organised chaos

I had a special exam on Friday to make up for missing a finals paper last semester. The night before, I couldn’t concentrate on anything that had to do with Civil Procedure. It’s hard to detach yourself from your surroundings when your brother’s streaming the latest news from his laptop on the Gaza attacks. I say attacks, not war. A war would denote both sides are fighting on equal ground, and that’s far from the case here.

I had to pry my eyes away from the screen that night and force myself back to my room and notes. But how do you focus when you know people and lands are being ravaged so openly and dismissively? It was hard to even read, let alone digest what I was studying. The number of casualties at that time stood at 785 (it now stands at 875, 336 of them women and children, with 3695 injured), among them an ambulance driver who was on duty. His wife was beyond consolation; she was seen wailing “I told him it was dangerous”, over and over again. When you see such images, how do you keep them out of your head? How can you stay indifferent? How can you turn the other way and say you still have your humanity?

The global outrage has been deafening. CNN actually had this to say, folks: “Israel must prepare itself - it looks like the whole world is against it!” Please avoid watching CNN, I quit a long time ago when I found out it was a Zionist propaganda vehicle. Despite the outcry of condemnations, predictably, Israel has not been silenced. I don’t remember which Israeli scumbag said this (and I don’t care to look it up), but his words were these, ad verbatim “We will pay the international price later for the collateral damage and the anticipated civilian casualties.” I’m not shocked by these words - after 8-9 years, I’m already immune to the levels of cruelty Zionists can reach. They don’t have a limit, because Palestinian deaths are collateral damage. Lutfi says they showed Israeli civilians on the news tonight, gathered on a lookout point above Gaza with binoculars, cheering as they watched bombs streaking down Palestinian skies. It makes me beyond sick, these shameless people who only 6 decades ago were displaced after surviving the Holocaust, are now inflicting their own brand of Nazism on innocent lives and living on lands that don’t even belong to them, 1948 or 1967. Binatang. Tak malu betul.

(It’s very hard to write this without making scathing remarks and insults. I promised myself beforehand that I’d try to be civil and mind my French when I post this, but it’s an effort to refrain from typing out choice words when they’re bouncing around your head.)

Casualties are still rising as I write this; to us, it’s just a number depicting the seriousness of Israel’s actions. To them though, one person alone could be their entire world. Imagine one person who reflects almost your everything. Imagine that person gone. Now multiply it. Or maybe try and picture your home, your belongings, your possessions that might hold precious memories, and picture it lying underneath a pile of rubble. You can’t, can you? None of us can.

One of my inspirational figures for the Palestinian cause is the late Rachel Corrie, an American, who had this to say in one of her e-mails to her parents when she was doing some activist work in Palestine:

“…no amount of reading, attendance at conferences, documentary viewing and word of mouth could have prepared me for the reality of the situation here. You just can’t imagine it unless you see it - and even then you are always well aware that your experience of it is not at all the reality…”

She died at age 21 in 2003, crushed by Israeli bulldozers when she tried to prevent it from demolishing a Palestinian home.

The worldwide protests and demonstrations on Gaza’s behalf is encouraging, but what the international community needs to remember is that the tragedy unfolding in Gaza is not a one-time, isolated event. Even without the current crisis, Gaza has faced difficulties long before Israel started firing. When Hamas was holed up in Gaza last year, the citizens were cut off from humanitarian aid, medical supplies, food supplies, patients in the hospitals had to rely on generators because there was no electricity and children faced disruptions in their education. Gaza has been suffering for a long while now, and it’s sad to know that it needed an escalation and intensification of violence for the world to take notice.

This so-called ‘war’ should not be treated as a rare opportunity for the enthusiast to spill into the streets and chant slogans. It doesn’t work like that, and it isn’t enough. Demonstrate if you have to, but demonstrate out of a pure conviction that your show of opposition is going to leave a mark somewhere. Most of all, don’t stop in your efforts even after Israel ceases fire. I was guilty of losing touch with Palestine after the last Gaza blockade. I hadn’t been staying up to date until the Hamas-Israel truce came to an end. I hold myself fully accountable for allowing myself to be blissfully unaware of an issue I hold very dear.

It’s funny, thinking about how easily I despaired when the Palestinians have been there for more than half a century, still holding on to their rights despite the humiliation they have to go through daily. Corrie says:

“I feel like I’m witnessing the systematic destruction of a people’s ability to survive. It’s horrifying.”

And yet, still they live, still they survive. I know I say it a lot, but I’ll say it again - the Palestinians are the most determined and resilient people I know.

I know some of my friends have given up on seeing a free state of Palestine. One of them told me he doesn’t see the point anymore, it’s been too long and there’s no sign of a solution anywhere. I didn’t reprimand him because I understood his frustration, but I didn’t excuse it. Giving up because it looks impossible is unjustifiable.

Dear friends and strangers alike, I know you’re tired of reading and hearing about the Middle East conflict. You might be up to your eyeballs fed up of having your blood boil and heart shatter at images the media run everyday. But as Mahatma Gandhi once said, you must be the change you wish to see in the world. If you don’t do it, who will?

You may be beyond tears, beyond rage, beyond frustration, beyond despair, but please do not be beyond action.

A fervent prayer is good, but try and go one step further. Donate. Spread awareness. Talk about it. Write about it. Refuse to let this issue go away.

Because right now, the biggest crime we can commit is allowing Ignorance and Apathy to fester. If that happens, the price is heavy, and we won’t be the ones paying it.

Enough said here.