I’ve been waiting for “Killers of the Flower Moon” for almost a year. I just can’t get myself to go see it. There is a sense of guilt that goes with me trying to live a normal life when I know that people I associate and identify with are literally drinking the seawater.
I went to a protest around 2 weeks ago, and bumped into a friend there that was there. He had to take the subway for around 1.5 hrs to get to the protest, and I asked him: what brings you? His response stuck with me.
“I can’t pretend that nothing’s going on, and go on with my life like everything is normal, knowing what I know. My friends at work talk like it’s all good, but it’s wild and weird. I couldn’t sit with myself on the couch. I had to do something.”
How to Stay Human?
We get tired from seeing misery and suffering. We generally cut people from our circles who are always bringing bad news, depressed, or generally bring a sense of heaviness to our lives. It’s our nature. We like good news. And that’s completely fine.
I did the same when my father was in his hospital bed. I used to alternate with my brothers on who stays with him because the human energy is depleted after some time with pain. This is our capacity as people.
But, in a situation like the genocide in Gaza, one has to watch. A human has to be aware, and be engaged with a situation in which the world is constantly losing its humanity. This is a requirement to stay human. If we lose sight of other people’s suffering, we lose our humanity. We are empathetic creatures, and our empathy increases when we engage with other people’s misfortunes. I say this because this is not only a moral obligation, but also a technique for social and psychological wellbeing. This aspect of our humanity not only reinforces our awareness of our own position in the world, but also allows us to participate in a way that helps us reciprocate to the world, what we want from other people to give us when we are not in our best. We tend to forget that we’re not individuals in a world that doesn’t exist beyond our tiny circles, but we are active participants in a world that we shape by our small decisions. If I wanted other people to feel my pain, and sympathize with me, I am obliged to feel for them too. This is the principle in which one has to remain engaged in the world. It might be VERY difficult for the American reader, at the end of the day, there is unbelievable amount of conditioning that shapes the American life, that neglects the non-American world by design. It is a matter of training to be engaged in the world that is beyond the East and West coasts. This is visibly evident in people’s ability to read world maps, in its simplest forms. Let me not digress.
People talk about compassion fatigue1. And I got that so many times in so many crises across the world, and so many times in the Palestinian Cause. My line of work involves the humanitarian sector, and this implies being on a constant crisis watch. Even with this level of engagement, I generally have to focus on one aspect of these crises and unfortunately willfully ignore others. Otherwise, the consequences are dire.
But as Ijeoma Oluo says in this fantastic post, one has to learn how to keep going. One way of learning how to keep going, is to keep your eyes open. To keep watching.
You Have To Keep Being A Witness.
We talk about becoming more empathetic by reading literature, and reading about ‘other’ people, and how literature opens one up to societies, cultures, traditions, and all. And we’ve seen ways in which people were sharing about the importance of reading long-form, in order to be informed on a deeper level about what is happening in these crises. This is an important-yet-overlooked way that is increasingly being ignored as we delve deeper into the life of soundbites, reels, and TikTok videos2.
I say you have to keep being a witness, not only to document, but also to keep yourself morally tested. This abandonment of ‘anything that is not pleasant’ eats at our souls as we move further and further away from seeing the suffering of other people. This modern inability to do anything that brings us the maximum pleasure is only a symptom of how we compartmentalize our lives to the extent that we are living in isolation. This impacts us negatively in the times where we want to find someone to help us with our miseries, but because we were not able to reciprocate it to people when they needed it.
But also keeping witness reinforces our responsibility and ability to reject injustice, and to keep reminding ourselves of the injustices committed by oppressors against the oppressed. This continuous realignment of our moral compasses keeps us human. I draw this conviction from a beautiful saying the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ in which he said:
“Whoever witnesses something evil, let him/her change it with him/her hand, and if him/her is unable then with him/her tongue, and if him/her is unable then with him/her heart, but that is the weakest form of faith.”
This moral maxim, which serves almost as a commandment in comparative theology, isn’t only limited to oppression, but one can see how its application in our lives (and largely within society), can help in making sure there’s a continuous rejection of injustice or evil.3
Why Do I Write About This?
I’ve been talking about the Palestinian Genocide, but not asking for sympathy or requesting it. This is not something that I don’t ask for anymore, because after all what we’ve seen in this past month, and you still are on the fence, then I genuinely believe that your humanity needs some serious questioning. It will feel like I am talking in different language to you, and I can’t help teach you my language.
In a recent protest I attended - knowing that these protests are generally infiltrated by all sorts of people with misaligned intentions - someone walks up to me and asks to talk to me about ‘the conflict’ and this was my first issue. So, I stopped him and said: “Do you still see it as a conflict?!” his response was “I am sorry, but I am Jewish and I am ashamed from what the Israeli government is doing in the West Bank.” That moment I knew instantly that this person isn’t here to learn. He was there to confront, and I walked away instantly.
The friend who was with me asked me:”Why did you refuse to talk to him?”
My answer was simple: It’s the starting point. The framing.4 If you start from that point, then the gap is too wide. Hence, I refuse to acknowledge that it’s a conflict. There is no conflict.
I may not have a clear reason why I write this. I actually shouldn’t have the clarity of mind to write about it, because it really doesn’t make sense that something like this can happen. There are way too many angles to look at this situation from, and navigate.
I write about this at this point to make sure that whoever is reading is looking at themselves in the mirror. I also write in the hopes that someone might be stretched enough to question themselves in what they hold as truths. And people’s perceptions have been stretched. London, NYC, Jakarta, Berlin, Johannesburg, Mexico City, La Paz, even Tel Aviv; all these places are already recognizing the apartheid, the absolute barbarity, and the sheer maddening lust for more bloodshed. These places also are increasingly refusing injustice. I’ve never been to protests that are associated with the Palestinian cause where Arabs are a minority. This issue has always been a ‘distant’ issue that is ‘away’ from the Western mind. Not at this moment in history.
I write about this, because I may this one voice, that changes that one opinion, that helps one person think a bit more clearly about how to engage with an issue that they’ve been fed '“It’s complex” for decades. Ta-Nehesi Coates says it really isn’t. Ok, maybe Illan Pappe (a Jewish & Israeli scholar) can help you understand this last complexity bit:5
“The last paradox is that the tale of Palestine from the beginning until today is a simple story of colonialism and dispossession, yet the world treats it as a multifaceted and complex story—hard to understand and even harder to solve. Indeed, the story of Palestine has been told before: European settlers coming to a foreign land, settling there, and either committing genocide against or expelling the indigenous people. The Zionists have not invented anything new in this respect. But Israel succeeded nonetheless, with the help of its allies everywhere, in building a multilayered explanation that is so complex that only Israel can understand it. Any interference from the outside world is immediately castigated as naïve at best or anti-Semitic at worst.”
I don’t know who or how many reads this, and I genuinely do not care much about who agrees or disagrees. I care about injustice.
So, Why do I Write This?
I write this to stay human..
One way I was trying to stay human these past weeks, was going on hikes whenever I could. But even during these hikes, I find myself checking my phone every 10 minutes, in hopes that there’s an opening in the darkness..
No opening so far..
Here’s a long read on compassion fatigue, to better understand it. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/aug/02/is-compassion-fatigue-inevitable-in-an-age-of-24-hour-news
This is true even in sports. Younger audiences prefer highlights over full matches.
If you want to read more about Islam & Social Justice.
I spoke in an earlier post about how ‘words matter’ because they tell how one thinks.
Excellent article. I love the piece on bearing witness via reading. Yes completely agree. Read read read and learn so you can formulate your own perspective away from the skewed fed story. I love the perspective that the Palestinian story isn’t that much complicated and truly it isn’t. Maybe it is complicated for the Israeli side who tries to justify their barbaric action but not for Palestinians. I commend you on your rejection of the word “Conflict” which bears the sound and the meaning of a symmetrical equal power to 2 sides. In the Palestinian story and reality that is not the case. There is no equating of positions nor power. There is only the “Oppressed side: Palestinians” and the “Oppressor aggressor side: the Israeli Government”. Keep writing. People like me are reading and want to hear so we all can stay alive