Every person is a person — #ToutMounSeMoun

Yakoub el Khayat, the little-known Palestinian oral poet who passed away in 2022, was made a refugee in 1948. In that year, the Israeli state was established on his ancestral land, including his home in the village of Iqrith in the upper Galilee, and he joined some 750,000 Palestinians in fleeing everything he had ever known and loved. Yakoub, who tempered his grief by calling it “the beloved wound” and whose words inspired resilience in every person who heard them, lived for another 74 years — his early days in Iqrith but a distant memory — and ultimately died with a profoundly heavy heart.

Some might have thought grief such as his could not be surpassed. But the utter devastation Israel has unleashed on the people of Gaza and in the West Bank since  Hamas’s attack on October 7 is a new level of terror, one that has shaken people’s faith in humanity across the globe. As we witness the genocide in Gaza unfold right in front of our eyes, we are not alone in trying to search for deeper answers as to how this could still be happening in our day and age and right in front of our eyes and live on our TV screens

Some of us recognize that the sort of violence we now see in Occupied Palestine has been happening and continues to happen all over the world — in different forms, at different paces, and on different scales — particularly in places where people have refused to be dominated or enslaved. One such place is Haiti. There, the fight against enslavement and colonization began with the earliest arrival of European settlers in 1492 and continued through the revolution that started in 1791. And now, with yet another “international intervention” in the works, we remember that Haiti is still being occupied as it has been for centuries now, politically, militarily, financially, even culturally and linguistically. Today, Haitians are still being punished for their defiance in having asserted their humanity and sovereignty in 1804. Like Palestinians, Haitians are being demonized by Western powers for seeking their freedom and fighting for their dignity. 

Palestinians and Haitians are abused and abandoned siblings whose subjugation is born in a womb of pain and resistance. We suffer from the same open wound created by the powers of the world. The United States and its allies have been arming and aiding the killing of our peoples. And while this is the case in many other places in the world, we, a Palestinian and a Haitian, want, in this moment, to share some of our reflections through our shared pain.

“I hope to see you again,” tremulous whispers of “I love you,” and long, deep sighs — these are the sounds of ending phone calls with our loved ones in Palestine and Haiti these days when we’re lucky enough to even reach them. Both parties in the conversation know that this could well be the last time we hear each other’s voices again. In Gaza, bombs fall indiscriminately on hospitals, homes and schools. In the West Bank, daily raids and armed settler attacks are on the rise; more than 152 people have been killed in recent weeks, amid an unprecedented climate of fear. Countless Palestinians have been kidnapped, tortured, and humiliated on camera to entertain other settlers and Israelis. These videos of torture, broadcast to the world by the sadists who created them are often the only hopeful proof that someone’s beloved might still be alive.

The same sort of grim uncertainty hangs over Haiti, where some 60% of the capital Port-au-Prince is controlled by murderous gangs who kill, kidnap, torture, and rape with impunity. One out of every three schools is under attack. More than 1,500 Haitians have been killed and more than 900 kidnapped in the first half of this year (2023). The gangs in Haiti are armed with weapons coming from the same empire that arms Israel to kill civilians in Palestine — with weapons paid for with our tax dollars and approved by our elected officials.

And now the “international community” is trying to send yet another armed force to Haiti in the form of Kenyan “peacekeepers,” who speak neither Kreyòl nor French and who — history sadly informs us — are as likely to cause more violence as prevent it. The fact that this Kenyan force is taking lessons of French, spoken by no more than 5% in Haiti, mostly among the upper echelons of society, suggests that their goal is to protect the wealthy, not those among the general population who are taking the brunt of gang violence. Moreover, we have seen the epidemic of sexual violence perpetrated by UN peacekeepers in conflict zones from Somalia to South Sudan to Congo, and also in Haiti during previous UN interventions. In 2007, some 134 Sri Lankan peacekeepers in Haiti were found to be running a child sex ring, preying on the most vulnerable people in an incredibly vulnerable population, yet when the Sri Lankan military repatriated 114 of them back to Sri Lanka, none were even jailed.

While we work in the world of academia, we do not make these comparisons and connections simply to prove a point. This is not the time for critical analysis or debate. Now is the time for action. If we are going to survive this world as Palestinians or Haitians —or as Jews, Muslims, Christians or whoever — we must learn from the histories of resistance of other oppressed peoples of the world. We must say loudly and clearly — and then prove with further collective action — that we will not roll over. We will not let the daily bloodshed become a spectacle that desensitizes us to the lived experience of our loved ones around the world. We will not sit by in silence and pain while the powerful continue to dominate and oppress us. “Never again” must be taken to mean “never again” for everyone!

The truth that we all in the U.S. must wrap our heads around today is that none of this horrific tragedy is merely “happening over there” in some faraway land. The trauma is happening here too, in the hearts and souls of people in the U.S. And the horror we see on our screens every day is manufactured right here too. Americans are not just bystanders. We are complicit. We are guilty.

Only once we understand the mechanisms of oppression at work in Palestine, Haiti, and around the world, then can we begin to work together to break them. 

History will propel us forward toward justice. By remembering our collective histories of occupation and liberation and the dreams of freedom and equality shared by our ancestors, we can bring into our struggles those who, beforehand, had not fully understood Martin Luther King’s caveat that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” It is no coincidence that mass protests around the world, and in the United States in particular, have not only held Palestinian flags but have also held symbols of liberation movements in Haiti, the Sudan, Congo, and Native American communities. This urgent coming together is a clear demonstration that the notion that no one is free until all of us are free is not just a slogan. It is a real and tangible guideline for a new world that is designed with the intention of breaking old human patterns of oppressed becoming oppressors—be it in Turtle Island or the Middle East. If Gaza is teaching us anything right now, it is that the illusion of freedom in Europe and the U.S. is flimsy at best. What the Haitian revolution has been trying to teach us is that no matter how harsh the oppression is, people will rise because life is stronger than death and because the will to be free is etched in our DNA as human beings. How we manifest it, how we go about it, and even how we understand it are the fundamental questions we must ask ourselves in this new year. What kind of human beings do we want to be? And what old paradigms are we willing to break?   

As such, and at a minimum in this immediate moment, we must ask for a stop to the flow of weapons to the gangs in Haiti and the end of U.S. and international meddling in the island. And we must demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza — and the end of the Israeli occupation in Palestine, as well as the end of all U.S. military aid to Israel. These basic demands are ones that every free person around the world should be making right now. 

On this day and at the turn of another brutal year in human history, may we be inspired by  the spirit of the Haitian revolution that continues to declare: “Tout moun se moun.”  

Every person is a person.