Ashamed

and paralyzed...

Hi friends. 

I don't know if I have anything to say for you to hear. Like so many of you, I am in pain and this much pain and horror is paralyzing. As a human, as a mom, as creative, as a woman of color, as a Muslim, and as an artist I am feeling grief! so much grief that I can not breathe. I keep scrolling to find peace and get more disillusioned, angry, disappointed, and ashamed that I am witnessing this in the comfort of my home from my tax dollars. I don't know where to go from here.  

Two things can be held together at the same time, respect for Jewish faith and Demand for Palestinian freedom. This current war is not about religion or faith. It is about who has the right to exist and who doesn’t. In this hierarchical world who is valuable and who is worthless? It’s about, Colonialism, Power, and greed.   

This month, I am leaving you with this poem that helped me cry louder than I remember. 

We

By Ghayath Almadhoun

Translation: Catherine Cobham

We, who are strewn about in fragments, whose flesh flies through the air like raindrops, offer our profound apologies to everyone in this civilized world, men, women and children, because we have unintentionally appeared in their peaceful homes without asking permission. We apologize for stamping our severed body parts into their snow-white memory, because we have violated the image of the normal, whole human being in their eyes, because we have had the impertinence to leap suddenly onto news bulletins and the pages of the internet and the press, naked except for our blood and charred remains.

We apologise to all those who did not have the courage to look directly at our injuries for fear they would be too horrified, and to those unable to finish their evening meals after they had unexpectedly seen fresh images of us on television.

We apologize for the suffering we caused to all who saw us like that, unembellished, with no attempt having been made to put us back together or reassemble our remains before we appeared on their screens. We also apologise to the Israeli soldiers who took the trouble to press the buttons in their aircraft and tanks to blow us to pieces, and we are sorry for how hideous we looked after they aimed their shells and bombs straight at our soft heads, and for the hours they are now going to spend in psychiatrists' clinics, trying to become human again, like they were before our transformation into repulsive body parts that pursue them whenever they try to sleep.

We are the things you have seen on your screens and in the press, and if you made an effort to fit the pieces together, like a jigsaw, you would get a clear picture of us, so clear that you would be unable to do a thing. 

Sending peace

Sumayya