I cried on the way to church today. Today is October 6th, 2024. And well, I cried such deep tears of sorrow. I was thinking of how the world was on October 6th, 2023, and how the world is today on October 6th, 2024. The heartache felt like a crash, a Tsunami. The heartache of 365 days. #conflict #ayear #Gaza #palestine #October72023
On October 6th, 2023 I was worried about my Facebook account. The account had served as a way of connection and had all my photos and a ton of memories. I was in deep activism at the time, and people who disagreed with my stances were mass reporting me just because I chose to speak out. On October 6th, 2023 I lost that account and I lost a part of myself during that time in the anger and hatred I was feeling towards choosing activism. It feels stupid now though. Little did I know, it would just be the beginning of my understanding of liberation, and my understanding of heartbreak.
I miss the girl from October 6th, 2023 because even though I was having hardship, it was nothing in comparison to what was to come. I still believed in what I had been taught about America and what it meant to be an American. I still believed that the world had institutions that served as functions to create better societies. I still believed the clouds were water droplets from the oceans and rivers.
This year, I learned that the clouds are not made from the water of our oceans and rivers, but instead, they are created from the tears of the people. The tears of the father who lost all his children, the tears of a mother, the tears of a child having a limb amputated without anesthesia. The tears of the slaves in the Congo, the tears of the starved in Sudan. The tears of all the liberators killed to maintain the institutions of oppression. The tears of the soldiers who witnessed the unimaginable. The tears of the mothers who have lost their children to the propaganda.
Let me be very clear, I want peace. I want children fed. I want human rights. I believe in sovereignty, autonomy, and the right to self-determination, without infringement based on race, religion, or nationality. I believe in indigenous peace-making. I believe that peace can be achieved. And I believe in nuance. I understand that too many of the conflicts we have today include historical and situational contexts that I do not have the time to fully study, and not everything is cut and dry. Nothing exists in black or white. But I do fully believe with my full chest that if war wasn’t profitable it wouldn't occur. If slavery wasn’t profitable it wouldn't occur. And if America wasn’t involved, a lot of genocide and human rights atrocities would not be possible. The United States, which I love, and was born in, is a vehicle of destruction, and colonialism, and actively has contributed to harming the Middle East and countries around it.
This is a fact I could not fathom or was in denial about on October 6, 2023. It was something I had yet to truly understand. And I understand that the above is radical. But so is the concept of liberation and peace. Learning, listening, and growing into the depths of knowing the realities of the evils of this world, is radical. Learning to decolonize your mind, allow for nuance, and understand how you benefit from oppression is radical. Fighting, and protesting for self-determination, and liberation from the violence that plagues our world is radical. Learning to trust that peace could still exist and be created is radical.
I think every day about the mothers of Palestine.
The mothers who have spent lifetimes watching their mothers, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers be displaced, moved, and under surveillance. I think of the mother who delivers her child in a tent and then dies of dysentery. The mother who watched her child bleed out in front of her. These women, who create the future generations of their people, have watched their babies die, and suffer. And that's why I cry. I cry for the young mother who thought that maybe the occupation would finally stop displacing them. For the mother, who on October 6, 2023, was rocking her baby to sleep in the nursery of their apartment and who is holding that child in her heart today. Every day I hope I remember how finite life is, how precious it is to be where I am, with my warm, fed, clothed, housed child.
Every day I hope I think back to October 6, 2023, and be forgiving to that person who was not yet woken up to the oppression she participates in. I hope to remember how important learning, growing, and having an open mind are. I hope to remember that everything has nuance and that humans are conditioned into evil. And I hope to believe that peace is possible. The clouds will one day be filled with the rivers and oceans, and not the tears of the mothers.
“He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” -Micah 6:8
Here is one of my favorite Jewish creators who I appreciate in her take on everything I've said here:
Commentaires