While you read this entry, listen to Lowkey’s Soundtrack of the Struggle 2.
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For just over the last month, my morning routine has been the same:
Wake up;
Take an anti-anxiety;
Check twitter to see if Ahmed ElMadhoun is still alive.
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Since October began, I have been having nightmares of dead children.
It’s like the scene from Trainspotting where Ewan McGreggor has a drug-induced hallucination of a dead baby on his ceiling.
Only this is no movie. There’s no Ewan McGreggor. There’s no comic relief. There’s no VCR for me to rewind.
There’s only the reality of genocide.
My morning routine is nothing like the morning routine of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and across the globe. This may have been my reality for the last month, but it’s been the reality of Palestinians for nearly a century.
The war didn’t begin on October 7, 2023. In 1917, Britain – who colonized and controlled Palestine at the time – gave Zionists from Europe the ability to establish a Jewish homeland through the Balfour Declaration. This was done strategically to convince Jewish people in the United States to support WWI (and to further British colonization into Africa and India). The situation exploded in 1948 when Zionists established the state of Israel with the murder and forced displacement of thousands of Palestinians from their homeland through the Nakba. Palestine has been under an Israeli occupation for the last 75 years, a time marked by violence and the vile nature of settler colonialism. Because of it, Palestinian’s lives are controlled by Israeli settlers seeking to further occupy their land.
In 1948, “more than 800,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from [their] land through mass murder and forced evacuation.” So far in 2023, more than 1.5 million people have been displaced during the current genocide. This number represents more than half of Gaza’s population.
This history is important, and intentionally left out of the conversation when discussing the current genocide of Palestinians by Israeli Occupied Forces. I encourage you to read more on the origins of the situation here, and seek out more information on the history of Palestine.
As a Black person living in a country founded through settler colonialism, this cuts deeply to my core. The issues faced by Palestinians in their homeland are reminiscent of what we experience here at home in the United States.
If you’ve ever had a one on one with me or read my bio, you know that some of my early actions as a teenager was during the anti-war movements of the early 2000’s. I spent a portion of my youth fighting against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, educated by progressive high school teachers who taught me the importance of organizing. Though it’s been 20 years since the then-President bush declared war on Iraq, this time feels eerily similar to the early 2000’s in how rampant the propaganda and Islamophobia is on display.
Two weeks ago, President Joe Biden created an initiative that deploys Department of Homeland Security agents to work with colleges to track students organizing for Palestinian liberation. The impact of this initiative has already been felt: The Brandeis University chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) had to cancel a vigil for their families and friends who have lost their lives due to Israeli Occupied Forces. Columbia University has banned both SJP and Jewish Voices for Peace student groups for the Fall term. This is just the beginning.
Had an initiative like this gone through when I was a High School student, my trajectory in life would have been vastly different.
When Israeli forces began attacking Palestinians on October 7, I immediately thought of Ahmed. He and I worked in the same organization briefly over the summer of 2023. We were separated by land, sea, and international politics, but connected over the same fight for liberation of oppressed people. An annual meeting of organizers across the world brought us together in the same space: he sat in an office in Gaza while I sat in my dining room in Connecticut.
The minute the attacks began, I checked Ahmed’s twitter account to make sure he was alive.
This has now become a part of my daily routine. I check Ahmed’s twitter account every morning, sometimes before the sleep is even completely out of my eyes.
As the time has gone on, I no longer only check Ahmed’s social media. There are so many others in Gaza who are fighting for their survival that I now check their pages on a regular basis:
Bisan Owda. Motaz Azaiza. Plestia Alaqad. Khalil. Wael Eldahdouh. Hind Khoudary. Saleh Aljarawi.
These are the names of activists, singers, filmmakers, journalists, and humans in Gaza.
At 32, I’m older than everyone on that list except Wael.
Every single one of them deserves to live a life unencumbered. It’s unfortunate that oppressed people globally have to fight tooth and nail just to survive.
The United States has sent over $3.8 billion in aid to Israel in furthering their colonization of Palestine, and President Joe Biden has no intention of calling for a ceasefire or an end to US aid to Israel.
President Biden, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and others who are complicit in this genocide are not moved by photos of dead or dying children. The casualties of war do not move them. The routine displacement of Palestinian elders does not move them. The genocide of an entire race of people do not move them.
People in power are moved by one thing and one thing only: more power.
Countries founded on settler colonialism – Israel, the United States, South Africa, Canada, Brazil – are founded on genocide. The latest attacks on Palestine through Israeli Occupied Forces are an extension of the 1948 Nakba, and the myriad of atrocities that have happened between then and now. Netanyahu will continue to spew propaganda even with the most gruesome images of Palestinians losing their lives. The goalpost will always be moved and justified by the occupier.
To make liberation a reality, we must focus on building power to take down these oppressive systems. Attend a protest, AND make sure that you get involved for long after the chants have ended. Make a sign for a rally, AND doorknock in your community to raise funds for Palestinian youth organizing. Purchase a shirt about Palestinian liberation, AND make sure you are calling your lawmakers weekly to call for a ceasefire. We need people to show up at meetings, take on leadership roles in meetings, outreach, take care of children, feed people, and so much more. The most important thing to do in this moment (and beyond), is stay organized and take collective action on a regular basis.
National organizations fighting for Palestinian Liberation:
Many of these national organizations have local chapters doing work. You can check out their websites and find the local chapters doing the work in your community. If you’re at a loss, the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights has an online map that shows you by state who to get involved with in their network.
Palestine may be the focus of this piece, but they are not the only country going through a genocide. The people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudan have also been experiencing a genocide. The nature of colonialism is one of violence, and we must do everything we can to keep each other safe.
No one is going to save us but us. We have to take an active role in our own liberation, and bring others along with us.
Brick by brick, we will be free.
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Note: I am intentionally not using a content warning in this piece. We are witnessing a genocide. If Palestinian children are carrying headless bodies, or watch their cousins be dismembered in front of them, we must be strong. For them, for our children, for humanity at large. There is no content warning in war, genocide, or settler colonialism.