This is Entry 18 in the Mondo Awards end-of-year Inspire-us contest.
When I was a freshman in high school, I decided it would be a good idea to start an argument with Israel’s ambassador to Korea. For some reason, when I heard that a government official from Israel was visiting my school for career day, I considered it a prime opportunity for some sort of action. Who could blame me? I was fourteen, and discovering my Palestinian roots. The days of my childhood when I had insisted, “I am an American girl!” as my dad tried to speak to me in Arabic were long gone. Now I was Palestinian, and as such, I had to fight for the liberation of my people.
I asked the ambassador a question about an issue (possibly the only issue) I had heard about on the news recently: Why were Palestinian students in Gaza with scholarships to U.S. universities not being allowed to go abroad and receive their education? I do not remember the details of that conversation. I do remember lots of other things though. First of all, I remember being frustrated when the ambassador refused to answer my questions directly. I also remember him making statements that were contrary to what I had heard, which made me second-guess my knowledge. I remember him accusing Palestinians of being terrorists—weren’t we taught that such generalizations are racist? I began to get flustered. Eventually the argument escalated, I broke down in tears, and my friends took over the debate. The ambassador started yelling. My friends started yelling. Chaos ensued.
As I cried like an idiot, I began to look around the room and realized the absurdity of the situation. I saw the ambassador’s rosy-cheeked son, who was one of my classmates, chuckling at me. To this day, his round little face is forever burned into my memory. All the other students had left, the bell had rung, and I was supposed to be in art class. My friends were shrill, speaking passionately about a topic they barely understood, while I, the initiator of the confrontation, was trying unsuccessfully to fight back tears, and crying in part because I couldn’t stop crying. I have to say the ambassador lost his composure and uttered at least one profanity. Spit was flying. Faces were burning red. And in the midst of the battle, my high school counselor stood very quietly, watching aghast as career day’s keynote speaker bellowed at three teenaged girls. Eventually, the counselor stepped in and said we should be going to class. The ambassador, apparently realizing the error of his ways, fumbled to correct the situation by asking me about my family in a suddenly lighthearted and conversational tone. I brushed off his attempt at reconciliation and left.
I returned to class feeling ashamed of myself. As I thought about all the Palestinian people who were suffering because of the conflict, and all the people who were really taking action, I realized the insignificance of my petty bickering. And yet, it was my desire to affect the situation, to be an activist, which drove me to argue with the ambassador. I wasn’t equipped to go about making any sort of difference, but I wanted to try. I wanted to act as a voice against the injustices that I was hearing about, injustices that were so close to home, and yet so far away.
This experience has been an important part of my ongoing attempt to connect to the Palestinian part of me that was obscured in my American upbringing. It’s a journey of self-doubt, one where I know I’ll never be able to fully understand what my cousins go through, or what my father went through. All I can do is continue to learn, to study Arabic, to read about the situation, to create art that’s relevant, to talk to people about it, to get involved in activism. That is what I try to do every single day.
I love this.
yeah me too. it floored us when it arrived.
That wasn’t insignificant. People notice when others stand up and call attention. My first encounter with occupation awareness was a demonstration on campus years ago, and subsequent instances were with friends I respected and should have listened to more closely.
But people notice what is done to you when you speak up about it. I can guarantee you there were classmates besides your friends who saw your earnest tears, and that flabby chortling bully whose father you confronted, and knew which side to sympathize with.
“I saw the ambassador’s rosy-cheeked son, who was one of my classmates, chuckling at me”
Wherever he is right now, I hope he trips and falls and gets a scratch on his flabby rosy cheeks.
As for you, Leila, thanks for standing up.
I was introduced to Palestine by a debate team member, who accused all Muslims (I’m not Palestinian) of wanting to destroy Israel and Jews. Not knowing anything about it, I had to defend Muslims, and Palestinians–newly introduced to me, from accusations of terrorism.
Although I dealt withe the situation bravely, I felt as if someone had punched me in the stomach.
You did well, sister.
You did very well. When I first got back from the Middle East, I lost some friendships because I couldn’t believe or put up with the things people I thought I knew well were saying. Sometimes I even started questioning my own sanity when several people said the same nonsense, all in a row. Then when I saw Dr. Barghouthi speak, and calmly make hecklers look like fools, I decided to aspire to that.
It’s taken a long time and a lot of anger and tears (and embarrassment, like when Dennis Ross dodged my question with a paternalistic talking point when he spoke at the think tank where I worked in DC and made me look like a fool, then did not allow a follow-up), but I’ve slowly been learning to be a better and better advocate for Palestine. (Not to say I don’t have flare-ups now and then…) It takes practice to get good at anything. Keep it up. It’s the only way to learn. And kudos for your bravery. That’s not an easy thing for any freshman to do!
How many remember when the Holocaust was happening and the NYT and others in the USA were refusing to report it? (Just) before my time, I’m afraid, but it must have been dreadfully frustrating for Jews (and others) trying to call on the USA to, for example, bomb the railroad tracks to Auschwitz — and being ignored.
The world (and the USA very significantly) has a habit of refusing to listen to inconvenient truths. Power and wealth are always more attractive (to them that have them) than truth or honor. Today, it is inconvenient for the USA’s power structures (especially the media) to “hear” and to report on the I/P events that so trouble all of us. They refuse to hear us. They refuse to report the events.
But a time will come, and we can help bring it on, when even the USA will hear, see, and speak (of) the evil being done today by Israel, just as we now find it convenient to speak of the Holocaust.
Keep becoming a spokesman for yourself, for your people, for humanity.