Gaza Has Fragmented Me

 Gaza Has Fragmented Me

Pile of Emotions: Part two

I am sharing my soul’s pain about Gaza. I wish I had a more hopeful piece of writing to share on New Year’s Eve. But this is what I found reverberating in my heart. I wish for whoever is safe and has food and water to feel a sense of bliss.

The Bliss of Being Alive: I express gratitude for my family's safety every night, Al-Hamdulillah. Bliss is present in every second we are alive, and every inhale free from the burns of war and residues of bombs. This is the gift of Gaza, the gift of bloody conflicts for all humans.

I wonder whether I can protect my sons from adversity, from the trauma of wars. I guess no one, anywhere, can protect their kids from trauma and death. The idea brings solace to me somehow. The one-ness of destiny; there is a need to rethink the meaning of one-ness.

Blame and Anger:  I hear your silence about Gaza. I can listen to you refraining from saying G.A.Z.A or P.A.L.E.S.T.I.N.E. I know. I understand. There is distance and remoteness. There is Ignorance. Self-protection maybe. Or self-interest. There is fear. Fear of being smeared or lash back. Lack of understanding or empathy. Lack of courage. Discomfort. Guilt. Which is it for you?

But I understand. I really do.

Who wants to talk about disfigured bodies decomposing in the streets? Who wants to imagine the unthinkable of dying and melting away completely with no trace left? Dying and becoming the same color and texture of the grey rubble. No dead body to bury. No funeral to mourn? This is a new meaning of one-ness with earth! Who wants to think of that and - endless accounts of horror stories to sustain your numbness for a century?

But, see, here’s an uncomfortable thought. These are American bombs dropped with the approval of Western governments.

There is an uneasiness to this thought.

Still, the silence is so loud, louder than any word about social justice, spirituality, oneness, humanity, or any other talk because what is happening in Gaza and the West Bank has exceeded many previous struggles and set up a new mark of cruelty and complacency for humanity. Any construct of words hits a sharp barrier of hypocrisy, and the words fall one letter at a time to form a pile of unspoken, unacknowledged emotions and truths about us. The disconnect is real and entrenched in escapism from knowing or stopping this continuous waterfall of death. These bombs are yours and belong to colonial countries. They bring you wealth and bubble wrap of security.

I understand. My words are soaked in discomfort, blame, and maybe guilt.   

Fear and Horror: But I understand. I want to do the same. I really do. I want to turn off the news. It’s better for the human soul and psyche.

I hear the Eastern winds outside my window whistling a melody of my own guilt and helplessness. I remember those displaced on the pavements wrapped in plastic bags, their bones simmering in the cold wind as I hid in my warm bed. I drink my water and remember their salty and polluted water and the diseases drunk with it. Everything I do reminds me of them. But it is different for me. It is a different kind of guilt.

It is a different kind of guilt because our destinies are intertwined. Circumstances in the West Bank are quickly deteriorating for us. I look around, closer to home, Ramallah. Nightly arrests. My son was trapped in his training session, soldiers all around and bullets flying everywhere. He is fine. I'm grateful he is safe. I grew up like this in the first Intifada; it was fine. Was it? What if any of my sons end up arrested? My heart crumbles at the thought. I know they’ve done nothing, and I know that by the time the soldiers realize they’ve done nothing, my sons would endure relentless beatings between their legs, on their heads, and all over their bodies while all sort of foul language befalls their ears. This is just the standard procedure: the opening session. Strict, inhuman measures were imposed on Palestinian prisoners by the Israeli interior minister recently. Can I protect my sons?

It is a different kind of guilt for us in the West Bank. Itamar bin Gavir, the interior minister, distributed weapons to settlers; they are forming militias. Even though they may not target Ramallah, I am concerned and horrified by these measures.

Deformed like a Picasso portrait, one eye plunges into the Gaza scenery. The other eye at the back of my head scans West Bank cities, refugee camps, and villages. In my darkest moments, I feel more afraid of having an amputated limb than dying. I fear the same for my kids. 

Delusion and Disassociation: I decided to hear their news this time.  I look at the Israeli news channels 11, 12, 13, and 14. I hear the briefings of their officials. I look anywhere for hope, but there is nothing. I hear fearful, outright calls for more death, more numbers, and more time. I hear fascist and racist statements from their reporters, politicians, and ministers. Now I feel afraid; I hear the consensus over killing, removing, and erasing the population of Gaza, bringing back the hostages, and calling for revenge. The silence in Israeli society and media over what their army is doing to Gazans is deafening. “Ok, maybe it is because of the war, the attack,” I delude myself. 

I am perhaps being too pessimistic, and this nightmare will soon pass, and nothing will happen to me and my family. I cling to news of hope. I engage in conversations about the day after the war, when Gazans stand steadfast against displacement, about diplomatic initiatives, rumors of Palestinian officials in Cairo or Qatar, and painkillers of interim agreements as if the grounds were never shaken for both societies. I listen to plans of recycling the realities before the 7^th of October. Maybe nothing changed.

Nothing terrible will happen. Ramallah is known to be a bubble. Compared to other places, nothing will happen in Ramallah, the stronghold of the Palestinian Authority. In other cities, it is a lot more dangerous. Tanks enter, streets are uprooted in refugee camps where there is armed resistance and heavy weapons are used. Nonetheless, if something happens to the Palestinian Authority, then Ramallah is thrust into the focal point, in the eye of the storm. I hope nothing happens.

 With the backdrop news of the genocide in Gaza, I wake up and do what I always do. I drink my coffee to feel normal.  I go to the gym. I write, prepare meals, and sometimes laugh. Sorry, Gaza, life goes on. What can I do? All political activists are imprisoned. Only people who are good at disassociation can stay out of prison.  Disassociation is a need right now to go through our day. Please give me something to distract myself with. Please forgive me, Gaza.

Avoidance, Uncertainty, and Instability:  But at any moment any two Palestinians meet, the horror of what is happening in Gaza is unearthed from the ruins of our existence to soothe ourselves and wink at each other that even though we act normal, it is no longer normal for anyone anymore. The first question is always, when will this be over?  Uncertainty of when and how this all ends is unsettling and depressing. People are not going out and are spending money on necessities only. 

I can already see how uninhabitable Gaza is right now and fear the future even more. But no one wants to hear or talk about this. I, and all of us, can see the impossibility of Gazans returning to their cities. But we cling to the hope of Gazans staying in Gaza. “No,” some people say. “It is not in the interest of anyone for this to continue any longer.”

 I, and all of us, hear the religious scriptures recited by Israeli politicians, soldiers, and by Palestinian fighters. I see this as a form of religious confrontation. Few recognize how important this fact is because the idea of a religious war is disturbing. If the majority in both societies believe they are fighting for God, then is there a way out of this? They list several reasons why they think it is not a religious struggle and why we should not see it this way.

People everywhere and in both societies are hushing accountability questions. I wonder how profound the effects of a tragedy of this magnitude will be for Palestinians and Israelis and probably across the world.

I wonder about the current Israeli government, or more accurately, the Prime Minister and some coalition members who will lose in any new elections. In their attempt to avoid losing control and accountability, can they escalate events in the West Bank, Jerusalem, or Southern Lebanon? 

My Favorite Disassociation: I hide behind a fantasized future reality.  These are the tunnels that I fight from. Every cell in my body speaks of freedom and equality as a basis for coexistence. In my fantasy tunnels, I fight for freedom from a specific way of religious analysis and vision of the world. In my innocent, naive tunnels where I construct my words, I fight for freedom from unfair deals over resources and for liberation from the hegemony of rich countries over the South. I spill my illusions of a better future on a paper and build a new story.     

A well-known Muslim Sufi scholar living in the 13^th century, Shams Al-Deen Tabrizi, described the world "as a big pot where something is being cooked. We don’t know what is being stirred. Everything we do, touch, or think about is an element of this mixture. We have to ask ourselves, what are we adding to this pot? Are we adding resentment? Animosity? Anger? Violence? Or are we adding love and harmony?"

Referring to the world as a pot invoked an image of me adding a particular spice of mine stirred in my mind, and I had been waiting for this ignition of fire and heat all along. I was waiting for this to happen where my words would seem like heresy and magic, but hoping one day, my imagined future world would become a reality.