Heartbreak and Rage
Inside My Mind: Journal Entry
Life lately has been hard. It has been heavy, for all of us.
The weight of the oppression in the world is heartbreaking and the senseless violence we’re seeing as we watch a genocide through a screen is rage inducing.
How can this be happening? How can this be allowed to happen in 2023? Why is no one doing anything? Or doing enough?
My brain cannot comprehend how people are continuing to live their lives as normal whilst this is happening. An ethnic cleansing. A mass genocide. All right before our eyes.
I don’t understand how our ‘leaders’ are not condemning genocide, how they are voting against a ceasefire. Frankly, it is terrifying. It is infuriating. How can they not see they are choosing the side of violence? Of G-E-N-O-C-I-D-E????
Perhaps it is my black and white thinking but this is not a controversial thing. It is not complicated to decide whether genocide should stop or not. It is not hard to vote for a ceasefire.
During the BLM protests of 2020 people shouted ‘All Lives Matter’ until they were blue in the face. So where are those people now? Do Palestinian lives not count?
Last week I found out I am part Palestinian.
I have Arab heritage on my Dad’s side (I have always known this) but I’ve always thought I was Lebanese (my Dad was born in Beirut). However, my Jiddo (Arabic for Grandfather) was actually Palestinian, making us part Palestinian. It feels surreal to think I have distant relatives there right now. Or maybe I don’t anymore.
Despite the feelings of hopelessness we must NOT give up. We must not stop talking about it, sharing about it, screaming for a ceasefire. We must continue to shout for our Palestinian brothers and sisters. For their safety, for their freedom, for their lives.
Please do not look away simply because it is uncomfortable to see. Please do not turn a blind eye because you are bored and waiting for it to ‘go back to normal’ or ‘blow over’. Please do not do NOTHING because you don’t think it is your place or you aren’t educated enough or you don’t know what to do.
It IS your place. It is all of our ‘places’ to do something, anything, to stand against the mass murder and displacement of an entire people.
It has been over one month (not to mention decades of violence) - you have had time to learn. The time for educating ourselves has passed, we must take action now.
If you don’t know what to do, below are some easy things you can do, right now, to take action.
Call to action:
Boycott McDonalds, Starbucks and Disney+ (and other companies funding genocide).
Keep talking about it. Keep sharing on your social media. Oppression relies on our short attention span and hopelessness.
Amplify the voices of Palestinian people and accounts online (some listed below)