A Starting Point

Palestinian teens practice the dabke (traditional dance) on a hot day in May, 2017. Sabra, Beirut, Lebanon.

We all have a starting point. Mine was walking through Bourj el-Barajneh refugee camp in Beirut in 2004. Which was as harsh and confusing as it sounds. For many, their starting point was last month watching the horror in Gaza unfold. There is always a starting point in learning about other cultures or injustices or past atrocities. Really, one must begin somewhere. I guess that is why I value being a lifelong learner- always open to learning new things about our world that can be beautiful, dumfounding, horrendous, or painful. 

Last year, someone asked me why they should know about the Palestinians. They reasoned that in their current situation they couldn’t help the Palestinians. So why would they want to know, it didn’t do them (the American) any good. To be honest, the question pissed me off. I didn’t let on and I tried to understand where they were coming from. There is always some way to help a marginalized people. But ignorance is bliss, isn’t it? Then you have no responsibility, no action is required, you can claim ignorance on justice issues, and you get to stay comfortable. The problem is our ignorance can be complicity in someone else’s suffering. The problem is that this isolates you from your fellow human beings. Your world remains small, and you don’t experience how interconnected we are as human beings. 

I’m not free until you are free. 

For the first time in almost two decades, I see people open and eager to learn about Palestinians. Interestingly, the feedback I got after a few teaching sessions was one of shock, shame, and embarrassment. Some even said that I left them disturbed by what I taught. To which I replied, “I’m glad I left you disturbed.”

I remember walking through that refugee camp on the outskirts of Beirut on a hot day in October in 2004. The camp looked like something from another world, a concrete jungle. The streets were cement and uneven - hastily built, decaying, bullet-hole ridden structures were all mostly cement as well. Maybe you could loosely call them buildings. The streets were narrow, like I could reach with my arm from one building to the next. Overhead there was a web of electrical wires bundled together with water pipes. The daylight did its best to stream through the tangled cords. Raw sewage ran like a river through the streets, and trash was randomly strewn throughout. 

Those tiny, narrow streets were filled with a mass of humanity. So many people packed in and almost as many motorbikes were weaving in and out. Which made walking dangerous if you were not completely alert. The plot of land the camp was on hadn’t grown since its inception in 1948 but the population had. So, they built up three and four floors with no sort of permits or building codes or safety precautions. 

I was invited into peoples’ homes and heard their stories of displacement. They were eager to tell me; they were eager to show me hospitality and offer me the best of what they had. It was humbling and confusing. My mind honestly couldn’t comprehend all that was happening around me. I sat in the taxi back to my guesthouse crying, completely overwhelmed. But I knew one thing, to my core, I was supposed to come back and help. I didn’t know how or that it was even possible. 15 months later, I was living in Beirut, working in that very camp. 

You never know where a starting point will take you or what will be required of you. And I guess, that can be scary. Courage will be essential.

My encouragement right now is to continue. Just because Gaza isn’t being bombed doesn’t mean everything is okay or back to normal. The status quo is horrendous and in the weeks since the ceasefire, Israeli forces have killed 7 Palestinians in the West Bank, as of the day I wrote this post. There is still an eminent displacement of Palestinian families from Beita, Silwan and Sheikh Jarrah, mass arrest campaigns in East Jerusalem, and Gaza has been bombed twice. 

Don’t turn away. 

Stay present to it.

I know it’s easy to be overwhelmed by the oppression of Palestinians. Trust me. But I also have seen Palestinian refugees get up out of bed and face their challenges every day. It’s humbling because they know as well as I do how many tiny little (and not so little) injustices they will face that day. They get out of bed anyway. Why wouldn’t I continue to join them even when I know the situation might not change? I’d rather keep fighting and putting that effort into the world on behalf of people I know are so valuable and whose story remains so unseen and unheard. 

Really, how can we be with others? Particularly those the world devalues? 

Maybe it won’t require you to move to Beirut and work in a refugee camp. But what responsibility do you have with the little knowledge you have at the present moment? I suggest you remain open to learning. Education is key. And we must learn from Palestinian voices. 

The one thing you can do today is subscribe and listen to the podcast, Rethinking Palestine. Rethinking Palestine is through Al-Shabaka, which is an independent, non-partisan, and non-profit organization whose mission is to educate and foster public debate on Palestinian human rights and self-determination within the framework of international law. The episode I think is incredibly helpful is “Palestinian Resistance and Shifting the Media Narrative” with Marwa Fatafta. Here is one of the most thought-provoking statements Marwa made, I am still chewing on it. 

“Whose lives are grievable? If you frame a people or a place as this perpetual war zone, then their lives become less grievable, they become less valuable.

It’s easier to talk about killed Palestinian children and to frame them as innocent than Palestinian adults. The question is, are Palestinian adults, particularly men, are they not innocent? Are their lives not grievable?” 

There is no shame in a starting point. It’s what you do after with the knowledge you have.

What will you do?