are happy posting their Starbuscks coffee and McDonald’s meals on the other side of the world. I am furious, but now I see. There is so much to learn, so much to change. I have been radicalized, and I am no longer afraid of that word.
The fear mongers, the “democracy” lovers want us to be in the middle. How can there be a middle between a hellfire missile and a shelling tank? They want us to be Rational [yes, with capital R -like the precious Ismatu taught me in one of their writings]. There is no middle, both sides do not exist amidst a genocide. There are occupiers and those who have been occupied.Or would you dare to try and sympathize with Hitler’s motives?
I am tired of living in the imagination of a white man (thank you, precious Ayanda, for pointing that out).
There is more to life than being born, going to work and dying. There is more to life than indulging in diet culture and inclusive beauty, and white-washed holistic health and self-care. The Pinterest and Insta girly tropes will have you believe self-care is doing face masks and dumping your toxic boyfriend, and not social care for marginalized communities. There is more to life than the next travel destination, especially if our ability to enjoy that trip is dependent on the “power” of the dollar or the euro. You take your favorite colonizer pick.
There is more to life than planning how to retire by investing in the same companies dropping bombs on Palestinians, Yemenis, Lebanese, Syrians, Sudanese or Congolese. This list falls short. There is more to life than buying the new iPhone or gadget coated in the blood and the sweat of some poor human being, animal and land. There is more to life than our own comfort. There is more to life than being subjugated to exploitation. There is more. There is radical love, change. There is mutual aid, music, art, books, food, resistance.
There are so many questions, and I want answers. I want us all to be world-makers. Palestine set me free, and I shall see a free Palestine in my lifetime.
Please, wake up and see.
Do not doubt for a second; the genocidal boot stepping on Palestinians is the same boot hovering over your head. You just cannot see it.
Please, wake up and see.
If you are white and reading this, note that privilege can only take you so far.