more on the murder of young samir awad

Posted on 18/01/2013 by esta

i didn’t realize that odai, anwar, mustafa and samir were all murdered in the last few days because they were close to the apartheid walls of the occupation… i didn’t realize this. it hits me differently. makes me wonder whether something’s brewing, one thinks these thoughts every once in a while.

a friend who works in the old city of hebron as a guide among others is saying that there have been a lot of changes over the past few months. the doors of houses on shuhada street were painted grey by the occupying army, a large asphalt parking lot was created in front of the synagogue-entrance of the ibrahimi mosque/abraham synagogue, and one street was turned into a one-way street, partially redirecting traffic effectively leading extremely fascist settler colonists to drive directly past a palestinian boys’ school – more clashes and more palestinian deaths in the making. she says people are saying something’s brewing in the old city, they are up to something. she speculates that they are creating situations that will likely increase clashes in order to use some incident in the near future as an excuse to further down parts of the old city to palestinians. i don’t know. makes me think of how they gunned down mohammad salaymah last month.

i didn’t go to samir’s funeral or to the ‘aza عزاء. the day of the funeral, we were caught up in an action and instead of funeral and feeling things and facing a reality of a murder, this action takes up one’s thoughts and feelings and a reality like samir having been martyred slips away, becomes less connected …to my reality. but it is. nariman, rushdi’s sister, went to the funeral. there is now a poster of samir in their homes in nabi saleh. uff, it’s painful to imagine going through that again, can only guess how she would feel seeing another sister cry for her murdered brother so after…

i thought about posting pictures of samir’s funeral or the attacks of the occupation army on the spontaneous protest against his murder that erupted afterwards, but there it feels wrong to spread images like that for reasons i’m not going to go into here. i’m not going to post images of his sisters, his brother, breaking down. but here are images of samir, just after he was shot. and yes, they are what they call “graffic”. i hope the families of the four boys find strength somewhere.

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four more martyrs in four days

Posted on 15/01/2013 by esta

samir awwad, 16/17, shot dead in bodros, west bank, 15.1.2013

i’ve been meaning to write about stuff that happened last week but yesterday, the internet was cut all day. this morning, as i tried to sort my thoughts, we heard news of yet another martyr. first unconfirmed, unclear whether he was dead or dying. he did die. his name is samir awwad.  he was very young, 16 or 17, he was shot this morning after school in his village bodros in the ramallah area. after exams, students went to the apartheid barrier on their land and there were reportedly minor clashes between the occupying army and the students. samir may or may not have thrown stones at the massive wall or the soldiers who are stationed in full protective military gear behind it. according to eye witnesses, he was walking away from the clashes when he was shot. it doesn’t matter. he’s dead. three bullets from the back, one in the ribcage, one in the leg, one in the neck. another young man, a child still, dead.

samir

photo: wattan tv

i wonder why i took news of the last three martyrs without this feeling in my guts that leaves me wishing i would explode or throw up and get it out, i don’t know why the news of this fourth martyr on a fourth consecutive day in this tiny place – do you understand just how small palestine actually is geographically? the entire surface area of historic palestine ranges 26.670 sq km – compared to belgium with 30.528 sq km and netherlands with 41543 sq km – while the surface area of the west bank, the gaza strip and east jerusalem,  were most human rights violations against palestinians occur, comprises only 6.000 sq km) is leaving me choked, feeling this again. why it is the news of his murder that leaves me unable to write about anything else today. i’m not sure why.

odai darawish, 21, shot dead south of hebron, west bank, january 12

photo: efe/epa/abed al hashlamoun

photo: efe/epa/abed al hashlamoun

in part, my comparable indifference to the first three murders is probably due to me having been caught up with events the last few days. i didn’t have internet access the day odai darawish was shot dead, in fact, i didn’t even hear about his murder until now:non january 12, reportedly 21 years old from the hebron area village of dura, was attempting to cross the apartheid barrier in the south of hebron in order to work  inside 48 (in “israel”/the parts of historic palestine that are occupied since 1949). it should have been routine, like he did at other times before. but this time, he was spotted by soldiers from the occupation army. he ran and was shot dead. executed.

running away, odai was not posing an immediate threat to the soldiers or anyone else when he was murdered, making his murder a direct violation of the fourth geneva convention relative to the protection of civilian persons in time of war, to which “israel” is a signatory.

many young men work without permit in 48 because the crap situation here leaves a massive number of them without even hope of regular work. many of my male friends in their early twenties have no jobs. they are supposed to provide for their families, and save some money to build a house for their own future families. but unless they work as teachers, police officers, soldiers, etc. for the pa or bring along the necessary education, language skills and connections to work in an ngo (funded and essentially run by foreigners), they end up without any work. it is very humiliating for many young men to have to ask their mothers or fathers for five shekel for transportation or 15 shekel for cigarettes or 10 shekel for telephone credit. i’ve seen friends struggle with this undignified situation, i’ve looked for work with two friends, gone with them through part of  the depressing journey that eventually saw some opt for unprotected work/ without permits in 48. it is this desperation, too, that drives west bank palestinians to work inside the settler colonies, sometimes help build the apartheid wall or colony that will displace their own community.

west bank residents working without permits in 48 are a separate cheap labor force. there are well-known locations where crossing to the other side is easy. these unofficial crossings are part of an industry of its own, with drivers collecting palestinians across the entire west bank and facilitating their crossing for some fee. workers say that israeli police are well aware of these crossings and choose to ignore them, as the israeli economy benefits from the cheap labor that they facilitate. when a palestinian worker is caught in yafa or haifa or elsewhere without permit, he gets punished, detained for some time, returned to the west bank. it is he alone who carries the risk of this working arrangement. but for many palestinian men, particularly for the younger ones, illegal and unprotected work in 48 is their only hope of making a salary and they take the risk. like odai did on january 12.

anwar al mamlouk, 19, shot dead in the “buffer zone” near jabalia, gaza strip, january 13

anwar

the next day, i did see a few lines about a young man getting shot lethally and another one getting injured in the gaza strip. i didn’t look further into it – a martyr from gaza once in a while, it takes energy and something else not to get used to it, to still feel rage about every single martyr, to still want to put a face to every single such headline. 19 year old anwar al mamlouk was shot in the unilaterally established and militarized “buffer zone” in the jabalia area, an arbitrary strip of land in the gaza strip that lies on the gazan side of cease fire line of 1949, along gaza’s coast as well as its border with Egypt. according to eye witnesses, anwar and a group of people were close to the apartheid fence and zionist soldiers were firing tear gas canisters and other projectiles/ammunition at them. anwar was shot in the stomach. 21 year old omar wadi was visiting the graves of his friends when he saw anwar getting shot. instinctively, he joined a few others who ran towards anwar when the soldiers resumed shooting. omar was injured in both lower legs by shrapnel from a bullet.  both anwar and omar where carried away by two other young men who went uninjured. anwar died on the way to the hospital.

they call it a “buffer zone” to mask ethnic cleansing

gaza map

anwar is one of too many. the so-called “buffer zone” is a no-go or high-risk zone that is of arbitrary and changing width, ranging from 300m to reportedly up to 1,5km (in the north), with no fixed demarcation. palestinians learn that they have entered or come too close to the invisible and fluid line that indicates the beginning of the zone when occupation soldiers shoot life ammunition at them – often via remote-control from inside of military towers and without prior warning. from the beginning of 2006 to the end of 2011, 173 palestinians were murdered by israeli soldiers in this “buffer zone”.

the zone is further enforced unilaterally through regular ground incursions during which lands are razed and structures are demolished. according to one human rights group, between 2005 and the summer of 2011, “305 water wells, 197 chicken farms, 6 377 sheep farms, 996 complete houses, 371 partial houses, three mosques, three schools, and six factories have been destroyed within the ‘buffer zone’. In addition, a total of 24.4 sq. kilometres of cultivated land has been leveled”.

nasser abu sa'eed and his son at their house in juhor al deek which they finally left after it was shelled yet again in 2011

nasser abu sa’eed and his sons at their house in juhor al deek which they finally left after it was shelled yet again in 2011

i am not sure how many people were effectively displaced by the policies enforcing the “buffer zone” – reportedly, around 12% of the total population of gaza are directly effected by these policies of denial of access to land and maritime space  – but palestinians who own property in or near this no-go/high-risk zone cannot simply give up on their lands. it is estimated that the entire zone constitutes about 17% of the land mass of the gaza strip, 85% of the maritime area and 30-40% of its agricultural lands to which palestinians in gaza should have access to according to the oslo accords. accessing these high-risk areas is crucial for a significant portion of palestinians. given the shortage of construction material, grazing grounds, and agricultural produce in the strip, they will continue to regularly risk their lives in order to grow crops in the zone, let their animals graze or – in a reality of over 13000 residential houses partially or entirely destroyed in the past decade and with most construction materials not being allowed into the gaza strip via israeli controlled crossings – to collect rubble for the (re)construction of buildings.

demonstration against denial of access in the "buffer zone" in front of "erez", beit hanoun, 7.2.2012

demonstration against denial of access in the “buffer zone” in front of “erez”, beit hanoun, 7.2.2012

others regularly approach/enter the zone in groups to protest what is effectively a policy of additional land theft. it sounds like anwar was one of them, one of too many who were murdered, omar one of too many who were injured.

mustafa abu jarad, 20/21, shot dead near beit lahiya, “buffer zone”, gaza strip, january 14

mustafa

another one was mustafa abu jarad, 20 or 21 years old. he was shot in the head while trying to farm. he was among a group of people who were working on a plot of land north of beit lahiya. they were shot at from a military tower and ran away for safety. they were just returning to resume their work when a sniper shot mustafa in the head. he died later that day.
when i read the news of mustafa’s murder, there was a brief moment were i did feel anger, where i did react. to my knowledge, he was at least the second young man, someone so much younger than me, getting murdered on consecutive days. but that moment, too, past without me looking up more about mustafa.

maybe samir’s murder hits me so much more because he was the second martyr in two consecutive days that i had heard of and maybe, heartlessly, numbers do matter in my reactions as well. or i am feeling this shitty now while i more or less ignored the news of the previous three martyrs these past days because it wasn’t through reading that i heard about his murder – someone around me received a call about his death, then the usual “is it true?” “is he really dead”, “is he only injured”, “who is he”, “where is he from” “how old is he” “what was happened” scramble. maybe it’s the fact that samir was murdered here, very close to me actually, while protesting against the apartheid wall. that hits a lot close to home, from experience, i can kind of imagine the situation there today, and it is this recognition that now makes me imagine what his family, his mother, his friends are doing now, are going through now, getting him to ramallah hospital, anger, organizing the funeral, letting relatives know, etc. this is familiar.

i’m sitting here waiting with friends for something while more details about samir’s murder are getting in, i’m thinking of his family, i’m thinking of rushdi’s family and crying. my friend amani, a niece of rushdi’s, just told me it’s her birthday today. she’s in her late teens, and tends to get angry easily, so i asked her if she was planning on doing something, maybe have cake, a little celebration. she said why would she celebrate when people are dying. the news of samir’s murder was the first thing she heard when she woke up.

i can’t imagine how their families will manage to continue. i wish them strength and healing and things i cannot put in words. may odai, anwar, mustafa and samir rest in peace….

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for a change: snow and snowmen

Posted on 10/01/2013 by esta

it snowed today in bethlehem and maybe all of palestine, snow that didn’t melt away right way. this also meant transportation was out. anne and i went for a walk, to the checkpoint near us in bethlehem and to al wallaje. i’m  posting her post (the snowman at the apartheid wall was made-over by me :))

2013… and back: Snow in Bethlehem and Al Walaja / 2013..et de retour: Neige à Bethléem et Al-Walaja, 10.01.2013

 Above/ photo au dessus: Bethlehem
Above/photos au dessus: Al Walaja

(c) Anne Paq/Activestills/org, Bethlehem and Al Walaja, 10.1.2013

After a long needed break I am back. I have not done many pictures in the last month; I guess I needed some time after what happened in Gaza the last month (you can read here an interview that I gave about my work during operation ‘Pillar of defense‘). I needed to disconnect and also find some comfort in spending time with family, away from Palestine.

But now I am fully back. My first day really out taking pictures in 2013 was only today. I watched with excitement the snow falling last night and this morning my garden was all white. I happily got my feet wet, wandering around Bethlehem, which was transformed into a battlefield of snowballs fighting. The checkpoint was looking even more depressing with this weather. Another depressing thought is about the Palestinians who lost their homes in Gaza during last operation or the refugees who live in very bad housing conditions. Infrastructures are terrible in West bank, the separation wall makes also the floodings even worse, and the storms already claimed the lives of three Palestinians.

In Al Walaja there was even more snow. The Wall was disappearing a bit in the mist but for sure- still there. Some houses did not have the electricity since this morning.

Overall it was still an amazing day out and it was especially great to see the kids and families enjoying themselves outside, enjoying themselves and laughing, making the most of a real gift from nature.

——Français———————————————————————————————————–

Après une longue pause nécessaire, je suis de retour. Je n’ai pas fait beaucoup de photos lors du dernier mois et j’ai délaissé mon blog, je suppose que j’avais besoin d’un certain temps après ce qui s’est passé à Gaza le mois dernier (vous pouvez lire ici une interview en anglais que j’ai donné au sujet de mon travail pendant l’opération “Pillar of defense”). J’avais besoin de débrancher et de trouver un peu de réconfort en passant du temps avec ma famille, loin de la Palestine.

Mais maintenant je suis complètement de retour.  Ma première vraie journée de retour sur le terrain à prendre des photos en 2013 était seulement aujourd’hui. J’ai regardé avec enthousiasme et anticipation la neige qui tombait hier soir et ce matin, mon jardin était tout blanc.  
Je me suis donc très joyeusement trempé mes pieds en me promenant dans Bethléem, transformée en un champ de bataille de combats acharnés de boules de neige. Je suis allée jusqu’au checkpoint,  ncore plus déprimant avec ce temps. J’ai aussi eu des pensées pour les Palestiniens qui ont perdu leurs maisons dans la bande de Gaza au cours de la dernière opération ou les réfugiés qui vivent dans des conditions de logement très mauvaises. Les infrastructures sont  mal en point en Cisjordanie, le mur de séparation empire également les inondations, et les tempêtes ont déjà coûté la vie à trois Palestiniens.

A Al Walaja il y avait encore plus de neige . Le Mur disparaissait un peu dans le brouillard, mais pour sûr, il était toujours là. Certaines maisons n’avaient pas l’électricité depuis ce matin.

Globalement, ce fut une journée incroyable; en dehors de nos repères habituels en Palestine et il était particulièrement réjouissant de voir les enfants et les familles s’amuser à l’extérieur; riant et profitant d’un très beau cadeau de la nature.

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christmas (recycling)…

Posted on 24/12/2012 by esta

i do want to write, about too many things unfortunately. i can’t focus on one thing. so in lack of focus on new post, i’ll leave you with my angry post from last year. i’ll say this, though, i am very glad to be in palestine this christmas.

which reminds me: when anne came back from gaza recently, we finally went out for dinner, been more than a year that the two of us did last. she said, for various reasons which i can’t explain here, that she’s thinking of moving to gaza at one point. she’d been thinking of going to europe (brussels) for two years, but each time, she decided against it at the last moment. the idea now is to go to gaza for a while and then to brussels, have a base there, and move aroud from there. i told her (as always) that she’ll go mad in europe – she’s been living here for ten years or so. she said “i know, but i’m comfortable here and in gaza, it’ll also be good to leave my comfort zone.” going back to europe being the challenge, the leaving the comfort zone, being here being the less-adventurous, comfortable option. people don’t get that it, but that’s house it is (and i personally don’t feel like that kind of adventure, i’m staying put).

for those of my friends who only skip thru stuff, i’ll repeat: the following is what i posted LAST year, i was NOT in europe since..

christmas, western europe, my anger

Posted on 24/12/2011 by esta

* this was originally an email that i send to friends

i only debated for a minute whether it is ok to send you this today. to me, it is, because this is what is happening. it turned out pretty long, for that I apologize. first off, happy holidays to those to whom this means anything. i would like you to watch this video that my friend anne made about what exactly happened the day mustafa was murdered and in the following days (read more on her blog).

i began watching the video yesterday morning at the house of a family that has sort of
adopted me almost ten years ago. i was sitting on the sofa in the living room, watching it it on my laptop, wearing headphones. i was crying, holding myself.

h. (the father of the family and the one who decided one day that i was his “daughter”) came over, turned off my computer, hugged me and said “i thought you were used to this by now, don’t watch it if it hurts you”. and then we had a long discussion.

better not live in palestine?
wouldn’t it be better if i stayed in (western) europe, gave talks, lectures, made people understand? haven’t i done enough? haven’t i lived long enough in palestine? wasn’t it time to think of myself and my own life? …

variations of this conversations hit me very often around here, and they usually are exasperating. what was really nice this time with h. (who fled turkey/kurdistan for his activism on kurdish rights, who still has friends who are activists and freedom fighters) is that unlike my (actual) father, he really did hear me when i said i am not doing anything “for” palestinians, that I do not feel obligated to live there, that i am not sacrificing myself. that i live in palestine because for some reason, i am miserable everywhere else.

anger
the truth is i cannot stand being in western europe, particularly in this country here where i’m spending these months due to shitty circumstances (of course this rant is all in reference to mainstream western europe, which effectively is the europe i move in when here).

i cannot bear how stubbornly and aggressively all the oppression and exploitation and violence that make the kind of life styles that people are accustomed to possible are being denied. when i bring it up, it is me who is “causing problems”, it is me who cannot just leave things “in peace”. the oppression, violence, racism, (neo)colonialism etc. are being denied, ignored, THEY are not the problem, it is people who react with anger to them that are a problem. REALLY? i will tell you honestly, i hate this.

food coming from all parts of the world, available ALWAYS, for so little money…

the assumption that buying unnecessary new clothes, new furniture, new electro gear, new mobile phones etc. is “normal”, is ok, is sign of a desireable/successful/peaceful etc. member of society is SO OBVIOUSLY WRONG to me and yet, i cannot even begin to explain this to most i come in touch with. on the contrary, often, the general idea seems to be that it is them (most people i come in touch with here) who are exhibiting some commendable tolerance in trying to accommodate my presumably crazy lifestyle and ideas.

if you recognize yourself as one of the them, let me tell you that as much as i might even love (i do love some of you), YOU are NOT TOLERATING some craziness and complicatedness and aggressiveness on my part; it is ME trying to hard tolerate your blindness to so much violence for the sake of our relationship and your violent “peace of mind”.

the idea that you do not bear any responsibility for your consumption, that “you cannot change it anyway”, that “it won’t be you that will change this world” and that, therefore, you of course buy clothes at H&M and GAP and furniture at IKEA and food at LIDL and DIA and NETTO and ALDI and CARREFOUR and SPAR where the products are only offered all year around at these prices and in these quantities because the agricultural lands, forests, groves, lakes, rivers and seas, the air, people – including children – and animals are systematically, brutally, and often irrevocably exploited or worse, is so hard to stomach for me i could puke.

that so many of you believe that the criminal propaganda that is your mainstream news is “more or less” accurate is impossible to understand for me.

          that you think you need to consume cheese, meet, milk etc. in THESE QUANTITIES and apparently think that the constant abuse and killing of animals for the sustenance of your life-styles is legitimate ….

          and that so few actually bother to check in what ways the factories whose goods you keep consuming or the service providers whose services sustain your life-styles are actively involved in/financing/profiting from war in other countries (including palestine), thereby making you a financier of the killing and humiliation and exploitation of and systematic violence against others….

          that so few understand that mustafa concerns you not because i know him, because his sister and brother are my friends, but because his murder is the direct result of global power-dynamics and industries that you feed and finance, because HE COULD HAVE BEEN YOUR BROTHER HAD YOU BEEN BORN ELSEWHERE OR WITH DIFFERENT SKIN OR AT A DIFFERENT TIME OR WITH A DIFFERENT NAME…

          that so few understand that your lifestyles are a reason why mustafa and others like him are murdered in this way…
that you fail to see that YOU/WE/ALL OF US could do much to change this from right where we are….

          seeing all that racism and discrimination here and seeing that it is actually being denied (“no, come on, this is not racism, this is common sense/the truth/stating the obvious”) …

   seeing that so many can’t even believe the economic/political/environmental/etc. justice for all is even attainable, can’t imagine that the other ways of living, the other worlds that we all need to fight for – that some of us or many of us are fighting for – is even possible…

… makes me almost despair and very very angry.

believe me that i often have difficulty suppressing tears of anger, of extreme frustration, of overwhelming hopelessness, and other feelings when i’m faced with these attitudes (and i guess i try to suppress them only because i desire to somewhat maintain my relationship with (a) given person(s) and think that they are so entrenched in this capitalist way of life-and-death that there’s little chance of them getting my point; that they’d likely think it’s just me going off on another senseless rant; that they’d attribute my anger/etc. to some dominant power trip where i am trying to “always be right”; that they’d either take offense at my perceived arrogance/aggressiveness/pushiness or end up secretly/openly wishing that sometime in my life, i may “calm down” and “find happiness”; that, basically, they’d refuse to acknowledge the context for my anger/etc.

museum with my father
recently, my father took me to a museum that exhibited his line of field, the very hard labor that has ruined his health and body (like the health and body of thousands/millions like him). my father was proud to show me what he spend decades doing to provide for my siblings and me, he was excited and happy that i finally wanted to know more about this field that is definitely his expertise. we were both really looking forward to him explaining these things, these horrible machines, to me.

i don’t remember the wording, the details, but when my father with his immigrant’s accent and suspiciously dark complexion approached the receptionists (two middle-aged white males), he was answered to in a condescending, supremacist and racist way that made me very fuckin angry.

i had such an urge to tell these men off, i knew i would have the upper hand in an argument with them, but i also sensed that my father would feel uncomfortable and embarrassed on my behalf if i responded to this routine oppression. to my father, like to the two men, their behavior was not racist, it was “normal”, and therefore expressions of anger on my side would have been not-ok.

for my the sake of my father’s ummediate comfort, i suppressed the anger, i strolled to the other end of the room to hide hot tears, i went to the bathroom, and all through the tour of the museum – while looking at these monstrous machines and mechanisms that my father struggled with for so many years, starting when he was way younger than i am today, as part of a money-making industry that exhibits no respect for its workers – i kept turning away, kept falling back to hide more tears.

i feel unhealthy here. this is not to suggest that there are no people and communities living differently here, fighting for alternatives here, or that capitalism/consumerism/ etc. don’t dominate in palestine, either. (they do, though palestine is not a dominant promotor/beneficiary of these policies, palestinians don’t call the shots)

instead, the violence that these policies/ways of life etc. necessitate is much more visible there, people are in some ways more aware of these links, and – although they are rapidly being extinguished, there are still the traces or memories of more sustainable, more just, less profit-/expansion-oriented ways of life. it is christmas eve, and there are some of you here that i love, for whom i wish happiness and security, for whose needs i wish to be met. it pains me a lot that i cannot feel more comfortable living around you here. but i wished you thought you had different needs, that’s the truth.

i don’t live in palestine for the reasons you think
to return to that discussion with h., there is a lot to fight for/fight against in palestine, as well – and not all is directly linked to zionist/western colonialism/imperialism etc.

i do think that i AM fighting (alongside many many others), but i am not fighting for “their” freedom or justice;

i KNOW that freedom/justice/etc. is connected for everyone, that none of us can be free as long as any one of us is oppressed/exploited/occupied/colonized/etc. – and certainly not while its done ostensibly in my name and through my resources.

the assumption that my living in palestine must stem from some possibly unhealthy need for self-sacrifice, some mother-theresa-style think-of-others-not-of-myself attitude, is in itself based on a series of un-humanizing imaginations of palestinians.

if my life-choices were indeed determined by the question of where/how i might most efficiently contribute to the struggle for freedom and justice for palestinians specifically, i would likely have chosen to fight while living in europe.

but the truth is, in spite (and not BECAUSE!) – of all the crap that is happening in palestine (including a lot of inner-palestinian shit), i feel more coherent there than here. i feel more at home there than i have felt anywhere else in the last 15+ years (and no, that isn’t saying that much about me, but it is saying a lot about palestine and its indigenous people and about dominant europe). i LIKE my life in palestine and i do not at all like living here (or even being here for more than two weeks). i prefer many aspects of my life there (community, food, climate, rythms, …), etc.

i often wished it wasn’t that way, because it’s not easy to stay living there for many reasons, because i do wish could enjoy living closer to my original family and friends, and because there are always a range of problematic power-dynamics at work when non-palestinians visit/live in palestine: not being the express target of racist/colonial/imperialist policies; having more rights in their country than palestinians themselves; playing a major role in maintaining or worsening the status quo for palestinians; and BEING ABLE TO SET FOOT IN PALESTINE WHEN SO MANY PALESTINIANS ARE DENIED THIS RIGHT, etc. etc. etc., but that is how it is. i live in palestine because i want to and because, so far, i can. (it felt less isolating that his time, h. understood and said “go” – which i will as soon as i can).

don’t try to pacify
and i cry, because mustafa’s murder is terrible, because so much that happens is terrible. if anything, i am glad and relieved that i still cry like this, that i still get angry like this. there is nothing about such shit to “get used to”, and in my opinion, there is no heroism in indifference. i know great activists who care strongly without crying, maybe without feeling this much pain. I don’t know. for me, it is inevitable, and the pain and the anger are part of the motor that – as long as i am pressured to ignore its causes or pretend it isn’t there, if I am not actually attacked for my REACTION to shit – I draw my strength and passion from. of the many things that I wished I could change about me, this isn’t one. so please, please don’t attempt to pacify me! don’t push some white-man’s understanding of what MKL had to say about non-violence on me, don’t “worry” about me feeling this anger and pain – but know that i worry about your lack of it. if anything, feel your own anger instead, and work to change its causes.

jp wrote an email from the drc
last night i received an email from my friend jp. he wrote that he thought of my post about mustafa one night this week when while driving through the bush in DRC with two others, a few copper diggers forced them to stop the car and demanded the miserable sum of 1US$ (!) so that they could build a coffin for one of them who had “suffocated to death in red dirt”. jp wrote that these young men risk their lives because digging copper is the only because way to make any real money. it made jp think about how insane it is that the detail of whether you are born here or there decides your entire life and the amount of suffering you are likely to live or cause. it felt very good to me that jp shared this with me (merci, jp).

the real bethlehem
this is pouring out of me, that is why it’s so long. i can feel how this stay in here is changing me, is radicalizing me; it’s very hard on me, although i love seeing many of you, and do miss you when i am not here. please watch the video and talk to someone else about it. and please, read up about the bethlehem that will be mentioned in many churches and whatnot tonight (really, how CAN PEOPLE CELEBRATE THIS while ignoring what is HAPPENING there?!).

on the radio, i heard a piece about christmas in bethlehem just now, it was infuriating. not a word about military occupation, not a word about the illegal apartheid wall or the checkpoints that make life in the city that has come to be my home hell. not a word about the three refugee camps and about what life there is like, especially at nights. not a reference to a UN research paper from may 2009 that stated that only 13 percent of the bethlehem district (which is palestinian land) is accessible to palestinian use. not a word about attacks by colonial settlers on palestinian civilians, about displacement and imprisonment and torture and and and. as its often been said, if jesus was born today, he wouldn’t be allowed in.

remember these facts on about very real, very bleak bethlehem when you hear of celebrations of some fiction tonight. i do wish you lovely days and evenings,

esta

 

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another kid shot dead, overkill. many injured.

Posted on 12/12/2012 by esta

mohammad salayma, said to have turned 17 today, was shot dead by several bullets in the old city of hebron. occupatying army apparently claim he appeared to be carrying a fake pistol. honestly, FUCK THIS. there’s clashes now, several people injured by ammunition, and counting.

الله يرحمك يا محمد

fuck this really

 

 

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